I remember discovering Moxie Marlinspike talking about this issue 9 years ago and he described this attack as "deadly".
And it really is. In essence, a man in the middle converts all https links to http and proxies out the traffic. A victim would need to notice the missing https in the the url to detect this.
HSTS and https-everywhere browser plugin partially solves the problem.
I think the only viable solution is for all http traffic to be encrypted and to consider non-encrypted traffic suspect.
One thing that is missing is the opportunity cost of the down payment.
Also, in fairness, the renter scenario should be a smart renter that invests their money. Typically, a renter will have lower monthly housing costs in the beginning and will have more money for investment.
Ideally, the net worth should be compared after 25 years or something.
The economics field is not very well developed. It's a social science where experiments can't be reproduced.
The intuitive answer to the title is that the PRICE of dollars goes down. But that may not be the case. It depends on where the money goes. Perhaps it all goes into securitites or btc thus increase the price of those assets.
I'm unable to work for more than a few hours. I'm having a hard time to fall asleep.
The fear of it getting worse is generating a large amount of stress.