4 ms·

Why is the government obligated to protect your investment? They aren't obligated to keep stock prices high, or to protect the companies land nearby.

luckylion 6y ago
> Why is the government obligated to protect your investment? They are not. But they want people to invest, and people will not invest if they have no ability to predict the future circumstances. That's why governments try to create long-term systems and aren't running on mood swings. Nobody will invest anywhere if all the parameters are up for redefinition every day. "Oh, you built your factory based on proximity to the high way and train line? Well guess what, those are lame, and we've decided to remove both because we want to be cool. We are not obligated to protect your investment."
- greenonions 6y ago
  They will invest, they will just price in the risk. The same as any other asset. We don't discourage this behavior in other areas, so again, why do we protect house assets? This is especially striking with homelessness being such a massive issue. Why would we protect and inflate housing investments when so many are perishing on the street?
  - analog31 6y ago
    Making private housing investment less stable won't make public housing more stable.
    - greenonions 6y ago
      Public housing was not mentioned. Making private housing more elastic will certainly reduce the amount who do not have an option that they can afford and that is legal.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > We don't discourage this behavior in other areas, so again, why do we protect house assets? We don't? Pretty much anything the state is involved is specifically designed to be long-term. We absolutely don't want volatile systems, we want stability.
salawat 6y ago
Uh... Have you not been paying attention to the Fed recently? I assure you, it may not be written down, but the level of protection of the stock market the government engages in Dr facto establishes the government is in the business of protecting long term private investment after a particular inflection point.
- greenonions 6y ago
  Of course I'm aware of the Fed. Do you think that the current market interventions are the best way to operate? In an ideal world, wouldn't the economy be much better off if it were able to sustain events like pandemics without interventions? The guarantee by the Fed of asset prices will lead to more inequality as asset valuations are disconnected from their returns. Do we want this to happen? Same with the government interventions in zoning, is this what we want? It doesn't cost near as much to build a house or apartment as it is to find a place that you are allowed to. Do we want to continue to allow housing costs to be disconnected from what a house actually costs to produce?
analog31 6y ago
I'd prefer to live in a society where the government protects the stability of some kinds of investments over reasonable time periods. A homeowner can't just pull up stakes every 5 minutes if living conditions drastically worsen. Yes I know there are people who live under those kinds of circumstances, and they're typically not very well off. There are also countries where the government has no influence on investment by virtue of being utterly powerless, and those countries aren't very well off either.

luckylion 6y ago

> Why is the government obligated to protect your investment? They are not. But they want people to invest, and people will not invest if they have no ability to predict the future circumstances. That's why governments try to create long-term systems and aren't running on mood swings. Nobody will invest anywhere if all the parameters are up for redefinition every day. "Oh, you built your factory based on proximity to the high way and train line? Well guess what, those are lame, and we've decided to remove both because we want to be cool. We are not obligated to protect your investment."

greenonions 6y ago
They will invest, they will just price in the risk. The same as any other asset. We don't discourage this behavior in other areas, so again, why do we protect house assets? This is especially striking with homelessness being such a massive issue. Why would we protect and inflate housing investments when so many are perishing on the street?
- analog31 6y ago
  Making private housing investment less stable won't make public housing more stable.
  - greenonions 6y ago
    Public housing was not mentioned. Making private housing more elastic will certainly reduce the amount who do not have an option that they can afford and that is legal.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > We don't discourage this behavior in other areas, so again, why do we protect house assets? We don't? Pretty much anything the state is involved is specifically designed to be long-term. We absolutely don't want volatile systems, we want stability.

salawat 6y ago

Uh... Have you not been paying attention to the Fed recently? I assure you, it may not be written down, but the level of protection of the stock market the government engages in Dr facto establishes the government is in the business of protecting long term private investment after a particular inflection point.

greenonions 6y ago
Of course I'm aware of the Fed. Do you think that the current market interventions are the best way to operate? In an ideal world, wouldn't the economy be much better off if it were able to sustain events like pandemics without interventions? The guarantee by the Fed of asset prices will lead to more inequality as asset valuations are disconnected from their returns. Do we want this to happen? Same with the government interventions in zoning, is this what we want? It doesn't cost near as much to build a house or apartment as it is to find a place that you are allowed to. Do we want to continue to allow housing costs to be disconnected from what a house actually costs to produce?

analog31 6y ago

I'd prefer to live in a society where the government protects the stability of some kinds of investments over reasonable time periods. A homeowner can't just pull up stakes every 5 minutes if living conditions drastically worsen. Yes I know there are people who live under those kinds of circumstances, and they're typically not very well off. There are also countries where the government has no influence on investment by virtue of being utterly powerless, and those countries aren't very well off either.