5 ms·

The system where the poor have to rent apartments in big cities is obviously flawed. Soon, average rent approaches median wage. Then subsidies come into play. N

The system where the poor have to rent apartments in big cities is obviously flawed. Soon, average rent approaches median wage. Then subsidies come into play. Now, rent can grow even more. Now, rents is not something people are ready to pay but something rent-seekers extract directly from state coffers. It's an arbitrary amount. We end up playing money to the already rich. (We should probably pay subsidies to old/disabled people on condition that they move away from centers of economic activity and into more rural, economically depressed areas)

cabalamat 9y ago
> We should probably pay subsidies to old/disabled people on condition that they move away from centers of economic activity and into more rural, economically depressed areas Old and disabled people -- particularly if poor -- may find it easier to get about in cities, as places they want to travel to will be nearer and there will be more public transport.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  It's occassionally cheaper to provide poor with a huge Uber voucher than with rent subsidy. Two rides a day, 20 days a month is still just $800 (perhaps cheaper in rural area, bought in bulk). And by doing that you're making economy healthier. By propping up big cities you're contributing to feet of clay situation.
  - nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
    So, it's good for the government to give money to a service operating at artificially lowered prices and whose business model has been to flout laws as far as they can get away with it?
    - thriftwy 9y ago
      You can have competition between providers for those vouchers.
      - mynewtb 9y ago
        That would make it even worse, a race to the bottom.
        thriftwy 9y ago
        WHAT? Since when free money from government in already economically depressed area will "make it even worse"? Worse compared to that? Channeling more money to landlords in SF and NY? It's basically people on early disability choosing between whisky on payday and making extra buck on hauling other people like them around. Face it, many less-fortunate areas are on the bottom already even in developed nations.
    - literallycancer 9y ago
      If the company name triggers you, just pretend it's a bus or a train voucher.
  - mcguire 9y ago
    "It's occassionally cheaper to provide poor with a huge Uber voucher than with rent subsidy." Failing that, let them eat cake. Uber, taxi service, and most forms of public transportation do not exist at all in rural areas.
    - thriftwy 9y ago
      Why won't Uber exist in rural areas? And by "rural" I actually mean most of places which aren't a booming megapolis, including cities of ~100,000.
      - mcguire 9y ago
        You have a strange definition of rural. Anyway, out here in the middle of nowhere, Uber, taxi and (high frequency) bus service are not economically viable. Low population means low numbers of fares means low suppliers means long delays for service means lower numbers of fares. All of which is made worse by distances. Medium and large cities do have taxi service and public transport, but those are lower priority since everyone has a car.
        thriftwy 9y ago
        I don't see how Uber would not be unviable anywhere. As a driver, even if you have one rider per month, why not make an extra $10? WRT "made worse by distances" Bay Area is actually pretty sprawling itself. I don't think any rural community will have its points of interests further apart than Bay Area has.
        javra 9y ago
        Let's say you're on Hartz IV. The $10 have to be accounted for at the social security system, and if you earn to many of them $10's, you don't get to keep them.
        planteen 9y ago
        Uber doesn't offer service in much of the rural US now. There's a ride service specifically for rural areas called Liberty: http://libertymobilitynow.com/ http://libertymobilitynow.com/ But even these are for micropolitan areas with populations on the order of 40,000. There is still no service for more remote areas.
gambiting 9y ago
This is my main argument against Universal Basic Income - if UBI is X/month, then monthly rent for anything will grow to at least X/month because why wouldn't it? If you know that 100% of your renters have a guaranteed income of X/month, then why charge any less?
- thriftwy 9y ago
  > if UBI is X/month, then monthly rent for anything will grow to at least X/month because why wouldn't it? Because there's plenty of real estate offered cheap once you don't have to hang out near a big economic center? Real estate is commodity in many places, why won't it be? People will just move there.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    If that was true, we wouldn't have poor jobless people living in the city centres - why be poor and jobless in a city centre, if if you can be jobless and slightly less poor outside of the city, surely there is no functional difference? But humans are not automatons, they don't follow perfect logic.
    - thriftwy 9y ago
      Well, on UBI, stupid people may end up propping rents in expensive locations. Less stupid people would move to a location where UBI will allow comfortable living for them. People may end up not so stupid. Imagine you live in SF, you've got $500 UBI while your rent grew $300. This leaves you with extra $200 of leg room, yay for UBI!
    - oneweekwonder 9y ago
      > why be poor and jobless in a city centre Condensed space with a lot of working class people... Best place to beg.
    - aianus 9y ago
      Because subsidized housing is located in, and funded by, the city (at least where I live). There is no option to move somewhere cheaper and keep the subsidies.
legulere 9y ago
Yes just kick out the poor from the cities that are the center of their life: where they lived for their whole life, where friends and family live, where their job is, where they are active in clubs, where there are jobs and cultural offers.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  You can live in the city that is the center of your life as long as you want, provided you can pay rent. Once you can't pay your rent and apply for subsidies, naturally we should see where the compromise is. Otherwise you will not help yourself landing in the situation where X can fit in a city comfortably, but 10*X people consider the particular city the center of their life. What do we do?
  - moultano 9y ago
    Build more housing. (Or rather, permit it to be built.)
    - thriftwy 9y ago
      It's outside of my control, as a tax payer, to force some city to build up. It's well inside of my control to demand that my taxes are not wasted on subsidies going directly to rent-seeking landlords in already economically overheated areas. I would prefer they go to underdeveloped areas and give more economic effect. This means that people asking for subsidies should be ready to shift away from the core.
      - moultano 9y ago
        You do if you live there. Vote pro housing candidates for city and regional government.
  - asymmetric 9y ago
    People without much money shouldn't be forced to move out of neighbourhoods they call home just because they don't have money. Who said money should buy you the right to a life with strong social bonds? Some things, including the ones mentioned above, should not be on the market.
seletz 9y ago
I think the real problem is that in in germany -- especially there -- wages almost stagnated over the last 10 years. Germanys wages are that low that other EU countries (France, Italy for example) find it hard to compete in terms of labour cost. I think that's also the main cause of Germany being "Exportweltmeister" every year.
- rbehrends 9y ago
  Not really [1, 2]. Labor costs aren't the highest in Europe, but they're fairly high. This is a persistent myth. Wages stagnated after reunification (near economic collapse of a large part of the country and 10%+ unemployment will do that for you), but other than the financial crisis and the mini recession of 2012-2013, real wages have been growing for the past decade [3]. [1] http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-labor-costs-rising-faster-than-eu-average/a-17630313 http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-labor-costs-rising-faster-than... [2] https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/german-labor-costs/?mcubz=3 https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/german-labor-co... [3] https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten/GesamtwirtschaftUmwelt/VerdiensteArbeitskosten/RealloehneNettoverdienste/Tabellen/Reallohnindex_Jahre.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten/GesamtwirtschaftUmwe...
  - lampenrad 9y ago
    Here are the labor costs compared to other nations from '00 to '11: https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/1200-width/images/print-edition/20130615_SRC622.png https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imageca... They might've grown above EU average since then, but they certainly got some catching up to do. Real wages have increased since '07, yes, but that was also the lowest year in decades. The fact is, that it's barely above where it was 25 years ago: http://www.bpb.de/cache/images/7/61767-1x2-article620.gif?FF212 http://www.bpb.de/cache/images/7/61767-1x2-article620.gif?FF... And I don't see, how the reunification of Germany would've caused real wages in '07 to be lower than in '93. I'm no economist, but Hartz 4 and the Agenda 2010 in general seem like a more plausible cause to me.
    - rbehrends 9y ago
thomasfl 9y ago
The world needs more non profit organisations that seek to build affordable housing for it's members. Besides the organisations should also build environments that provides social and economic possibilities - aka new cities instead of just urban sprawl or unfriendly suburban housing.

