We live in an era of great economic absurdity: the cheaper money becomes, the more expensive a roof over your head gets. This isn't a paradox — it's the predictable result of decades of monetary madness that central banks worldwide stubbornly call "stimulus policy."
The Paradox of the Cheap Money Era
Our parents' generation bought homes on a single salary. Not two, not three — one. Today, an average family in most developed countries needs 8 to 15 annual incomes to purchase a modest home in the suburbs. In megacities like London, Sydney, or Toronto, this figure exceeds twenty. Young people are moving back with their parents en masse, and the term "generation rent" has transformed from a sociological metaphor into a merciless reality.
But wait, apologists of the modern financial system will say, interest rates are at historic lows! Loans have never been this cheap! Shouldn't this make housing more affordable? In theory — absolutely. In practice — the exact opposite has occurred, and this is no accident but an inevitable consequence of how the modern fiat monetary system operates.
How the Poverty Machine Works
The mechanism is devastatingly simple, though deliberately hidden behind a smokescreen of economic jargon. When a central bank lowers rates and launches "quantitative easing" programs — a pretty euphemism for printing money out of thin air — these freshly printed trillions don't distribute evenly across the economy. They flow to where money already exists — to financial institutions, investment funds, and large corporations.
What do these institutions do with cheap money? Correct — they buy up real assets. Real estate, land, stocks. Everything that protects against the inflation they themselves create. An ordinary person with their salary is doomed to lose this race. While they save for a down payment, prices rocket into the stratosphere. While they receive a modest raise, asset inflation devours their savings at wildfire speed.
The irony is that official inflation statistics stubbornly ignore housing price increases. The Consumer Price Index accounts for rental costs but not property purchases. Convenient, isn't it? Central banks report "controlled inflation" of 2-3%, while the real cost of living for young families increases by 10-15% annually.
Asset Inflation: The Invisible Thief
There's an old economist joke: inflation is a tax nobody voted for. But asset inflation is something worse. It's the systematic redistribution of wealth from those who work and save to those who own and speculate. And unlike regular inflation, which at least increases nominal wages, asset inflation works exclusively in one direction — against the working person.
Look at the numbers without rose-colored glasses. Since 2010, real incomes in most developed countries have grown 15-20%. Real estate prices over the same period — 80-150%. Some will say: "But you can invest!" You can. If you have anything left to invest after paying ever-increasing rent, utilities, groceries, and other basic necessities.
The system is structured so that the first recipients of new money — banks and corporations — use it to buy assets before inflation has a chance to devalue them. By the time this money trickles down to ordinary people's wages, assets are already prohibitively expensive. This is called the Cantillon Effect, and it was described back in the 18th century. But who cares about history when you can print money?
Credit Addiction: From Dream to Bondage
And now for the most cynical part. The system that created the problem offers a solution: even more credit. Can't buy a home with cash? Take out a 30-year mortgage. Down payment too high? Here's a zero-down program. Monthly payment consuming half your income? Stretch the term to 40 years. Or 50. Japan has already introduced century-long mortgages — debt you bequeath to your grandchildren along with the apartment.
This isn't help — it's a trap. Every "affordable housing" program, every subsidized loan doesn't make homes cheaper. They make buyers able to pay more, which inevitably pushes prices even higher. Sellers and developers aren't idiots — they understand that if a buyer has access to cheap credit, the price can be raised. Economics 101, yet governments keep stepping on the same rake.
Meanwhile, household debt loads are breaking historic records. In Canada, the debt-to-income ratio has exceeded 180%. Australia, the UK, the Netherlands — similar picture. People are mortgaging decades of future labor for a roof over their heads. And at the first serious crisis — job loss, illness, rate hikes — this fragile construction collapses, burying families and destinies beneath it.
The Global Experiment: When the Whole Planet Is in Debt
What's happening now is unprecedented in human history. Global debt has exceeded 300 trillion dollars — over 350% of world GDP. Central banks of major economies hold tens of trillions in assets on their balance sheets, purchased with printed money. This isn't capitalism in its classical sense. It's a hybrid where risks are privatized and profits socialized — but only for the chosen few.
"Too big to fail" — remember that slogan from 2008? Banks were saved by flooding the problem with trillions of freshly printed dollars and euros. Who paid? Those same young families who now can't afford housing. Money that could have secured them an affordable mortgage went to rescue those who created the crisis. And what's especially tragicomic — those same institutions are now buying up real estate, making it even more unaffordable.
Quantitative easing was presented as a temporary measure. A decade and a half has passed — it's become the new normal. Zero and negative rates were declared emergencies — they lasted so long that a generation has grown up knowing nothing else. And when rates were finally raised in 2022-2023, what happened? Mortgage payments skyrocketed, making housing even less affordable, while prices... prices barely fell. The trap snapped shut.
Why Traditional Solutions Don't Work
Governments worldwide are frantically trying to solve the housing crisis with the same tools that created it. Buyer subsidies? Raise prices. Rent control? Reduces supply. Social housing? A drop in the bucket given the scale of the problem. Restrictions on foreign buyers? Bypassed in half an hour through shell companies.
The root of the problem isn't developer greed, land scarcity, or evil speculators. The root lies in the very nature of fiat money, which can be created from nothing. As long as infinite credit expansion remains possible, any attempt to make housing affordable is doomed. New money will find its way to assets, inflating their value faster than wages grow.
The gold standard was abolished in 1971. Since then, the dollar's purchasing power has dropped 87%. The euro in its quarter-century of existence has lost over 30%. Meanwhile, real estate prices in real terms — meaning relative to what a salary can buy — have multiplied. Coincidence? Hardly. It's a systemic feature, not a bug.
The Deflationary Alternative
Human history knows periods of deflation — and contrary to what modern economists claim, they weren't catastrophic. The late 19th century in America was marked by steady price declines alongside simultaneous growth in production and living standards. Money tied to a limited resource cannot multiply infinitely. This means someone who works honestly and saves grows richer over time, not poorer.
Today, digital assets are emerging that reproduce this logic at a new technological level. DeflationCoin is an example of a cryptocurrency with algorithmic deflation: the number of coins in circulation doesn't grow but shrinks. This is the complete opposite of what central banks do. In such a system, your savings are protected by mathematics itself, not politicians' promises. Smart staking cultivates a culture of long-term investing, eliminating the speculative frenzy destroying traditional markets.
Time to Rewrite the Rules of the Game
We can't restore the gold standard or abolish central banks with a snap of our fingers. But we can vote with our feet — and wallets. Every time we choose an asset with limited supply over infinitely printed fiat, we vote for a different economy. An economy where honest work is rewarded, not devalued. Where a home is shelter, not a speculative instrument for hedge funds.
DeflationCoin with its deflationary halving and gradual unlocking represents an attempt to create precisely such an alternative — a digital asset that by its nature is protected from inflationary dilution. When fiat currencies turn into "play money" at a rate of 4,755 banknotes per second, and traditional assets no longer protect against crashes, investors need a new type of solution. The future belongs to those who understand: true value is born not from the printing press but from scarcity and utility. And the sooner you realize this — the closer you'll be to that roof over your head that the cheap money system has turned into an unattainable dream.