"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Is it flaimbait to discuss demand in a discussion about supply?

Depends on whether or not your post offends the narrative. When it does the narrative enforcer comes out.

It is when you oversimplify a complex issue. There might have been a good point were there an absolute shortage of housing, but there isn't. Much of the scarcity in the housing market is wholly artificial, and blaming immigrants or restricting their arrival would have absolutely zero impact on landlords' propensity to extract economic rents without providing any additional value.

>zero impact on landlords' propensity to extract economic rents without providing any additional value.

That isn't what's causing the problem. It's that demand is greater than supply. Rent is lower in rural areas becuase nobody wwnts to live there. Even if rent was free you would have the same problem that there simply isn't enough housing. Immigrants almost invariably live in cities, and they do drive up prices.

While I don't know your intentions behind this comment, I'll add that high immigration is a core policy in places like Canada explicitly so they don't have to solve any problems around labour or financial policy. Skilled immigrants tend to have lots of money to spend and no debt; unskilled immigrants are exploited in schemes where they work below minimum wage at menial jobs (e.g., https://financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/foreign-work... or https://jacobin.com/2021/12/coffee-chain-fast-food-labor-pay...).

I used to work for a government employment centre. It was depressing how many highly educated people emigrated to Canada for promises of a better life and ended up driving Ubers because they were mislead about earning potential or education equivalency.

Man, even skilled labour… there was a gas station near my old house in Saskatoon. One night I was chatting with the guy that was working and we got to talking about work a bit. Turns out he actually has a Masters in Electrical Engineering, but the easiest way for him to come to Canada was to be sponsored by Petro-Can and work at the gas station for, I don’t recall exactly, 2-3 years. He was looking for volunteer work to do to try to stay sharp in the meantime. Crazy!

I find immigration to be a net negative. Sure some people get a better lot by emigrating, but in the process there is brain deain and such. So instead of them helping their own country to better themselves, their own country gets worse.

and thats why allowing immigration to give them a chance of "a better life" is IMO unethical.

> Sure some people get a better lot by emigrating, but in the process there is brain deain and such. So instead of them helping their own country to better themselves, their own country gets worse.

I've met a lot of smart immigrants who left their country because there was no opportunity for them to contribute or improve. Often there's so much corruption or racial/religious discrimination that it's a choice to sink or swim.

Of course, the prospect of "a better life" even in the most dire circumstances is becoming less attainable when the local population are already struggling. I've seen several articles similar to this one, where the reception from people is "I'm struggling to pay my rent too, why doesn't anyone do a story on that?"

https://ottawa.citynews.ca/local-news/ukrainian-newcomers-st...