cabalamat 9y ago

> We should probably pay subsidies to old/disabled people on condition that they move away from centers of economic activity and into more rural, economically depressed areas Old and disabled people -- particularly if poor -- may find it easier to get about in cities, as places they want to travel to will be nearer and there will be more public transport.

thriftwy 9y ago
It's occassionally cheaper to provide poor with a huge Uber voucher than with rent subsidy. Two rides a day, 20 days a month is still just $800 (perhaps cheaper in rural area, bought in bulk). And by doing that you're making economy healthier. By propping up big cities you're contributing to feet of clay situation.
- nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
  So, it's good for the government to give money to a service operating at artificially lowered prices and whose business model has been to flout laws as far as they can get away with it?
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    You can have competition between providers for those vouchers.
    - mynewtb 9y ago
      That would make it even worse, a race to the bottom.
      - thriftwy 9y ago
        WHAT? Since when free money from government in already economically depressed area will "make it even worse"? Worse compared to that? Channeling more money to landlords in SF and NY? It's basically people on early disability choosing between whisky on payday and making extra buck on hauling other people like them around. Face it, many less-fortunate areas are on the bottom already even in developed nations.
  - literallycancer 9y ago
    If the company name triggers you, just pretend it's a bus or a train voucher.
- mcguire 9y ago
  "It's occassionally cheaper to provide poor with a huge Uber voucher than with rent subsidy." Failing that, let them eat cake. Uber, taxi service, and most forms of public transportation do not exist at all in rural areas.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    Why won't Uber exist in rural areas? And by "rural" I actually mean most of places which aren't a booming megapolis, including cities of ~100,000.
    - mcguire 9y ago
      You have a strange definition of rural. Anyway, out here in the middle of nowhere, Uber, taxi and (high frequency) bus service are not economically viable. Low population means low numbers of fares means low suppliers means long delays for service means lower numbers of fares. All of which is made worse by distances. Medium and large cities do have taxi service and public transport, but those are lower priority since everyone has a car.
      - thriftwy 9y ago
        I don't see how Uber would not be unviable anywhere. As a driver, even if you have one rider per month, why not make an extra $10? WRT "made worse by distances" Bay Area is actually pretty sprawling itself. I don't think any rural community will have its points of interests further apart than Bay Area has.
        javra 9y ago
        Let's say you're on Hartz IV. The $10 have to be accounted for at the social security system, and if you earn to many of them $10's, you don't get to keep them.
        planteen 9y ago
        Uber doesn't offer service in much of the rural US now. There's a ride service specifically for rural areas called Liberty: http://libertymobilitynow.com/ http://libertymobilitynow.com/ But even these are for micropolitan areas with populations on the order of 40,000. There is still no service for more remote areas.

