China

The metric is simple. Why second-guess it? Rents down = good for renters. If you want them up, you're a fucking landlord.

You want rent to fund the next project? Then you're an austerity nut.

For context, that user generally wants China's government to recentralize to a degree and think these things are an "issue" insofar as the local governments are essentially filled with Western neoliberal brain worms and need stricter oversight and centralization to prevent dumb neoliberalism. I don't think they want higher rent, but believe that local governments do due to landlordism brain worms.

I think (again, this is how I read the comment) the core of the frustration is they feel like the financial sector is making bank off this, and because it was done relatively recklessly, some of the massive amounts of resources being used to manage the falling prices aren't being used in other sectors, which is contributing to stagnant wages, an absurd young unemployment and a continuous deflationary spiral that aggrevates the other two. (I'm realizing I've read far too many of their comments lol)

I will let you know many refer to xiaohongshu as Hexbear's resident doomer, so you aren't the first to feel that way lol. Some of their comments I've gathered also work within a neoliberal framework as the user fully believes much of China's economic policy is working within it and are meant to highlight the impossibility of solving those issues within its framing as a rhetorical tool for a break from western neo-economic policy.

Frankly, I don't spend nearly enough time on economic studies and theory to dismiss it myself, and most the time I've seen people argue against their ideas on our side they just resort to calling the user names so was also curious how grad would interpret things.