Canadian Politics Today

I don't often agree with her on much but I think Jen Gerson is right about this here

Every political party claims to want to fix the "housing problem" but not one has the balls to tell the truth about it. Housing isn't a "problem" in Canada. Housing is an asset class — and one that must be protected and nurtured regardless of the long-term consequences to family formation and social cohesion. No government is ever going to "fix" housing because the whole shady underbelly of our economy needs "housing" to stay exactly as it is: an inflated asset bubble with prices rivalling the most dynamic cities on earth.

The first mistake most of us make is that we think of a house in entirely the wrong way. We imagine that a house is something that contains a few walls and a roof and is a place to live and raise kids in, and host a few family and friends over for dinner. Maybe if we have a "house" we can enjoy a lifestyle that exists as a pale shadow to what the typical middle-class kid enjoyed 30 years ago.

This is wrong. You are wrong.

A house is not a home. It is a legal reality that entitles you to limited use of a particular spot of land. Houses aren’t places to live. They’re an investment. They don't exist to actually shelter people from the cold, they exist to juice the economy and keep the elderly afloat on paper gains well into their retirement years. The shelter part is incidental. You could live in a cardboard box in certain lots in Vancouver and be a millionaire on paper. It’s all the same to the bank and the government.

Oh and this is exactly what I was driving at in another thread:

Our Boomer got his and that's what matters. We have an entire government apparatus set up to protect that guy. The guy with the money and the guy who votes. The rich-on-paper people are happy, and as long as everybody gets a seat somewhere on this pyramid, then everybody else should be happy too. Sure, there's a growing financial strain on the poors sitting at the bottom of the "property ladder," but as long as we're keeping those at the top fat, and fed, and their retirement plans solvent, so what? The young chumps at the back will be able to work their way up in time. Probably.