Inequality as a Source of Recessions and Poverty

This paper will focus on the relationship between mortgages and income developments in the U.S. Individual household’s asset values and liabilities obligations are often combined; for instance in home mortgages. The two main sources of savings, built up over a lifetime, are pension savings and the net worth embedded in one’s own home. Pension savings are normally deducted from annual income levels and transferred to specialist collective pension funds or insurance companies; an instant cash transfer. Mortgage borrowings are different in that future income levels are committed in meeting the payment obligations. The U.S. financial crisis of 2007-2008 was a home mortgage crisis. From 2004, some irresponsible lenders enticed many buyers to acquire homes in the U.S., of which a number of homes were bought for speculative reasons. In the U.K., the main reason of increasing house prices, above average income growth levels, is that house-building levels have lagged behind population growth levels for at least the last ten years. About only 160,000 homes were built per annum, while the population growth required between 230,000 and 300,000 homes annually. In the U.S., during the period 2004-2008, the financial sector made a huge collective mistake in assessing what was the appropriate individual mortgage level. The buyers over this period -many of them lower income households- were confronted with large numbers of repossessions after 2008. Heavy job losses occurred. Where economic theories seem to fail is when liabilities, like a home mortgage, can at the same time represent an asset with an embedded value in a home. Many households in both the U.S. and the U.K. were and are “displaced”, either by repossessions or by the inability to purchase a home. There exists, as yet, no government institution in either country that is able to replace bank funding, when income levels drop in a recession. High unemployment and falling wage levels reflect recessions. The key is to stabilize mortgage expenditure levels as a percentage of incomes over long periods of time. Banks cannot operate such products; only a government institution can do so. Why and how such a system can work in the U.S. is explained in this paper.