The hazards of an ownership society

Most of you know I write this blog alone and that, politically, I align with the Democrats. That’s enough for good ol’ MinnesotaBrown to be declared a “liberal blog.” But I do, on occasion, deliberately expose myself to conservative ideas to see what’s going on on the other end of the spectrum. Today I’m highlighting an observation from one of Minnesota’s best conservative blogs.

Yesterday, SCSU Scholars explored the hazards of an ownership society and how it’s created our economic mess. The collapse of the mortgage markets can be blamed on poor oversight, for sure, but also the fact that American culture now accepts that owning a house means you can afford a house, an unfortunate fallacy that has caused massive personal debt across the land.

If there’s any issue where I can safely be called a conservative, it is on the matter of debt. Personal debt affected my family greatly when I was growing up and I remain appalled at our skyrocketing national debt, especially when it’s held up to the fact that half the country is in deep personal debt at the same time.

As my support of education, universal health care, infrastructure and other services would indicate, I am not opposed to spending public money if it’s done wisely. But spending, taxing and saving should all be done in balance, or — as we see — conservatives and liberals alike will be knocked on their butts because of bad economic policy.