housing
Canada is not alone. House prices also look high relative to rents in Australia, where a few cities, notably Sydney and Melbourne, are booming. Prices in some American cities, such as Seattle and San Francisco, have been rising much faster than the national market, which looks reasonably priced.
出現這種問題的不止是加拿大。澳大利亞的房價租金比看起來也很高，有幾個城市（特別是悉尼和墨爾本）樓市火爆。美國全國樓市的總體定價看起來還算合理，但一些城市（如西雅圖和舊金山）的房價漲幅遠高於全國整體水平。
Common to all these cities are buyers from emerging markets, notably China, who have helped to drive a wedge between the price of homes and the local fundamentals of incomes and rental payments. They are willing to pay above the odds to secure a safe place for their savings. Though fairly small in number, their presence is enough to inflate bubbles. Canada’s housing market thus opens a window on a tragic flaw in the global economy. In only a few decades China has mastered the manufacture of high-quality goods. But it takes far longer to be able to manufacture safe stores of value. Instead, their affluent citizens seek out rich-country assets, including houses. This fundamental mismatch limits the ability of policymakers to stop bubbles from inflating.
這些城市都有一個共同點，那就是來自新興市場的買家，特別是中國買家，拉大了房價和收入與租金支出這兩個當地市場基本面之間的差距。這些買家願意支付高價，為他們的儲蓄找到安全的去處。雖然這些買家數量很少，但他們的存在足以吹大泡沫。加拿大的住房市場因而打開了一扇窗，讓人們一窺全球經濟中一個悲劇性的缺陷。短短几十年裡，中國已然精於製造高質量的商品，但要打造出安全儲存財富的渠道，需要的時間要長得多。中國的富裕公民轉而尋求投資富裕國家的資產，房產正在其中。這種根本上的錯配限制了政策制定者阻止泡沫膨脹的能力。
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