and passes the rest of the cost on to tax payers through various government programs that are supposed to make up the difference.

Then they buy politicians to take away even that minimal guardrail to sustain basic existence.

We don’t have a housing crisis or an affordability crisis.

through what they call “benchmarking,” but is really just anti-competitive price fixing for labor.

Our “affordability” crisis is the consequence of market forces getting completely out of whack to benefit the rich.

Wal-Mart doen’t pay the actual cost of its labor force. It pays a fraction of that

and services, there would NOT be an affordability crisis.

There just wouldn’t be.

BUT rich people and rich enterprises capture and co-opt government to use its levers to artificially contain wage growth!

They also collude with each other to artificially manipulate and contain the wages

We have a market that allows competition to dictate prices through supply and demand on EVERYTHING BUT WAGES for non-executive workers.

And that’s why taxing the shit out of the rich to pay for those government guardrails makes 100% sense.