The New York Times editorialists, who only three days ago were referring to a "housing bubble" and who as recently as 2007 were complaining about an "affordable housing crisis" have now found a new crisis: "Figures released last week show that after four months of gains, home prices flattened in October." This, the Times declares, is "unfortunate," "grim," and "bad." After all, the Times declares, "The economy is hard pressed to function, let alone thrive, when house prices are falling." That's just silly. If housing prices rise inexorably without ever flattening, eventually there will be a bubble and an affordable housing crisis. While falling prices are unfortunate, grim, and bad for homeowners, they are good for those who are renting and hoping to find homes they can eventually afford to buy. They are good for speculators betting against the housing market. A public policy designed to assure that the price of a certain asset always keeps going up is almost sure to create a bubble in that asset class and to make it hard to afford for people who don't already have one. The sentence "The economy is hard pressed to function, let alone thrive, when house prices are falling" makes it sound like house prices are something that exists outside of the context of the economy, rather than being part of the rest of the economy and, like everything else, having prices that are set by the interaction of supply and demand. Meanwhile, as John Stossel has observed, "'Crisis'" is the friend of the State." If too-high housing prices are a crisis and too-low housing prices are a crisis, maybe the government and, by extension, its policy advisers over at the Times editorial page should get out of the business of trying to make sure that housing prices are exactly perfect, because it's an un-achievable task. The best mechanism for finding a perfect price is allowing buyers and sellers the freedom to make contractual exchanges.
The Times and the Housing 'Crisis'
https://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/01/the-times-and-the-housing-crisis
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