They can. There are laws that prevent how much they can make based on the percentage of "something-something-whatever" they put into a central banking, so there's a ceiling of sorts. But other than that, it's all magicked up, yes: Fractional-reserve banking.

Interestingly, that makes extreme sense. Capitalism in general, and Shareholder Capitalism more intensely, requires exponential growth. A company that makes (I'll throw random number for simplicity) $1 billion/quarter to grow 3%, means increasing revenue by $30 million in that period, whereas a company that makes $1 trillion/quarter needs to increase revenue by $30 billion to meet the same 3% growth. Needing to make $30 million allows for a much larger window of "good enough quality" before enshitification quicks in compared to needing to make $30 billion, so the later is way more prone to enshitify their products as soon as possible, if not before, otherwise they miss that target.

If this is how it works, then enshitification also follows the same exponential curve, and we'll definitely see more, and more, and MORE, AND MORE of it, in the next years, until the entire thing collapses as big corps all around start failing to meet their shareholder's expectations over and over again.

You're not thinking creatively enough. The way things are going, the argument will be that uncontrolled installation of unregulated Linux distributions empowers pedophiles to distribute CSAM, so government will start demanding new motherboards to only allow the installation of properly vetted operating systems that implement extensive, impossible to disable, system monitoring to make sure no CSAM can be distributed with it.

Only big corporations with a proven need for maximum performance (and governments, evidently) will be able to buy special, unrestricted motherboards, and they'll need special authorization and a proven internal governance system, subject to periodic government audits, to show they aren't allowing CSAM on their systems.

Evidently, politicians and CEOs will be free from such obligations, because they're Very Important People acting in the National Interest.

And once this is in place, the tightening will continue at a slow but steady pace.

You're under the delusion this would work under a falling population.

The total quantity of money flowing in the economy is a representation of the total amount of goods and services in existence. Your savings, as an absolute number, is meaningless. What matters is what percentage the total quantity of money, which is to say, of all goods and services, your savings represents.

If the total number goes up faster than your savings number goes up, all those savings of yours will represent a lower percentage of all goods and services in existence, so you'll be able to purchase less. You'll experience it as inflation, rendering your savings, once you retire, more and more worthless as time goes by.

If the total number remains the same, meaning your percentage of all goods and services in existence remains the same, but this total amount of goods and service itself becomes smaller and keeps diminishing after you retire, you're also going to be able to purchase less.

And we currently live an economic and sociological environment that does both things: the total number goes up faster than your savings number goes, and the total quantity of goods and services is falling due to lower birth rates, meaning less workers, meaning less production. Plus a higher percentage of retirees versus the working age people, so more competition between retirees themselves for less and less resources.

All of which adds up to saving for retirement being exactly as much of a Ponzi scheme as social security: both require more workers than retirees so the later have access to the goods and services they need to live in their older age. Any difference you perceive between them is subjective preference that doesn't alter the end result, for mathematically they're strictly equivalent.

So, no, going for savings won't solve anything. And the solution that would fix savings-based retirement, namely, higher birth rates, would also fix social security-based retirement, making the point moot.

There's one simple metric to know whether the government has access to encrypted data: angry calls by law enforcement agencies making repeated requests for lawmakers to force companies to allow access to encrypted data.

Consider how, until several years ago, the FBI and other US TLAs were arguing all the time for access to encryption, with media reporting on that almost non-stop. Consider how they all stopped talking about it a few years later, and to this day still say little to nothing about it. Now, what's more likely: that they conformed to the fact they'll never get access to it so stopped trying; or that they don't need to ask anymore?

By using this metric it's clear the UK and the EU don't have access to encrypted content from Apple and other big techs, while US most certainly does. The moment UK and EU officials stop talking about this we'll know they, too, got access to it.

And many to do. It'd be analogous to how, at one point, the British Empire was convinced by Christian militants to put its Navy in the service of ending chattel slavery, and then went and did exactly that.

Too bad they don't make Christian militants like they used to.

Okay, you need to take a deep breath, then start looking into how things are done in the real world. That's quite different from how things are done in the fantasy construct built by the books, blogs, YouTube channels, etc. of your current ideological bubble.

That's the ideal. Free-market idealists, such as Libertarians and Classic Liberals, believe that's all there is to it. Capitalists (not the same thing) see things differently. For them, investment is anything that increase their wealth, no matter what.

Hence, while productive assets are a type of investment, there are others. Rent extraction is one such. Forming cartels is another. Productive-asset-providers destruction is a fourth. Buying the best made-to-order laws from sovereign law-selling States in the free market of laws is a fifth. And so on, and so forth.

So! Housing is a rent-seeking investment type that, for maximum ROI, involves as operational costs primarily law-buying, and secondarily cartel-formation (enabled by the purchased laws). It transfers wealth up is an extremely profitable manner and, therefore, is an excellent opportunity for those operating at a scale they can in fact buy the necessary laws.

As long as housing is an investment, they won't. The entire modern Western economy is built around the concept of "number go up". Investments are allowed downward moves only temporarily. After a while, number must go up no matter what, and if it doesn't naturally, the laws necessary for it to happen will be purchased as necessary.

Is that half country right now on the streets, participating in a general strike, paralyzing trade and traffic on most cities, and causing massive economic damage to the billionaires and their pocket politicians?

Or is the vast, vast, VAST majority of that half country passively allowing all of this to happen unchallenged, unwilling to dirty their hands in active subversive political action?

If the latter, well, inaction is a choice, and all choices have consequences. Hence, to all Americans who are day in, day out, choosing to do nothing, by all means, enjoy the fruits of those 226 -- and counting -- deliberate choices.

The problem is boomers run most rich countries now, an unintended consequence of having population growth dropping below replacement level. They either are, or are becoming, the major political force most everywhere that matters, politicians almost invariably bowing to their will. And they want their retirement plans working as intended. So, no, housing isn't going to come down, or if it does, it's at best going to be temporary.

You're narrow conversationalist, aren't you? Let me address this then: I'm in favor of voter ID. There, done, you can rest the 99.999% of your argument. Now read EVERYTHING ELSE (or watch the video).

By the way, this is how it's done in my country:

a) Our law says voting is a full right that must be granted by the government, so the government makes it certain that every citizen all over the country MUST be able to vote. No expense must be spared by the government in facilitating voting.

b) Voting requires an ID.

c) You can get a national ID, that doubles as a voter ID, by several means. The government goes out of its way to make it as easy as possible. Any community that has difficulty accessing ID'ing places have government officers going there to ID them. Also, it's free.

d) Voting days are always on a weekend or a national holiday, to make it easier for the vast majority of the population to go vote. Public transportation is made free, to make it even easier. All public schools are made into polling stations, to make it even easier than that.

e) There's no gerrymandering, as voting in representatives isn't by county, but by State. Anyone within the State can vote for any representative candidate from the State. Also, no electoral college, here it's one person, one vote, no funny nonsense about some less populated areas this or that.

f) Voting is obligatory. If someone refuses to go vote, and they don't have a legally valid excuse for that refusal, they get blocked from accessing several Federal public services until they pay a fine. This makes sure voting is always representative of the will of the majority of the population.

g) Finally, protest voting is placing a non-existent number on the ballot, such as 00 or 99. But the person does go there and does type the number, so there's an official count of how many protested by actively voting in "none of the above".

That's how it ought to be, everywhere.

This article goes into it in details. If you prefer a video summarizing the key tactics and strategies, this one is 14 minutes long, so short enough, though not shorter.

So almost exactly the same Trump wants the FED doing?