Written by William F. Pickard   

Most Americans would probably prefer that Big Government become Tiny Government and stay the Hell out of what they regard as their personal behavior and business.
Outlaw red tape, Yes!
Stop snooping, Yes!
Curb waste and inefficiency, Yes!
Protect our personal health care plans, Yes!
Make America stronger, Yes!
Promote job creation, Yes!
Galvanize infrastructure repair, Yes!
Enhance revenue, while neither raising taxes, nor
expunging our favorite personal loopholes, nor stimulating
inflation, Yes!
These are tall, even contradictory, orders. And, Gridlock being what Gridlock is, little of what we seek is likely to come about through ordinary convoluted legislative action.

However, Pundits sometimes are heard to murmur about “sending signals to the Whatever”, because mighty changes from little tweaks do grow – at least in one’s imagination, and sometimes even in fact. So imagine the following simple signal (edict):
In the interests of public health and of energy conservation, all dwelling units built prior to 1980 must, before being granted occupancy permits:
1. be substantially free of lead;
2. be substantially free of asbestos;
3. be substantially free of sources of volatile organics;
4. possess electrical wiring that meets current standards;
5. possess plumbing that meets current standards;
6. pass current standards of home ventilation;
7. meet standards of tightness & thermal insulation;
8. pass current standards of acoustic insulation;
9. have HVAC equipment that meets efficiency standards; and
10. be certified maintainable.
Such restrictions would impact about two-thirds of America’s housing stock. Taken together they would lead to gut rehabs of most older homes and wipe out unhealthy substandard housing. The maintainability clause would remove any excuse that the way the house was built makes fixing its defects damned near impossible (except by a gut rehab). The rate at which people move being what it is, most of these homes would be redone within twenty years, the bulk in the first ten. “Fix up or tear down” would change the face of America, revitalize the housing industry, and be a bulwark against urban decay. It would also generate jobs galore.

What would it cost? Obviously, who can tell? The situation is quite without precedent, unless one wants to consider the somewhat different problem of rebuilding a bombed-out Germany after World War II. Nevertheless, we are talking about 80 million extant dwelling units; and such non-new dwelling units do have an average market value in the neighborhood of 150 thousand dollars. So maybe an extra 150 thousand dollars would also suffice for the rehab. 150 thousand times 80 million is 12 trillion dollars, or a bit under a trillion dollars a year over the period. That would be one whale of an economic stimulus!

Redoing America’s ageing housing stock would create huge numbers of jobs that can’t be shipped overseas, vastly increase the tax base of our cities, and be a bulwark against urban decay. What’s not to like about it?

But where is the money to come from? Well, it is less 1/16 of our GDP. The first Czechoslovak Republic could and did devote more than three times that fraction of GDP to building, during the Thirties, its fortifications on the German border; and its economy prospered. During World War II, Germany built stupendous unprecedented fortifications along its sea frontiers while fighting a brutal war on two fronts and suffering colossal aerial bombardment.

Wrenching an economy this much can be done and has been done. And, somewhere in this country, there are bound to be economists who know how to do it. After all, twenty-three of the last twenty-five Nobel Laureates in Economic Science were at American institutions. Our problem is that, as of today, we seem a people utterly lacking in the resolve to tackle our outmoded housing stock, our decaying infrastructure, our failing public schools, or any of the other obvious major problems that beset us. Is it shame on us? Or shame on our leaders? Or both?

Two final comments. The gloom and doom preached in Part I (above) quite neglected the two really scary Killer Challenges coming down the road towards us. The Ist is that a permanent scarcity of fossil fuel to power the Global Economy seems a sure bet at some point in the latter half of THIS century. The IInd is that key portions of the technology needed to switch America to 100% renewable energy exist more in concept than in fact; this will be the subject of a subsequent essay.



William F. Pickard, older ‘n’ dirt, is a retiree from Washington University in Saint Louis who specializes in energy matters. He’s pretty much clueless as to how to how these crises might be surmounted. But at least he had the good grace not to stand for public office.