Ein anderer Blick auf die Subprime-Krise

Abstract

What is called the "subprime mortgage crisis" reflects an underlying crisis in the housing system: the inability of the market to provide adequate and affordable housing for large numbers of Americans. Household income is too low, and profit expectations by the private housing market are too high. Until today, this problem was met by government programs that tried to maintain the two causes of that inadequacy: promoting for lower-income households private home ownership, in homes supplied by the private market. Re-regulation of this market or mild answers like relief for distressed homeowners won't solve the problem. A radical change is needed. At the ideological level we need an educational campaign to illuminate the limits of home "ownership" and the range of available alternatives. At the economical level public financing has to cover the gap between even regulated housing costs and ability to pay until adequate incomes are guaranteed.