Why investors should not be worried about the expansion of the money supply causing inflation in four easy charts.

[iowagander]

@mrscott1026 Well I just disagree. Cities don’t “fill up”. They grow and contract organically. If you are living in a place that is too dense for you, it’s up to you to move someplace less dense (of which there are plenty).

 

[mrscott1026]

@iowagander If every squarefoot of a city were high rise apartments then it would be full. That would be the fundamental limit.

I suggest we can regulate cities to prevent them from becoming dystopian hellscapes of masses of people living on top of each other, and they would "fill up" sooner this way.

 

[iowagander]

@mrscott1026 Why the need to regulate? They self regulate already through natural movement of people. And your first sentence make no sense. There are all different types of high rises, of different heights and densities. Smaller high rises can be demolished to make way for larger ones without much inconvenience, if the demand is there.

NIMBYs such as yourself should just take some personal responsibility and move to a different area if organic growth has led to your current neighborhood being denser than your imagined ideal.

 

[inluvwithjc]

@mrscott1026 First of all, single family housing is catastrophically bad for the environment. Takes enormous amounts of resources to build, heat, cool, and repair, and requires way more clear-cutting. More medium density housing is an absolute necessity to prevent global warming and preserve biodiversity.

Second, this is a zero sum game. Less units might mean a more pleasant lifestyle and asset appreciation for you, but it means fiscal crucifixion for the rest of us. Are you surprised we care more about our own pocketbooks than yours? If you don't own real estate, NIMBY's are the enemy. Period.

Third, what on earth makes a single family home "nice?" Compare any McMansion to any modern high rise. The second is objectively nicer to look at. Roadkill is nicer to look at than a McMansion. The whole world is not going to be 1500 sq ft craftsman forever, and the quality of architecture is determined by the quality of the architect - not the type of housing.

Fourth, who said anything about high rises? Urban planners uniformly recommend medium density housing and transit in virtually all contexts.

 

[mrscott1026]

@inluvwithjc You are assuming population growth must continue, but at some point it must stop. When it stops I would prefer areas that still look open with trees rather than suffocating buildings surrounding everything.

Having SFH or high rises filling an area is equally bad for the environment; assuming different population sizes. Also, if we stick with SFH but have a smaller population then it would likely be better for the environment, as the true consuming engine is the person, not their house.

It’s nicer to live in a house with spacious area than to be stuffed in a high density housing.

 

[inluvwithjc]

@mrscott1026 Medium density housing is not suffocating. Five and six story mixed used buildings are a core part of the urban fabric. What, your ideal world is that everyone drives everywhere and shops in strip malls because there isn't enough density to support an actual city?

"Having SFH or high rises filling an area is equally bad for the environment; assuming different population sizes." Yeah, and for any given population size, SFH is disastrously worse. What do you think is going to happen, we'll build a million units and million people will just appear out of nowhere? And if population stops where it is now, we're still several million units short of where we need to be.

"It’s nicer to live in a house with spacious area than to be stuffed in a high density housing." Yeah, it's also nicer to be a billionaire than not. In real life, not everyone can have everything they want.

At least have enough empathy to understand why no one else cares about your "preferences." They actively hurt us. Again, this is a zero sum game: your interests are diametrically opposed to our own.

 

[mrscott1026]

@inluvwithjc What happens when you pack a city with your dense housing and population still grows?

You need to build yet denser housing! Or you are punishing others with fiscal crucifixion!

At some point society needs to state what the limit is, and I think we can do it sooner in order to maintain more free space.

Also, a city packed with dense housing consumes more than a city of similar square footage packed with suburbs. More people consumes more than less people. So ironically you would be hurting the planet more with your proposal. Isn’t that selfish?

 

[inluvwithjc]

@mrscott1026 "You need to build yet denser housing! Or you are punishing others with fiscal crucifixion!" Uh...no. You develop your transit networks, so that you can expand the number of downtown areas where people can reasonably live and work. Unlike building more SFH, which just creates more and more crippling commutes and drives up the costs of living within two hours of anywhere someone might actually work. I'm sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. Read about urban planning before having an opinion about it.

Also, are you unaware that there is literally no amount of people, no matter how little, where SFH is sustainable? Gas cars require gas, and electric cars require a ton of electricity. Where do you think this energy is supposed to come from, as energy resources get consumed?

Your last remark about cities of similar size makes no sense. Those people would just live somewhere else. I really don't understand how you think populations work. Are you under the impression that people who can't find affordable housing just immediately die? And that when we build housing, fully formed nuclear families move into it?

 

[tuhermano]

@mrscott1026 What are you talking about? Some of the most attractive cities in the world are centered around high rise apartments and condos. I live in the burbs and all people do is complain about the sprawl of single family houses.

 

[mrscott1026]

@tuhermano Then move there. All cities do not need to become like that.

 

[rogstahjunior]

@mrscott1026

At some point society needs to recognize a population limit.

How would this be enforced and who decides when we get there?

 

[mrscott1026]

@rogstahjunior It naturally happens as cost to have children rises beyond what people can afford. Though I suppose some people don’t care and just have kids anyways.

 

[dirtman]

@rogstahjunior Thanos had the solution.

 

[thehook]

@j10 If CA won’t build higher density, is it really inflation or just another constrained commodity.

 

[kolinfarrel]

@adrian77 All good, people still answer "how much would you pay to rent your house" with "treefiddy", therefore "owner's imputed rent" is flat and no inflation xD

 

[adrian77]

@kolinfarrel The whole rent equivalent thing is complete bullshit.

 

[loverofchrist69]

@adrian77 and even then it's because eggs are either subsidized or have become cheaper to produce in real terms due to technology, not because money isn't losing value.

 

[juns]

@curiousspring There's plenty to worry about in the long term.

Loose and expansionary monetary policy removes an important check on unbridled credit expansion. There should be a scarcity to money. It forces firms to make better decisions on how to employ resources. It allows obsolete and zombie companies to clear through failure.

There's an irony when an economy with free market capitalist values has the most important price set by committee. (interest rates)

 

[lexismom]

@juns The Fed manages interest rates but they're still beholden to the overall bond market. 2019/2020 was proof of that when bond yields tanked and they were forced to start lowering rates ahead of covid. Likewise if we get 5% inflation for a few more years they will be forced to heavily hike rates.

That said there are varying arguments of just how much the Fed's balance sheet shenanigans have suppressed bond yields and enabled a low rate regime.

 

[rebbbekah]

@lexismom It's annoying how reactionary our government is, no official these days is willing to stand up for the future with a currently unpopular plan.