The following is a tweetstorm (set of tweets) posted last night by writer and activist Matt Stoller that we found compelling. It has eight parts:
- The 2006-2012 foreclosures signaled the end one social contract and the beginning of a period of deep political and economic instability.
- The crash of the housing market radically altered the wealth and power distribution mechanisms for the American political order.
- Since the 1930s, housing operated as a proxy for wealth and stability, while allowing the banking system to serve as a channel…
- …through which the Federal Reserve could manage the economy.
- As financial asset growth replaced wage growth, housing became a leverage point masking the deterioration of our financial status.
- The housing crash, far from a simple downturn in one sector of the economy, represents the collapse of this entire apparatus.
- It snapped the spine of a political system that had connected elites with everyone else, through the monetary channel.
- The result is increasing political chaos, rising authoritarian structures, and social unrest.
Good observations, Matt!