That's basically the direction, yes. It's like healthcare in the US: Since people can't opt out of it, the system continuously optimizes for taking as much of their income as possible for the same good.

I started shopping for a home a few years back, and I noticed something interesting: prices had adjusted so that the total cost of owning (including mortgage interest, taxes, maintenance costs, etc.) was almost exactly the same as the total cost of renting! It didn't matter what I did; the choice had been reduced to "Do I want to make a leveraged bet on the housing market, or not?"

I did. That bet was basically a wash when I sold last year. After final calculations... I paid within $100 a month of market rent for the place.

The only way you can get out of the trap is to acquire enough cash to simply buy outright (and then hope you never get the itch to move). And, of course, then that money is locked out of the investment market.