By @duncanstott:
We could plan cars in the same way we plan houses. Roads are congested, so let's have a planning system to control the number of new cars.
Government would do an objectively assessed car need to set the maximum number of cars that should be built for the next fifteen years. Sadly it's hard to predict what the future holds, so it's likely that the government gets its objectively assessed car need wrong.
Now car builders no longer build as many cars as it can sell - it maximises the value of its car building permits by slowing production. A car shortage slowly emerges. The price of cars no longer depreciate with age. Instead the scarcity value of a car dominates its price.
The car loan industry does well from this. The scarcity value of cars they secure lending against means they offer bigger loans to buyers.
The majority of households are car owners, but the rising price of cars means younger people are really struggling to get on the car ladder. The government recognises more needs to be done to help young car buyers. So they launch a scheme called 'Help To Buy'.
Some older car owners can't understand why young people complain so much, because they managed car ownership through hard work and saving. But car owners also lobby against more new car permits being issued, because it will surely increase congestion [and hit their car value].
Meanwhile left-wing economists point out that plenty of car seats are left empty most of the day, so there isn't really a car shortage.
What we really need is a quota of new car permits to be 'Affordable Cars', where cars are rented out at 80% of the market rate. No that's not radical enough. What we really need is for councils to be building low cost cars for socially deprived groups.
Anyway, back to the main car market. The most expensive cars are the best built old cars, which also have a vintage beauty. Everybody loves how there are still all these quaint vintage cars around, unlike the modern rubbish the car builders churn out these days.
Maybe if car builders were to build beautiful cars like they used to, there'd be more approval for more new car permits being issued?
Meanwhile, a period of low interest rates has made car loans more affordable, but this new debt sent car prices soaring. Unscrupulous lenders handed out car loans to families who couldn't really afford it, then repackaged the debt for the derivatives market.
Great minds think alike.