Valentine’s Day: Human Reproduction as Prisoner’s Dilemma

by philg

A hedge fund manager pointed out “Human Reproduction as Prisoner’s Dilemma; The decline of marriage in the West.” (Aporia, January 21, 2025):

[the effort required to raise a child to adulthood] makes human reproduction analogous to a prisoner’s dilemma. Both father and mother can choose to fully commit or pursue other options [“cooperate” or “defect”]. In this context, marriage provides a framework for encouraging, legitimizing, and stabilizing commitment. … A [men defect/women defect] society looks like the most primitive parts of sub-Saharan Africa or the Amazon rainforest. Women sleep around, while adult men prey on women and children and regularly kill each other for access to women. As men can have multiple wives and wives are not loyal, there is no respite from intrasexual competition; you can always be replaced. Without paternal certainty, men have no investment in the future and spend their time fighting, dancing or resting rather than working. Economically, these societies are desperately poor and largely incapable of collective action. In war, they shatter like glass when faced with an enemy that expect chastity and fidelity from women.

What was the U.S. for its first 200 years? A “men cooperate/women cooperate” society in which there was monogamy and “Divorce is difficult: the marriage contract can be created by mutual consent, but cannot be unilaterally dissolved.”

What has the U.S. been since no-fault (“unilateral”) divorce become available circa 1970?

The shift from a cooperate/cooperate marriage system, where both men and women made sacrifices to gain the security required for childbearing, to a cooperate/defect one, where men are expected to uphold their end of the bargain in exchange for nothing, has failed. This is the legacy of second wave feminism. Men are dropping out of work or burning things down, and both marriage and children are increasingly relics of the past. We are thereby moving towards a defect/defect system of the kind I described at the start.

Why are there so many females trying to have babies with rich guys?

Polygamy is a natural attractor state for humans, since it satisfies the desires of powerful men to have multiple wives and the desires of women to have elite husbands. Monogamy requires both elite men and many women to sacrifice their desires. … Rather than invest in additional wives, men in monogamous societies invest in their original wife and children, with the result that almost everyone is better off.

Where’s the game theory promised by the article title?

But unilateral divorce doesn’t just destabilize marriage. It also changes the power dynamics within marriage from favoring the more committed partner to favouring the less committed partner. Hence, “under unilateral divorce, the distribution of resources within marriage favors the spouse who wished to divorce” (Reynoso 2024). In addition to destabilizing marriage, unilateral divorce incentivizes poor behavior within it, since the threat of ending the marriage on unfavorable terms for the undutiful partner no longer exists. This “weakens the bargaining power of dutiful partners who wish their marriage to continue or who wish to end their marriage because of serious mistreatment by the other partner” (Rowthorn 1999).

Unilateral divorce is sometimes portrayed as an advance in human freedom, but this is a mistake. By removing the ability to credibly commit to a long-term relationship, unilateral divorce prevents couples from reaching a mutually-beneficial bargain that greatly assists in the raising of children. Without forced marriage, which has never been part of the Western tradition, unilateral divorce actually removes an important choice.

The fact that individuals can now exit easily, and unilaterally, from a relationship makes it difficult for couples to make credible commitments to each other. They can promise anything they want, but most of these promises are no longer legally enforceable, and many are undermined by social policies which reward those who break their promises.

Because it no longer guarantees security (or anything else), marriage is much less useful and therefore less appealing.

What about marrying the government?

Rather than merely supporting their own wife and children, men are expected to support women to whom they have no relation, and from whom they can claim nothing in return. Not only is this much less motivating, but it also removes a major incentive for women to marry in the first place. The state can simply extract a potential husband’s wealth and transfer it to her, no marriage required.

How long will it take for family law to turn the U.S. into a richer version of the poorest African countries?

