[kilotaras]

Housing theory of everything[0] strikes again.

Situation: Housing demand outstrips housing supply.

First order effect: housing prices go up

Second order effect: your FBI agents are now experiencing financial instability and worries

Third order effect: your FBI agents are now more susceptible to bribes

[0] https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every...

[bradleyjg]

It’s also worth noting where the money is going. It isn’t evaporating into the air.

Everyone talks about increasing numbers of parents helping their adult children from the angle of a moral failure by the children. Why doesn’t anyone stop to wonder why so many older people have so much money in the first place?

[nouveaux]

Older people have more money because they 1) Lived longer to accumulate wealth. 2) Housing was cheaper relative their income 30 years ago.

It's also worth noting that 50% of homeless people are over 50 [1]

[1] https://www.governing.com/urban/the-nations-homeless-populat...

[bradleyjg]

Housing was cheaper relative their income 30 years ago.

This wasn’t some cosmic accident. It was a result of policy choices.

[snird]

I expected the third step to be "shortage of FBI agents lead to deteriorated quality of service".

But what you described is far more scary.

And this is obviously true for all jobs that hold power. Combine it with bribery that can come from actors like Russia, Qatar, or China - this is an issue that must be fixed now.

[TimedToasts]

Fourth order effect: hiring more FBI agents to monitor the Third Orders. Fifth order effect: hiring more FBI agents to monitor the Fourth Orders. Sixth order effect: Eventually unemployment will be solved!

[woleium]

You are describing the TSA!

[selimthegrim]

This sounds like the Okhrana.

[red-iron-pine]

the original Deep State

[AstralStorm]

Housing supply is perfectly adequate. The prices are not, however.

[antiframe]

If that were true, then many units would be empty. In my city prices are high but vacancy is low. So, how are the prices too high? People are paying them. If there were more supply, prices would drop, but laws prevent increasing supply.

[qntnt]

> If that were true, then many units would be empty.

This is literally true. In SF as of 2023, there's roughly 60,000 vacant units. In New York as of 2021, apartments listed as available and unavailable for rent but also vacant was around 89,000.

To contrast, there was around 7,700 unhoused people in SF in 2023.

[i_like_waiting]

NY doesn't sound bad at all, there is roughly 10M people, given random estimate of 2 people per apartment, 89k, would be barely 2%

Edit: plus in NY you have all those HoA payments, so you pay really high price for not renting the place out

[master_crab]

Yeah 89k sounds very low actually.

Once you consider apartments in between leases, apartments in Reno, and anything else without a certificate of occupancy, that sounds like the right amount for a hot market with low vacancies

[readthenotes1]

The FBI has a long history of being a bad actor...

[HDThoreaun]

Everyone does over a long enough timespan