To be clear: your opinion and my opinion are pretty well aligned. Historically speaking, however, property ownership is the luxury of the aristocracy. The reductio ad absurdum on capitalism is serfs'n'lords, d00d. Yeah - you need a roof over your head when it rains. But it can totally be an overpass. And all that aside, who says you have to own that roof? I mean, under communism you were just allotted a place to live by the system. Is that better?

Like I said: the underpinnings of society. What do you want it to look like? How do you want the incentives to work? The past 70 years of American culture have been predicated on the idea that homeownership is an American deam and our culture should do everything we can to encourage that. Only problem is, when your job goes away your mortgage doesn't and there you are, shackled to a 1500 sqft rambler in Chillicothe. Or, the bank takes it and it's like you never owned it at all; worse, because now your credit is shit which means everything else in your life is expensive.

Lots of exceedingly smart, exceedingly thoughtful, exceedingly compassionate people argue about this stuff all the time. Anybody who tells you it's settled and there's a right or wrong answer hasn't thought it through all the way.