The pandemic housing bubble has multiple, complex causes. Among them:
A housing shortage resulting from a decade of anemic construction following the Great Financial Crisis and a wave of homebuilder bankruptcies;
Supply-chain shocks created by the pandemic, which was especially hard on “efficient” industries, where financialization and monopolization drained vital industries of their cash and inventory reserves and turned them over to the richest people in America;
Generations of Americans have dreamed of owning a home, both to insulate themselves from the whims of their landlords and to create intergenerational wealth. Home ownership was a key driver of social mobility, allowing working class people to enter the middle class. A horrible “natural experiment” shows just how important property acquisition is to economic stability: redlining and restrictive covenants froze Black people out of the home-purchasing boom of the New Deal and the GI Bill, exacerbating and accelerating the racial wealth gap.
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Phishers deploy fake contact-tracing warnings; Podcasting John Scalzi's The Last Emperox; Private equity blew millions on pro-surprise-billing ads while cutting doctor pay; Every Covid-19 Commerical is Exactly the Same; Multi-level dungeon built into the drawers of an old dresser; Talking bunker-busting with Trashfuture; Whole Foods has a union-busting "heatmap" app; Amazon workers plan nationwide walkout; Texas AG: We'll imprison people who warn about getting covid while voting; Australian regulator takes up Right to Repair for tractors; Smart bassinet can be remotely hacked; Covid did not escape from a Chinese lab