Empty Spaces

Construction is not the best use of capital when the objective is to make jobs, and loanable funds are scarce. Construction is more capital-intensive than labor-intensive. In addition, we presently have a glut of finished but unused buildings, the result of years of fiscal bias that has diverted investors from working capital to construction. Lenders have also been diverted by the use of soaring and volatile land values as collateral. The solution is to reverse the fiscal biases, which are identified, and apply selective credit controls to lenders, keeping them away from depending on real estate collateral.