Why Rent? Because You Can Move.

Melchior Palyi was an economist who fled National Socialist Germany in 1933.  Five years later he issued stern warnings to economic policy makers:

Palyi warned in 1938 that a push toward universal home ownership would "make the population fixed to the ground" by "overburdening them with housing costs." 

Renting offers mobility.  This allows you to take advantage of economic opportunities and personal relationships that become available in other regions.  For these and other reasons, home ownership is not always profitable.        

Full article about Palyi by Jason Zweig at The Wall Street Journal published in late 2010.

The High Cabal Profits While You Lose Your House

The Alan Greenspan induced housing bubble was most prevalent in which geographic markets?  I seem to remember something about prices soaring in Vegas, Phoenix, Miami and California.  Could this be right?  

Bloomberg tells us that Blackstone Group is buying tens-of-thousands of single-family homes in the following markets:

"Blackstone is buying in Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Northern and Southern California; Miami, Orlando and Tampa, Florida"

How are they doing this?  Isn't housing a terrible investment?

"Blackstone has been purchasing through foreclosure auctions and short sales, in which banks agree to accept less than is owed on the mortgage, after more than 5 million homeowners lost their homes since the market’s peak in 2006."

This makes sense, Stephen Schwarzman is part of the U.S. government (he happens to be Chairman of Blackstone) so he gets special benefits and influence with bankers, Congress and the White House.  When was the last time you partied with the President of the U.S.?  Even better, when was the last time a sitting U.S. President visited your home for dinner?    

Before the financial collapse all you needed was $1.2 M to buy major influence in the White House.  A pretty fair price to pay for $500,000,000 worth of discounts on real estate purchases.  Schwarzman's timing was terrific, having the President over for dinner in 2007.  That was an ideal place to conspire to pop the housing bubble and coordinate how the cabal will profit from the coming housing bust and economic collapse.   

Schwarzman happens to serve on the JP Morgan Chase National Advisory Board with other major players in the real estate business, Samuel Zell, Mortimer Zuckerman and David Rubenstein.  Things are working out very well for these conspirators.  They devised a wonderful plan to collect your down payment, some of the principal and most importantly your mortgage interest payments for 5 years before engineering the crash and getting you laid off.  Once that was over they could buy your house at a below market rate and now you get to rent it back from them while they mint a tidy profit.  

The Real American Dream!