Beanie Babies and McMansions

You all know one of them.  A die-hard collector of strange things.  Certain in the belief that they are making an investment for the future.  Consider for a moment my Aunt Megaera.  She has gone hither and yon through the course of collectable fads, thinking that her possessing something gives it an irresistible allure to others.  She has brought this feeling of omniscience to anything from beanie babies to Appaloosa's  to real estate.

Well, maybe in the real estate arena she isn’t all that strange.  It would appear that a strange wind blew over the country around ten years ago, convincing folks that the business cycle and the laws of supply and demand no longer applied to them, they put their homes up on a shelf and garnished them with granite counters and Pergo floors, assured in the belief that their tastes would be reflected down the line in the significant increase of their personal wealth from their now highly desirable home. 

But now the world is telling them what Adam Smith told them a long time ago, that a home is just a home, not an investment.  Just like a toy is just a toy. 

But here in the USA we have the peculiar institution of democracy which allows a nation of beanie baby owners (BBO’s) to elect corrupt and venal officials who will pass laws and allow the government borrow money in order to permit the BBO’s the continued fantasies of a Petit-bourgeois status.

The bailouts that are in place and that are coming probably won’t work.  They seem to have little effect so far.   I would even venture to guess that, hidden in the fine print, is language that allows the real owners of the corrupt and venal officials (read here: the big banks) to turn the morons with underwater loans into true debt peons.