North America is TOO Expensive and it’s unsustainable [video] | Hacker News Reader

North America is TOO Expensive and it’s unsustainable [video]

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Canadian here. If I have $800,000 saved, and earn $150,000 a year I still could not buy a house in Toronto even with a maxed out mortgage. Pretty messed up situation.

Wow, Canadians must be super rich. /s

Could just move to upstate New York and buy a house in cash.

Wikipedia mentions Canada's real estate market subsidizes money laundering at the expense of raising home prices by 5%.

The solution to real estate hoarding and criminality is occupancy requirements. Another problem is hoarding properties so there is less inventory to buy, pushing potential occupants to rent from literal rent seeking corporations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_property_bubble

Another problem is 40% of Federal MPs are landlords.

The Federal Minister for Housing is a landlord.

And the self-interest of present homeowners.

It's now the landholders vs the landless. Hmmm...that's like a Feudal society.

Unsustainable, for who?

Not for wealthy people, that's for sure...

and in a capitalist society, people without money don't count...

It's unsustainable because that situation tends to end in violence.

Does it? Currently, 850 million people worldwide suffer from lack of food. Billions of people scrape by with a standard of living far below what middle-class Westerners enjoy. There are dozens of countries suffering from mass poverty where the situation isn't significantly changing.

For the most part, average citizens just put up with it, and power structures in most countries remain entrenched. In the West, things are getting worse, but it's a long, long way down to the levels of mass poverty that might cause civil unrest. And so long as the wealthy and powerful remain well-fed, well-armed, and well-organized, they have a huge advantage over any number of desperate poor people.

>or the most part, average citizens just put up with it, and power structures in most countries remain entrenched.

Exactly. No matter how bad it gets, most people either try to emigrate if they can or just put up with it if they can't, since living a poor life is better than revolting against the government and getting yourself shot or imprisoned.

I fee like revolutions and toppling governments are mostly a thing of the past, at least in the western world.

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