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I couldn't help but notice that you didn't address anything I wrote. You also ask me to ignore important factors like property tax which, frankly, can make owni

I couldn't help but notice that you didn't address anything I wrote. You also ask me to ignore important factors like property tax which, frankly, can make owning land unprofitable for landlords if people move away. Also, an economics stripped of human beings and divorced from the social and the political is not economics, just some Procrustean nonsense cooked up in an armchair. Economies exist to serve their participants, not the other way around. Anyway... First off, immobility is a problem only when there is a scarcity of jobs. It is a bad sign when lots of people have to move frequently to get jobs. Optimizing for mobility is kind of like treating a symptom instead of the cause and will likely deepen the problem because, hey, we can always count on people moving. People don't generally move around just to move around. Appealing to "better allocation" and "adaptation" as ways to defend mobility is, again, the result of having adopted some kind of dehumanized economics that treats people like units of goods in a distribution chain. Mobility is really not the thing you should be most worried about. Second, it's not an either/or proposition. We can have renters and owners. Renting can cater to those who are mobile. But when a market is dominated by renters, then your market is fucked (see above).

ucaetano 9y ago
> You also ask me to ignore important factors like property tax Property tax is highly variable from location to location. But if you give me an example of property tax, I can tell you which makes more sense. > an economics stripped of human beings and divorced from the social and the political is not economics, just some Procrustean nonsense cooked up in an armchair Sure, and if I don't like the law of gravity, it should be abolished! > immobility is a problem only when there is a scarcity of jobs Which in the long term is everywhere. > Appealing to "better allocation" and "adaptation" as ways to defend mobility is, again, the result of having adopted some kind of dehumanized economics that treats people like units of goods in a distribution chain. Mobility is really not the thing you should be most worried about. You argument boils down to: "I don't like what you're saying, you're mean". I don't care, that's how life works. Not liking it won't change it. > Second, it's not an either/or proposition. We can have renters and owners. Renting can cater to those who are mobile. But when a market is dominated by renters, then your market is fucked (see above). Sure, that's the ideal market. Don't provide any incentives to owning or renting, and let people decide freely.

ucaetano 9y ago

> You also ask me to ignore important factors like property tax Property tax is highly variable from location to location. But if you give me an example of property tax, I can tell you which makes more sense. > an economics stripped of human beings and divorced from the social and the political is not economics, just some Procrustean nonsense cooked up in an armchair Sure, and if I don't like the law of gravity, it should be abolished! > immobility is a problem only when there is a scarcity of jobs Which in the long term is everywhere. > Appealing to "better allocation" and "adaptation" as ways to defend mobility is, again, the result of having adopted some kind of dehumanized economics that treats people like units of goods in a distribution chain. Mobility is really not the thing you should be most worried about. You argument boils down to: "I don't like what you're saying, you're mean". I don't care, that's how life works. Not liking it won't change it. > Second, it's not an either/or proposition. We can have renters and owners. Renting can cater to those who are mobile. But when a market is dominated by renters, then your market is fucked (see above). Sure, that's the ideal market. Don't provide any incentives to owning or renting, and let people decide freely.