Quote:
Originally Posted by cam_calderon
This post is from the first page, but I just had to quote it.
What, exactly, is coming? Who are "the rich"? Do you really see a North American revolution happening?
This is a Calgary forum, an affluent city in one of the most affluent nations on the planet. The middle class live a very comfortable life. A quick google tells me there are about 2000 homeless people in the city - will they lead the revolution?
Your post seems to more closely resemble dystopian fiction than real life.
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Calgary is a bit of a rarity, where you have people earning decent salaries and real estate is reasonably affordable. If you look at most of the other cities in Canada, salaries are either very low and/or the real estate is unaffordable. The same goes for many cities in the USA, places like California being the worst off.
You can say...don't live in San Francisco or Vancouver then. The problem is even the secondary cities like Seattle, Portland, and Kelowna are out of site. And no, a solution is not for everyone to move to Calgary either. We've already seen significant spikes in home prices in Calgary, despite significant decreases in affordability.
As for the "rich", it's really becoming an issue of social mobility. Where people whose parents invested in the real estate markets decades ago now are, for the most part, the only ones able to afford to buy in now.
There are a lot of factors at play, inflation, interest rates, immigration, zoning, population structure, etc... and no I don't know an easy answer, but the middle class is getting degraded quickly. You are correct, there are enough people who are in a satisfiable economic position that we won't see some kind of major social revolution. But how far can you push that?