this will doubtlessly appeal to the vast sonnet-loving population in America who are also Catholic socialists. ;)

.

these Bush-lined streets have now become a home 

for elderly, disabled, kids and more 

the disenfranchised now are less alone 

soon joined by those who come back from the war 

new millions of americans despair 

while other millions claim to be devout 

no nests or dens will GOPers share 

but grab a profit while they kick men out 

they say a hammer used to be a tool 

to build the homes where sons of men can rest 

but now men use those hammers as a rule 

to crucify their neighbor and their guests 

...they make sure all their neighbors go without 

...and if their soul offends, they pluck it out

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=47&chapter=8&version=31

18When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." 20Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

The annual report "Out of Reach" by the National Low Income Housing Coalition found, as in the past, that there is no place in the country where a worker at a full-time job at the $5.15-an-hour federal minimum wage can afford an apartment.

*****

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/08/national/main572185.shtml

AP) The cost of rent and utilities for a typical two-bedroom apartment has increased more than a third since 1999, making such housing unaffordable for anyone earning minimum wage, according to a study by an advocacy group for low-income housing.

A worker must earn at least $15.21 an hour to afford the average cost of $791 per month and have enough left for food and other necessities, the Washington-based National Low Income Housing Coalition said Monday. Five years ago the average cost for housing and utilities was $576.

*****

U.S. housing costs up, while real wages decline

http://www.themilitant.com/2005/6903/690351.html

More and more working people in the United States are unable to meet basic living costs, according to two recently published studies. The reports highlight the increasing grind on working people as rent, medical insurance, food, and child-care costs increase, while real wages-that is, the purchasing power of workers' pay-have declined.

Washington's Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sets "affordable" rent at equal to or less than 30 percent of a renter's income. According to a study published in December, a worker today would need to earn $15.37 an hour in order to afford the average two-bedroom apartment in the United States.

The report, published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, says that in only four out of the 3,066 U.S. counties can a worker making minimum wage afford a one-bedroom apartment by the federal government's standards. In the 991 counties where 80 percent of the nation's 36 million renter households are concentrated, a worker making the state's minimum wage would need to work an average of 80 hours a week in order to afford the rent on the average two-bedroom apartment....

I used to think I was rather good at math, but clearly I'm as dumb as a rock. I don't understand the new math as it applies to housing and wages in the current U.S. economy.

I live in a small rural town in Texas where average wages for workers is approximately $7 an hour. Obviously business owners, college professors and so forth make more, but most people are just folks who work on assembly lines, or are waittresses, hairdressers, work at video rental shops and stuff like that... ordinary jobs.

Rent in this city has doubled over the last 3 years from $350-$450 for pretty much run-down housing, common low-status apartments, to about $600 a month - while wages have remained stagnant.

Here's what I want to know.

If an average worker in this town has an after tax income that is less than rent at a 600 sq ft house with holes in the floor and termite-eaten windows, then how are they supposed to live?

I'm too stupid to understand how they do it.

See, I remember an America where a low-paying job provided rent and bills and food on whatever lowly scale. I remember single families living in single family housing. Either my memory is incredibly flawed or things have changed. If my memory is flawed and the lower working class was always like this, why did anyone ever think America was so great, because to me this is very third-worldish to have large groups of Americans working at even a few dollars over minimum wage not earn enough to even pay rent.

What I see now are groups of disparate (and desperate) people bunched up in clumps in housing. I see apartments in Ft. Worth that accept credit cards to pay rent. Why should anyone working 40 hours a week have to pay rent on credit? Am I the only person that finds this, at best, alarming??

People having to use 90% of their income to pay rent is not good for the economy. In the 'old days', people could pay rent, bills and food. If one got raises (which existed and were relatively substantial) from staying at the same job (which was possible), they could spend their extra income eating out, going to movies, buying clothes, getting haircuts and so forth. In other words, they spent that money in the economy and this kept small and large businesses healthy.

Now we all know that many big (multinational) corportations now get at least 50% of their sales from overseas, so they don't really care a lot whether the American working man can purchase their products. Sales of products isn't really how they produce income anyway... it's all mergers and investments and other forms of gambling and playing with the stock market. When these people do well, it looks like the American economy is thriving. But it's not. Not for most Americans, who are rapidly losing ground.

And who is this "other" America. You have small businessmen who can't outsource their restaurants, hair shops, video stores, bars and so forth. If the average person is less and less able to spend money on un-outsourceable goods and services, these people are in some serious trouble.

And who is profitting from this? The people who have turned housing in the U.S. into some sort of Ponzi scheme and the extraneous property owners who say "well, if this is the common market price for rent now, I should raise mine".

If wages have to rise so that workers can pay rent, then the small business owners take another big hit in order to sustain property owner's greed.

