Rebuttal to Mr. Mortensen
EDITOR: Tribune readers were delighted by Brent Mortensen’s recent letter to the editor. His facetious non-answers to the housing crisis shed helpful light on the problem, making it quite clear that working class people cannot solve the problem solely by spending their own limited though hard earned money. We suppose that an unfortunate oversight allowed his letter to suggest that things are thus generally great.
Mr. Mortensen must be aware that hundreds of good people have been forced to leave Healdsburg by soaring housing prices, while more hundreds remain by paying an unsustainable portion of their income. We suspect he’s noticed that most young people cannot afford to stay here after leaving high school, or return after graduating from college. We suppose that it was only the inherent limitations of the letter-to-the-editor form that prevented him from providing meaningful analysis of the roots of the problem. So I’ll just help out with a brief comment to fill out our understanding.
The central goal of capitalism is the accumulation of wealth. If appropriately regulated, the accumulation can be of benefit to everyone.
If left relatively unregulated, as has been the case it the United States since about 1980, the accumulation inevitably leads to greater and greater inequality. Those who start with very substantial wealth invest their money, and with little or no personal effort, on average, see it increase geometrically.
Those who have no wealth are free to work hard their whole lives, and, on average, will see little or no accumulation. This is well documented, well understood, and obvious to anyone paying attention.
The result in recent decades has been a large increase in inequality in the United States, and in most of the world. This increase is indicated by such things as the increase in the ratio of U.S. CEO to worker pay, 20x in 1965, 350x today, or the fact that the richest 8 men have as much wealth as the poorest 50 percent of world population combined. The tiny wealthy minority is constantly looking for valuable things to own, profitable things to invest in. One disastrous result is that the price of housing is driven up to levels far higher than could otherwise occur.
Fewer people can afford to buy their houses, more are forced to rent, rents are driven upward – creating an additional source of income for the already wealthy. Greener grass for some.
Robert Nuese
Healdsburg
