I mean, wages have been increasing at a fairly reasonable rate related to inflation, the cost of most things have gone down relative to incomes with the big exception being housing.

https://cepr.net/publications/in-the-good-old-days-one-fourth-of-income-went-to-food/ https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/home-price-income-ratio-reaches-record-high-0

Based on that, I’d say you’re wrong that it’s wage appreciation that’s the issue, it’s definitely housing costs that are the problem.

You really don’t understand finances at all.

Rich people borrow money at low rates all the time, in order to make larger returns on other investments. If I borrow 500,000 at 4%, and then invest it, I can make a lot of money. For example, If I had borrowed against my property in 2024 and invested it in the S&P 500, I would have made a 22.3% return, minus the 4%, so 18% profit on the value I pulled out of my house. There’s obviously risk involved, but this is not an uncommon practice. You can even re-invest it in real estate itself by borrowing the money to buy more properties.

Proportion doesn’t matter at all, If I had bought a million dollar house, and sell it for 1.7 million (70% increase) and downsize to a $600k house that went up to $1020k (also 70%) in that same time, I’ve made 700-420=$280k more than if I had just bought the smaller house to begin with, minus a bit of interest difference (much less than the $280k)

You say that renting it out is the problem, but both of the options above are also generating money by stripping wealth from other people (whoever buys the house, or whoever is buying houses that cause my house to appreciate in value)

Housing appreciation IS the problem, without housing appreciation, housing wouldn’t have become unaffordable in the first place and we wouldn’t be complaining about the current cost of living issues.

In order for us to have affordable housing, property cannot appreciate faster than wages. Otherwise over time, it will ALWAYS become unaffordable.

You clearly don’t understand this, so I’ll make it even simpler for you.

Here’s the City of Victoria tax rates for the last 7 years https://wowa.ca/taxes/victoria-property-tax

The property tax rate for Victoria was higher in 2018 than it was in 2025

Meanwhile, property values are up about 25-30% in that same time period.

You can even see the rate drop significantly in 2022 when housing prices spiked during COVID, despite the City of Victoria budget not going down.

You’re simply wrong that house value appreciation leads to higher property taxes, it’s increases in the municipal budget that leads to increases in property taxes.

Literally trying to teach fake history for political reasons.

One of the easiest ways is to determine which industries are most prone to the failures of the market.

Things that are inherently monopolies like roads, or power lines or things that don’t allow reasonable consumer information/choice like healthcare, etc.

Why do people keep saying that I can’t get that money out of the house?

• I can use the equity as an asset to borrow money at low interest rates compared to unsecured loans.
• I can sell the property and move to a lower cost of living location, or even just a smaller home if I wanted.
• I can rent part of the property out at a rate commensurate with it’s current value.

And, to top off your stupid assumptions, you say my tax payments will increase. That’s not how property tax is calculated at all. People see “Taxes per 100k” and assume that if your house price goes up, so do the taxes. Instead, municipalities set a total budget, and just divide it by the total value of all the homes in the area to come up with something called the “Mill rate.” If the municipal budget doesn’t change year to year, and all the house prices go up evenly, the mill rate simply goes down.

Individuals voting to keep the value of their home from dropping down to reasonable levels ARE the problem. That’s almost all home owners.

I still think that regulated capitalism works best for certain industries, and socialism works best for others.

It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing choice.

I’ve made a million dollars in appreciation on my home in the last 15 years.

Are you telling me just because I own one home, that I’m not part of the problem?

That’s observablt false. Capitalism has lead to a massive improvement in living conditions for countries that have implemented it

Yes it also has downsides, but pretending it doesn’t do anything good is rediculous.

The billionaire fortunes pale in comparison to the trillions of dollars of unearned appreciation owned by regular home owners.

It’s the unearned part that matters most, at least capital investment has some benefit to the economy. Real estate appreciation adds literally zero value to the economy.

So? What’s the problem with that being the goal?

There are options for letting even single parents raise their own children that do not require that parent to work.

Money is far more important than principles. -Modern Christianity

Why does everyone want dual-parent working households?

Why not let parents raise their own kids?

Better? Define better…

There was still plenty of poverty in the 90s, and the violence situation was actually worse than it is currently.

Are you saying that Monkeys aren’t monkeys? Or that we aren’t greedy? Or that Monkeys aren’t greedy?

It’s absolutely accurate, go walk through a mall, see how many people buying shit they don’t need just to show off to their friends.

He’s not wrong.

We’re still a bunch of greedy monkeys, and no amount of education or “proper parenting” can fully override the base biology all the time for every person.

As much as it would be great to be better, we aren’t even close.

May is doing a lot of heavy lifting, it’s more about how many at this point.

It’s a good thing Trump didn’t pay attention in high school then.