"People can run all the clever lines they like about how many of the people in those bottom quintiles have things now that comparable people in 1981 didn’t have. But it is doesn’t excuse the entirely manmade disaster of the housing markets in New Zealand and Australia" #QotD

"In 1981, when our societies are as whole were substantially materially poorer than they are now, (Australia’s real GDP per capita was about 80 per cent higher in 2016 than in 1981), young people at the lower end of the income distribution was just as likely to own their own home as those at the upper end of the income distribution. But now people at the bottom at less than half as likely to own their own place. In a well-functioning market that simply wouldn’t have happened. But we – and Australia – having housing and urban land markets rigged by central and local government politicians and their officials, and the people at the bottom are the ones who how most severely and adversely affected.
    "A decent society has to be judged, in considerable part, by how it treats the poorest and most vulnerable among us. People can run all the clever lines they like about how many of the people in those bottom quintiles have things now that comparable people in 1981 didn’t have. But it is doesn’t excuse the entirely manmade disaster of the housing markets in New Zealand and Australia ..."
          ~ Michael Reddell, from his post 'Housing policy failures bear heavily on the poor'
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