Milwaukee Rising

No matter what you think of him as a baseball team owner or baseball commissioner, or what you think of that statue, it’s just impossible to make Bud Selig look heroic.

It just is.

Someone is saying it out loud!

The shocking truth: not everyone should own a house.

Robert Samuelson, in the Washington Post.

Unfortunately, we let a sensible goal become a foolish fetish. Not everyone can become a homeowner. Some are too young and footloose; some are too old and dependent; some are too poor or irresponsible. Some don’t want a home. Even with these gaps, homeownership is virtually universal among the middle-aged middle class: almost three-quarters of Americans ages 45 to 54 and four-fifths ages 55 to 64.

Government subsidizes homeownership in two ways: through tax and spending policies and through credit markets. Tax breaks for homeowners (mainly the deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes, plus preferential treatment of capital gains on homes) exceeded $120 billion in 2009, reports the Congressional Budget Office. These benefits go heavily to higher-income borrowers, who are encouraged to buy bigger and more expensive homes that generate larger tax savings. This is both unfair and unnecessary. By contrast, government subsidies for lower-income renters are skimpier, totaling about 25 percent of the support for homeowners.

Let’s hear it for Mr. Samuelson. I never did understand why people with far lower incomes than mine were expected to subsidize my mortgage (you bet I claimed the interest deduction) or why I am expected to subsidize someone’s McMansion.

Overall, idea that owner occupancy is always a good thing just doesn’t make sense.  Anyone who has ever walked into a crap house poorly maintained by owner-occupants who clearly have no idea about what they are doing can tell you that home ownership can be a very, very bad idea.

A new study suggests that  the little brain signals that tell us when to stop eating and when to burn calories vary in strength and speed between individuals and are established before birth, according to Yale University.

“It appears that this base wiring of the brain is a determinant of one’s vulnerability to develop obesity,” said (researcher Tamas) Horvath, who is also co-director of the Yale Program in Integrative Cell Signaling and Neurobiology of Metabolism. “These observations add to the argument that it is less about personal will that makes a difference in becoming obese, and, it is more related to the connections that emerge in our brain during development.”

Horvath points to other unwanted consequences of these brain mechanisms. “Those who are vulnerable to diet-induced obesity also develop a brain inflammation, while those who are resistant, do not,” he said. “This emerging inflammatory response in the brain may also explain why those who once developed obesity have a harder time losing weight.”

All that may be true, but it doesn’t explain why the obesity rate is so much higher than it used to be or why obesity rates are so much higher in this country than in others. Are we all eating high-fat diets and the vulnerable ones getting caught up in obesity? Or are people vulnerable to obesity more likely to eat high-fat diets? Or have the connections in our brains changed dramatically in just a few years?

It seems likely that no matter what the brain studies find, the best way to avoid obesity still is to avoid a high-fat diet. Hey, look! No research funding involved with that observation!

Man, could go for some sweet ‘tato fries for breakfast.