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At some point younger and poorer people are going to reach a braking point and stop respecting property law. This has already started in some of the most overi

by swiley 6y ago

At some point younger and poorer people are going to reach a braking point and stop respecting property law. This has already started in some of the most overinflated areas. When this becomes widespread owning property will be a liability. Owing debt with property as collateral will be financially ruining for most of the middle class.

mschaef 6y ago
> Owing debt with property as collateral will be financially ruining for most of the middle class. What's the mechanism you're thinking will cause this? Based on what you've said, I can imagine you're thinking either a crash in property values that leaves people underwater on their debt or widespread property damage by people that have 'stopped respecting property law'. Regarding theft/violence/vandalism, it can happen just as easily to a home you rent as to a home you "own". Regarding property value declines, any decline that's financially ruinous is going to ruin _someone_, and the debate then becomes who's left holding the bag when it happens and how that negative impact propagates outward through the broader economy. (But I'd be interested to hear more of your point of view.)
satisfaction 6y ago
I think it's more likely that younger people eventually just stop buying property, massively reducing current property owners ability to sell their homes, and as we know, an asset is only worth what someone will pay and if no one will pay, it's worth nothing. Young people might just live in studio housing projects funded by the governments. Young people used to come of age then many would work in factories, there are no longer enough factories for a significant portion of young people to be fully employed. Trump may lose this election due to his personality and inability to work with other people and take advice but many of us really respect him calling out the trade deficit and import tax disparities with our trading partners as a solution to part of the underemployment problem. There was a point in history when we were happy to trade with the developing world at a loss in order to raise their standard of living, but now that most of those countries are capable of being self sufficient we should no longer import foreign manufactured goods tax free, we should block those imports or tax them to the point it makes sense for these companies to open factories in the US.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sjf 6y ago
What are suggesting, that squatting is going to make a comeback? Without the same legal protections it has in Europe, I don't see it becoming widespread.
- downrightmike 6y ago
  Depends on state, arizona just has the squatter produce a utility bill for the past two years, and any title or deed by another party is null and void.
  - PenguinCoder 6y ago
    Does the squatter have to assume the mortgage of a place, or is it literally 'free and clear', if they produce a utility bill for the property?
    - downrightmike 6y ago
      Literally free and clear if they can prove residency for 2 years
Pfhreak 6y ago
The sooner we can decommodify housing, the better. Eliminating speculation in the housing market and instead pricing things by how effectively they house people would go a long way for a lot of families.
- yourapostasy 6y ago
  The focus should be upon the dirt, the real estate, not the improvements on top. Look at fire insurance valuations of the improvements, and those have not appreciably inflated compared to the dirt. It is interesting that Bezos' "your margin is my opportunity" nor Andreessen's "software eats the world" has yet to discount real estate valuations. The rational emergent response from young generations is to reject conventions surrounding real estate, as that entire ecosystem is completely unsustainable for the majority of the population. The young generations have been completely shafted on real estate.
  - swiley 6y ago
    Even when people get land what's built on it tends to be very inefficient if anything is built at all. Even in very dense areas most of the land is 1-2 story buildings or parking lots. If there is any housing it's almost always detached single family buildings.
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      Yeah. I strongly support things like removing minimum parking requirements and taxing based on land rather than the improvement, incentivizing building housing rather than flat parking lots.
    - yourapostasy 6y ago
      That's a complex, very locally-driven matter. A lot of NIMBY'ism drives these types of regulations and policies. Younger generations will have think way outside the box at a very locally-granular scale if they choose to live within those constraints. Generally, the younger generations are completely screwed if they try to fit within the SFH model. To just survive, they'll probably need to start thinking in terms like "individual/single-family model of living is monetizing my distrust of peers", finding like-minded to group together and re-capture cost-efficiencies of scale for themselves. I've long wanted to find a tract of 16 ha / 40 acre to experiment with integrating a number of ideas I've seen floating around the net. Lstiburek-grade building envelopes, combined package/people PRT, centralized laundry and food services, on-site food forest production, waste stream co-generation, etc. All to work out the details of answering the question, "what is the absolute minimum number of people, minimum de-centralized organization, minimum processes and minimum automated tech tree needed to replace 80-90% of what we normally pay retail for, with wholesale/distributor costs?" I'd like to see for example, what would happen if people with less financially-remunerative prospects but with a good work ethic were made a contractual promise: you put in your time helping those with better financially-remunerative prospects with tasks that we can't automate yet, like housekeeping and grounds maintenance, and you'll get treated with respect and dignity, have the same educational and medical services for your children as theirs, won't get taxed out of your living quarters in your old age, and be cared for within the same community in your old age (mixing it up with the toddlers and kids at first, then receiving hospice care for example by trained teenagers in later stages when warranted). In general, I've long thought it really weird that the incentive structures nominally put in place and heavily promoted to us drive us apart where we're easy financial pickings for large, organized institutions, instead of driving us together and funnel compounding interest valuations of the group's network effects into the group's benefit instead of shipping it outside of the group. I strongly suspect dominant cultural factors obscure the recognition of those emergent network effects, and the drive to assign monetary valuations upon many factors is leading to bad abstractions from lossy information transfer. But realistically, maybe I'm just doomed to figure out via defeat in detail why homo sapiens sapiens in general cannot be trusted, as this is all too hand-wavy at this time for my taste.

