[underbluewaters]

This is very not true since many (most) things we spend money on are in limited supply. I can make what I think is good money, but if remote FAANG workers decide to settle nearby then I suddenly can't afford a house. Same for automobiles after COVID, meat at the market, etc.

[warner25]

Yes, I've lived in Hawaii and coastal California where the availability of housing does seem to be heavily impacted by very wealthy people being able to buy up second and third (multi-million dollar) homes. A lot of regular wage earners (including professionals with six-figure incomes) are priced out of the market and these homes sit empty for most of the year; the owners are so wealthy that they don't even bother to rent them out when they aren't using them. Jobs are available, but people can't afford to live near their jobs.

[beaeglebeached]

Hawaii has an abundance of underutilized land through a combination of bad zoning/regulation (anti-market violence) and civil rights violations ( Hawaiian 'homelands' which reserves much public state owned lands to only people 'of the blood of the [right] races').

The housing issues are at best partially caused by the rich; plenty of places to put a cheap tar paper shack but for whatever non-market reason you cannot.

[ryandrake]

Thanks for this comment. I was going to make a similar one, but you beat me to it. Standard of living tends to be relative because of gentrification. Say you're making $X/yr and spend $Y/yr on groceries, gas, housing, and so on. Then a bunch of people making $5X start moving in to your neighborhood, slowly prices for everything are going to rise and now you're still making $X/yr but costs are approaching $5Y/yr on all your stuff.

Also, at least in the USA, money is efficiently convertible to and from political power. So outsized wealth translates into outsized political power. Satya Nadella having far more money than I means he also has far more political clout than I have.