Thursday, February 26, 2009

Yesterday the builder brought by the shower door and the toilet. He didn't install them because he assumed I wasn't through painting.
It turns out, though, that once again we're doing and celebrating exactly the wrong thing. According to an article in the Atlantic, it's home ownership that has brought this country to its knees. Renters can more nimbly respond to economic changes, and high levels of home ownership have resulted in long commutes, a barren suburban culture, SUV's and pollution. All this could be remedied, the author says, if the government would eliminate tax preferences for home ownership. As it is, it almost never makes financial sense to buy anyway, according to this calculator.
All well and good, I suppose. I wasn't planning on selling this house until I retired and what with the whole country brought to its knees thing, I won't be doing that anytime soon.
In the meantime, I probably won't be getting an HDTV anytime soon, either. Karen and I were assaulted by the unavoidable display at Costco the other day. The guy on TV had acne, and it was pretty disgusting. NPR did a story about it today About the problem make-up artists have, not about how aggressively Costco is pushing TV's at us. They said that in the early days of television, they softened aging actresses crow's feet by putting gauze over the camera lens. Honestly, now they just need to put it on the actors' faces. This isn't a problem on our TV which basically just presents us with dialogue over a Rorschach test.

1 comment:

  1. those social problems attributed to home ownership by the Atlantic make sense. Communal living can be much more economically and commercially conservative (sharing utilities, produce and herb gardens, etc.). Also, communal living would probably lower the crime rate, as it promotes a sense of community...

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