Over the past decade, the biggest financial pressure on farmers isn't volatile input costs like fertilizer, but rather the doubling of land prices. With crop futures prices stagnant since 2016, land rent can now constitute up to half of the total cost to grow an acre of corn, creating a severe, long-term margin squeeze.

Homeownership is the primary vehicle for intergenerational wealth creation in the United States. The average household has four times more wealth tied up in their home than in stock market investments, highlighting the severe economic impact of declining ownership rates.

Oppenheim advises against buying real estate in markets like Austin or Miami where developers can easily expand outwards or upwards. This lack of scarcity prevents long-term appreciation. He recommends investing only where land is finite and development is difficult.

Policies intended to curb luxury development, such as a construction freeze, have a counterintuitive effect. They transform the existing luxury housing stock into a limited, finite resource. This artificial scarcity dramatically drives up prices for those assets, making them 'gold' and potentially worsening inequality.

In a long-term bull market like North Texas, a single tract of land was sold 13 times before its final development. Each successive speculative buyer made significant money, illustrating how value is created incrementally over decades as a region matures, long before any construction begins.

Fixed-principal assets like treasury bills are risky long-term due to unlimited government supply, which erodes purchasing power. "Positional assets" with a fixed supply, like gold or prime real estate, retain value better over time as they can't be diluted through issuance.

The value of prime US farmland has decoupled from its agricultural cash-flow potential. It now trades like gold, with investors accepting low cap rates (around 2%) in anticipation of high appreciation (6%+). This makes outright ownership nearly impossible for farmers, as the investment can't be justified by operational returns.

Drew Warshaw frames the "Not In My Backyard" (NIMBY) phenomenon as a rational, if selfish, economic decision. Incumbent homeowners are incentivized to restrict new housing supply because basic economics suggest that increasing supply could decrease the value of their primary asset: their home.

Homeowners and local governments block new development, creating artificial scarcity that drives up prices, similar to how luxury brands like LVMH restrict supply to increase value. This "LVMH-ing" of housing makes it unaffordable for younger generations and limits economic mobility.