We're told that sky-high rents and home prices are the result of a shortage of housing. The solution is simple: build more housing.

This sounds obvious, but the reality is the problem isn't a shortage, it's the concentration of housing ownership in the top 10%, the same 10% who own the majority of other income-producing assets like stocks and bonds.

The problem is the wealthy are hoarding housing as just another income-producing asset to accumulate because the central bank / economic-financial policies of the past few decades have favored capital over labor and the already-wealthy who bought assets when they were cheap.

The trillions of dollars in new credit have been asymmetrically distributed: the most creditworthy with the highest incomes and collateral are the top 10%, so they scooped up most of the credit. Since real estate is so heavily dependent on credit (20% down and 80% borrowed, not like stocks and bonds), this massive influx of low-cost credit led to the top 10% accumulating investment housing.