[FirmwareBurner]

>Maybe there's some middle ground

Maybe there is, but human history proves we can't easily reach a equilibrium where everyone has it equally good, due to human greed, envy, cronyism and corruption, making any kind of equality just a fairytale utopia.

So we just bounce between extremes because as always, few people strive have it good and the rest get screwed over in order to pay for the privileges of the select few. There will always be haves and have-nots, no matter how many thumbs the government puts on the scales to try to balance things out for everyone which only breaks things for the worst as they distort economic reality.

Meanwhile from the numbers I gathered, despite the "evil capitalism", statistically by most metrics, Americans enjoy the highest purchasing power for home ownership in the developed western world by a large margin. So Americans love to complain too much, but the truth is by the numbers, most of the world has it much worse than they do.

  1. Demographia International Housing Affordability | Lower median multiple = higher affordability (2025 Edition)
  Singapore  4.2
  United States  4.8
  Ireland  5.1
  Canada  5.4
  United Kingdom  5.6
  New Zealand  7.7
  Australia  9.7

  2. World Population Review: Housing Affordability Index | Higher index = higher purchasing power (2024 Data)
  United States  3.3
  Denmark  2.1
  Belgium  2.1
  Ireland  1.8
  Luxembourg  1.8
  Norway  1.7
  Sweden  1.7
  Finland  1.7
  Spain  1.7
  Netherlands  1.7
  Germany  1.5
  Switzerland  1.5

  3. Numbeo Property Prices Index | Lower ratio = higher affordability (2025 Mid-Year)
  United States  3.44
  Germany  8.5
  United Kingdom  8.71
  Italy  9.04
  Canada  9.45
  France  9.89
  Japan  11.34

[awongh]

I haven't dug into how they average these numbers out, but Singapore is especially interesting because their housing market is closer to just NY, SF or LA than it is to the general average of the USA.

In that sense they're doing really well. Actually their system is the hybrid market/subsidized one I theorized about above.

[FirmwareBurner]

That's why Singapore is only top on one ranking and absent in others while the US is consistently at the top of housing affordability in most rankings, probably because US is a lot bigger than just NY, LA and SF.

[Refreeze5224]

I firmly disagree that history proves this. The history of certain countries, certain economic systems, and certain systems of social organization have proven inequitable, but most people are unfamiliar with the many systems that have proven workable, but have not provided for a small hierarchical cadre of people with coercive power over others. It's not surprising that this sort of thing is not taught within a capitalist or statist system, but they certainly do exist, and have throughout human history, which is much longer than the last 500 years or so existence of hierarchical states and capitalism.

See David Graeber's The Dawn of Everything for a deep dive into some of the many successful systems of human societal organization.

[FirmwareBurner]

You can disagree but the numbers don't lie.

[fragmede]

Of course they do. There's a reason why the saying is "lies, damn lies, and statistics".

[FirmwareBurner]

Can you prove those numbers lie? Because then what's the point of science and statistics? Should we just argue based on vibes then? Where does that get us when we start the conversation with the assumption that all data is always false?

[fragmede]

Someone's always trying to sell you something. Just because they use numbers, doesn't mean you should necessarily buy what they're pushing.

[FirmwareBurner]

What are those numbers trying to sell you?