Sitting in my friends back yard in California several months ago , I commented on how nice it is for him and his wife to own a little home with a back yard. My friend is a retired public sector worker and so is his partner. They have both worked very hard to have this little tiny space in the world to live out their lives and enjoy a few years of retirement after decades of hard work. I said to my friend - "As a nurse and a long time single mother living in Canada's most expensive city I have never` been able to afford a down payment to buy a house - so outside of a small work pension and a small amount of social security I have no real assets."
He looked at me and said "oh yes you do-in Canada you have public health care."
This should have been obvious to me. i know that a working person can lose their home in a flash. After all the recent economic crisis triggered by the housing bubble, resulted in millions of US`workers losing their homes. I also know that millions of workers in the US are forced to go into debt to pay medical bills and education costs. Millions of working people, especially in the US are forced take out a second mortgage, use their home as equity , or use their credit cards which carry criminal interest rates to pay their medical bills if they get sick or have an accident.
It is true as well that many young people or their parents are forced to pay exorbitant tuition fees using credit cards , or extending credit on their homes.
But my friends response really got me thinking and I am still thinking about this.
I have never been a real fan of owning a home-and perhaps this is a good thing because it makes it easier for me to accept that I do not. At times I have in a misguided sense and uninformed way wondered why home ownership is such a huge priority especially for North American working people. I have often wondered why so many would want to take on what is most often an onerous burden of owning a home. Again my brilliant friend enlightened me. His reply was that when workers have no financial security,no public health care, no affordable or free education, when they have to pay out of pocket for child care and when social security after years of hard work amounts to peanuts, where do they turn - they are forced to take on onerous mortgages in the hope that in the end when they retire they have some assets to rely on. Suddenly after years of wondering it became very clear to me - my question as to when and how a home for one's family become not a affordable haven and source of shelter and comfort but an investment of huge proportions and as we have recently seen a remarkably insecure investment. It became even clearer to me the desperation felt by working people who lured into cheap mortages in the hope that they may have some form of security for themselves and their families, have been completely betrayed by the capitalist system.
i am not an economist , I am just an ordinary worker who tries really hard to understand what is happening around me as I struggle to survive and pay my bills and hope that I will have a tiny bit of financial security when I am too old to work anymore. But what I have learned in this recent economic crisis is that none of it is the fault of working people. I have learned that the capitalist system is irrational and insecure - that it will inevitebly force workers to overextend themselves financially- to use credit to live and have anything at all because for one thing we cannot afford to buy back what we produce. i have also learned that after being left in the lurch by a system , we are now being blamed .
I am reading now that it is working peoples' fault -that we do not work hard enough and the answer to bailing out the system is to use our money to pay off the deficits incurred to bail out the banks and the rich who messed everything up in the first place is to force workers to work harder at lower wages -to force us to increase our "productivity." That is if we have a job to work harder at. I have learned that they are blaming us for buying homes we could not afford- and raising down payment requirements on a home. It is of course all our fault, stupid workers that we are taking out mortgages we cannot afford.And now they will help us out by making it even harder to own a home. As for all us old folk who have worked for 40 years or more , well perhaps we should look forward to smaller pensions even of we have paid into them for decades.
Affordable public health care in the US - might as well forget it folks-Obama caved to the lobbyists and the corporations. And the young folk- let their tuition fees be hiked up 25-35 percent.
What a horrible scam they are laying on us.
I have rambled here and so will go back to the thinking that led me to write this blog.
That is my friends brilliant and so correct response to my questions.
How can it be different and better for working people.How can we envison a different way of organizing society , a way that benefits working people who after all produce everything-how can we begin to shift our thinking?
What if we had a public health care system and did not have to use credit cards and equity in our homes when we get sick. That would go a long way to making home ownership more affordable. Then again what if we demanded a massive rent geared to income housing for working people-if our wages go down our`housing charges go down.
For working people who cannot afford a down payment and a mortgage or do not want to own a home there are choices that guarantee housing security.
What if we had free quality public education up to an including a university level-then we would not have to worry about our homes as investments to draw on for health care and education-our homes could be affordable and what they are meant to be - a source of shelter, physical security and comfort.
Just what if child care was free? What if we could be certain that when we are old and tired after decades of hard work -there was adequate social security to ensure that we have a roof over our head and food to eat?. These are not utopian dreams and unachievable demands as the capitalists and their economists would have us believe. In fact they are pretty basic demands - considering working people are responsible for creating all the wealth in the world.
It is possible for a home to be what it was always meant to be - an affordable and guaranteed source of shelter and comfort for working people and their families-rather than an onerous burden and as we have tragically seen a very risky investment.
It is not only possible but it is a demand that we must bring to bear -and if not achievable under the capitalist system that is robbing us all -then we must begin to envison and work for a different system - an economic system owned and managed by working people for working people.
Then a home will really be just that-a place to rest and enjoy our well deserved leisure time, a secure a deserved place of comfort for working people rather than an insecure source of worry and a burden that deprives us of living and enriching our lives.
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