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kleinbl00  ·  1038 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Rent’s Too Damned High

    You should understand that the factors driving house price increases stem mainly from the prevelance of negative real interest rates.

Ultimately:

- Low interest rates increase the availability of borrowed money

- Which drive down the price of bonds

- Which force savers into speculation

- Which inflates values in equities

- Which forces alternative investments

- Which created the REIT

- Which allows for any investor to speculate on the domiciles of leasers.

So I wouldn't say that housing price increases stem "mainly" from negative interest rates. I would say that they stem ultimately from negative interest rates.

But that's pretty much inside baseball. We could go further: housing price increases stem ultimately from the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

I'll say this: I spent the pandemic on the "capital" side of the labor/capital divide and lemme tell ya - once you get over the quarter million dollar hump, you get allllllll the cheat codes. That isn't ultimately due to the repeal of Glass-Steagall, it's ultimately due to the fact that Capital has been clawing back every advancement Labor has made since the advent of the cotton gin. None of which changes any of the assertions of the piece.