{"id":69190,"date":"2025-05-14T06:23:21","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T11:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=69190"},"modified":"2025-08-11T06:53:57","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T11:53:57","slug":"todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-clii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=69190","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLII\u2013Housing \u2018Crisis\u2019: Real or Contrived?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLII–Housing \u2018Crisis\u2019: Real or Contrived?<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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September 28, 2023 (original posting date)<\/p>\n

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Mexico (1988). Photo by\u00a0author.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Housing \u2018Crisis\u2019: Real or Contrived?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some morning thoughts (prompted by the attached article; and a version of which I posted on my Town\u2019s Facebook \u2018Politics\u2019 Group) that focus on my own province\u2019s (Ontario, Canada) context regarding the issue of a housing \u2018crisis\u2019 and their attempts to \u2018juice\u2019 development\/construction\u200a\u2014\u200awell, really, to create an environment where well-connected developers can flip relatively cheaply-purchased lands. That this has been \u2018outed\u2019 and stopped for the moment is perhaps good for the ecologically-sensitive lands that were under consideration for development[1]<\/a>, but does little to impact the \u2018growth forever\u2019 fever running rampant amongst Ontario\u2019s populace.<\/p>\n

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With the recent shenanigans surrounding the Greenbelt (see these previous Contemplations:\u00a0September 21<\/a>,\u00a0January 29<\/a>,\u00a0March 19<\/a>,\u00a0June 15<\/a>), I have to wonder how much impact questionable practices and behind-closed-door deal-making\/influence-peddling adds to the issue of our housing \u2018crisis\u2019, and\/or is this all part and parcel of manipulation\/leveraging of perceptions and beliefs\u200a\u2014\u200anarrative management for want of a better term\u200a\u2014\u200ato help market expanding growth that benefits a few at the expense of the many.<\/p>\n

Is this \u2018crisis\u2019 truly the result of inadequate supply (as our developers, financiers, real estate industry, politicians, etc. would like us to believe\u200a\u2014\u200aa very \u2018convenient\u2019 narrative for those profiting from a greatly expanding housing market and the fear of missing out that the perception of \u2018shortages\u2019 creates) or is currency devaluation via credit expansion, \u2018speculation\u2019, and \u2018short-term rental investments\u2019 a more significant contributor to skyrocketing prices?<\/p>\n

And, of course, the exponential increase in housing prices (and rents) is not simply an Ontario or Canada phenomenon; it is taking placing in many nations, particularly where currency\/credit expansion has increased dramatically.<\/p>\n

Much of this \u2018new money\u2019 seeks a place to exist (and hopefully grow, but not always) and a not non-significant portion has flowed into housing leading to the price increases we have witnessed the past decade+ (one need only look at the gargantuan increase in debt held globally to see this\u200a\u2014\u200ait is in the hundreds of trillions of US dollars[2]<\/a>\u200a\u2014\u200awith a very dramatic increase in the rate of growth in just the last couple of years, growing some 50% in less than a decade; and this has occurred, not coincidentally I would argue, when we have witnessed housing costs jump dramatically). It has also led to an increasing concentration of housing in the hands of the \u2018wealthy\u2019\u200a\u2014\u200aas they can more easily access credit and\/or have funds to \u2018shelter\u2019\u200a\u2014\u200aleading to the less \u2018advantaged\u2019 being shut out of the market.<\/p>\n

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Not only have we witnessed a huge flow of money into AirBnB and the like (there are literally over a thousand of such dwellings in York Region alone), but the ownership of multiple dwellings by quite a number of people also removes supply from the market (I recently heard a radio interview with a real estate agent who claimed to have 100+ homes in his personal portfolio\u200a\u2014\u200ahomes that he \u2018owned\u2019).<\/p>\n

