Just a few thoughts about the campaign lie they call “Affordability.”
Some background from basic high school economics.
Capitalism seeks efficiency and utilizes markets to bring buyers and sellers together. When buyers and sellers agree on a price, a transaction occurs. In advance of any transaction, both parties do their part to prepare their position. They concoct what they are born into, what they are lucky enough to achieve and acquire, and whatever misfortunes they can manage to remediate into a plan for their venture/life/purchase.
When I watched the two goober-natorial candidates discuss “affordability” in their debate a few weeks ago and defy these simple facts of capitalism with their words, it was a watershed of misinformation and falsehoods about “what we need to do.”
Worse, a few sentences later, Xavier Becerra stated that his parents arrived in California with “$14 in their pocket,” clearly showing that his parents held a blatant disregard for affordability in their personal pursuit of life and thrift when they arrived in our Great State.
Every attempt to confound capitalism ends badly. Either scoundrels take advantage or innocents are shortchanged. When a real social good occurs, it is a truly socialist experience and American people emerge from it with strange feelings and dissonance about it. Truly, wasn’t it weird getting a check during COVID? (I donated mine.)
Though well intended, unmitigated socialist schemes end up being lottery-like contests. Locally, the Homes4Families had its moment a decade ago, requiring a tempering of the resale terms onto owners who had moved in once market forces had rendered them more valuable than the price paid.
Capitalism’s machinery is irresistible and often cruel to the unfortunate. We should all know this by now. That’s why there is an incentive to incorporate some socialism into the system.
A little socialism in a society softens the edge. Some baseline minimum is necessary to assure adequate food sources or clean water. But too much of it injures the muscle, scars the core. It’s a balance that is hard to attain, maintain and retain.
But I’ll say this: No good answers come from politicians when they use an “affordability” football during a campaign in a charade against the unwitting. And if you notice, they never answer at all. Shame on them and shame on us for letting them and media get away with selling it.
As a lifetime wise guy, were I there in the room with Steve Hilton and Becerra, I would have asked, “When are you going to make Montecito or Mill Valley or Malibu affordable for me, dear sirs? I want to live there but I can’t afford it, so can you guys fix that please?”
Treating California as a homogeneous geographic locale with an “affordability crisis” is ludicrous. There are thousands of affordable homes in California. It’s just that people don’t want to live “THERE!”
For example, it’s expensive here and “affordable” in Tennessee because fewer people want to live in Tennessee. And for what it’s worth: There are thousands of comparably priced homes and available land here in not-so-desirable California locales.
It is so dang simple. For many reasons people find California attractive — like the homecoming queen with nice personality — driving the wider California market to be relatively expensive. People find Tennessee relatively less attractive — like a frumpy girl with a great personality but a troubled older brother. It’s less popular with some family baggage to deal with and so it is relatively less expensive.
I’ve known nobody who moved to Tennessee for affordability. I’ve only known political pilgrims. Same with Texas and Florida. That is a different thing entirely.
Christopher Lucero
Saugus
