Australia

This statement from the article is so poignant, **"I've got a full-time job, you know, I've got a life. I don't want to be spending all my time thinking about this." **

We are obsessed with increasing our productivity in this country. A measure i'm unsure is appropriate, or even directly comparable historically in an economy that has switched from agrarian and closed off manufacturing, to mining and services.

I see the housing system we have as a great example that fails Banerjee and Duflo's second key lesson about improving the lives of the poor.

"the poor bear responsibility for too many aspects of their lives." (Poor Economic, Banerjee and Duflo)

By increasing housing pressure by,

1. Increasing buyer competition for a home,

2. inflating prices in comparison to wages,

3. Rising insurance costs, and now finally,

4. interest rates

we are tamping down on the productive potential of generations of Australians coming through the system.

I am sure, (but have no evdence for this), these generations of people are spending more time, capital, and energy on housing themselves than the generations in later half of the 20th Century. In other words, we are actively making each generation relatively poorer than the last. I think there is a productivity dividend that we are leaving on the table by making housing oneself relatively more difficult.