It takes generations to see these effects in full. Not only are we the product of millennia of selection for marriageability; social norms are sticky. At first, men see that their fathers worked hard to get married and that their older acquaintances are doing the same, and imitate them. Women aspire to marry as their mothers did. Even when the law has changed, the norms do not immediately disappear. But they get weaker every generation. People see that marriage no longer offers stability. They see their peers and parents ruined by divorce. They see that they can get the economic and sexual benefits of marriage without giving up options. And the old norms erode.

Why are prime-age men disappearing from the labor force (Obama White House)?

The post-60s settlement attempts to force men to transfer resources to women via the welfare state and child support. But as the Soviets discovered, it’s very difficult to get men to work to the best of their abilities through coercion alone. Without marriage, the state loses its taxpayers and society loses the men who make it work.

What about the baby bust that Elon Musk, whose first wife and mother of his children suggested divorce, decries?

By providing a solution to the prisoner’s dilemma of human reproduction, marriage greatly boosts fertility, even today. It’s not surprising that the shift from a cooperate/cooperate marriage system to a cooperate/defect one, and the attendant devastation of the institution itself, corresponds precisely to the end of the Baby Boom.

Happy Valentine’s Day, therefore, to those who celebrate, those who are married, and those who are married to the government!

(Bad news for those who are married: The article notes that, despite the ease of exiting unhappy marriages provided by no-fault divorce, marriages today are less happy than in the (good/bad) old days.)

Male readers: What percentage of your time is spent doing tasks that you wouldn’t have to do but for the fact that you’re part of a family with children? My personal number is about 80 percent. This includes house-related tasks (if it were just me and Mindy the Crippler I could live comfortably in an apartment or condo). It includes all work for wages (I have enough money from previous work for everything that I might reasonably want to buy between now and age 100+; a big motivation for me to work is that I don’t want the kids to see me idle).

Since it is Valentine’s Day, let’s have some flowers… (front-yard orchids; tie them to a tree in the shade and walk away):

32 thoughts on “Valentine’s Day: Human Reproduction as Prisoner’s Dilemma”

  1. The lion kingdom could probably live like a college student for the rest of its life without working but increased hurricane damage & the instability of the financial system has been enough motivation to keep working without any dependents. Greenspun is evidence that the country can survive without marriage but with a belief system like judaism & domestic partnership. What is the consequence of walking away from it all? A Vladimir Putin in the sky roasts your balls.

  2. > Male readers: What percentage of your time is spent doing tasks that you wouldn’t have to do but for the fact that you’re part of a family with children?

    What do I do that does not fall in that category:
    * Eat
    * Sleep
    * I swim for about an hour once a week

  3. I could be working more, and riskier, not less, if I were not married, but I sure would not suffer liars, fools and stupid regulations, would have had retire from type of jobs I am having long time by now. But I have had a lot of fun teaching kids sports, swimming, skiing, skating and doing home science projects, activities I would not otherwise engage in, if I were working in an ideal job, if I could find or create one.
    Regarding “In war, they shatter like glass when faced with an enemy that expect chastity and fidelity from women” I think this is true but despite luck of chastity notable societies were built: for example ancient Egypt. They ruled the roost of other societies that allowed female promiscuity but eventually fell to female – strict Persians, Macedonians, Romans.

    • perplexed: Ancient Egypt wasn’t as debauched as the U.S. today, was it? I thought that Ancient Egyptians weren’t necessarily virgins at marriage but once married there was an expectation of being faithful (i.e., there wouldn’t be any doubt regrading paternity). Could an Ancient Egyptian wife have said “I need to spend more time having sex with the neighbors so I want a divorce, a house, the savings, and 60 percent of my ex-husband’s income going forward” and gotten a court-enforced order for all of the above?

    • Much more debauched: children of different fathers lived in same family with one official husband and once a queen or a princess prostituted herself to raise money.

  4. I read this book a couple of years ago which explained most of the marriage/civilization topic above (might have read about it here, can’t remember):

    https://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Civilization-Monogamy-Made-Human/dp/1621572013

    It puts the idea of “do what you want as long as you’re not hurting anyone else” into perspective. Our crumbling social framework harms us all.

