Stan is Just as Right as Tyler

Stan Collander showcases a Tyler Cowen NYT piece which Stan says is "brilliant" and "so right it hurts." It is a good piece, but Stan himself nails the main point at least as well as the source:

[B]uying a home isn't the American dream; making a great deal of money from selling a home is what most people really want. The homeowner anger is not because they will be living on the street; it's because they won't earn the same profits they saw others make.

Couple with this what has become an almost undeniable entitlement mentality, that is, the very clear sentiment that a homeowner somehow is entitled to having their home appreciate by ridiculous amounts and that someone else is to blame when that doesn't happen, and it's not hard to see why the policy choices have all turned to bailouts. No one is suggesting, for example, that the government build more rental housing or provide Katrina-like trailers for homeowners who lose their homes. Instead, it's all about finding ways for them to stay in their home that they can't afford.

Aside from the NY Times, I've been giving some time today to Benjamin Friedman's Moral Consequences of Economic Growth (2005), where the takeaway point can be expressed, roughly, as:growing economies become more constructive and more tolerant; stagnating economies, more cautious and guarded; shrinking economies, downright ugly. Just sayin', that's all.

Fn.: Friedman is also in today's NYT--link.