Inflation, Homelessness, and Crime
Many potential voters blame President Biden for what they consider as an inflation rate that is too high. Others consider inflation as a kind of mechanical relationship between salaries and the cost of goods and services. Nothing we can do here. We will just have to be patient until the inflation rate decreases? But are we really so helpless?
It is not immediately obvious but land prices (and thus the price of housing) and money laundering are a big part of inflation and major problems in their own right. Because of a combination of laws that facilitate these problems and a lack of laws to address these problems the U.S. has become the money laundering capital of the world.
If you are a criminal like a drug lord and need to launder your ill gotten gains, the U.S. makes that simple. If you are an exploiter of your own people such as a corrupt ruler of your country or a corrupt business tycoon, a good way to launder what you have stolen is to buy land or other real estate in the United States. This laundering involves hundreds of billions of dollars. The facilitating
banks and trust companies make huge profits because such transactions are largely left unmonitored by government regulators.
Most Americans know that prices for housing seem to be forever going up. It just seems to be something that happens naturally, and the only thing to do about it, if you can afford to, is to buy a home while you can still afford to do so. But a huge proportion of the population has already lost that battle. These people no longer have any hope of ever getting beyond renting. And an ever increasing number of persons can no longer afford to rent. Why is it that the wealthiest country in the world has an ever increasing number of people sleeping on the streets, under an overpass, in tents in the foothills of mountains in California, in their automobiles, and campers. This, of course, is not a part of the American Dream. Why do we take this situation as normal when until recent decades it was considered abnormal? Why is moral outrage so limited?
There are many aspects of the housing crisis, but profits from criminality, plowed into real estate, is a major culprit in the housing problem as a result of the inflation it generates in the United States. Not only criminals but also the wealthy of any country (with China being a good example) are able to store their wealth or launder their money in U.S. real estate. Meanwhile many Americans cannot afford a place to sleep. There is only so much land in the U.S. remaining for its population after its own billionaires have purchased large parcels. Allowing foreigners to do so as well is beyond obscene.
Why should the wealthy from all over the planet be allowed to buy America? That is one of the many moral questions to be asked about the U.S. as the world’s money launder. On the economic front, money laundering drives up homelessness and even hunger when there is little money left to buy food after paying the rent for many people. Finally, the political ramifications include the contributions of money laundering and foreign investment driving up the rate of inflation. Here Biden and the Democrats have an opportunity to bolster their electability and to protect the average person.
The federal government can contribute greatly to addressing these problems through laws and regulations. And even though the the feds have less they can do about states who profit from these assaults on the general populace, the Biden administration has a great opportunity in its electioneering efforts to bring attention to these issues and their contributions to inflation.