alt Hacker NewsIt doesn't really matter why; what matters is that they do see things that way.
And I agree with you, it's a bad convention, and it causes tons of problems, and it's the result of recent decades of bad mortgage/housing/zoning policy. But we can't just wipe it away and pretend it was never there, and let the chips fall where they may. That's just heartless, and, well -- you talk about making society poorer -- that will make society much, much poorer, nearly overnight.
No it won't. If society builds more dwellings society is richer. Wealth is the actual physical production of goods and services.
We wouldn't get richer if we blew up car factories to protect the market value of existing cars. The market value of existing cars WOULD skyrocket if we destroyed all new car production, but that would be society getting poorer, not richer, as we would have fewer cars.