    To answer your question, I spend about 118% of my free time on family and kids. 20% extra for lost sleep and 2% free time added back on a yearly hunting/fishing trip with friends.

    • That’s 118% of all of the reasons that a man would need to support a “men defect too” system!

  5. I always puzzled and surprised when I see men marrying again after the first divorce. One would think they learned their lessons. Whyyyyyy…

  6. The article appears conclusive, but it uncritically relies on various statistics that I’d take with a grain of salt (I consider statistics to be a branch of PR/marketing).

    But let me play a devil advocate. The premise here is that falling birth rates are inherently bad. This is a recent moral panic, just a few years ago the biggest bugaboo was overpopulation and extreme environmentalists, such as Pentti Linkola, were considered to be prophets. So, who is threatened by the falling birth rates? The economic model that relies on cheap labor?

    > What percentage of your time is spent doing tasks that you wouldn’t have to do but for the fact that you’re part of a family with children?
    More than 80% I’m afraid. We’d be a tribe of heroes – or not.. it’s all hypotheticals. Imagine if modernity were not built on mercantile logic, but on the logic of the 1st and 2nd estates, i.e. a society based not on iPhones and real estate, but on religion and war. Then we wouldn’t be shopping on a Sunday morning, but as part of the Heretic Extermination Squad working to insure the triumph of the True Faith somewhere in another galaxy.

  7. The article is deeply flawed, because it fails to take into consideration the economic effects of a declining wage for the middle class, especially for men. A middle class man today has no economic opportunities compared with the middle class man of the 1960s. In the 1960s a middle class man could easily get a job in his early 20s to buy a house and support a wife and a couple of kids. Today, even with a dual income middle class household, this is becoming impossible. The declining economic opportunities result in later marriage and a declining birth rate. Improve the economic conditions of young families in the lower and middle classes and the birth rate will go up.

    The upper class is having a greater number of kids and more stable marriages compared with the middle and lower classes.

    In today’s hyper competitive economic markets, it is survival of the fittest, you have to be able to kill your economic competition, or you will be economically killed and homeless. The lower and middle classes are just economic cannon fodder in this real life version of the hunger games.

    As for the percentage of my time spent on tasks, due to family with children responsibilities, greater than 50%.

    • Pavel: A man who wanted to support a wife and two children in a middle-class 1950s lifestyle could easily do that today! Houses back then were small and crummy. A household of two adults was lucky to have one car. Possession of a telephone or TV was far from a given. https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-changed-much-over-the-years-take-a-look/ says that the average new house in the 1950s “had 983 square feet of floor space and a household size of 3.37 people, or 292 square feet per person. Homes had more shower space than sleep space: 1.5 bedrooms and 2.35 bathrooms.” Today, on the other hand, those who buy new houses have 3X the square feet per person (“2.59 people per household, 2,392 total square feet”). Wokipedia says that only 75 percent of Americans had a telephone in 1957. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_telephone_in_the_United_States

    • The Federal Reserve geniuses who have saved us from inflation publish some data on “Real Median Family Income in the United States”

      It’s grown from $40,000/year (in 1953; 2023 dollars) to $100,000/year (in 2023).

      https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA672N

      Comparable quality real estate probably is more expensive, but not 2.5X the real 1950s cost. Government costs more to run so the working American is more burdened by taxation, I’m sure (tough to add it up because the bites come from so many different taxes and fees). But I do think living in 1950s squalor is available at an affordable price today.

      (Don’t forget lack of temperature control! Peasant houses in the 1950s were cold in the winter and hot in the summer!)

