> We should do both. Build more housing and crack down on speculators.
No, just building more housing will make housing less useful to speculative investment, and so speculators won't invest. Just reverse the messing with normal supply and demand. Don't apply ever more patches on top of patches to fix a situation that wouldn't exist without the messing in the first place.
Sadly, it is very hard for politicians to a) want to decentralise control, because it's much easier to declare a new controlling initiative than to say "actually, we're just getting in your way" and b) get to decentalise control, because it's much harder to argue strong economic principles than appeal to special interest groups who might vote for someone else.
No, just building more housing will make housing less useful to speculative investment, and so speculators won't invest. Just reverse the messing with normal supply and demand. Don't apply ever more patches on top of patches to fix a situation that wouldn't exist without the messing in the first place.
Sadly, it is very hard for politicians to a) want to decentralise control, because it's much easier to declare a new controlling initiative than to say "actually, we're just getting in your way" and b) get to decentalise control, because it's much harder to argue strong economic principles than appeal to special interest groups who might vote for someone else.