Why We Can't Build Houses.

We have millions of people in Britain without a house to call their own, rents that are so high that only banking executives can afford them, a building industry in the doldrums and an economy that is at an almost complete standstill. Given these circumstances a possible solution is obvious to anyone with an IQ greater than that of a goldfish. Why not build more houses? House prices would fall as supply once again equals demand while people on ordinary wages would be able to buy homes once more. Rents would fall as demand shrinks, bringing them into line with reality, while the building industry would pick up helping to ease unemployment and giving the economy a much needed boost. Even now the Bank of England is considering yet more "quantitative easing," which to them means giving the banks billions of pounds to shovel into a black hole. Why not spend it instead on housing? What's the problem? House prices and high rents, that's the problem. Falling property values would give the "have too much" a fit of the vapours as they watch their unearned income shrink. Rentiers would have a fit of the vapours as they watch their unearned profits disappear. Banks would have a fit of the vapours as they watch their investments disappear. Essentially a whole lot of wealthy people, who have done little to earn it, would suddenly find themselves in a more equal society and, of course, that would never do.