[onli]

What? Why? Economically possible would mean that our society is not productive enough, that it doesn't have the capacity, to produce small little houses for everyone who wishes one. I doubt that is true in any modern economical system.

[jinx_xnij]

It isn't about the demand not being there, nor the supply lacking. The issue is the distribution of wealth and how much the poorest workers in America get paid and the insane cost of living associated with the "American Dream"

[ctdonath]

Living a dream can be very expensive.

America is a big place. There are a lot of places suitable for living out different dreams. Some (many?) dreams are just not conducive to some (many?) situations/locations, others are.

Buying into dreams promoted by the wealthy are expensive. A lot of what we consider normal, even vital, is the result of accepting advertising's message; wasn't long ago such was considered luxurious, even impossible.

Living [sub]urban lifestyles requires reliance upon others for pretty much everything, with many layers of middlemen taking a cut for profit & raising prices; that's not a condemnation, just observation of reality. Shorten the distance & layers between source & use.

[astrodust]

Owning a small house in a marginal neighborhood is not an impossible dream.

[enko]

It is not true, of course.

Just once I would like the authors of these "it's just not economically possible for X to have Y" to be referring to themselves in group X.

[ubernostrum]

Economics is subject to the Pauli Exclusion Principle.

[treerock]

Okay, call me dumb, but I don't get it. I looked up wikipedia, and I still don't get it. What, in economics, is analogous to fermions and quantum state?

[ubernostrum]

Assertion: In any modern economical system, capacity exists to produce small houses for "everyone who wishes one".

Disproof: For certain possible values of "everyone", the Pauli Exclusion Principle prevents the simultaneous existence of a sufficient number of distinct small houses.

[wavefunction]

This is only true because classical economics are predicated on scarcity, much of which is artificial and shared inequally and inequitably.

[bennyg]

Clint Eastwood's Pauli Exclusion Principle:

This energy state ain't big enough for the both of us.

[homeomorphic]

Tell me, what in economics plays the role of identical particles?

[randallsquared]

Relative economic position of actors? Not sure if that's what ubernostrum was referring to.

[VLM]

Read grimtrigger's story in the HN comments. You'll get the idea rather quickly.