“A long-standing staple of political rhetoric has been the attempt to keep the prices of housing, medical care, or other goods and services “reasonable” or “affordable.” But to say that prices should be reasonable or affordable is to say that economic realities have to adjust to our budget, or to what we are willing to pay, because we are not going to adjust to the realities. Yet the amount of resources required to manufacture and transport the things we want are wholly independent of what we are willing or able to pay. It is completely unreasonable to expect reasonable prices. Price controls can of course be imposed by government but we have already seen in Chapter 3 what the consequences are. Subsidies can also be used to keep prices down, but that does not change the costs of producing goods and services in the slightest. It just means that part of those costs are paid in taxes.”
— Basic Economics by #ThomasSowell