Meaningful affordability cannot be achieved with superficial fixes. It requires long-term, structural solutions: building 5-10 million more homes to address housing costs (40% of CPI), implementing universal healthcare to lower medical expenses, expanding public higher education, and aggressive antitrust enforcement to foster competition.

While deregulation has made consumer goods like TVs drastically cheaper, essential family needs like healthcare, education, and housing have seen costs skyrocket. This suggests market dynamics that work for consumer electronics fail to provide affordable necessities for the average family.

Rising calls for socialist policies are not just about wealth disparity, but symptoms of three core failures: unaffordable housing, fear of healthcare-driven bankruptcy, and an education system misaligned with job outcomes. Solving these fundamental problems would alleviate the pressure for radical wealth redistribution far more effectively.

Runaway costs in education, housing, and healthcare stem from government intervention. When the government promises to provide a service (e.g., student loans), it becomes a massive "buy-only" force with no price sensitivity, eliminating natural market forces and causing costs to balloon.

There are two distinct economies operating simultaneously. Those with a capital base (equities, real estate) can use financial engineering and leverage to thrive. Meanwhile, individuals relying solely on wages are being crushed by inflation, as their income fails to keep pace with rising costs.

As homeownership becomes unattainable without generational wealth, social mobility is stalling. The growing gap between asset owners and renters is calcifying, transforming the American economic structure from a meritocracy into a caste-like system where your financial starting point determines your destiny.

Contrary to most industries that see technological gains, housing construction has become less efficient. This stagnation is a key, often overlooked driver of housing affordability issues, as the fundamental cost to build has not decreased with technology.

The current housing market is not a cyclical bubble that will pop, but a structural crisis. It's a permanent collapse of opportunity driven by policy failures, corporate consolidation, and demographic incentives that have created deep, lasting scarcity, fundamentally changing the nature of homeownership in America.

Our economy has fractured into two. One part, driven by technology (electronics, media), is hyper-deflationary. The other, dominated by regulation that constrains supply (housing, education, healthcare), is hyper-inflationary. This explains why 'fun' gets cheaper but life's necessities become unaffordable.