Re: re. subprpime suburbs
On Mar 23, 2007, at 5:28 PM, James Heartfield wrote:
I should have known that the relatively high home ownership in the
US would be transformed into proof of Americans’ low incomes. (file under
quaint beliefs of the LBOers: US immiseration)Doug writes:
” it’s interesting that the countries with the highest ownership rates are on the periphery, historically poorer countries like Ireland and Spain, and the lowest are at the core, like Germany. The state with the highest homeownership rate in the U.S. is West Virginia, which is our own internal periphery.”
I should have known that a statement that was mostly about Europe
would be transformed into proof of something about American incomes.
(file under quaint beliefs of James Heartfield: a generalization
about Europe is secretly a comment on the US).
Here’s Oswald’s data, from his note to figure 2 (h = homeownership
rate, u = unemployment rate, both ca. 1999): “The observations are
Austria (h = 54%, u=5%), Belgium (65, 12), UK (65, 6), Denmark (55,
6), France (56, 11), W. Germany (42, 7), Italy (68, 12), Netherlands
(45, 4), Spain (80, 18), Sweden (56, 6), Switzerland (28, 3), Ireland
(76, 10), Finland (78, 13). Data for transition nations are not
reliable and are omitted.”
For U.S. states, the correlation coefficient for their rank in median
income and their rank in homeownership is -0.24 - not a huge number,
but it is negative, showing that homeownership is inversely
correlated with income. The states with the highest homeownership
rates are West Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama; the lowest are New
York, California, and Hawaii.
Doug