What Happens When Natural Laws of Expectations are Turned Upside Down?

Have you noticed lately that there is a short supply of available housing inventory and a large number of homeless people?

If interest rates were to increase to the level of inflation, say six percent, you’d see a severe drop in the price of housing. This would drop property taxes, and most of the time those future tax dollars have already been spent by the municipality.

In California now, I would guess that the average 4-person home now has 8 people living in it. Basically, when you double the price of housing, over a large area, you double the occupancy rate. The first time we saw that effect was in the 1960’s, it went unnoticed. Dad worked and mom took care of the kids. Later women went to work and the kids took care of themselves. At that point we had two wage earners financing a home. Now in today’s world, we have mom and dad working, and now the kids living at home as adults working to make ends meet.

Politicians don’t really reflect upon the laws passed and see how ineffiective they are. The free needle program might have stopped some disease, but now the casual stroller can be stabbed by a discarded needle while walking. People are “starving” and need to be fed. Human waste on the sidewalks is a big step above dog crap. Now we have hepatitis to worry about also.

At some point California needs to address the problem. Our national parks have a solution; they put up signs that say “Do not feed the wild animals.” We need to move the homeless into a controlled area for about 10 days that restricts their access to drugs and booze with no ability to pan handle for money. The people that just want to get high, would leave the area, confinement is a threat to their way of life. Those left would be the ones for rehabilitation.

California wants to make small homes for the homeless. A noble idea, but why? I pay taxes and expect fire and police protection. Why do these people that contribute nothing to the tax base, get a free home because they are homeless?

The real story about California is the number of people living in each home. Some streets are so packed with cars at night that they look like used car lots and remember each home has a driveway and a two-car garage (in the front of the house no less). So that’s parking for 4 cars.

So, the question in the title “What Happens When Natural Laws of Expectations are Turned Upside Down?” You learn to expect less and pay a lot more for it. And when you run out of money paying taxes, you’ll be entitled to a Gov. Jerry Brown "Free Shopping Cart," and will be inducted into the "Fraternal order of the Homeless." The only bad thing as far as liberals are concerned, is that there are no graduation ceremonies---go figure.

Free Trade A Bridge Too Far

Everyone appears upset over the possible tariffs being proposed by Trump. The demand is for free trade. There is one problem with the concept. The minimum wage is not the same worldwide - - $68 dollars a month in Bangladesh or $321 dollars a month in China. How about Mexico at $3.48 a day and a 48-hour work week.

If you are a manufacturer in the US, and something is labor intensive; where will you eventually be forced to relocate? Three things happen when you move off shore; labor costs are lower, lawsuits for product liability drop dramatically and taxes drop to relatively low levels. The manufacture that moves to say, China is no longer a manufacturer paying taxes in this country, he is now an importer that pays taxes on his mark up from the foreign production location.

On an individual level, we examine our location and environment and make decisions as to what is the best monetary return for our family unit. An awful lot of what goes into the decision revolves around government regulations. If you have acquired wealth, you obey government regulations if you have none, government regulations be damned.

To tie this all together, government tariffs can be a leveling force, on an economic level, for trade between countries. Let’s hope this works