Put down the guitar and pick up the sledge hammer

The unemployed are kind of like pawns. If there are too many of them, heck, let's move them around the board and make them useful.

Is this just me or do you sense an arrogance in this piece "Tear Down That House?"

The "unemployed" are actually people who are unique and running their own lives the best they can. A teeny weeny percentage have demolition experience. I know my niece doesn't...and it would play hell on her long nails.

So, we have the feds giving money to the cities...who will look at this as another boondoggle to get federal funds...and then they will be effective at figuring out what properties need to be leveled? Real estate acumen isn't a skill likely to be found in city bureaucracy.

Yes, we have no idea how many abandoned properties are out there. It is arrogant to think that if some bureaucrat in Washington can come to a number and then allocate funds that will go to financially strapped cities who will then hire my unemployed niece (hey, be careful of her fingernails).

It gets complicated with union rules...oh my god...

How about auctioning off the properties...let private individuals and companies figure out what to do with them.

Mr. O'Neill...you aren't smart enough to make a complex program like this work...I mean you are smart, this isn't a comment on your intelligence, but a comment on the difficulty creating the outcome you want in a complex adaptive world.

in reference to: Op-Ed Contributor - Tear Down That House - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)