Your House Is Bigger than My House

When I was Assistant Secretary of Housing – Federal Housing Commissioner, then Secretary of HUD Jack Kemp asked me to his office for a private discussion. He explained that he was concerned that I was standoffish and did not socialize with the other political appointees, the “principal staff,” at the agency.

I was surprised and noted that I had invited the principal staff to my house for cocktails or brunch five times and with one exception none had ever reciprocated. I noted, in fact, that I had invited Jack all five times and he had never once come. He looked at me with shock and said,

“I would never come to your house. Your house is bigger than my house. I would find it castrating.”

I tell you this story because it is very hard for hardworking, busy people who are subject to the discipline of market forces to fathom what is going on in Washington these days.

It is not in most people’s experience to witness a complete break down of financial controls that does not impair the ability to continue to finance — indeed access to more money is near infinite (see “The Military Holds the Dollar Up“) — and this state of affairs is combined with decision making driven by personal profit and sexual potency.

This state of affairs can exist only when it serves the interests of those who are quite clear thinking and far more powerful than those who work in the Administration. You can attack and take over a country. Or you can simply let it borrow itself to death in a financial coup d’etat. Recent history suggests that the second is infinitely more profitable for the victor.

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