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Hold up on my last line ^ Where do you get the soylent/electricity/housing/phone/internet from? Are you proposing that the government fire up soylent plants,

Hold up on my last line ^ Where do you get the soylent/electricity/housing/phone/internet from? Are you proposing that the government fire up soylent plants, buy power plants, build, own and maintain housing and become a telecom provider? Or is the government going to buy from private companies?

Grishnakh 10y ago
Yep, this is a very bad idea for the most part; these things already exist with private industry, so it's much easier for government to just allocate and distribute money, and let people buy things from existing providers instead of getting the government into the distribution of goods business. There's definitely room for more government regulation, especially with housing (that one's a mess, with all the foreign investors pumping up the realty prices; some simple laws should fix that), and also telecom (basically we need to copy whatever Europe's doing there).
- monknomo 10y ago
  Euro-style telecoms do seem to be kicking US style telecom ass, from a consumer perspective. I know I'm jealous. I think it's hard to untangle foreign investment from local real estate prices without running into some of the US's fundamental "freedom" tenets, but I haven't looked very closely into what we might do. I feel like it is more of a NIMBY problem, most places
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    It shouldn't be that hard to enact some laws which make it really hard or unprofitable to be an absentee landlord. Perhaps rules requiring property owners to personally show up for annual property inspections? An easy one would be rules preventing corporations from purchasing residential property (after it's been constructed and on the market; it's normal for corporations to own it initially during construction and first-sale). There should be some other sneaky ways that localities could throw up roadblocks to foreign investors and other absentee landlords, and use them to seize the property.
    - monknomo 10y ago
      I read about a Seattle law where non-code compliant rentals are forbidden from raising their rent. That might help

Grishnakh 10y ago

Yep, this is a very bad idea for the most part; these things already exist with private industry, so it's much easier for government to just allocate and distribute money, and let people buy things from existing providers instead of getting the government into the distribution of goods business. There's definitely room for more government regulation, especially with housing (that one's a mess, with all the foreign investors pumping up the realty prices; some simple laws should fix that), and also telecom (basically we need to copy whatever Europe's doing there).

monknomo 10y ago
Euro-style telecoms do seem to be kicking US style telecom ass, from a consumer perspective. I know I'm jealous. I think it's hard to untangle foreign investment from local real estate prices without running into some of the US's fundamental "freedom" tenets, but I haven't looked very closely into what we might do. I feel like it is more of a NIMBY problem, most places
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  It shouldn't be that hard to enact some laws which make it really hard or unprofitable to be an absentee landlord. Perhaps rules requiring property owners to personally show up for annual property inspections? An easy one would be rules preventing corporations from purchasing residential property (after it's been constructed and on the market; it's normal for corporations to own it initially during construction and first-sale). There should be some other sneaky ways that localities could throw up roadblocks to foreign investors and other absentee landlords, and use them to seize the property.
  - monknomo 10y ago
    I read about a Seattle law where non-code compliant rentals are forbidden from raising their rent. That might help