Comment by rayiner
1 day ago
> the actual reason is neither of those things. It's because not enough housing was built.
The supply demand equation has two sides. If you give a substantial chunk of the population way higher incomes in the face of only slowly growing supply, then you see skyrocketing prices. That’ll happen especially around the centers of knowledge work, which is exactly what you’re seeing.
The town where I grew up didn’t become unaffordable because of Jeff Bezos. It was because of all the Google engineers making 10x the median income.
> "Making everyone poor is fairer to the poor" is a curious idea that I've seen you express several times on HN recently…
> Given your previous opposition to communism and socialism I wonder why you have apparently changed your beliefs
I haven’t changed my beliefs. I don’t trust “socialists” who would use government machinery to artificially make people equal. But if technology and the market renders natural human inequality irrelevant, I’m all for that. Industrial machinery went a long way to making the physical strength differences between men and women irrelevant. That was a step forward. If AI renders natural differences in intelligence irrelevant too, that would also be a step forward.
> If you give a substantial chunk of the population way higher incomes in the face of only slowly growing supply, then you see skyrocketing prices
Alternatively, skyrocketing home prices meant companies had to offer higher and higher salaries to retain employees in a competitive labor market. If there had been enough housing perhaps salaries wouldn't be as high.
Even police officers and other public employees in the Bay Area make more money than the national median. It's mostly because of the high cost of living, and that is mostly because of expensive housing.