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Is it me, or has a sort of gray haze descended upon things of late? There is news, there are things happening, but it all seems to have an air of “haven’t we been here before?”

I did manage a pithy little post last night about corporate bribery and BP’s latest cute little trick, but then this amazing free content management platform which I have done nothing but praise turned on me and ate everything I’d written. Oh well.

Meanwhile congress passed some sort of financial reform bill, which probably should be getting more attention, but most people are probably like me afflicted with serious MEGO syndrome. And it’s awfully hard to feel like it would make any difference if more of us did have a strong, well-formed view of that issue.

Consider that, for all of Americans’ concern about energy and the environment, which remains significant in spite of phony “scandals,” our Democratic “leaders” in Washington have decided to give up on any meaningful energy-sector reforms, in the face of the usual GOP stone wall opposition and a modest fifth column of coal state Democrats. (At the risk of violating Godwin’s law, I’m starting to feel, regarding coal state Democrats, much like Jake Blues felt about Illinois Nazis. Including my own coal state Democrat representatives.)

Oh well, eh? Too bad. That seems to sum up much of the past few years in this country: “Oh well, too bad.” Perhaps there just wasn’t a big enough crisis to concentrate minds, when it comes to energy/environmental issues. The timing is probably just coincidental, but one almost wishes that, having gone this long, BP could have managed to drag out its Gulf of Mexico clusterfuck another week or two, just in case that might have helped. Oh well, too bad.

It’s hard to imagine just what constitutes a “big enough crisis” for us, some times. NPR.org has a couple of interesting stories this morning relating to housing, which combine to sort of offer me a big heaping portion of schadenfreude, but then take it away again just as I begin to dig in.

It’s gratifying, certainly, to be reminded that I was not only right to continue renting throughout the housing market mania (not that I was ever particularly tempted, mind you), but really, really right.

Yet, after they make all the points about how people got foolishly carried away with plunging into an overheated market, and how deprecation of renters as rootless drifters turns out to be rather poorly compatible with a flexible labor market, and how in general the “ownership society” turned out about like everything else that George W. Bush ever promoted (okay, they didn’t specifically express that last idea, but the writing is plainly on the wall)… then they come back to the hard reality that, even after all of this, “renters don’t get the same kind of tax breaks as homeowners.”

Yes, even after a huge bubble implosion that has mired the entire economy in tar, we’re still subsidizing the activity that produced the bubble.

The Planet Money blog post does suggest that “in the coming months, the Obama administration is likely to put more attention on renting. Reforming the housing finance system is on its agenda.” But, to be honest, you’ll have to excuse me for a second while I perform an exaggerated simulation of masturbation, with a look of extreme not-impressed on my face. Y’know?

I’m not all down on Obama, mind you; I don’t lose sight for one second of who constitutes the number one problem in Washington. Barry’s halfheartedness is way down the list. But, well, neither he nor “our” Democratic majorities in congress have exactly been demonstrating an increase in enthusiasm for charging into the teeth of opposition, let’s put it that way.

And while I’d love to believe that, per some suggestions, the housing market bust and subsequent recession are producing subtle but significant, lasting cultural changes in our society… I don’t think that attitudes toward “the American dream” will be among them. Certainly not to the point where a “tax increase on home ownership,” no matter how much sense it may make and no matter how allegedly fervent people are for deficit reduction, will be greeted with cheers and flower garlands.

I just don’t see it. On top of everything else, I think the deck is just stacked in favor of buying vs renting from a language perspective. Home “ownership,” after all, is pretty much a complete misnomer. How many “homeowners” actually own anything? They have to make payments every month, just like I do, and that doesn’t even count the property taxes and maintenance expenses involved. Sure, if you keep at it for 30, 40 years or more, eventually you might in theory “own” a home, free and clear. If you’re far more financially disciplined than most Americans. If you don’t “tap” the equity for a new car or plasma TV or trip to Fiji. If you manage this then yes, eventually, when you’re middle aged, you might truly “own” a home.

Meanwhile, back in that boring old “reality-based community,” Americans rarely “own” anything more valuable than a large SUV (if they’ve even got that paid off). Their claim on the house they live in is far more likely to be a mortgage, which is a French term that loosely translates as “death pact.”

And if we were talking about “renting vs death pacts,” I would probably have considerable hope for a new realism when it comes to our society’s perspective on housing and how it’s paid for. As is, though, the dream of “ownership” will probably go on winning out over the reality of ill-advised investment.

Oh well, too bad.