I thought we were past this as a country, I really honestly did. Now the new Minister of Housing in Canada (the former mayor of Vancouver) is denying that house prices need to go down. Keep Urbanit...
and try to keep it stagnant for a long time so that incomes and economics get a chance to catch up.
Is there any reason to think that is at all likely ever to happen? Incomes will surely only rise if employers are prepared to pay people more, and all the signs are that employers, particularly large ones, will do pretty much anything before they’ll pay ordinary employees more.
I agree, it’s not fair or ideal. We face a huge challenge on the price and income side of things and it is not an area that is easy to solve. That’s why I think it’s smart that he’s focusing on the things that are (relatively) easier to solve, like creating more supply of more right-size, right-place, budget-oriented homes, and providing more access to cheap debt so that people can afford both those budget-oriented homes and the even more inflated prices in the rest of the market, even if they don’t get the additional income. I think those are not only achievable goals, but are going to improve the situation in a measurable way, even if it doesn’t “solve” it in the ideal sense and still leaves Canadians with a lot of (partially government-backed) debt.
To paraphrase Batman, it’s not the solution we deserve, but it is the solution we need right now.
I don’t know what his plan is on the longer term for dealing with Canada’s low productivity and lagging incomes, but I’m looking forward to finding out.
Is there any reason to think that is at all likely ever to happen? Incomes will surely only rise if employers are prepared to pay people more, and all the signs are that employers, particularly large ones, will do pretty much anything before they’ll pay ordinary employees more.
Yeah this is not technically impossible, but extremely unlikely.
I agree, it’s not fair or ideal. We face a huge challenge on the price and income side of things and it is not an area that is easy to solve. That’s why I think it’s smart that he’s focusing on the things that are (relatively) easier to solve, like creating more supply of more right-size, right-place, budget-oriented homes, and providing more access to cheap debt so that people can afford both those budget-oriented homes and the even more inflated prices in the rest of the market, even if they don’t get the additional income. I think those are not only achievable goals, but are going to improve the situation in a measurable way, even if it doesn’t “solve” it in the ideal sense and still leaves Canadians with a lot of (partially government-backed) debt.
To paraphrase Batman, it’s not the solution we deserve, but it is the solution we need right now.
I don’t know what his plan is on the longer term for dealing with Canada’s low productivity and lagging incomes, but I’m looking forward to finding out.