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The Forum > Article Comments > The truth about the US housing market > Comments

The truth about the US housing market : Comments

By Leith van Onselen, published 7/1/2011

The US offers a controlled experiment that shows housing booms and busts are caused by rationed supply.

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Your article highlights the obvious, but why not relate the examples to the relevance of Australian conditions. The reference line "Do" (normal) in Australian Capital cities is in a permanent state of boom. Sydney for example, is perpetually constrained in development by scarcity of land, a factor that cannot be altered by any re- regulation of Government.

The housing industry in Australia as other Capitalist countries are aimed at making people rich at the expense of a sub-section of the population who will be capitalised on to provide necessary upward pressure of demand to achieve this aim. The same sub-section, while waiting for the mythical dream of home ownership to eventuate, will be exploited by that other vulture of Capitalism, the landlord. Meanwhile, in the subterranean of the sub-section are the ever-growing ranks of the homeless.

Capitalism, for an ever increasing minority of the population, should be acknowledged as a dismal failure in its ability to provide the basics of life with enough consistency and acceptable affordability, to protect its citizens from deprivation of food and shelter.

What we urgently need in Australia is sympathetic leadership by “genuine statesmen of politics” to acknowledge the pain and suffering of depravation in our society due to the systemic failure of Capitalism to provide the population with opportunities to resist its ever tightening claws of greed in daily life.
Posted by diver dan, Friday, 7 January 2011 8:55:46 AM
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So diver dan, what do you propose to replace our Capitalism with?
It's all so easy to complain about something but complaints are just annoying noise unless you can provide (or help to provide) a solution/recommendation to your claimed problem.

If the land and house prices are too expansive in Sydney for your budget, then here is something your could do.... move somewhere else. There are plenty of towns and cities in Australia where you can still buy/pay-off a house/unit even on a below average wage. The vast majority people in Australia can afford to buy a house within their life time if they are prepared to move somewhere else. These houses might not be in a captial city, but no-one has ever said that we have a right to live in a particluar city/town of our choosing.
Why do so many want to live in the capital cities anyway? Any community in Australia with over 50,000 people will have all the services that most would ever require. These localities will also provide jobs matching most people's skill sets. Someone would have to have a very specialized skill if they couldn't find a job matching their skills in a city with 50,000+. For those few people who can't find an appropriate job I would suggest that since their skill set is so specialized that they would be paid enough to be able to live in likes of Sydney anyway.

When you sit down and really think about it, you will realise that our version of Capitalism works in our society.

(By-the-way: I'm not saying here that all other economic systems don't/can't work, I'm just that for us at this point in time our system is working very well. In Australia we are a *lot* better off then those in most other countries of the world)
Posted by thinkabit, Friday, 7 January 2011 10:41:19 AM
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Very good article
Australia has much the same problem. Land that is within an hours drive of Sydney is being locked up under the guise of environmentalism. This land could relieve the pressure that has been created by manipulative government who foolishly follow along with a policy of smart growth. This seems to be a world wide problem that has been created by bureaucrats who really cannot forsee the consequences. True capitalism can only exist if government butt out. What we seem to be living under is a government controlled socialist type of capitalism.
Control freaks run the world and justify their mistakes.
Posted by 4freedom, Monday, 10 January 2011 10:01:18 AM
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Green labors affordable housing is now being washed down the river and out to sea for everyone to view.
Posted by Dallas, Sunday, 16 January 2011 11:05:21 PM
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