    • philg, your numbers and argument are deeply flawed, here are some data points from Vancouver, BC, Canada
      1965, median income $8127, median house price: $14k or 1.72x income, size 1500 sq ft
      1985, median income $35,000, median house price: $130k or 3.7x income, size 2000 sq ft
      2005, median income $52,000, median house price: $400,000 or 7.7x income, size 2200 sq ft
      2025, median income $71,065, median house price: $2mil or 28x income, $1mil apartment or 14x income, average house size 2500 sq ft.

      In 1985 a young middle class man could afford a house and support a wife and a couple of kids, and have enough for TV, telephone and computer. In 2005 you would have to be at least upper class. In 2025 the house prices or even apartment prices are insane compared with the median income, food is also very expensive. Young professionals are renting rooms to survive, there is no way they can think of raising a family, they have to play the hunger games.

      My parents, after immigrating to Canada and renting in a city near Vancouver, BC for a couple of years, were able to afford a house in the mid 80s on one salary. We did lots of driving vacations, had two cars and lots of other family activities on only my dad’s middle class income. There is no way this would be possible today.

      Comparing ancestors from 300,000 years is irrelevant. Totally different energy availability to society at that point. Do you really expect the lower and middle class to live on the energy and supply levels from 300,000 years ago while the top 1% are living on energy and supply levels that make kings from the 1700s look like peasants in comparison?

    • Pavel: I don’t disagree with you that supporting a family within the city limits of Vancouver is impractical for a peasant-class male. But is Vancouver typical of the larger Islamic Republic of Canada? It looks like you’re still mostly right if we look at buying a house. Not sure if these data include condos, but the price-to-income ratio has gone up for everyone within the Canadian umma. https://www.nerdwallet.com/ca/mortgages/harsh-housing-market-how-did-we-get-here says that a house in Canada is now around 700,000 CAD, 11X the average Canadian’s earnings. What’s wrong with renting? The average rent in Canada for a 3BR apartment is about 2500 CAD per month. That should be affordable to a lot of men, though I guess the trend is not going to be their friend given how the Canadian population is being expanded via immigration.

    • You’re overlooking many “hidden” expenses that didn’t exist in the ’60s or even the ’80s: smartphones, streaming services, memberships (gyms, Costco, etc.), rideshares like Uber, food delivery apps, and multiple cars per household member — the list goes on and on. But the biggest offender is credit cards. With easy access to credit, overspending has become effortless.

      Today, if a family reviews its monthly expenses, they will find that at least a quarter of their income goes toward these “hidden” costs that no one wants to cut. And back in the ’60s and ’80s, spending was primarily controlled by head of the household, the father. Wives and children had to ask for money from the head of the household, thus there was a grip on spending.

    • philg, with $71,065 CAD gross, your net after payroll tax, CPP and EI will be around $60,000 CAD or $5000 CAD / month. For a family of four, $2500 for rent and $1500 (very tight) for food, leaves $1000/month for car, gas and everything else. The current recommendation is not to spend more than 1/3 of your income for housing. To be able to make it, would require a minimum of $7500 / month net, which requires a dual income family for the majority of cases.

      A housing market where there is more renting than ownership, increases speculation and the concentration of wealth to a lower percentage of the population. Greater housing ownership results a more stable housing market and better finances for the society overall. Housing ownership also eliminates the risk of increasing rent. The upper class and the elites almost never rent property, for most wealthy families, property is a big percentage of their net worth, usually higher than stocks.

      The biggest driver of property prices across Canada was not due to immigration of low net worth people, it was high value, foreign investors, mainly from China, buying every property they could. The provincial government at the time (2010s) decided that it was good to have the investments and the property transfer taxes went from a couple of $100mil to $2 billion / year in BC. The provincial government, homeowners, realtors, developers, builders, exotic car dealers, were all very happy making money while Vancouver and the surrounding cities became unaffordable for young families. If you did not own your own property before around 2015, you were screwed. Currently, even with all the regulations and taxes on foreign investors, the property values are still holding, probably due to the federal government greatly increasing the amount of immigrants into Canada since 2020.