None of these contributing factors are considered in the mainstream narratives surrounding housing. All we hear, repeatedly, is that supply is inadequate and demand \u2018demands\u2019 that we build hundreds of thousands, no millions, more. Only such an \u2018investment\u2019 (and the opening up of \u2018locked\u2019 lands as a recent government advertisement asserts) can address the crisis (and don\u2019t even get me started on the resource\/energy constraints\/limits and\/or ecological systems destruction aspects of this growth forever insanity).<\/p>\n

The narrative about supply and demand on its surface makes sense, but only in a world where all the other contributing factors are ignored. Few if any of these other variables penetrate the Overton Window that the profit-makers\/-takers\/-extractors have created: our housing \u2018crisis\u2019 and \u2018affordability\u2019 can ONLY be addressed by way of rapid and significant expansion of supply!<\/p>\n

Complex issues are, well, complex and we have allowed a less-than-complete (I\u2019d argue convenient to the profiteers) narrative to steer the conversation and thus most people\u2019s beliefs. The \u2018experts\u2019 keep saying it\u2019s supply and demand that requires ongoing and ramped up construction of homes, so it must be true.<\/p>\n

But \u2018truth\u2019 is a funny thing. The recent propaganda, er, I mean marketing by the provincial government (at taxpayer expense, no less) in Ontario about housing supply\/demand makes the assertion that Ontario has become home to \u00bd million new residents in the past year so we absolutely have to build a million and a half more homes as quickly as possible. The problem with this \u2018truth\u2019 is that this number of immigrants taking up residence in Ontario is actually more than the official immigration number for all of Canada and, of course, not all of these immigrants remain in Ontario. A lot do, but certainly not 115%.<\/p>\n

And if this relatively minor \u2018mistake\u2019 is being asserted widely in part of the narrative management around the housing \u2018crisis\u2019, what else is not being accurately disseminated\/reported? (NOTE: while a teacher several decades ago, I uncovered a similar marketing falsehood in a document the provincial government of the time was distributing where they asserted that research demonstrated that student results had been steadily declining. In my attempt to see the research that supported this\u200a\u2014\u200aI spoke to a dozen+ \u2018officials\u2019 in the Ministry of Education and Education Quality and Accountability Office\u200a\u2014\u200ait became clear that the statement in the document was unsupported: there was no such research and those I spoke to eventually admitted this, stating \u201cthere is no supporting documentation, little long-term comparable assessment data, and no systematic study has been carried out by the Ministry.\u201d The assertion in the document was pure fabrication to steer perceptions\/beliefs in order to justify\/rationalise government policy\/actions. In other words, the government was lying and depending upon people\u2019s tendency to defer to authority\/experts in order to \u2018manage\u2019 beliefs.).<\/p>\n

Questions about so many aspects of this issue of a housing \u2018crisis\u2019 have been left unanswered or rather conveniently ignored as the whole growth machine carries on and the folks steering things continue to make money hand-over-fist\u2026 what could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n

But how typical of government to highlight a societal \u2018problem\u2019 and then, conveniently, offer a \u2018solution\u2019 that just happens to address the primary motivation of our ruling caste: the control\/expansion of the wealth-generation\/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams and thus positions of power and prestige. More for the \u2018advantaged\u2019 as the \u2018disadvantaged\u2019 pay the price.<\/p>\n

When Shelter Becomes a Speculative Asset, Society Unravels<\/a><\/strong>
\n<\/a>The weblog, feature articles and books of Charles Hugh Smith<\/a><\/em>www.oftwominds.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLII–Housing \u2018Crisis\u2019: Real or Contrived? September 28, 2023 (original posting date) Mexico (1988). Photo by\u00a0author. Housing \u2018Crisis\u2019: Real or Contrived? Some morning thoughts (prompted by the attached article; and a version of which I posted on my Town\u2019s Facebook \u2018Politics\u2019 Group) that focus on my own province\u2019s (Ontario, Canada) context regarding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[103,379,17024,1378],"class_list":["post-69190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-canada","tag-government","tag-housing-crisis","tag-ontario"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69190"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69303,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69190\/revisions\/69303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}