Comment by haizhung | Hacker News Reader

Comment by haizhung | Hacker News Reader

Curious to see that no one mentions the drastically rising inequality in western society as the root cause of the housing crises.

What we are seeing to date is a transfer of wealth from the working class, the middle class, and the government to rich people at a rate that is unprecedented in human history. The rich are getting richer at an extremely high rate, and barely any country taxes wealth.

So what you get is multimillionaires and billionaires who get passive income of several million dollars per month. What are they going to do with that money? There is a rule that you should let your money work for you, and so rich people buy: assets, stock, shares.

That’s why the prices of all of these things go up despite living standards falling and falling for ordinary people. We have an asset price inflation, due to the enormous amount of money given to the ultra rich.

Housing prices will never go down unless you tax the rich. Regardless of zoning laws or what not.

This is the most worrying aspect of it to me. It is hard to imagine an economy or society in general to continue functioning indefinitely with such an extreme difference in outcomes between different groups. As far as I know there is no historical example of a society that allowed inequality to grow at the level ours is that did not ultimately face massive socio-political upheaval. Needless to say it would not be pleasant to live through those times

Seems to me that capitalism, especially when unregulated as has been in the US since the late 70's/early 80's ultimately results in wealth concentrated somewhat in the top 10%, but especially the top 1%, while the bottom 90% sees their share of national wealth drop every lower.

It feels like we are entering a second guilded age, just like the late 1800's. Maybe a few world wars and a global depression will reset the board and we can start again.

Because rising in equality is not the root cause of the housing crises. Middle class people who ban new housing from being constructed are the root cause. When housing can be freely built housing prices dont increase faster than inflation.

of course in equality in itself is a course of higher housing prices - in fact inequality create asset price bubbles.

I really do not agree. When there are 99 houses and 100 households there will be a housing crisis, even with 0 inequality.

It is really not that simple - demand is elastic on contrary to what you propose.

The crisis is not necessarily availability, but affordability which is a consequence of inequality.

Of course nothing is that simple, but end of the day it actually is that simple here. There is demand for X number of houses but because of NIMBYS we can only have some number lower than X. Without NIMBYs we can satisfy all the demand. Wealth inequality could be the cause of a housing crisis, it just isnt here. If the reason we cant have X homes was something other than unjust laws created by the middle class Id be much more willing to blame inequality.

Regardless of what you think, inequality is a major component of the current housing inequality.

Yiu also have to step back and consider why people feel like the need to bundle up in the cities - if that a General lack of opportunity elsewhere due to inequality?

You are seeing a wound and saying: yep, that happened because the skin got damaged.

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