Housing and energy could both be dirt cheap and the money would still go to rich people. The problem from a living standards point of view is the cost which is due to a lack of supply. Get the cost down and poor people would be able to save and buy assets and become wealthy.
> People aren’t able to save because their money is spent on housing and energy
----
> Housing and energy could both be dirt cheap and the money would still go to rich people.
----
So the working class is being forced to give the wealthy all of their money. On prices set by the wealthy and coupled with policies encouraged by the wealth. And if the wealthy just stopped being so greedy and took a small hit, everything would be fine. And the wealthy aren't the problem?
My problem with “it’s the wealthy” is it is just nebulous and not thought through - typical populist rubbish. Whereas the stuff I’m talking about like the planning and energy infrastructure are very direct and would actually make a difference. We could revisit the green belt, upzone areas in London, set much larger minimum house sizes. We’re miles behind on energy infrastructure and infrastructure is just more expensive here because we allow the cost paperwork to get into the hundreds of millions. If you look at France they have cheaper energy, cheaper homes and more housing supply and much much more people owning second homes. So again it’s not the rich it is our crappy policies.
A fair chunk of the energy spend goes to multinationals and ultimately sovereign wealth funds. The housing goes to rentiers: banks for the most part, but also landlords and other investment entities that are living nicely off the income without having to do very much - parasites in other words.