      By Vancouver, I am not talking about just the city, but all the cities within 50km of Vancouver center. There are places in Canada, in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where you can get a reasonable paying job and the cost of housing is barely within reason for the middle class.

      George A., yes there are more extra optional expenses for families today than in the 1980s, but the cost of housing and food is so high, that even if you cut all the extra optional expenses, there is still no way a family can make it on one middle class income. Also, many of the extra expenses can also be cut to a minimum, buy used computers and cell phones for less than 1/5 the cost of new, lots of free streaming, basic cell phone plans, bike or bus instead of Uber, make your own food instead of Doordash, go outside instead of gym and etc. Even if you are an eastern European cheapskate you would have no chance due to the price of housing.

      The bigger issue is also the availability of the jobs that pay that median income, which is not available for most young people until they reach their mid 30s, by which time their reproductive potential is almost zero. There are many young couples, who are very good with their finances and that would love to start families, but it would mean economic ruin and poverty for them, because only one of them could work because of the lack of childcare. The young families with parents help do survive, thanks to better economic opportunities of their parents in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The new parents will not have these economic opportunities and in most cases will not be able to help their children succeed. We are moving into a world, where oligarchs (both from the left and the right) have all the wealth and the rest of us are just slaves. Welcome to the new world.

    • Now that real-estate-owning elites have packed both Canada and the U.S. with 2X the number of humans (via immigration) compared to a few decades ago, I think the “one third on rent/housing” rule has to be tossed. https://www.cardrates.com/studies/the-housing-30-percent-rule/ says millennials are spending about 57 percent of their income on housing (I find that tough to believe, but I guess it is at least more than 33 percent). But I still think that the 1950s standard of living is achievable for most people even with 50 percent of a median income spent on housing/rent. People have just forgotten how crummy the 1950s standard of living was!

    • @Pavel, the problem with today’s generation is their reluctance to cut back on “hidden” expenses. In the 80s and 90s, my family and I lived in a modest three-bedroom, 800-square-foot home with only the essentials: a refrigerator, a stove, and no air conditioning in the summer. Our heat was turned off at night and when we weren’t home. We had just one television with an antenna and a single car for the entire family of four. We took at most one vacation a year and it was local, and rarely attended live shows, which were far more affordable back then.

      In contrast, many young adults today, whether they attend college or not, expect to have their own apartment, their own cell phone plan, streaming subscriptions, a personal car, and more. And as soon as they make a bit more money, they pile up more “hidden” expenses instead of saving.

      I agree with Philip, housing in the 80s and 90s was much simpler. An 800-square-foot home was considered perfectly suitable for raising a family. Today, many prefer to rent a larger 1,100-square-foot home rather than own a smaller one. Additionally, modern expectations include a full suite of appliances: coffee maker, steamer, toaster, and even mini-fridge for drinks. On top of that, there’s a preference for the latest high-tech appliances, which often need replacing every few years.

      I’m not saying housing prices haven’t risen significantly since the 80s and 90s, but lifestyle choices and spending habits also play a major role.

    • philg, The 1950s life with 50 percent of a median income spent on housing/rent is not achievable today. Lets take a 1950s Vancouver house, about 700 sq ft on the upper floor and a 700 sq ft unfinished basement with the boiler and storage space. Today the house is worth about $10k CAD, but the property is worth about $2 million. The house is a leaky shack with asbestos in the dry wall and lead paint. The monthly mortgage payment would be over $11,000/month! If you are looking at a 700 sq ft condo within the Lower Mainland (cities within about 25 km of Vancouver), it is around $800k! Let say you manage to save $80k for down payment, on the $720k mortgage your monthly payment is $4200/month! Do not forget the $200/month maintenance fee on the condo and property taxes of around $100/month. There is no way for a young couple to buy property and start building a financially stable future for a family with kids unless they have significant financial support.

