Long-term rental listings jumped nearly 30% after the ban, that’s far from ‘no effect.’ For a comparison, that’s about double what Austin was getting YoY for most of its massive building boom.

Right, the list of counterproductive things we already tried is too long to write down in this little box. Thanks for the reminder, though.

I didn't say "impossible", I said "more difficult".

Well that makes sense doesn't it? Shortage of X, but we don't want it to be expensive -> add some non-monetary costs of acquiring X.

Queues on the iPhone release day, for example - the price of the phone is not just the money you pay, but also all the time you spend waiting in line.

That is a temporary problem which Apple routinely solves in the long run by... making enough iPhones for all the people who want one.

I.e. exactly what we should be doing with housing.

New housing is subject to cost disease. Now exacerbated because the off the books workers the industry depends on are being kicked out. You can't just materialize houses without the labor to make them.

Then reduce minimum costs. Let 50 people share an empty lot and put up a slum made of wooden planks from the hardware store. They won't allow this because it'd make house prices decrease.

That plus a history of people dying from building things not to code and trying to live in it, plus the externalized costs of having to put out the ensuing fire due to a non-electrician wiring the thing.

Other than that, spot on.

I think US immigration policy is pretty shitty, so no argument from me there.

Oh well, when you put it that way … Christ on a rubber crutch.