gambiting 9y ago

This is my main argument against Universal Basic Income - if UBI is X/month, then monthly rent for anything will grow to at least X/month because why wouldn't it? If you know that 100% of your renters have a guaranteed income of X/month, then why charge any less?

thriftwy 9y ago
> if UBI is X/month, then monthly rent for anything will grow to at least X/month because why wouldn't it? Because there's plenty of real estate offered cheap once you don't have to hang out near a big economic center? Real estate is commodity in many places, why won't it be? People will just move there.
- gambiting 9y ago
  If that was true, we wouldn't have poor jobless people living in the city centres - why be poor and jobless in a city centre, if if you can be jobless and slightly less poor outside of the city, surely there is no functional difference? But humans are not automatons, they don't follow perfect logic.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    Well, on UBI, stupid people may end up propping rents in expensive locations. Less stupid people would move to a location where UBI will allow comfortable living for them. People may end up not so stupid. Imagine you live in SF, you've got $500 UBI while your rent grew $300. This leaves you with extra $200 of leg room, yay for UBI!
  - oneweekwonder 9y ago
    > why be poor and jobless in a city centre Condensed space with a lot of working class people... Best place to beg.
  - aianus 9y ago
    Because subsidized housing is located in, and funded by, the city (at least where I live). There is no option to move somewhere cheaper and keep the subsidies.

legulere 9y ago

Yes just kick out the poor from the cities that are the center of their life: where they lived for their whole life, where friends and family live, where their job is, where they are active in clubs, where there are jobs and cultural offers.

thriftwy 9y ago
You can live in the city that is the center of your life as long as you want, provided you can pay rent. Once you can't pay your rent and apply for subsidies, naturally we should see where the compromise is. Otherwise you will not help yourself landing in the situation where X can fit in a city comfortably, but 10*X people consider the particular city the center of their life. What do we do?
- moultano 9y ago
  Build more housing. (Or rather, permit it to be built.)
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    It's outside of my control, as a tax payer, to force some city to build up. It's well inside of my control to demand that my taxes are not wasted on subsidies going directly to rent-seeking landlords in already economically overheated areas. I would prefer they go to underdeveloped areas and give more economic effect. This means that people asking for subsidies should be ready to shift away from the core.
    - moultano 9y ago
      You do if you live there. Vote pro housing candidates for city and regional government.
- asymmetric 9y ago
  People without much money shouldn't be forced to move out of neighbourhoods they call home just because they don't have money. Who said money should buy you the right to a life with strong social bonds? Some things, including the ones mentioned above, should not be on the market.

seletz 9y ago

I think the real problem is that in in germany -- especially there -- wages almost stagnated over the last 10 years. Germanys wages are that low that other EU countries (France, Italy for example) find it hard to compete in terms of labour cost. I think that's also the main cause of Germany being "Exportweltmeister" every year.

rbehrends 9y ago
Not really [1, 2]. Labor costs aren't the highest in Europe, but they're fairly high. This is a persistent myth. Wages stagnated after reunification (near economic collapse of a large part of the country and 10%+ unemployment will do that for you), but other than the financial crisis and the mini recession of 2012-2013, real wages have been growing for the past decade [3]. [1] http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-labor-costs-rising-faster-than-eu-average/a-17630313 http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-labor-costs-rising-faster-than... [2] https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/german-labor-costs/?mcubz=3 https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/german-labor-co... [3] https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten/GesamtwirtschaftUmwelt/VerdiensteArbeitskosten/RealloehneNettoverdienste/Tabellen/Reallohnindex_Jahre.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten/GesamtwirtschaftUmwe...
- lampenrad 9y ago
  Here are the labor costs compared to other nations from '00 to '11: https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/1200-width/images/print-edition/20130615_SRC622.png https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imageca... They might've grown above EU average since then, but they certainly got some catching up to do. Real wages have increased since '07, yes, but that was also the lowest year in decades. The fact is, that it's barely above where it was 25 years ago: http://www.bpb.de/cache/images/7/61767-1x2-article620.gif?FF212 http://www.bpb.de/cache/images/7/61767-1x2-article620.gif?FF... And I don't see, how the reunification of Germany would've caused real wages in '07 to be lower than in '93. I'm no economist, but Hartz 4 and the Agenda 2010 in general seem like a more plausible cause to me.
  - rbehrends 9y ago

thomasfl 9y ago

The world needs more non profit organisations that seek to build affordable housing for it's members. Besides the organisations should also build environments that provides social and economic possibilities - aka new cities instead of just urban sprawl or unfriendly suburban housing.