5 ms·

Units within condos are rented all the time. Your argument seems to be that there is a sizeable chunk of the population that cannot afford to own their own hom

Units within condos are rented all the time. Your argument seems to be that there is a sizeable chunk of the population that cannot afford to own their own home. Yes, and? We live in a global market and as a result, citizens of successful cities have to compete with people not just from that city, but from people outside, who are willing to bring in some cash. Oops, that means a bunch of people now can't afford to own a home. That's the world we're living in. If you want to cancel inflow of capital into big cities, that's a political decision that has nothing to do with building or not building housing. If you want to 'just build affordable housing', you're really saying let's give permanent government assistance to a slice of the population. Are you qualified and knowledgable of all the side-effects of doing so? I'm not, so I don't even bother pretending I have a solution. People need to become 1% smarter, to realize how complex human societies are and quit wishful thinking of 'just give/build more stuff for people who don't have enough'. You're a software developer, you know what a ball of mud most codebases are and how hard they are to refactor. Human societies are a worse version of that and it's a thankless job because by re-factoring one bit, you potentially break a dozen other places and boy will you hear from them.

sudosysgen 6y ago
If your idea is that the current system is so broken that there is nothing we can do to avoid 40% of the population in major production hubs to have to spend ridiculous fractions of their income on housing, with other that simply can't, then maybe indeed a refactor isn't enough, and we should start thinking about a complete rewrite. This isn't even a question of competition. Prices are increasing purely because the market can bear more expensive housing. The net effect is that real wages after rent are decreasing year after year since the 80s. At this rate, the day will come where the real wages of the average citizen of the US after rent will be lower than in the disaster that was the Soviet Union. The problem is actually even more complex that simply capital inflow into big cities. Because capital is already centralized around big cities, and has been for a while, which leads to the question, where is that capital coming from? And the answer is that it doesn't actually have to do with capital moving, as that mostly cancels out, but instead with growing inequality. Also, if your end statement is that it's ok that most people aren't able to own their home anymore, aren't able to own their cars, aren't able to own their furniture, aren't able to own their phones and so on, which is the direction in which things are happening, you shouldn't be surprised when heads start to roll in the next economic crisis. Literally. This is not a small issue, it is a massive issue. The incentive, historically, for the average person to continue participating in capitalism is the promise that eventually they will be able to have their own property, and maybe pass on some capital to their children. If you take away this incentive, the system will likely not survive for much longer. There is a reason why the first people that the population turned against in the Chinese revolution were the landlords. I don't want to see this happen again. So yes, if fixing this issue will break a few other places, I don't care, we can see what we will do later. This is one of the most important economic issues full stop.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- alexashka 6y ago
  I am all for a complete re-write, but not on the level of society, but on the level of you and me. If you could see into the future and know for a fact that you couldn't change a thing about it, would your concerns cease to have meaning? If the answer is yes, then it is a matter of determining what in your short lifetime, you can realistically change and what you cannot. For me, I've determined that the things I cannot change are human nature, including my own. What I can do is modify my lifestyle to be exposed to more of the human traits I cherish and fewer of the ones I resent. That's the conclusion I've come to. Housing prices and inequality simply don't make the list of things I can do anything about and even if I could, I believe I'd be playing human sin whack-a-mole. I whack one sin, another one pops up. At some point, I just had to accept that there are traits human possess that upset me, and find lifestyle solutions to mitigate them, that's all :)
  - bergstromm466 6y ago
    > I've determined that the things I cannot change are human nature This line of argument scares me, because we are so unaware of how human made our problems are. "Money is like an iron ring we've put through our noses. We've forgotten that we designed it, and it's now leading us around. I think it's time to figure out where we want to go - in my opinion toward sustainability and community - and then design a money system that gets us there." http://archive.is/nxKTO http://archive.is/nxKTO

sudosysgen 6y ago

If your idea is that the current system is so broken that there is nothing we can do to avoid 40% of the population in major production hubs to have to spend ridiculous fractions of their income on housing, with other that simply can't, then maybe indeed a refactor isn't enough, and we should start thinking about a complete rewrite. This isn't even a question of competition. Prices are increasing purely because the market can bear more expensive housing. The net effect is that real wages after rent are decreasing year after year since the 80s. At this rate, the day will come where the real wages of the average citizen of the US after rent will be lower than in the disaster that was the Soviet Union. The problem is actually even more complex that simply capital inflow into big cities. Because capital is already centralized around big cities, and has been for a while, which leads to the question, where is that capital coming from? And the answer is that it doesn't actually have to do with capital moving, as that mostly cancels out, but instead with growing inequality. Also, if your end statement is that it's ok that most people aren't able to own their home anymore, aren't able to own their cars, aren't able to own their furniture, aren't able to own their phones and so on, which is the direction in which things are happening, you shouldn't be surprised when heads start to roll in the next economic crisis. Literally. This is not a small issue, it is a massive issue. The incentive, historically, for the average person to continue participating in capitalism is the promise that eventually they will be able to have their own property, and maybe pass on some capital to their children. If you take away this incentive, the system will likely not survive for much longer. There is a reason why the first people that the population turned against in the Chinese revolution were the landlords. I don't want to see this happen again. So yes, if fixing this issue will break a few other places, I don't care, we can see what we will do later. This is one of the most important economic issues full stop.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
alexashka 6y ago
I am all for a complete re-write, but not on the level of society, but on the level of you and me. If you could see into the future and know for a fact that you couldn't change a thing about it, would your concerns cease to have meaning? If the answer is yes, then it is a matter of determining what in your short lifetime, you can realistically change and what you cannot. For me, I've determined that the things I cannot change are human nature, including my own. What I can do is modify my lifestyle to be exposed to more of the human traits I cherish and fewer of the ones I resent. That's the conclusion I've come to. Housing prices and inequality simply don't make the list of things I can do anything about and even if I could, I believe I'd be playing human sin whack-a-mole. I whack one sin, another one pops up. At some point, I just had to accept that there are traits human possess that upset me, and find lifestyle solutions to mitigate them, that's all :)
- bergstromm466 6y ago
  > I've determined that the things I cannot change are human nature This line of argument scares me, because we are so unaware of how human made our problems are. "Money is like an iron ring we've put through our noses. We've forgotten that we designed it, and it's now leading us around. I think it's time to figure out where we want to go - in my opinion toward sustainability and community - and then design a money system that gets us there." http://archive.is/nxKTO http://archive.is/nxKTO