And Yes, It Can Be Solved
Steve Mitnick has authored five books on the economics, history, and people of the utilities industries. While in the consulting practice leadership of McKinsey & Co. and Marsh & McLennan, he advised utility leaders. He led a transmission development company and was a New York Governor’s chief energy advisor. Mitnick was an expert witness appearing before utility regulatory commissions of six states, D.C., FERC, and in Canada, and taught microeconomics, macroeconomics, and statistics at Georgetown University.
Like other crises, this one defies definition and thus resolution.” So said The Wall Street Journal’s Chief Economics Commentator, Greg Ip, in his article “Everyone Is Talking About the ‘Affordability Crisis.’ It Can’t Be Solved.”
WSJ published the article a couple of days after the extraordinary and very well-reported meeting of the President with New York City’s Mayor-Elect in late November. Affordability was in the background and foreground of the meeting, and all around it. Quoting from the article again,
“And that’s the problem with the affordability crisis. What started as a serious but short-lived spike in inflation from 2021 to 2023 has evolved into something broader and more amorphous… Clearly, the affordability crisis can’t be captured by such macroeconomic measures [after the article’s author referenced overall price levels and real personal incomes that haven’t indicated a crisis]. It is an amalgam of microeconomic irritants that vary by individual, time and place.”
As a regular reader of this respected journalist, and as a regular writer about affordability, I naturally was stirred into action. With the power of my pen.
Affordability can indeed be defined, I shouted, though to a room that was empty. In an instant, I ran to my keyboard, practically ranting: affordability can indeed be solved, but only if it is defined accurately.
Typing with my typical passion for this topic, the following essay was the result.