[taylodl]

The problem is the Fed is using the only tool they have, the federal funds rate, to control the housing market. Yes, it has the effect of cooling the market but it doesn't solve the actual problem, actually it exacerbates it: there aren't enough housing units where they're needed. That's a supply problem. It's the insufficient supply that's the root cause of housing prices rising. The irony is raising the federal funds rate makes it more expensive to build housing so it tends to cool down construction and thus further constraining supply.

What have we actually accomplished? Locking people out of home ownership. But the Fed only has one tool and they're using it to the best of their ability.

[dragonwriter]

> The problem is the Fed is using the only tool they have, the federal funds rate, to control the housing market.

No, they aren't, they are using it to control aggregate consumer prices and employment, their actual mission.

There are institutions with finer grained powers whose job is to manage the economy on a more fine-grained level (Congress at the federal level, plus states generally more locally), and the problem, insofar as there is one, with the management of the housing market is their (in)action, not the Fed.

[mcny]

This is why we the millennials and more importantly gen z must vote and actively and loudly participate in the political process.

Right now, the government is preventing wages from going up in a (futile) attempt to keep prices low for retirees and soon to be retirees who are on fixed income. This is NOT what we want. We want wages to go up as corporate profits go up.

[nojvek]

I want prices to come down, I want affordability to go up . Who cares if wages go up and prices go up even faster.

The question is not what is the price of a house, but how many hours does a median wage worker need to work to afford their house, their car, their utilities, education, healthcare e.t.c

US is slowly becoming a zero sum game as the growth shrinks to ~1%. We need to increase the pie.

[taylodl]

> US is slowly becoming a zero sum game as the growth shrinks to ~1%. We need to increase the pie.

That's what happens in a consumer-driven economy. The idiots never once stopped to ask themselves where the consumers get their money.