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Article: The new road to serfdom: an illustrated guide to the coming real estate collapse.(PORTFOLIO)(high cost of housing)
- Article from:
- Harper's Magazine
- Article date:
- May 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Harper's Magazine Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Even men who were engaged in organizing debt-serf cultivation and debt-serf industrialism in the American cotton districts, in the old rubber plantations, and in the factories of India, China, and South Italy, appeared as generous supporters of and subscribers to the sacred cause of individual liberty.
--H. G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come
Never before have so many Americans gone so deeply into debt so willingly. Housing prices have swollen to the point that we've taken to calling a mortgage by far the largest debt most of us will ever incur--an "investment." Sure, the thinking goes, $100,000 borrowed today will cost more than $200,000 to pay back ...