[michaelochurch]

We need to do a few things. I agree on shutting down the NIMBYs. It's zero-sum activity that hurts young families and contributes to the generational screw-over that Generation X and Millennials have experienced.

We also need to block nonresident foreigners from buying real estate here. They can stay in hotels. Until housing is cheaper than 0.35% of the median annual income per SF (at that level, you can afford 1200-1500 SF on a median income) it is a crime to let these nonresident foreigners (often laundering dirty money) buy properties that will go uninhabited for 11 months each year.

Finally, there's a capital allocation problem. Look at Silicon Valley itself. It takes in passive capital from all over the country-- teachers' pension funds from Ohio, firefighter AD&D funds from Georgia-- and distributes the job-creation in a tiny geographic area: Silicon Valley. Jobs disappear in Ohio and Georgia, while NorCal booms. Now, the passive capitalists would be fine with this if that were a working investment strategy. It's not, though: VCs have been losing money for more than a decade. The concentration of funds into the Bay Area (which makes that area unaffordable, because housing creation is always slower than job creation) has more to do with feudalism than any sound investment policy.