Flipping Over Flipping Houses

I was having this conversation with someone today over coffee.  He was talking about people he knew who made a modest fortune flipping houses.  Now before I go on let me explain exactly what flipping houses means before your imagination ends up doing some very bizarre things to your mind.  It is the practice of buying a house, then when the market is friendly and you can resell it at a considerably higher price, after renting it out at inflated rents, rake in a dandy little profit, then buy a more expensive house, rent it out for as much as you can get away with, resell it when you can get considerably more equity than what you paid for it, then buy an even pricier home, and the beat, as they say, goes on...
     Sounds like an easy way to make some easy bucks, eh?  If you don't mind waiting a couple of years and if you are good at reading and predicting the real estate market you could cash in very nicely.
     I have trouble with this, and I said this to my friend today.  There is something ethically dubious about taking these kinds of liberties with houses when this city, Vancouver, is going through one of its historically worst housing crises.  Absolutely nothing is being done to make housing more affordable or more accessible to mid and low income earners, with the exception of the social housing developments for the poorest of the poor in our city thanks to our city government's policy of ending homelessness, but I think especially thanks to all the heat and pressure we have been putting on them to do something constructive to address this crime against humanity called homelessness caused by pernicious and unbridled capitalism.
     Canada still hasn't got on board with other signatories of the UN charters and human rights covenants, especially about housing as a fundamental and inalienable human right.  Without this kind of recognition of the obvious there is an unwritten law in Canadian society that states that as far as housing is concerned, anyone who is financially and economically challenged can be easily made homeless with little or no help or redress.  The poor simply become collateral damage as the wheels of capitalism keep rolling on.  As long as it makes a profit it is more than permitted, it is encouraged and endorsed.  Greed is praised and lauded.  In the words of Deng Xiaopeng when he inaugurated the free market "reforms" in China following the death of the Great Helmsman, "To be rich is glorious."
     In the meantime, houses that could provide safe, secure and warm homes are simply items of merchandise.  Their value is monetary, economic, and not in terms of their utility.  Capitalism is entirely devoid of human values.  But this is not an anti-capitalist screed, and within socially responsible limits I do favour the free market, but only inasmuch as it can be made to work for everyone and not simply as an exercise in Social Darwinism.
     There is something particularly wrong with one of the undergirding concepts of our culture: that making a buck and becoming rich is in itself the single and great underlying value, which is a fancy schmancy rephrasing of "To be rich is glorious."  As long as houses and housing, because of entrepreneurial greed, are made unavailable to people who are economically challenged, we are giving way to grievous social injustice.  Money and wealth as values in themselves have to be abandoned and replaced by human values that also honour and respect the integrity of the earth and our natural environment. 
     What can be done to cure us of greed?  To teach children from the cradle to honour and respect human dignity and human rights?  To give human needs and human rights priority over financial and economic gain?  Why not, instead of flipping houses, use any houses that are bought or acquired as opportunities to provide safe, stable and affordable homes, not for the privileged rich but for everyone?  Why have we permitted our governments, and ourselves by extension, to be held hostage to the free market and to the interests of greed and the accrual of wealth to the few?
     It's all about having a moral compass. A personal moral compass is of great value, but a collective moral compass is of infinite value.  What can we do, by drawing the very best from all the great moral and religious philosophies and teachings that could be formed into a kind of universal moral code, kind of an enhanced Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to reverse this tidal wave of greed and selfishness.
     I know  this will appear lame, but I still think that individual acts of kindness, generosity and selflessness are more powerful than reorganizing society from the top down and forcing others to change their thinking.  This doesn't mean that I don't believe in legislated ethics.  Of course this is necessary, highly necessary, but to ratify public ethics we need empowered individuals to live and practice these same ethics.
     I am thinking here of when I first heard people thanking the bus driver as they get off the bus, at the back door even.  I have found this to be such an inspiration and such an encouragement to practice gratitude and all because of this little contagion of public courtesy by grateful individuals and I myself have turned into a compulsive thanker.  But a sincere one, as I believe others to be.  Likewise with seeing strangers give money to beggars or show other kindnesses to other strangers. 
     I know this in itself isn't enough.  We need to know the next step of this dance of kindness and love if we are going to draw others into the dance with us.  I haven't thought of it myself but I am putting it out there in the hope that anyone reading my blog tonight or tomorrow will be inspired to figure out the next step.  And I will also pray and think of what I can do.