Supply and demand are natural consequences of scarcity, but they're also consequences of all sorts of market manipulation, and there are good reasons to believe

Supply and demand are natural consequences of scarcity, but they're also consequences of all sorts of market manipulation, and there are good reasons to believe that the supply and demand created by market manipulation far outweighs the supply and demand created by scarcity. There are approximately 570,000 homeless people in the US[1]. Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $188 billion[2]. The median price of a house in the US is $218,000. Jeff Bezos could buy every homeless person in the US a house at that median price, and still have $63.7 billion[3], leaving him the 5th richest person in the world[4]. And that's massively more money than is necessary to solve the actual homelessness problem in the US, which doesn't require 570,000 homes (because more than one person can live in one home) and doesn't require median value homes (because much cheaper homes are adequate). Yes, buying housing for hundreds of thousands of people would drive up housing prices, but surely a massive influx of capital would prompt more construction to meet demand. This is absolutely doable if Bezos decided to do it. In short, the entire US housing crisis is smaller than a manufactured scarcity that only exists because Jeff Bezos has decided that $63.7 billion isn't enough incentive to work at Amazon, so 570,000 people should be homeless. I realize I'm singling out Bezos here--yes, Bezos is a terrible person, but there are other billionaires who could easily solve the US housing crisis, and there's an entire system of people who have sided with the billionaires over the homeless time and time again. The responsibility for this travesty doesn't rest solely on Bezos' shoulders. I also realize that homelessness isn't our only problem. There is real scarcity, and simply fixing income inequality isn't going to fix all scarcities. But there can be no doubt that at least some of our most chronic problems only exist because there is a consensus that solving those problems isn't worth the wealthy giving up a portion of their wealth. You can argue whether that's justified or not, but you can't argue that these problems aren't solvable. [1] https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-2020/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless... [2] https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/#575a78ae1b23 https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/#575a78ae1b23 [3] 188,000,000,000 -(218,000 * 570,000) = 63,740,000,000 [4] https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/ https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/