As more US people become homeless and the recession deepens, The Guaranty Bank of Austin has decided to demolish 12 brand-new double story homes in Victorville, California.
It was simply cheaper for the bank to demolish them than sell them. The cost of continuing to build the houses was estimated to at nearly US$1 million, whereas demolishing them cost about $100,000.
The bank would not have made enough profit in what is called a "dismal market".
Ron Willemsen, president of Intravaia Rock and Sand, the Montclair company handling the demolition, said: "It's a waste of a lot of resources and perfectly good construction."
As more people are evicted from their homes, there is a glut in the housing market. This is why the price of houses has become lower than usual.
According to real estate data company Dataquick, the median home price in the county at the time of the issuing of the building permits was $325,000. By March, it had more than halved to $160,000.
As "tent cities" emerge in the US, where the victims of foreclosure are forced to live in makeshift shanty towns, banks are demolishing complete houses.
This perfectly exemplifies the insanity and inhumanity of capitalism. In the Communist Manifesto more than 160 years ago, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels said: "…there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production.
"Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism … because there is too much civilization, too much means of subsistence."