If you're living somewhere nice right now, chances are that you're paying more than the quadruple-digit average national rent, and that your rent is going up, fast. If you have a reasonable, three-digit rent and a landlord who doesn't try to squeeze you dry with every lease renewal, chances are you live in a shithole. You just can't win in today's America.

From the WSJ:

The average nationwide monthly apartment rent was $1,048 in the fourth quarter, up 0.6% from the third quarter and up 3.8% from a year earlier, according to a report set to be released Tuesday by real-estate research firm Reis Inc... The nation's apartment vacancy rate, which has declined since hitting 8%in the aftermath of the financial crisis, fell to 4.5% from 4.7% in the third quarter.

All those people who were evicted and had to move into their grandma's basement, or just be homeless, have now scraped together enough panhandling change to move back into an apartment—and they're driving up rents for the rest of us.

This is the type of greed America cannot tolerate.

[WSJ. Photo: John Donges/ Flickr]