by swiley 6y ago

mschaef 6y ago

> Owing debt with property as collateral will be financially ruining for most of the middle class. What's the mechanism you're thinking will cause this? Based on what you've said, I can imagine you're thinking either a crash in property values that leaves people underwater on their debt or widespread property damage by people that have 'stopped respecting property law'. Regarding theft/violence/vandalism, it can happen just as easily to a home you rent as to a home you "own". Regarding property value declines, any decline that's financially ruinous is going to ruin _someone_, and the debate then becomes who's left holding the bag when it happens and how that negative impact propagates outward through the broader economy. (But I'd be interested to hear more of your point of view.)

satisfaction 6y ago

I think it's more likely that younger people eventually just stop buying property, massively reducing current property owners ability to sell their homes, and as we know, an asset is only worth what someone will pay and if no one will pay, it's worth nothing. Young people might just live in studio housing projects funded by the governments. Young people used to come of age then many would work in factories, there are no longer enough factories for a significant portion of young people to be fully employed. Trump may lose this election due to his personality and inability to work with other people and take advice but many of us really respect him calling out the trade deficit and import tax disparities with our trading partners as a solution to part of the underemployment problem. There was a point in history when we were happy to trade with the developing world at a loss in order to raise their standard of living, but now that most of those countries are capable of being self sufficient we should no longer import foreign manufactured goods tax free, we should block those imports or tax them to the point it makes sense for these companies to open factories in the US.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sjf 6y ago

What are suggesting, that squatting is going to make a comeback? Without the same legal protections it has in Europe, I don't see it becoming widespread.

downrightmike 6y ago
Depends on state, arizona just has the squatter produce a utility bill for the past two years, and any title or deed by another party is null and void.
- PenguinCoder 6y ago
  Does the squatter have to assume the mortgage of a place, or is it literally 'free and clear', if they produce a utility bill for the property?
  - downrightmike 6y ago
    Literally free and clear if they can prove residency for 2 years

Pfhreak 6y ago

The sooner we can decommodify housing, the better. Eliminating speculation in the housing market and instead pricing things by how effectively they house people would go a long way for a lot of families.

yourapostasy 6y ago
The focus should be upon the dirt, the real estate, not the improvements on top. Look at fire insurance valuations of the improvements, and those have not appreciably inflated compared to the dirt. It is interesting that Bezos' "your margin is my opportunity" nor Andreessen's "software eats the world" has yet to discount real estate valuations. The rational emergent response from young generations is to reject conventions surrounding real estate, as that entire ecosystem is completely unsustainable for the majority of the population. The young generations have been completely shafted on real estate.
- swiley 6y ago
  Even when people get land what's built on it tends to be very inefficient if anything is built at all. Even in very dense areas most of the land is 1-2 story buildings or parking lots. If there is any housing it's almost always detached single family buildings.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    Yeah. I strongly support things like removing minimum parking requirements and taxing based on land rather than the improvement, incentivizing building housing rather than flat parking lots.
  - yourapostasy 6y ago
    That's a complex, very locally-driven matter. A lot of NIMBY'ism drives these types of regulations and policies. Younger generations will have think way outside the box at a very locally-granular scale if they choose to live within those constraints. Generally, the younger generations are completely screwed if they try to fit within the SFH model. To just survive, they'll probably need to start thinking in terms like "individual/single-family model of living is monetizing my distrust of peers", finding like-minded to group together and re-capture cost-efficiencies of scale for themselves. I've long wanted to find a tract of 16 ha / 40 acre to experiment with integrating a number of ideas I've seen floating around the net. Lstiburek-grade building envelopes, combined package/people PRT, centralized laundry and food services, on-site food forest production, waste stream co-generation, etc. All to work out the details of answering the question, "what is the absolute minimum number of people, minimum de-centralized organization, minimum processes and minimum automated tech tree needed to replace 80-90% of what we normally pay retail for, with wholesale/distributor costs?" I'd like to see for example, what would happen if people with less financially-remunerative prospects but with a good work ethic were made a contractual promise: you put in your time helping those with better financially-remunerative prospects with tasks that we can't automate yet, like housekeeping and grounds maintenance, and you'll get treated with respect and dignity, have the same educational and medical services for your children as theirs, won't get taxed out of your living quarters in your old age, and be cared for within the same community in your old age (mixing it up with the toddlers and kids at first, then receiving hospice care for example by trained teenagers in later stages when warranted). In general, I've long thought it really weird that the incentive structures nominally put in place and heavily promoted to us drive us apart where we're easy financial pickings for large, organized institutions, instead of driving us together and funnel compounding interest valuations of the group's network effects into the group's benefit instead of shipping it outside of the group. I strongly suspect dominant cultural factors obscure the recognition of those emergent network effects, and the drive to assign monetary valuations upon many factors is leading to bad abstractions from lossy information transfer. But realistically, maybe I'm just doomed to figure out via defeat in detail why homo sapiens sapiens in general cannot be trusted, as this is all too hand-wavy at this time for my taste.