this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2026
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Now, if you live in the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom, you might be wondering why you should care about the real estate market on an island in the South Pacific. The answer is that New Zealand is basically a laboratory for what happens when an entire national economy is built on the assumption that house prices will just go up forever. It turns out that trading the same increasingly expensive boarded up bungalows back and forth with your neighbours does not actually generate any real wealth. You might ask how an economy gets into this position. The answer, as is so often the case, involves politicians. (~02:00)

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[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I haven't heard of this guy before, and a top result when searching for his name is how he plagiarised the NYT... (not this video, a different one)

Interesting part in the middle of the video where it's mentioned that globalisation caused everything to decrease in price, so central banks could just keep cutting interest rates without having to worry about inflation. Now that goods can't really get any cheaper, it no longer works, and now inflation is rising and there's no clear path to solving it other than increase interest rates and cause house prices to fall - which is political suicide.

The whole concept that rising house prices are bad for almost everyone is so easy to demonstrate, but virtually everyone is happy when their house value goes up for some reason.

[–] nsh@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thanks for sharing. I wasn’t aware. Also, TIL Hbomberguy.

The fact that people view housing as an investment opportunity is a policy failure; there are tax incentives among other things. The system only stays afloat if there’s a constant influx of new people joining, and we all know there’s a name for it - Ponzi.

[–] BaconWrappedEnigma@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

We should tax unproductive things, like sitting on property extracting rent. We should not tax productive things; like income and GST. The entire system is bass-akwards for facilitating a real economy. "Old people get all the young people's value" is great until it breaks and everyone leaves.

There needs to be a serious shake up. This might be why TOP is polling above 5% now...

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

One of the ideas mentioned in this video is one from the 1800s saying that taxing income disincentivises productive work, and that we should only have a land tax (and no land improvement tax) since land itself doesn't change and can't hop on a plane and head to Australia.

[–] BaconWrappedEnigma@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

1800s is a bit vague: Progress and Poverty was late 1800s, like 1890. Georgism was probably the least bad tax until AI happened. Now a well architected wealth tax is probably the thing that will endure.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sorry, 1800s was a bit vague. 1879 apparently.

I would be so excited if a wealth tax was properly implemented, but given those with wealth are the ones that fund political parties I'm not keeping my hopes up.

[–] BaconWrappedEnigma@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Hope is what we have; and emailing your MP. ☺️

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemmy.nz 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The house price thing really depends how old you are. It's only when you're looking at downsizing that it helps you, otherwise it's either more expensive to upgrade, or purely theoretical wealth that doesn't help you.

Ultimately, we need to look at buying a house as locking in your cost of living, rather than an investment that only ever goes up.

[–] BaconWrappedEnigma@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 day ago

Your thing is confusing until you get to:

we need to look at buying a house as locking in your cost of living, rather than an investment that only ever goes up.