- For food, this was caused by supply shocks. First COVID, then Ukraine, now tariffs and the trade war. And on top of that, excessive price-setting power in some highly concentrated sectors of the food industry.
- For housing, this was caused by a supply shortage, i.e. bad housing policy. A housing shortage gives property owners price-setting power, which allows them to keep raising the price. However, while we've made it very easy for owners to profit, we've made it harder for developers, feeding the shortage.
- For healthcare, we decided to let many middle-men profit. A decent portion of spending could be cut without harming pharmaceutical innovation or new drug development.
These problems all have causes, and the cause is bad policy that benefits a minority while harming the country. And "tax the rich and give to the poor" does not fix these; the government is gonna need to get involved in directly fixing these broken markets, not just giving money to the poor so they immediately hand it over to the existing rent-seekers.
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