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I hear you and apologies for the rant. Down votes are entirely understandable as I don't care for radical sounding rants either. I'm not saying in in the US, n

I hear you and apologies for the rant. Down votes are entirely understandable as I don't care for radical sounding rants either. I'm not saying in in the US, nor concretely, but philosophically I think when a person is born they inherit the right to inhabit a piece of earth. You shouldn't arrive in the earth and not be able to sleep on piece of it without paying someone. I guess I feel that land in general belongs to the collective. And philosophically I'd extend that beyond national boundaries. Just because someone before us with a gun and a flag, or else a deed and a banknote did something doesn't mean they increased real estate. It was here before, it will be here after. So that's just theoretical but it seems axiomatic to me. I own a home as well. I could sell it now and make money on it. Great. But then where would I poop? I guess point is, it seems to me to be both unjust and destructive to have the essential needs of a place to sleep and raise a family be subject to wild market forces. Plus I think it discourages actual productive economic activity. People have a hard time relocating to where there is need partially because of speculation. So it inhibits the flow of human capital. I don't disagree at all with your practical analysis of the situation. Admittedly I have no idea how to solve the problem, and it is a hard one, particularly now that so much "wealth" is represented. I just don't think it should have been allowed to get to this point, and I think we need to approach the problem with an entirely different framework. And I'd say part of that is realizing the ability to have a place to live and raise a family is an essential human right and it is sacred and it is many many times more important than the right of people to build or preserve wealth through paper ownership of real estate. Leave wealth building for bitcoin and Apple stock and companies that make mascara. Or hard work and savings. Not wheat and water and living quarters.

omegaham 9y ago
> Leave wealth building for bitcoin and Apple stock and companies that make mascara. The flip side of this - people then complain that we have 25 different high-tech varieties of boner pills while the developing world is dealing with antibiotic-resistant infections and malaria. Despite the SV Founder Changing The World rhetoric, most people are in business to get paid. People go where the money is. If you declare that no one should get rich off of bread because it's A Basic Necessity, you're going to find that the bread biz is going to stagnate while endless innovation happens in the Twinkie and tortilla chip biz. Some martyrs who are willing to sacrifice their career prospects to work in bread will stick around and make process, but the legions of people who are just looking for a non-shitty job are going to stay far away.
- mythrwy 9y ago
  Yup. That is the problem right here in the real world. Don't disagree a bit. We've seen what happens with price controls, rent controls, government subsidies and mandates. That's why I say I see the problem, not the answer. But I'm pretty sure we can do better than we are right now. Policies discouraging wealth accumulation through living quarters might be a good start.
  - irremediable 9y ago
    Have you ever read much about land value taxation? I think a well-implemented LVT could do a lot to help with these problems -- though I'm no expert, it seems a lot of economists rate it favourably.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    You don't necessarily need price controls or rent controls. You could put a special tax on second homes which would make renting and investing economically unfeasible. You could even make it so that speculation was enabled by allowing the sale of derivative housing futures (a young person would buy a house at a reduced price, and then have to pay the investor every time the house's price increased over the next 10 years). That would allow both investors to speculate and young people to buy.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  "If you declare that no one should get rich off of bread because it's A Basic Necessity, you're going to find that the bread biz is going to stagnate" If you declare that nobody should get rich off there being a shortage of bread because it's a basic necessity, you're not going to stop somebody getting rich from making artisanally crafted locally sourced handcrafted sourdough (or whatever).
- maxsilver 9y ago
  > If you declare that no one should get rich off of bread because it's A Basic Necessity, you're going to find that the bread biz is going to stagnate while endless innovation happens in the Twinkie and tortilla chip biz This is simply false. We've declared water A Basic Necessity, such that clean water is piped into everyone's home, by the government, at effectively zero profit. And yet, there's still over 100 bottled water types and brands, carried at almost every retailer nationwide. There's 6 dozen flavoured water types, there's an entire industry of water pitchers, water purifiers, carbonated water drinks, and much more. Clean Water is now a crazy innovative industry in large part because we made it a covered fundamental human need. You absolutely can declare housing A Basic Necessity, and it wouldn't hurt any meaningful industries, it wouldn't prevent any innovation, and it would largely improve the finances of most citizens, strengthening the economy at large.
hamilyon2 9y ago
Soviet leaders understood it. You move to new city to work: here is your new flat. You are working: here is your bread (and cinema, clothes…). The thing is, supply and demand for all of them is quite unpredictable. Removing market forces leads to imbalances, improper resources allocation, and in the end deficit and even more suffering. So centralized system is clerly not an answer.

omegaham 9y ago

> Leave wealth building for bitcoin and Apple stock and companies that make mascara. The flip side of this - people then complain that we have 25 different high-tech varieties of boner pills while the developing world is dealing with antibiotic-resistant infections and malaria. Despite the SV Founder Changing The World rhetoric, most people are in business to get paid. People go where the money is. If you declare that no one should get rich off of bread because it's A Basic Necessity, you're going to find that the bread biz is going to stagnate while endless innovation happens in the Twinkie and tortilla chip biz. Some martyrs who are willing to sacrifice their career prospects to work in bread will stick around and make process, but the legions of people who are just looking for a non-shitty job are going to stay far away.

mythrwy 9y ago
Yup. That is the problem right here in the real world. Don't disagree a bit. We've seen what happens with price controls, rent controls, government subsidies and mandates. That's why I say I see the problem, not the answer. But I'm pretty sure we can do better than we are right now. Policies discouraging wealth accumulation through living quarters might be a good start.
- irremediable 9y ago
  Have you ever read much about land value taxation? I think a well-implemented LVT could do a lot to help with these problems -- though I'm no expert, it seems a lot of economists rate it favourably.
- timthelion 9y ago
  You don't necessarily need price controls or rent controls. You could put a special tax on second homes which would make renting and investing economically unfeasible. You could even make it so that speculation was enabled by allowing the sale of derivative housing futures (a young person would buy a house at a reduced price, and then have to pay the investor every time the house's price increased over the next 10 years). That would allow both investors to speculate and young people to buy.
crdoconnor 9y ago
"If you declare that no one should get rich off of bread because it's A Basic Necessity, you're going to find that the bread biz is going to stagnate" If you declare that nobody should get rich off there being a shortage of bread because it's a basic necessity, you're not going to stop somebody getting rich from making artisanally crafted locally sourced handcrafted sourdough (or whatever).
maxsilver 9y ago
> If you declare that no one should get rich off of bread because it's A Basic Necessity, you're going to find that the bread biz is going to stagnate while endless innovation happens in the Twinkie and tortilla chip biz This is simply false. We've declared water A Basic Necessity, such that clean water is piped into everyone's home, by the government, at effectively zero profit. And yet, there's still over 100 bottled water types and brands, carried at almost every retailer nationwide. There's 6 dozen flavoured water types, there's an entire industry of water pitchers, water purifiers, carbonated water drinks, and much more. Clean Water is now a crazy innovative industry in large part because we made it a covered fundamental human need. You absolutely can declare housing A Basic Necessity, and it wouldn't hurt any meaningful industries, it wouldn't prevent any innovation, and it would largely improve the finances of most citizens, strengthening the economy at large.

hamilyon2 9y ago

Soviet leaders understood it. You move to new city to work: here is your new flat. You are working: here is your bread (and cinema, clothes…). The thing is, supply and demand for all of them is quite unpredictable. Removing market forces leads to imbalances, improper resources allocation, and in the end deficit and even more suffering. So centralized system is clerly not an answer.