What happens when the government plays favorites?

In order to promote ethanol, our government pumps out $4 billion/year in subsidies. Most of that ethanol is made from corn, and the money goes to "farmers", or, more accurately, to farm businesses and cooperatives.

From 1995 to 2005, the top 10 percent of corn subsidy recipients were paid 55 percent of corn subsidies. The top 4 states together (Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Minnesota) receive over half of corn subsidies. It's damned big business, growing corn, not for food but for fuel.

As a result, farmers are planting more corn, which has other consequences, one of which is small vegetable farmers not being able to rent land, because all free land is being artificially moved into producing corn.

Bear in mind that it is an impossibility for ethanol to completely replace petroleum gasoline... there simply is not enough land to grow that much corn, or any of the other crops that could be used to produce ethanol. Ethanol also costs more than it's petroleum alternative.

Growing more corn reduces corn prices for farmers. Ethanol refineries receive tax credits and make huge profits. We pay more at the pump for fuel with ethanol.

Nevertheless, we've been given the hard sell on ethanol as a petroleum substitute. It's called sustainable, and "green"... better for the environment.

Unfortunately, it's all based on a lie. An unpublished Canadian government (which also subsidizes ethanol heavily) study had these results:

The study found no statistical difference between the greenhouse gas emissions of regular unleaded fuel and 10 per cent ethanol blended fuel.

Although the study found a reduction in carbon monoxide, a pollutant that forms smog, emissions of some other gases, such as hydrocarbons, actually increased under certain conditions.

• Ethanol isn't "greener"...
  
• can't replace petroleum...
  
• distorts crop selection...
  
• displaces crops used for food and livestock feed...
  
• harms vegetable farmers...
  
• costs more at the pump...
  
• and costs us billions more in taxes
  

The ethanol scam is a smelly example of government tinkering, of playing favorites, of causing problems worse than what they pretended to try to fix, and of making some people wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. It doesn't take much justifiable cynicism to suspect that a lot of key government officials have pushed ethanol subsidies in exchange for raw cash or sweetheart deals. Even if we were to delude ourselves into giving government the benefit of the doubt, that still leaves them as being dumb enough to buy into a scheme that isn't good enough to compete without subsidies.

Even if ethanol was a good substitute... even if ethanol did reduce polution... government favoritism is wrong and shouldn't be needed for it to compete with petroleum products. Again... and again... and again... government is force, and force is only needed for bad ideas. Good ideas will succeed on their own in the marketplace.

We've been sold a crock of ethanol.

Who owns your home?

Despite some joking about "the bank" owning our homes, most homeowners are quite possessive about houses they've bought and live in. We consider them our "castles", our place, our hub of personal operations. We modify, decorate, add on, and personalize them. A whole industry has grown up to support homeowner do-it-yourself work. American men can get quite competitive about the state and stature of their homes and yards, and American women take at least as much pride in homes, especially the interiors.

Home ownership is a very personal thing to Americans, and we don't take kindly to intrusions or even trespass. Home is our place of safety and privacy, but also our venue for entertaining friends and relatives. For most of us, our home will be, far and away, our most important possession.

A home is an individual possession, regardless of whose name or names actually appear on the deed. We refer to them as "my home" or "our home", even if the mortgage balance is larger than the market value. Losing a home (which happens often) is a traumatic event, and can even engender a feeling of shame and failure. Home ownership is just that valued in our society.

Despite our nearly universal possessive attitudes about our homes... despite the money, time, and love we put into our homes, there are forces out there who really view us as merely temporary tenants with very little right to think of our castle as "ours". Those forces are local governments.

While we take great pride and derive great satisfaction from our homes, local government has come to look upon our homes like little monopoly houses to be bought, sold, placed, moved, and even destroyed when they deem it desirable.

Local governments have come to apply a phrase that describes this attitude... "housing stock", and an attitude that homes are merely structures that, together, make up residential neighborhoods within the city. You can find the phrase and the attitude written within the legal language of city and town charters, and you will hear local government officials mouthing the phrase and the attitude. Here is a recent example , by a St. Paul City Inspector:

"...the city will improve its housing stock and improve its neighborhoods."

Notice the use of possessives in that sentence... the city's "housing stock"... the city's "neighborhoods". The attitude is that houses are "stock", meaning inventory, meaning objects to be added and subtracted from inventory... an inventory that the city considers its own.

City officials make judgements about our homes, judgements that have nothing to do with individuals as owners and residents. They judge whether they have a good "mix" of residences in a neighborhood. If not, they will take legal action to revise the mix... perhaps to increase the city's property tax revenue, perhaps to merely attract a different sort of resident to a neighborhood. They often take these actions with utter disregard for the individuals who own the homes... or who think they own the homes. Cities have become all too willing to callously disregard individual homeowners, subordinating their rights to grand urban plans for reworking the city's housing stock or neighborhoods.

Believe me, most homeowners are completely shocked when their home becomes a pawn to be sacrificed in a city's grand chess game of "improving housing stock". They become either outraged or thoroughly depressed to find that the home they took great personal pride in owning is now being treated as a disposable piece of trash to be merely discarded in favor of someone elses idea of what should be built in its place.

Property taxes have become another tool for local governments' collectivist attitude about property. The national average property tax is $935 per capita per year. State averages range from a high of $1871 in New Jersey to a low of $425 in Oklahoma.

Currently, foreclosure rates are very high and rising. If you read the current news, you would assume that people are losing their homes because they were lured into excessive mortgages that they eventually couldn't pay. While there is truth in that explanation, there is another sneakier cause that doesn't often share blame for tragic foreclosures... property taxes.

An example may illustrate best: The first home I purchased was for $14,000, some 40 years ago. It was a typical story and a half, post-war house in a quiet urban neighborhood of the Twin Cities. If I had stayed in that house, and paid off the original mortgage, as many people did, I would be retired, on a fixed income, with my home paid for... reaping the benefit of being able to live out my retirement years with no more housing expense. However, the city would expect some $2,000 in property taxes each year from me, just to stay in my own home... the home I cared for and maintained all that time.

Many older Americans have found themselves in that situation... having to sell their long-time homes because they couldn't afford to pay the escalated property taxes, or the inflated cost of maintenance. Depending on the real estate market, selling the home and finding another place to live might not even be a realistic option. Eventually the city may take possession of the home for unpaid property taxes. What should have been the American Dream becomes the American Nightmare.

The city cares not. There are no exceptions. The homeowner merely happens to be the resident of a piece of the city's housing stock. The home, now also aged, perhaps having suffered from a lack of maintenance, may well become what the city deems "undesirable", "blighted", or even a "nuisance house". As such, it can simply be taken and bulldozed... at an additional cost to the city's taxpayers... a cost that may well be more than what the owner owed in back taxes or the cost of fixing up the house.

If you as a homeowner don't fit my example, don't believe that you are exempt from the danger of local government ruining your life. It's a core attitude change that has occurred. Once upon a time, local government was intended to serve the citizens of the area. That has gradually and surreptitiously reversed over time. We, as citizens, are now essentially the subjects of our governments... not at all unlike serfs living on the lord's manor. We pay for the privilege of residing in and paying for what local government views as their property. We exist at their whim. If you doubt what I say, attend a few meetings of your local city council, and listen to the attitude in person.