The great governmental experiment, replicated almost across the world, in 'managing' housing 'ownership rates' and mortgage financing, which has been on-going for some 40 years, has ended in a catastrophic recession which cost over 20 million people world-wide their jobs and incomes. Stock market declines, still 30% below their artificial peaks, have appropriated some $4 Trillion in wealth across the globe – much of that increased wealth was of course ephemeral and unfounded but nonetheless real. Yet the worse is yet to come. Debt and inflation the great killers of empire, are now rearing their mephistophelian faces. There is nothing to prevent the next crisis from happening. As sure as government's will keep interest rates close to zero for a long time, so too will the next rounds of economic contraction materialize. 

Government's grand foray into housing has resulted in monumental failure and the worse shall certainly come to pass. The great minds who individually and through the collective auspices of state incursion and power created the current crisis, are now ensuring the creation of debt, inflation and the erasure of supply-side forces which create jobs and wealth. Watching this infernal destruction is like reading a Greek tragic-comedy – you know what will happen but cannot stop the plot. The impact on normal people by the technocratic elite's mis-management of affairs both economic and political is a colossal travesty. Yet few blame the actual perpetrators, preferring, as evidenced by the rich, egotistical and fantastically hypocritical denizens of Davos and the World Economic Forum, to blame the 'market'. Perhaps as well the Jew, or Globaloney Warming will be cited as the progenitors of the housing finance criminality. 

And criminal it is. The facts are plainly obvious to anyone not soaked in the mire of socialist-cultural Marxism, or deformed by state and media propaganda. Starting in the 1950s and 60s, governments across Europe, North America and in parts of Asia and the Middle East, began to view housing as a political tool, a cheap way to buy votes and an effective means to manage their citizenry, creating a static cadre of easy to tax, and regulated knaves. US Presidents set 'housing ownership targets', with the absurd 19^th century view that owning a house was the surest way to social and community stability – and the easiest way to raise 20^th and 21rst century government revenues. 

Perhaps the American ideal that everyone must own a home was valid in the 19^th century, when police forces, sundry laws, and the absence of enforcement were real facts in everyday life. Someone owning a home in 19^th century America was less likely to steal cattle, shoot people, poison water wells, or engage in drunken brawls at the local tavern. The obvious smallness of life, and the necessity to be a good citizen would make such behaviour entirely counter-productive. Owning a home, farming plotted land, and engaging in local trade and social hobbies was a pre-requisite for 19^th century America to develop. So was land based mortgage financing based on the 1865 Homestead Act which provided much needed capital to American growth and industry. 

But none of the above applies in the 20^th or 21rst centuries. American and Euro banking has become a political tool of esoteric financing and sophistry. The idea that Wall Street or the City in London, is the economy is totally absurd. Much of good banking is local with local banks lending to local clients, in which both understand local conditions and the importance of contracts. Once you make the technocratic jump to assume that high investment banking is the economy, you make the jump from the real to the surreal and eventually land in the world of political-banking corruption. 

Politicians through land restrictions have ensured that land and house supply in major areas of economic activity are restricted and 'managed' driving up prices. A shack along the highway in San Fran costs $600.000 and no one can afford the 20% down-payment which was the historical 19^th and 20^th century norm. So lending rules are relaxed, no down payments are needed and speculation premised on cheap money and low interest rates naturally follows. The end result is not hard to forecast. Massive market distortions in supply and demand always lead to a crisis and atonement. 

Land policies are just one of many market dislocations created by government. Subsidies to minorities, people on welfare and mortgages to anyone who wanted to buy or assume the risk, dominated both the US and European housing markets. Transfers and tax breaks to construction firms to 'create' jobs mandated that the housing madness continue. Housing at one time constituted 15% of the US economy. No politician would countenance a reduction in subsidies to home buyers, because that would reduce home construction, which would impair all the fake jobs being created, many of them used to mop up the vast hordes of illegal immigrant labour looking for work. The cycle of destruction once started, could only pick up speed and vigour. 

The same was true in Europe which had a large influx of Eastern Europeans and Balkanites to deal with, not to mention those fun, happy and entirely peaceful Muslim migrants. The EU programs were basically the same as the US – land restrictions, subsidies, construction jobs supported, no or little money down, and lax monetary policy all dominated European housing finance. From 1990 to 2005 housing prices almost doubled in many Euro centres. Housing was deemed a sure bet – people need to live somewhere don't they ? - and the politicians had every incentive to keep their banks, the construction firms and their 'unemployment' rates [always a lie], happy. 

EU banks also used the reserve ratio system to its fullest. For every $100 of deposits perhaps $1 would be kept on hand. The other $99 would find its way into personal and business loans, inter-bank loans, and investments. The Europeans placed a huge bet not just on the ineluctable and permanent rise of EU house prices, but also on the future wealth of their neighbours to the East. The Euro banks used their ratio banking system to invest not just in housing and the profitable 'sub prime' market which in both the US and EU accounted for some 30% of bank profits, but also in the emerging markets of the former Soviet Union. Money flowed East without much regard to real profit returns, sanity of the investment, or even the efficacy of the political system of the receiving state. 

The result was and is predictable – EU banks now have some $2 Trillion at risk in Eastern Europe, enough to bring down the entire EU reserve-ratio banking system. This is why the government subsidy and legerdemain with the banking world will continue with more bailouts and more rhetoric about the 'end of the world' if the banking system is not supported with more debt and tax money. With Greece, Portugal Italy and Spain – all economies which bet massively on housing – now tottering on bankruptcy, the entire EU project could be riven and shattered by debt and bank write-offs. The same fate awaits the US. 

The summary is obvious. Politicians and bureaucrats were using the banks and the housing system to further their own needs and goals. Along with controlling speech, information, travel, education and culture, the ability to control one of the primary needs of man – a place to live – is a goal that all states lust after. A stationary man, owning a home, is an easier prey for government. Higher taxes, regulations, carbon controls, eco-enforcement, and the use of state coercion are markedly enhanced when the human unit is static and unarmed. Your house can and will be a target. This is why governments are so adamant that 'tax evasion', offshore accounts and human mobility have to be curtailed. 

Government's are very determined to have everyone own a home. It stimulates 'jobs' and provides profits for their banking friends – usually the same people who are massive contributors to political campaigns. Home ownership benefits the nexus of banking-government and politicians. 

Government's dear regard for housing has nothing to do with social cohesion or community love. There is no proof whatsoever that owning a home will make you a better human. It might make you more aware of responsibilities and could induce you to become a model citizen, but it also limits your ability to escape the ravages of government power. 

You can't run or hide from government once you are static and disarmed. You can't pick up your house and sprint from the carbon regulation police for example which enters your house, and who are very interested in the contents of your refrigerator, the carbon content of your underwear, or the mother-earth friendliness of your appliances. Houses are not portable. After all selling a house is expensive, time consuming and not as simple as selling a stock. And once you are in a home especially with children, your ability to avoid government sur-and tax regulation is very limited indeed. Ergo the great minds educated in the Ivy League and the sanctified halls of what Europe calls higher education, and who now run the world, are quite interested in home ownership. 

So much easier to have a feudal society when the peasant is tied to the land. 

We can therefore expect what caused this crisis, namely government interference in housing to continue forever - until the centers of technocratic power are broken.

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