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Tearing off the mask of ‘affordability’
By Mark C. Ross
Nov. 28, 2025
Move over, diversity and discrimination, let alone Epstein — American politics has a new buzzword. Unlike its buzzy predecessors, “affordability” has support from both sides of the aisle. The dividing line is drawn between those who want government to do more make stuff more affordable and those who know that taxes and unjustified government interference with markets are the main reason that prices are higher than they ought to be.
For the sake of discussion, there are four classes of stuff where affordability is particularly important: housing, health care, energy, and food. Energy and food are both commodities, stuff created and consumed on a continuing basis, so they can be lumped together. Health care is a service — a particularly desirable service, but one that is also rather expensive since it is both labor- and capital-intensive. And housing is an investment that also provides a necessary function.
The prices for energy and food are vulnerable to supply fluctuations. I once saw an economics professor describe inelastic demand as it affects the price of lettuce. Much of America’s winter crop is grown on the irrigated parts of the southwestern desert, such as the Imperial Valley. Every now and then, that area is hit by severe weather that can wipe out much of the lettuce crop. Mom and Pop can choose not to buy overly expensive lettuce and eat cabbage and carrots instead. Restaurants that have salad bars, however, don’t get to choose. We recently saw something similar when eggs went way up in price because a bird flu epidemic drastically reduced the supply of chickens. These prices would’ve still gone up about as much even if the dollar were on the gold standard.
A person who was studying for an MBA once told me she thought a recent drop in the price of petroleum was caused by a serious shift toward the use of non-carbon-based renewables. I told her that the real cause was the adoption of fracking, which vastly increased the size of the available resource while also lowering the cost of extraction.
Alex Epstein, in The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, lays out a compelling case for the linkage between affordable access to energy and the quality of life. When sources for oil imports were withheld during turmoil in the Middle East in the early 1970s, our government stepped in and mandated price controls. Since this had no effect on supply, rationing also had to be adopted. Long queues at gas stations ensued, and lotteries were then imposed to provide a semblance of control over the situation.
The economic condition of health care is mostly the result of government meddling. A recent experience brought this to mind: I broke my arm. My HMO treated me, which took about 45 minutes. I then had two follow-ups at about 15 minutes each. They then sent me a copy of the bill that was sent to Medicare. It was for twelve thousand dollars. That comes to over $150 per minute. I ran this by an old friend, who just happened to be a medical director of an HMO. He told me that my HMO had no expectation of getting the full amount. It is a game that they play, over and over again. This can’t help but bring to mind the immortal words of the late, great P.J. O’Rourke: “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s free.”
Were your car to break down and get towed to a mechanic’s garage, after a bit of looking around, you’d be given a fairly accurate estimate on what the repair would cost, broken down into shop time and parts. Toward the end of his first term, President Trump threw out the suggestion that HMOs and the like should have price lists. There would be contingencies based on issues discovered during the procedure and the variable rate of recovery affecting the duration of in-patient treatment, if any.
Housing is where the rubber of affordability really meets the road. We shall begin with the myth of drug-addicted vagrant encampments being the result of a shortage of affordable housing. I will never tire of saying that all housing is affordable...or else it’s vacant. My representative in the state Legislature campaigned on the slogan “housing is a human right.” This implies that landlords and mortgage brokers should be locked up for violating human rights. She took her husband’s job after he got kicked upstairs to be the state’s attorney general...who is now facing indictment for embezzling about a half-million dollars of campaign donations to pay a lawyer to protect him as a witness in the corruption investigation of Oakland’s recently recalled mayor.
Hey, this is America. Our standard of living is our proudest possession. This is, however, not quantifiable. Some folks are more easily satisfied than others. What can be quantified is the cost of living. Much of that has been increased by added taxation. Why? To satisfy political agendas that tend to make our lives even more dangerous. Go figure.
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Link:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog...rdability.html
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