It's much easier to earn $80k by not paying rent though. If we assume that the Chinese landlords had a well paying job they still had to spend years saving up money. A tenant can just decide to stop paying at any time if he knows he is immune from the court.
One reason why the housing market is such a shitshow is that there is antagonism between both sides. Tenants hate landlords, landlords hate tenants. Nobody will ever consider doing favors because the other side betrayed them.
I guess if you define yourself as only a "restaurant employee" and never consider doing anything else you might be right. The thing about humans is that they are flexible, adaptable, and creative and can do many different kinds of tasks.
You don't get handed a random job by the job fairy and then that's the only thing you ever get to do for the rest of your life.
Yes, and that person did not blindly consign themselves to their fate as a "restaurant employee". They acted and are also a landlord, because people are not one-dimensional characters that fill in the background in your worldview. They are people in their own right with their own ambitions and plans and are capable of directing their own lives. They don't have to live within whatever narrow conception you happen to have about their current employment.
One reason why the housing market is such a shitshow is that there is antagonism between both sides. Tenants hate landlords, landlords hate tenants. Nobody will ever consider doing favors because the other side betrayed them.