      George A. Yes, a percentage of the today’s generation does spend more on hidden expenses, but the young generation in the 1980s also spent money on portable electronics, CDs, cassettes, used cars, ghetto basters and etc. Appliances and electronics are dirt cheap today compared with the early 1980s, when an Apple II system cost around $1300, which is about $4000 today. Causal restaurants, sports and activities were also cheaper in the 1980s than today relative to the median income. When you do the financial calculations, it is very easy to see that the main drivers are the cost of housing and lack of stable economic opportunities. It is almost impossible for young couples to start families in major cities, even if they live the 1950s life in 2025. In smaller towns, it maybe possible, if they can find the economic opportunities, which maybe very difficult.

      My parents, even with their eastern European thrifty culture, would never be able to have the same lifestyle if they arrived in Canada as new immigrants in 2025. They would be renting a basement suite forever.

      A part of the American and Canadian dream, is for the children to have the possibility of a better life than their parents, this is become impossible for a larger percentage of the population. If society keeps going on its current trajectory, in 30 years the new generation will be comparing their quality of life to the 1850s.

    • Pavel, why are you looking within 25km of Vancouver? For American commenter, this is about 15 miles, does not even qualify to be considered an average commute, about 15-30 minutes one way. Are cars and fuel too expensive in Canada for median income of $70,000?. Roads can not support rush hour traffic? Then it is what Ivan said, voters’ fault, all due to regulation and bad infrastructure policy Come across the border, you can have a house in downtown Detroit, inner city with no commute at all, for $1 plus some back taxes, and in some time you will be able to vote for your choice of Democrat crook legally.
      To reach same nirvanna, all Canada needs to do is officially declare buncrupcy, as it shood, and sell its mighty natural assets to fat cats who know what to do with them.

    • perplexed, In Maple Ridge, BC, about 70km from Vancouver, you can find condos for around $550k, at $55k down, the mortgage payment would be about $2900/month. This would require a family income of around $100k to qualify for the mortgage. For a young, dual income family, this could be possible, as long as they have help with child care (i.e. grandparents). Maple Ridge has very good commuter train service to downtown Vancouver. Most new jobs are outside of Vancouver, so the Lower Mainland morning and afternoon commute is a complete mess, with everybody going all over the place, even the 25km can take over an hour. Most of the new young families do live between 25 km and 75 km away from Vancouver, unless they have inherited property from their parents.

      On moving to Detroit, why would anybody want to move to a city in the Republic of Gilead or should we call it Republic of Muskovia? The Gulf of Muskovia sounds better than the Gulf of America?

      In the next couple of months, Poilievre should be the new PM and carbon taxes will be eliminated, immigration restricted, and our natural resources will be exported to Asia and the EU. Canadian Oligarchs are ready to invest the natural resource sector once the carbon taxes are eliminated. We also have investment from major customers in Asia, like Petronas.

    • Pavel, I am glad about future advances of umma in our northern neighbor United Candastanian Emirates (UCE). Second French dear leader will ensure UCE quick surrender in all future conflicts, even before declaration of war, even at thought that it may hurt. Czechia has a lot of experience in the same area as well.
      Hopefully Trump and Musk comes around and decides to build a wall on our northern border with UCE. But how gilead sciences are related? Or is it about biblical place which is now in Jordan?
      Here in Muscovia, even rich people, who live in peoples’ republics on our eastern and western shores commute much longer distances to their jobs that pay at least 2 to 5 times median UCE income. On the other hand, in tyrannical Kingdom of Texas economy is hot and average serf commutes from his or her McMansion under 15 miles or your magic 25km, due to luck of enlightened regulations and do-gooders.
      Fun aside, I may agree with some your points but your supposition that having children should depends on someone delivering some level of pre-set prices or services will lead to neanderthal-like self – extinction event. I understand that UCE has free healthcare and other great social goodies, so the real problem is not that someone sold you the bill of undeliverable goods but in problems with balls and within frontal lobe cortex.

