The only sustainable way to make something affordable is to push down the prices. The only way to do it is to increase competition — which, in order, requires dramatically lowering the barriers of entry.
But it seems that nobody is actually interested in that, and NIMBY attitude and monetary diversion schemes prevail.
Guess who has the most votes for determining local policy?
Remove the laws that prevent building more units and tax the value of the land as opposed to the value of the property as a whole. That second part encourages maximum use of the land, which generally means more units.
Other than that, work on the infrastructure to support the new units and get out of the way.
This is called "Trickle Down Economics". This works for saving more of the elites money, but not for us. Frankly it just doesn't work, at all, when looked at with a lens of government. But boy, will they sell us this package that "It'll lower costs... We'll be able to hire more people.... We'll be able to...". In the end, they stockpile and shovel the money out of the US.
If X costs $100 and by eliminating ALL governmental costs, goes to $80... and the average person only has $40, neither choice does a damn bit of good. They're both unaffordable. But now, one pays less to the burden of citizenship and public resource usage (aka Taxes).
You want to stimulate the economy? Put money in the hands of the people! Yeah, you won't "save" that mythical $20 of compliance costs, but if the citizenry has $150, now they can afford your X. Course, the argument here is that X now goes up to $200. But Y over there is willing to play 'Supply and Demand' and undercut X... Just like how things do now in many markets.
But, you know, something about socialist programs makes people get up and deny the very facts about supply and demand, and competition. For some reason, they all claim that everything will miraculously buffer up by Z% because socialist programs.
How about finding a way to reboot the X market, so that the price goes back down to a reasonable level (e.g. $35)?
Medical is fucked. Primarily, because of complete opaqueness in everything, and heavy regulatory control over many parts. We could either use a whole lot of socialism here, or a whole lot of capitalism here. Cause right now, we have the worst of each with none of the gains.
Education is also fucked. Except this is good ol' protectionism straight up. We need look no further than the laws that forbid bankruptcy on school debt. Only one other area shares that distinction: criminal debt as a part of a punishment. Once these laws were enacted, school spending/loans/building/spending loop was going to spiral out of control. They have a captive audience, and they know it. And, a simple fix? Re-allow bankruptcy. It'd certainly be painful for the schools... but what's that phrase? "Market Correction"?
I do still think you're wrong, overall. Cheap goods don't do a damn bit of good when people don't have money. And where we're going, AI applications and robotics are going to eat a lot of things quickly. I'm just waiting for the trucking industry to go "poof".. But you know, cheap goods.. With jobless, moneyless workers displaced who can't afford even cheap.
That is not a market correction either. In practice if we took away the student loans entirely, we would see a much more reasonable school pricing. Their audience is captive because they know that they can extract an extra $10k/yr from federal assistance alone.
Those 2 areas where people were declaring bankruptcy are licensed professions. Simply put it would be easy to put a licensure check to say (If Bankruptcy is granted for bills related to school for license, it is rescinded until paid determined by judge.)
But anyways, the rates of bankruptcy were minuscule for everyone. But no matter, fuck us all over. Where does the school have to have skin in the game, when they push substandard college or lie about graduation and placement? Removing bankruptcy protectionism would greatly help the market correct. Because that's all this law does. And we all see how it affexta scholastic higher ed spending.
Landowners are coddled by protection from competition. We want to make their lives harder.
There is no amount of money you can put in the hands of 100 people that results in them all having apartments, when there are only 50 apartments.
For every homeless person, we have 5-7 houses empty (various stats around, depending on number of homeless). http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-we-cant-just-put-ho... . We already have the supply. It's there. They are already built.
Now.. Who do these houses belong to? Banks. Insurance firms. In reality, any company that needs illiquid money storage uses property. And they extract as much worth as they can from that. That's only logical from their standpoint. And maybe some office space, sure.
But all those houses are simply rotting as people aren't living in them. I say, put them to good use. Eminent domain them, or tax them appropriately so that individuals and families can get them.
I think you're mistaking me for some capitalist. If anything, I'm more communist for essentials, socialist for 'effective member of society', and capitalist for stuff on the edge.
People need to be near each other. Near family, support networks, schools, social services, and jobs. It's not enough to have surplus housing "in the US." We need it in the specific cities and neighborhoods with affordability crises.
Your solution is for people to move thousands of miles to dead end towns with no economic opportunities or social support networks? I think you have mistaken yourself for their advocate.
Here's a litmus test: when you win, who benefits? People trying to collect wages? Or people trying to collect rent checks?
How does your communist solution decide who gets to live in California and who has to live in North Dakota?
It's ironical that many such people would nevertheless take all aid they are eligible for.
In Poland, there's this recent government program called "500+", which wants to encourage families to have more children by offering them 500 PLN (around 125 USD) per month, tax-free, for every child after the first one. When it was introduced, I found myself surprised by all the hate from almost every one I know. For instance, the typical opinion of my cow-orkers is that the primary users of this program are pathological, lazy people who will breed more pathological, lazy people. Note that at the same time, those same cow-orkers admit that if they were eligible for it, they'd obviously take the handout.
I just don't understand where all that hate towards other people comes from. And don't get me started on immigration...
"There but for the grace of ____ go I."
As we can see by the rising obesity rates in poor communities, caloric value has been emphasized for far too long.
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20151206/entlife/15120916...
Also, you make the claim that people are poor due to bad financial decisions, yet provide no evidence. Well, there is evidence that when given money, poor people spend it to better their lives:
https://qz.com/853651/definitive-data-on-what-poor-people-bu...
Isn't this Section 8? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing)
The unspoken constraint in every housing debate is to avoid adding new supply and risk devaluing the existing investments made by constituents.
Just giving poor renters a subsidy puts them in competition with middle-class renters for the same units. Middle-class renters can always win that competition by repurposing some of their discretionary income towards rent. Poor renters stay priced out, and middle class renters pay more for the same units. No thanks.
Look at the raise in college tuition prices ever since goverment got involved in student loans. That is precisely what will happen when goverment starts sending landlords paychecks.
But we don't like the idea that the government might seize properties or the like as a punishment. So...
These evil landlords are not running charities. Maintnence is probably sub par because, as you mentioned, the rent is generally far below market.
Combine that rents increasing way beyond inflation and it's not good value at all.