If they don't rise, what's next? Tent cities? Hobo camps? Prison for profit (and that hits the ordinary tax-payer too)? Where do you put these people who work 40 hours a week and can't live anywhere? What happens when small businesses that depend on the disposable income of the average American fail? Will they too take a job that doesn't enable them to pay rent? Then what? Jail them too for being homeless?

Who's left? A few property owners in a Ponzi scheme? What happens when the scheme tops out and disintegrates with no real income or money to back it up?

You Republicans who are good at the new math explain to me how any of this is good for America, Americans, and how the average person in my town is supposed to support themselves.

Links:

Ponzi schemes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

Now technically, the housing bubble isn't a Ponzi scheme, but the difference is neglible in effect. From the source:

A bubble. A bubble relies on suspension of disbelief and an expectation of large profits. But it's not the same as a Ponzi scheme. A bubble involves ever-rising (and unsustainable) prices in an open market (be that shares of a stock, housing prices, the price of tulip bulbs, or anything else). As long as buyers are willing to pay ever-increasing prices, sellers can get out with a profit. And there doesn't need to be a schemer behind a bubble. (In fact, a bubble can arise without any fraud at all - for example, housing prices in a local market that rise sharply but eventually drop sharply because of overbuilding.)

The only reason anyone can even buy houses at these prices is because of ARM and other unrealistic credit practices that REQUIRE the immediate sale of acquired property. This cannot last. This will not last.

Some commentary from an article on the housing bubble:

link

Nickname: Neil

Review: The median price of homes sold in December 2005 dropped by $75,000 as compared to November, 2005. Houses in this county lost about 12% of their value in one month! In the San Francisco Bay area, the median house declined by $25,000 in the same period. These are facts, the housing bubble will be much more destructive than the .com bubble/bust/crash. Recently, the Santa Barbara Realtor's Association stated that they will no longer make their housing sales reports available to the media. If that doesn't raise a few eyebrows, you guys need to get a catscan. Recently, the 5-year treasurey notes had higher interest rates than the 10-year bonds. This is called inversion and has preceded all of the past recessions and is one of the most reliable indicators there is. And to top it all off GDP fell off last quarter--the most since the last recession. Welcome to the Great Depression Part 2. Date reviewed: Jan 31, 2006 2:49 PM

Nickname: Sven

Review: What is disturbing? I am no economist or financial expert. All I know is how home prices affect me. I live in Ventura County, CA where the median price of a home is just north of $600,000. The median household income is right around $63,000 (lot of LA and SB commuters). I am a divorced single father of two and I make around $55,000 a year (subtract health insurance costs), just shy of the median income. I am a professional and would figure I might be able to afford a condo or townhouse. Yeah right! I can't even afford a two bedroom apartment. LOL. I am barely able to afford a studio! So I dare ask the question, who the heck is buying these homes and how in the world can they afford them? Date reviewed: Dec 2, 2005 7:23 PM

Nickname: Jonstreiker

Review: House prices should be in lockstep with incomes generated from anything other than the housing industry. Companies have--and plan to continue--to reduce expenses from labor. Home prices have only been propped up by new, jack-easy credit practices and unreasonably low interest rates. Today's "creative" loans are simply ways of getting out of real-world, loan payback. Balances don't come down fast enough. Individual & investor swapping frenzies are money in a circle. It will come when real-world payback (mostly in the form of first-time buyers with an income other than the housing & mortgage industry) would have to happen. And, today's (and tomorrow's) free enterprise corporations have NO intentions of "creating jobs" to be nice. Real money to fund the overprice housing scene does not and will not exist. Prices will have to come down. Investors & stretched buyers will fall into foreclosure. Values will plummet. America will see deflation. Date reviewed: Aug 2, 2005 6:08 AM

Nickname: Steve B

Review: The housing bubble is about to pop soon, and the effects on us all will be gigantic. This bubble is worldwide. Some places in the US have gone completely insane. In Silicon Valley, people have never recovered all their jobs after the dot-com bubble burst, but housing prices have just approached an all-time high. In Los Angeles, I have friends that are spending over half a million dollars for houses in bad neighborhoods that they have to be ashamed of. Who will pay for all of these houses when 10% of our jobs are outsourced, and many retirees sell off their 4-bedroom house because they do not need all four bedrooms anymore now that their children have grown up. Where is the next generation that can afford over half a million dollars for a simple house? The next generation is getting their jobs outsourced!! No one will be there to pay for overpriced housing!!! Date reviewed: Jul 18, 2005 7:36 PM

Republicans, you explain to me how "Sven" the programmer is a low life scum who just isn't working hard enough or smart enough to make it when obviously anyone can in this "thriving" U.S. economy under Bush.