So first of all I think home-ownership is bullshit for other reasons. So I don't really want to defend it. > In other words, the buyer will have roughly the sa

So first of all I think home-ownership is bullshit for other reasons. So I don't really want to defend it. > In other words, the buyer will have roughly the same monthly payment regardless of interest rates. Those rates will determine how much money goes to the seller vs the bank over 15 or 30 years. Yes > Low interest rates cause artificially high prices which don't benefit society, just the sellers. Private ownership of land is a racket, yes, but you as you just said the mortgage payment should be the same as effects bank vs seller's cut. The payment structure matters more than the total price. > They also lead to banks not paying interest on savings, which discourages savings. Was there every a time when working class savings amounted to something in aggregate? I suspect the whole "the holloi polloi needs to learn to be frugal" has been all moralization not economics for quite some time. > The current cost of a college degree is due to government guarantees on student loans, which largely didn't exist when I got mine (at a much lower price even adjusted for inflation). The problem here isn't rates, but the moronic guarantee without strings attached. This is classic privatization -> regulatory capture. The government should just fund public schools and private schools can go fend for themselves. > And finally, something I think is true but haven't worked out all the math. It's not lower interest rates that stimulate the economy, but the act of lowering them. Certainly monetary policy is overhyped and not neutral as the neoclassical ones believe. (Anybody with half a brain can see that the COVID stimulus payments had affect that a decade of QE didn't.) Maybe check out https://jwmason.org/slackwire/the-natural-rate-of-interest/ https://jwmason.org/slackwire/the-natural-rate-of-interest/ I think that is pretty close to what you are saying. If there is no natural rate, but many different equilibria, then we do care more about changes to the rate than the rate itself in some sense.