We can't afford higher salaries, and then there's the demographic cliff in 2025, because couples stopped having children in 2008, they couldn't afford it. (The

We can't afford higher salaries, and then there's the demographic cliff in 2025, because couples stopped having children in 2008, they couldn't afford it. (The upside is that our slim budget prevents us from getting into debt by engaging in stupid construction projects to attract students, we can award scholarships instead.) And we can still fill vacancies with locals who are living with roommates or their parents. You can't fix a stuff shortage by throwing money at it, no matter what economists tell you. The housing shortage is the real-world equivalent of stock buybacks - in theory the increased stock price boosts investment and thus innovation, but in practice we get Boeing and Intel. Same with housing. The higher prices should in theory draw more suppliers in, but in practice the only supply that grows is the supply of NIMBYS wanting to "preserve home values" to profit from the intolerable status quo.