Sunday, February 12, 2017

Housing Inflation


By lending money to people to buy houses, you don't make houses more affordable. You create money, not roofs. The financial world helps things happen. It acts as a lubricant or a catalyst, but the real drivers are supply and demand. Money and debt are ways of counting. They aren't the things you count. If you want affordable houses, you build more houses. The Catch 22 we find ourselves in is that people see housing inflation as investment growth. When people buy a house (unlike a computer, car or television) they want price to go up over time. One interest group (those with homes) wants the price to go up. The other (without homes) wants the prices to go down... till they buy, then they switch groups. It isn't a solvable problem. It is politically impossible to please both groups. If the game doesn't work, change the game.

If you are crazy, you don't have to fly
If you don't want to fly, you aren't crazy

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