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sorry for forgetting to qualify "free market" as "so-called 'free' market". there isn't a shortage of housing, there is a shortage of affordable housing, which

• gwright 7y ago
  You seem to have a misunderstanding of how markets work. The high prices are caused by the artificial restrictions on satisfying the demand, not by developers not wanting to build. Another way to think about this is that if a developer is going to go through all the effort to get permission to build (years of delay, paperwork, PR, etc.) then those costs have to be recouped by developing something at a higher price point. Those restrictions have made it impossible to build something at a lower price point.
  • 0x262d 7y ago
    no, free markets are an illusion that don't actually ever exist because they're immediately distorted by various things like market dominance. property developers exist to make money and use real estate to extort poor people. regulations don't fundamentally change that one way or the other.
    • gwright 7y ago
      This ("free markets are an illusion") is reductionist language that makes it difficult to communicate and understand one another. Your use of "extort" is another example of language abuse. It is hyperbolic language that serves only to distort understanding.