Housing crisis looks familiar in US and Ireland

Apart from a brief sojourn to Dublin for a certain ill-fated hurling match, I have spent the past couple of weeks in the US. 

While out of the country, I noticed that the Irish housing crisis noise went up a number of decibels, with some tragic homeless deaths and the dysfunctional rental market as students return to college feeding the justifiable frenzy.

It defies logic that a relatively tiny country of 4.7m people is incapable of providing sufficient housing to satisfy the requirements of those who want to buy, those who want to rent, and those who cannot afford to rent or buy. It is a pretty sad indictment of our policy making system that we are in the mess that we are in. The same things could be said about health.