Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

China's president, Xi Jinping, has been clamping down on the country's religions and a

oppression of the devout abounds. Yet certain faiths are actually encouraged.

Our correspondent meets the followers of the Seagotus Monsu.

And it's precisely a century since the start of prohibition in America.

These days, drinking is in decline for cultural, rather than legal reasons,

and the drinks industry is racing to catch up with steamy as attitudes.

We have proof.

First up, though.

Housing in the Western world has become enormously expensive.

Politicians tend to like it when house prices go up.

They think people feel richer, borrow and spend more, and that it gives the economy a nice boost.

But costly housing is bad for both those who want to buy and those who want to rent.

It has much more profound economic implications.

Housing across much of the rich world is very, very expensive and it hasn't always been this expensive.

It's a relatively recent phenomenon.

Column Williams is our senior economics writer.

And the problem with that is that it has both massive economic consequences and massive social and political consequences.

So it causes financial crisis after financial crisis.

For various reasons, it means that the kind of way in which economies work,

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