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I’ve developed a heuristic where anytime I hear phrases like “affordable housing”, “make college affordable”, “affordable healthcare” I simply translate it to

I’ve developed a heuristic where anytime I hear phrases like “affordable housing”, “make college affordable”, “affordable healthcare” I simply translate it to “unaffordable”. Inevitably when these become government programs, they simply throw money at the problem without addressing fundamental supply and demand issues and accomplish very little except drive up prices. Then, when investors see prices going up and to the left, they rationally throw money at it in a way to make even more money, which drives up prices even more. There’s so many charts like https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pricechanges.png https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pricechanges... that clearly show the trend. It’s insane. There’s a really good book I recommend called “Systems Bible” [https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Bible-Beginners-Guide-Large/dp/0961825170/ https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Bible-Beginners-Guide-Large/d...] that beautifully articulates this phenomenon in a way that applies to government policy, software systems, management, org structures, or any complex system of people or machines.

walkhour 5y ago
It's insane how these once affordable services like healthcare or university, that you could pay with a summer job, now take years off your life. You may enjoy this article [0]. To quote from it: > In the past fifty years, education costs have doubled, college costs have dectupled, health insurance costs have dectupled, subway costs have at least dectupled, and housing costs have increased by about fifty percent. US health care costs about four times as much as equivalent health care in other First World countries; US subways cost about eight times as much as equivalent subways in other First World countries. Of course adjusting for inflation. Thank you for the book recommendation. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...

walkhour 5y ago

It's insane how these once affordable services like healthcare or university, that you could pay with a summer job, now take years off your life. You may enjoy this article [0]. To quote from it: > In the past fifty years, education costs have doubled, college costs have dectupled, health insurance costs have dectupled, subway costs have at least dectupled, and housing costs have increased by about fifty percent. US health care costs about four times as much as equivalent health care in other First World countries; US subways cost about eight times as much as equivalent subways in other First World countries. Of course adjusting for inflation. Thank you for the book recommendation. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...