4 ms·

Wouldn't that drive rental prices up? I don't think high housing prices will be solved on the demand side.

WealthVsSurvive 6y ago
Yes, but only because the landlords would sell or default, which would drive the homes back into the bank's hands. The banks would then let most of the homes rot rather than sell them, so they can milk the build&mortgage finance&insurance teat and leave the citizen taxpayer on the hook for overpriced housing & through literal artificial scarcity. This is exactly what occurred during the last housing bust, and it's genuinely sickening that it isn't discussed more in the media: more perverse incentives. We need to go after these people hard because they are collapsing our civilization. There need to be punitive actions that correct the market and drive it back to something that actually produces people living in homes for a low price and development moving in a resilient, frankly boring manner. This in turn produces a populace with more free time, a requirement for training & education, something that will have to be done with increasing frequency as time goes on. This drives wages up naturally, as more people can choose to work less or not work. This shrinks sustenance & panic borrowing, which is another reason FIRE likes keeping us on their hook. This stops much property crime, which shrinks the need for police forces, jails, & the circus of pornographically perverse incentives that surround our criminal justice system. In no uncertain terms let me say this: if we tanked the price of housing, tanked the rental market, and got humans into houses instead of some wealth-dreaming deluded landlord or scummy bank that wants to reap what they never sow, we could easily transition into the future we desire. The loss people fear with this action isn't actually a fear of the loss of wealth, it is the fear of losing the ease-of-mind and projected future peace associated with ownership of the asset. We would do well to begin considering how to provide that for one another without harming one another.
- quxpar 6y ago
  You have my vote.
- stallmanite 6y ago
  Thanks for articulating this. Well said.

Yes, but only because the landlords would sell or default, which would drive the homes back into the bank's hands. The banks would then let most of the homes rot rather than sell them, so they can milk the build&mortgage finance&insurance teat and leave the citizen taxpayer on the hook for overpriced housing & through literal artificial scarcity. This is exactly what occurred during the last housing bust, and it's genuinely sickening that it isn't discussed more in the media: more perverse incentives. We need to go after these people hard because they are collapsing our civilization. There need to be punitive actions that correct the market and drive it back to something that actually produces people living in homes for a low price and development moving in a resilient, frankly boring manner. This in turn produces a populace with more free time, a requirement for training & education, something that will have to be done with increasing frequency as time goes on. This drives wages up naturally, as more people can choose to work less or not work. This shrinks sustenance & panic borrowing, which is another reason FIRE likes keeping us on their hook. This stops much property crime, which shrinks the need for police forces, jails, & the circus of pornographically perverse incentives that surround our criminal justice system. In no uncertain terms let me say this: if we tanked the price of housing, tanked the rental market, and got humans into houses instead of some wealth-dreaming deluded landlord or scummy bank that wants to reap what they never sow, we could easily transition into the future we desire. The loss people fear with this action isn't actually a fear of the loss of wealth, it is the fear of losing the ease-of-mind and projected future peace associated with ownership of the asset. We would do well to begin considering how to provide that for one another without harming one another.

quxpar 6y ago
You have my vote.
stallmanite 6y ago
Thanks for articulating this. Well said.