Already Problems with Obama

President-elect Obama has chosen a HUD secretary. President-elect Obama said HUD is essential in the effort to stem the mortgage crisis, which “not only shakes the foundation of our economy, but the foundation of the American Dream.”

I tried searching through all my previous posts to find my diatribe on the fallacy of the U.S. housing situation. I could have sworn I went off on this sometime during 2008. Without repeating myself, let me summarize. The linking of ‘owning a home’ and the ‘American dream’ is an enormous fallacy. It is a financial marketing ploy that was irrationally grown by the detente of Wall Street and the U.S. Government. Look at where it’s gotten us. It seems there have been two major blowups this past year – Wall Street and the housing market.

Telling people that owning a home is the American dream puts a dangerous ideology in their head. The American dream should be having the freedom to choose a career and domestic path that allows each one of us the ability to find our own happiness. To the contrary, doing what it takes to move into a home, go way into credit debt, and have banks swoop up and package together all our little mortgage deals that eventually get shipped overseas so that foreign nations own 20% of our housing market is not what I would consider to be the American dream. It’s turned out to be a nightmare.

My problem with Obama is that he’s already not using his head. He’s pandering to the existing infrastructure of fallacy. I would like to hear Obama say that owning a home is nice but it’s not necessary to lead a full and happy life. I would like to hear Obama say that responsibility starts with the application of diligence, personal accountability and working to protect others in your family. I would like to hear Obama say that eliminating personal debt and executing a habit of good household finance is most important.

Friends don’t let friends get over-leveraged.