It’s wealth inequality. Capital accumulates capital, and it actually means something because wealth is control, and things like housing that determine control over people’s lives are forms of wealth that get concentrated away from regular people along with everything else.
IMO two main things need to happen:
- redistribution of wealth
- increase housing supply
Oh but they actively took our paychecks too. This wasn’t just government welfare for the wealthy and the stock market. When they fired Janet because they only needed one worker instead of two thanks to new software? They didn’t pay Bob extra. That’s wealth just sucked up into the Executive and Shareholder realm. Then to add salt to the wound of doing two jobs they give Bob a December raise below inflation. (because of course there is still actually more that Bob has to do, the software didn’t fix everything.) So now they get Janet’s pay and the extra revenue they denied Bob, because of course their prices damn sure went up in step with inflation.
This kind of fuckery has resulted in an estimated upwards transfer of around 47 Trillion dollars.
There are many things that need change, but fixing the housing prices isn’t complicated, it’s just unpopular. You just need to take make speculating on housing as an asset very expensive. This will drive down the demand from non owner occupiers (businesses). It will also reduce the value of the largest asset most people own. People who invested so much into owning a home with the expectation that it will appreciate aren’t going to support policies that do the opposite.
We should’ve been taxing homes or land that people own but are not their primary residence, from the start.
It would be super easy to implement, and flexible - if housing prices are too high for 75% of the population, you raise those taxes little by little and the problem eventually sorts itself out. If it’s no longer a problem, you reduce the taxes.
Or you keep those taxes the same and use the money to reinforce social programs to make sure no one in your area ever has to go homeless or hungry again.
The most important thing is the rich getting richer
The Market Has Spoken: Get Fucked.
A riveting exploration of the markets and society of the 21st century that will be written in 2200 lol
