“We Are Building As Many Homes Now As In 1959, Even Though The Population Has Doubled.”

Cost of living stuff absolutely sucks. Is it all about greed?

Good, if depressing, read here from Annie Lowrey in The Atlantic:

Americans Are Mad About All the Wrong Costs

Let me bullet out a few things from that article for you:

• The numbers on price tags in the grocery store climbed a whopping 13.5 percent from the summer of 2021 to the summer of 2022.
• Gas prices went up as much as 44 percent year over year.
• Landlords began asking for $300, $500, even $2,000 more a month for rent.

Those three bullets come from about 2021–2022 — so a few years ago, and a year or two into the pandemic.

More recently:

• We are building as many homes now as we were in 1959, though the population has doubled.
• Rents have gone up 52 percent in the past decade, whereas prices in general have risen by 32 percent.
• The United States spends…