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Well, TBH it is the tech workers driving demand-if you believe as I do that the increased supply of housing will greatly moderate prices, the flip side of that

Well, TBH it is the tech workers driving demand-if you believe as I do that the increased supply of housing will greatly moderate prices, the flip side of that is that demand does exist, and the demand part of supply and demand works. The solution (build more, lots more) is obvious, but its not like accepting 200K/year FB/Apple/etc job doesn't have moral issues attached.

mc32 11y ago
It really does not have any moral issues attached to moving into a given community and paying rent or buying property so long as you're not engaging in illegal behavior like forced evictions, etc. It's like saying the poor moving into an affluent or apartments built in an affluent area have moral considerations because riff raff have a tendency to drive down prices of the real estate of homeowners. It cuts both ways and neither makes sense.
totalrobe 11y ago
Wow, so accepting a high paying engineering job with a consumer tech company is now immoral? It's not like they're building weapons like the majority of tech on the east coast.
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
What baffles me is that rent increases get blamed on the tenant looking for a decent place to live, instead of on the landlord who actually increases the rent. If we're going to blame a human at all, why aren't we blaming the person who is directly making the change?
- ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
  Why wouldn't the landlord raise rent? There's not a lot of housing alternatives (the supply of housing) and if your average tenant makes 125K instead of 70K, why not gouge them?
  - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
    I don't understand why people think that "making as much money as possible is the most important thing in the world" is a convincing moral argument. You could, for example, have argued that wealthier tenants lead to rising property values, which means the landlord has to raise his rents just to break even on the property taxes. That would have been a coherent argument that absolves all individual blame. Why would you lead with "greed is good"? (And, again, I'm not personally saying that either the tenant or the landlord is at fault. I just don't understand why, if I've just been driven out of my home and I'm looking for someone nearby to blame, I would choose to pin it on the new tenant instead of the landlord.)
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Its a free market. There is no one to blame, any more than there is someone to blame for buying a gallon of orange juice. Supply, demand, prices fluctuate.
  - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
    I don't necessarily believe that it's either the landlord's or the tenant's fault, but I also think don't like how often people dismiss human suffering with "it's a free market" and a shrug. Markets are meant to serve humans, not the other way around.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      Free markets serve them efficiently. You control rent - that doesn't serve the landlord very well, nor the person who would have paid more rent. Just the slob squatting there.
      - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
        See, this is why unquestioning free-market worship bothers me. The claim is always that free markets provide the greatest good for the greatest number, but in your own hypothetical the person-with-less-money is automatically an undeserving "squatting slob" compared to the person-with-more-money.
        JoeAltmaier 11y ago
        Oh come on. Just a word. "The eminent citizen"

mc32 11y ago

It really does not have any moral issues attached to moving into a given community and paying rent or buying property so long as you're not engaging in illegal behavior like forced evictions, etc. It's like saying the poor moving into an affluent or apartments built in an affluent area have moral considerations because riff raff have a tendency to drive down prices of the real estate of homeowners. It cuts both ways and neither makes sense.

totalrobe 11y ago

Wow, so accepting a high paying engineering job with a consumer tech company is now immoral? It's not like they're building weapons like the majority of tech on the east coast.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago

What baffles me is that rent increases get blamed on the tenant looking for a decent place to live, instead of on the landlord who actually increases the rent. If we're going to blame a human at all, why aren't we blaming the person who is directly making the change?

ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
Why wouldn't the landlord raise rent? There's not a lot of housing alternatives (the supply of housing) and if your average tenant makes 125K instead of 70K, why not gouge them?
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  I don't understand why people think that "making as much money as possible is the most important thing in the world" is a convincing moral argument. You could, for example, have argued that wealthier tenants lead to rising property values, which means the landlord has to raise his rents just to break even on the property taxes. That would have been a coherent argument that absolves all individual blame. Why would you lead with "greed is good"? (And, again, I'm not personally saying that either the tenant or the landlord is at fault. I just don't understand why, if I've just been driven out of my home and I'm looking for someone nearby to blame, I would choose to pin it on the new tenant instead of the landlord.)
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Its a free market. There is no one to blame, any more than there is someone to blame for buying a gallon of orange juice. Supply, demand, prices fluctuate.
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  I don't necessarily believe that it's either the landlord's or the tenant's fault, but I also think don't like how often people dismiss human suffering with "it's a free market" and a shrug. Markets are meant to serve humans, not the other way around.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Free markets serve them efficiently. You control rent - that doesn't serve the landlord very well, nor the person who would have paid more rent. Just the slob squatting there.
    - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
      See, this is why unquestioning free-market worship bothers me. The claim is always that free markets provide the greatest good for the greatest number, but in your own hypothetical the person-with-less-money is automatically an undeserving "squatting slob" compared to the person-with-more-money.
      - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
        Oh come on. Just a word. "The eminent citizen"