Kontrarian Korner #96 - Melody Wright

Yesterday I had Melody Wright back on the podcast to talk about real estate, societal changes, and the media environment, among other things. We also took a couple detours into topics like AI and offshoring, the generational divide, and demographics. It was a fun conversation where we got into current events and talked about the slow moving Titanic that is the real estate market, but we also talked about some of the big picture problems facing the US and what we can do to fix them. You can find Melody and her work on her Substack as well as on Twitter.

Podcast Summary

* The 30,000 foot view of residential real estate, and why new homes are cheaper than existing homes today.

* Affordability issues, interest rates, and what shrinking transaction volumes mean for the next couple years in the market.

* Building inventories, migration trends, demographics, fertility rates, and other trends that will play a part in the real estate market.

* The generational divide, median incomes, and why housing is more unaffordable than it has ever been.

* Reality TV politics when it comes to immigration and deportations.

* How society has changed since the 70s as more women entered the workforce, along with several other factors that lead to changes on the culture.

* Why the recent wave of layoffs that is attributed to AI has more to do with offshoring after a wave of overhiring.

* Why the current media environment is a double edged sword when it comes to changing narratives, but also the pervasive propaganda environment that we are in.

* Book Recommendation: The Price Of Time by Edward Chancellor.

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