    • perplexed, Pierre Poilievre may have a French name, but he is from Alberta, the prairies, conservative and tough Canadians.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Poilievre

      “We will never be the 51st state. We will bear any burden and pay any price to protect the sovereignty and independence of our country.” – Pierre Poilievre.

      Republic of Gilead, the totalitarian patriarchal theocracy that rules over the US, is from the dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale written by the Canadian author Margaret Atwood.

      Canadian health care is not for free, it is a single payer system, paid for by Canadian tax payers. It results in better outcomes for Canadian’s than the US system, at a much lower per capita cost. Longer life spans for men and women and lower infant mortality rates are just a few advantages.

      Having children depends on a functional society and economy. This depends on stable jobs, affordable housing, food security, health care and etc, to get the good outcomes depends on getting the balance of capitalism and socialism correct. Young couples had children many centuries ago in much lower resource and energy availability, but at that time those children could grow up and be useful in that lower energy and resource society. You cannot expect young couples to have families, if those children will have no future or opportunities to contribute to modern society and except for a few exceptions, will suffer in poverty.

    • @Pavel, you said:
      > Having children depends on a functional society and economy.

      The Gazans have proven you wrong — they are and have been making babies over the past 14 months, even while living in shelters with help from UNRWA.

    • George: That’s a great point. Palestinians have one of the world’s highest rates of population growth. If you look at pictures and videos from Gaza they have two-parent families (one parent always covered in accordance with Islamic rules; there is never a shortage of hijab in Gaza), 4-8 children per female. Both before and after the noble and glorious October 7 Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, these large stable families generally lived in a modest number of square feet and in structures that weren’t/aren’t luxurious.

  8. Pavel,

    Housing prices are a simple matter of supply and demand, as any commodity’s (” leaky shack with asbestos in the dry wall and lead paint” *is* a commodity). It’s hardly intelligent or honest to pooh-pooh the phenomenon with empty talk about the Gini index. 1% does not live in a ” leaky shack with asbestos in the dry wall and lead paint.” There are enough willing buyers outside the fat cats realm who drive prices to the level they are at.

    If the demand is driven mainly by Chinese folks who got wealthier due to globalization effects, a Canadian citizen or any “Westerner”, for that matter, does not have anyone to blame but himself for that. They got exactly what they voted for.

    If uncontrolled immigration played a role in the housing market dynamics, likewise an average Canadian voter got exactly what he bargained for.

    In any case, 80s are gone and I doubt we can reverse the process. There’s just not enough political will or understanding or both on the peasants’ part. Be prepared to live like an average person in Bangalore.

    • Ivan, the only buyers of the old shacks in Vancouver are developers, they usually build a house and a small coach house onto the back alley. There could have been some background planning by the Canadian Oligarchs to get more wealth, but most likely the Canadian voters and most the politicians were naive and did not predict the unintended consequences of their policies. The goal of the immigration was to try to improve the growth rate of the country due to the declining birth rate. Canada has always been quite selective on who we allowed to immigrate to Canada, now we have immigrant doctors and engineers working for Uber and door dash instead of starting businesses or working as professionals. The amount of investment into building new housing and starting new companies was too little, so now you have a lack of housing and a lack of economic opportunities for a large number of people. Building regulations, zoning laws, carbon taxes, other taxes were also significant reasons why there was little investment. The hope was that the wealthy investors from China and Asia would invest and start up new business, instead they just bought property. A large part of the money from China was dirty money that got laundered through the local casinos and then invested in realestate.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cullen_Commission

      With everybody living like an average person in Bangalore, a good business idea could be to start a Tuk Tuk service.

  9. Joey and me have been chuckling at all the sad-sack commentary here today. We both concur that you all must have suffered from poor parenting. Fortunately for us both, we learned early on in our lives that lying, cheating and stealing were the way to get ahead in life. And guess what? It worked out great!! Best of luck to you all.

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