There is currently a housing crisis going on in America, and a lot of economic experts believe that it's going to ultimately rival the housing collapse of 2008. The issue here is that there's a housing shortage, coupled with the fact that there is no private investment coming in to build new homes. Instead, multinational corporations are bidding for existing properties, which is just driving the rates up and pricing average people out of the market. This in turn affects mortgage lenders who don't have nearly as many lendees, and so they up the rates on their existing borrowers, and many can't afford to pay. Increased rates also make it a lot more difficult for renters to find anywhere to live, as even small apartments are priced like luxury condos. And around and around it goes, until every aspect of the market is ready to collapse. Though while this is going on, you have mainstream outlets like Business Insider running tone-deaf profile pieces about rich landlords who are getting richer by charging much higher rental rates.

In a recent piece, the news outlet covers Shelby Osborne, the CEO of the Five Pillars Team, and it talks about how she's been able to make a huge profit for her company by literally just charging poor people more rent. She's pictured in the article, with a huge smile on her face, and the colorful language paints her as some sort of business genius, as if to say that raising rent on people who can barely afford to live is the right move in business. Luckily, a lot of people won't be able to read this atrocious piece of corporate corruption, because Business Insider put the article behind a paywall and demands you pay $79 per year to read their puff-piece garbage about how acting as a greedy parasite is the perfect individual choice for financial success.

A lot of people out there are capitalists, through and through, and so they don't press the moral panic button when a landlord raises the rent. However, in the context of an economy that's suffering, someone raising the rent on people is just a bad move. It's a breach of societal trust and it just causes more people to side with other sorts of economic ideologies and ideas that could end up being worse in the long run. Plus, it's just very predatory. Shelby and the Five Pillars Team were in no danger at all of losing their company. They were doing just fine. The idea behind raising the rent wasn't to make up for lost expenses accrued by the company; rather, the article blatantly states that Shelby raised people's rent during these tough economic times just to personally profit. That should send chills up your spine. It's not only the fact that some people act like this, but that so many more celebrate it.

It's affected poor people the most. The people who cannot afford homes outright and so have to live in rentals are effectively being priced out of shelter entirely. Of all the homeless people in America, studies show that the vast majority could afford to live if only home prices were lower. And while these studies were done in California, where prices are very high, it scales to any other location in America when you adjust for these sorts of rental increases. Do you think it's more important for America that Shelly makes an extra $100,000 this year, or that dozens of people have a roof over their heads?
 

Americans Used to Care About These Things

Not that long ago in America, people used to care deeply about these sorts of things. Renters were seen as the underdog - the people who couldn't afford a lot but worked as hard as they could to just hold onto property that they were never going to own. Groups like Occupy Wall Street used to stand in the streets and shout that these people deserved better lives in America, and corporations were scum. These days, however, most of America seems to be doing whatever corporations tell them to do. Masks and vaccines, and don't forget your latest iPhone 84 with 5 cameras. Renters are being priced out of their homes, and Americans want to argue over a Capitol protest and some comments made by Kanye West.

If Americans don't get back to holding people accountable, these companies will continue to raise rates as they see fit, and 2023 may make 2008's collapse look like practice.