Worried that housing costs so much?

Don't worry. The government is all over it.

Annoyed at the high cost of housing? Wondering who to blame? Greedy fat cats? Or maybe you think it’s just (sigh) inflation, and jeez… whaddayagonnado?

Nah. There’s a much more pernicious proximate cause. You guessed it, government. Take a moment to watch this Canadian politician talk about it. It’s just a bit over a minute long and it’s very worthwhile. I’ll wait.

Welcome back! Here’s another look at some of the highlights of that rant:

"Vancouver, Canada is now the third most expensive housing market in the world"

"Toronto has the worst housing bubble on planet earth"

"We have the most mortgage debt by far of any G7 country"

"This is INSANE" "What is the number one cost to building a new home in Vancouver, Canada today?" "Government permits"

"Government represents 60% of the cost of a newly built home in Vancouver today"

"Both of them [Vancouver and Toronto] more expensive than New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles"

I haven’t fact-checked that guy’s claims, but I’d bet (at even money) that they are true, or very close to it. They are certainly directionally true. Far too much of the insanely high cost of housing is caused by government.

Government has so many awful ways to increase the cost of a basic necessity of existence — housing. And I bet where you live you’ll find all the layers of government (municipal, county, state, federal [& coming soon, UN!]) employing them all.

On top of those (ahem) “sensible” permits and fees, you have zoning restrictions, government-owned land, more “sensible” regulations, taxes, tortious and retroactive mandates, and whatever goofy edicts a governor or mayor or councilcritter decides to decree on any given day. And oh yeah, the Fed can jack up interest rates any time they like — and I haven’t even mentioned Washington DC yet.

All that restricts supply the supply of housing.

And as we learned in the housing boom of the early 2000s, government has a bunch of pernicious ways to distort the market to artificially increase demand as well.

Supply artificially low. Demand artificially high. Result? Sky-high housing prices.

So yeah, Fed-fueled inflation is part of the reason for this nightmare, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s long past time we just passively assumed that our leaders (at all levels of government) are just “doing their jobs”.

No. They are screwing up and they are screwing us over.

Get involved. Pay attention. Cast your votes wisely.

And maybe stash some pitchforks and torches for when it becomes obvious that the voting strategy isn’t working.

Naturally,

Adam

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