Bush's Ownership Society

President Bush boasted about his presidency as one that stress "business values" and was one that was making Americans home owners!

Well, the business values ended up being outright fraud (e.g. Bernie Madoff) or shyster business ethics (e.g. the Wall Street securitization scam that created a banking panic that sank the whole world's economy).

Where has this left the American home owner? Here are some facts from a posting on the Calculated Risk blog site:

• Almost 50% of home owners in Arizona are "underwater", i.e. they owe more to the bank than their house is worth!


• There are 14.75 million home owners that are "underwater" across the whole US.


• Just under 20% of all houses in the US are "underwater". Since some houses are wholly paid for, the more interesting fact is that of those with mortgages, 30.6% are "underwater".

Go look at the Calculated Risk posting. It has some wonderful graphs to help picture these and other facts.

What I find utterly unbelievable is that the Republican party which created this mess is poised to win the November 2010 elections. I guess Americans are masochists. They want to give these rapacious reptiles a second chance to destroy the American dream and finish off what is left of a sputtering economy!