Indeed. Eventually there will be a revolution if the wealth concentration trend continues. I'm on the side of the working class forever and always, as I grew up dirt poor (and got exceptionally lucky because of my early interest in computers) and my family is still dirt poor today, so I have a good idea of what it's _actually_ like to starve.
> Eventually there will be a revolution if the wealth concentration trend continues.
I think surveillance and drone/robocop technology will make popular revolutions a thing of the past. People will be actively monitored if they even smell slightly rebellious to an algorithm, will be warned if they seem to be taking themselves seriously, and will be imprisoned if they don't have the appropriate reaction to a warning.
People need privacy and private ways to communicate in order to rebel. All of our movements will be monitored by our phones and street cameras with facial recognition. Cellphone conversations will be terminated with a warning if the algo detects Russian/Chinese/Iranian//North Korean/French(since 2031) propaganda being used to sow discord and evil.
We'll get back to remembering that wars, even civil, are when inbred princes and kings argue, not people with healthy genetics.
Housing is treated as an investment these days, instead of as housing. That's the fundamental cause of unaffordability, and it exacerbates the problem. It's easily fixed with the right policies, but at this point it can never be fixed (with a huge political left turn, maybe).
Making it easier to obtain leverage doesn't make housing cheaper, it just makes the prices go even higher faster.
It's the same with money, when money deflates it's treated as an investment too, not a medium of exchange.
Just like housing being too expensive ruins it's ability to provide housing for everyone, money being too expensive causes a recession and unemployment.
The difference however is that money can be created through borrowing so it doesn't go up in value but housing is restricted through zoning and the availability of land, you just can't make more of it.
You're correct, but the other thing with housing is that we actually have a supply glut. There are something like 16 million vacant homes in the US (according to numbers from an internet search).
Why so many vacant homes? The answer (as with everything in economics) is that the incentives are such that it's better to sit on a vacant home. In other words, our current system incentivizes hoarding homes.
This is false, "vacant homes" has no relation to "vacant homes you'd want to live in". Half could be condemned shacks in Detroit and the other half could be homes people have signed leases for but aren't moving in till next week.
And it's impossible to make squatting on a vacant home worthwhile, when you could be earning rent from it.
