Wow, sometimes it feels like the weight of the global economy is on the shoulders of the real estate industry.
Today, the U.S. Commerce Department reported the number of residential buildings under way dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.9 million units, representing a 7.9 percent skid from December’s 2.07 million units. Instantly, Wall Street got the heebie-jeebies. The stock market slipped, and experts began worrying about the real estate market’s health.
Enough already. It is time for other sectors of the economy to get their act together. We feel like the promising son, who goes to college, gets a good job, starts a family and must support his drunken brother, laid-off dad and depressed mother.
Hey manufacturing, get off your butt and stop complaining about China. You tech kids, get sober and get a job. You had too many all-night parties in the late-1990s and now you cannot get out of bed. You’re still in your pajamas watching re-runs of movies about option bonanzas gone awry. Get up, get a life, take some action and start innovating again.
And the agriculture sector, you guys get more subsidies than welfare moms in the 1980s. It is time that you started carrying your weight in this economy–dependency creates sloth. How many air-conditioned John Deere tractors do you really need?
Take a lesson from real estate: We peddle the American dream, a real product, not one made overseas. We take our subsidies responsibly, asking for more, but working hard to keep the realty bubble inflated so builders, Realtors and mortgage brokers can earn a healthy cut of every home sale.
We can no longer carry the weight of this family alone.
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