I recently started reading Marginal Revolution. This recent post, called "Illegal Immigrants Didn't Break the Housing Market; Bad Policy Did," covers many of the things that we talk about on this blog:

If “fixing” housing scarcity means blaming whichever group is politically convenient, you end up cycling through targets: illegal immigrants first, then legal immigrants (as Canada has done), then the children of immigrants, then wealthy buyers, then racial or religious minorities. Indeed, one wonders if the blame is the goal.

If you actually want to solve the problem of housing scarcity, stop the scapegoating and start supporting the disliked people who are actually working to reduce scarcity: the developers. Loosen zoning and cut the rules that choke what can be built. Redirect political energy away from trying to demolish imagined enemies and instead build, baby, build.

As a developer, I naturally chose the most self-serving excerpt to quote, but that doesn't mean that what Alex Tabarrok wrote is incorrect. Blame is, of course, the goal. Such is the reality of politics. Here's another excerpt, this one from one of Howard Mark's investing memos:

I've always gotten a kick out of oxymorons — phrases that are internally contradictory — such as "jumbo shrimp" and "common sense." I'll add "political reality" to the list. The world of politics has its own, altered reality, in which economic reality often seems not to impinge. No choices need to be made: candidates can promise it all. And there are no consequences. If something might have negative consequences in the real world, politicians seem to feel free to ignore them.

This is why immigrants are blamed, foreign buyers are banned, rent freezes are proposed (counterproductive), and we continue to do very little to actually fix traffic congestion in our cities, among an endless list of other things. The real solutions are simply too politically inconvenient; it's more advantageous to blame scapegoats.

Meanwhile, our problems persist.

I woke up this morning to an email from one of our partners with a link to this article talking about a three-storey, 10-unit housing project (plus garden suite) that was just refused by the Committee of Adjustment here in Toronto. It's five minutes from a major subway station. Why?

Because it's always easier to blame someone else.

Cover photo by Frames For Your Heart on Unsplash