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From reading the post, it sounds like the fact that housing is treated as a commodity rather than a necessity of life is what is keeping people on the street an
by ihm 6y ago
From reading the post, it sounds like the fact that housing is treated as a commodity rather than a necessity of life is what is keeping people on the street and units empty.
- howlgarnish 6y agoRenting in SF is tightly controlled and regulated, which sounds like the polar opposite of an easily substitutable commodity.
- ihm 6y agoClearly the fact that we treat housing as a commodity is causing an issue here. There are housing units owned (as investments, not for their use value) by OP's friend which could be used to house people, who are instead forced to live on the street.
- chordalkeyboard 6y agoAlas, housing doesn't grow on trees. Someone needs to be paid for building and maintaining that living space.
- anonuser123456 6y agoThose people could move?
- stale2002 6y agoFood is a commodity, even though we need it to live. Food works perfectly fine as a market, with out "food rent controls".
- ulucs 6y agoHaven't you heard of food subsidies at all? Food is insanely price controlled.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- baggy_trough 6y agoSubsidies are bad, but not as bad as price controls.
- stale2002 6y agoNo, actually. Food is not price controlled to any similar degree as housing. Nobody is going in to restaurants and telling them that they must sell a hamburger for less than 15$. No one is going in to walmart and forcing them to sell cereal for less than 5$ a box. Compared to rent and housing, it is way way way more free of a market, regardless of any negligible government regulations that you can find that are in no way on the same scale as rent control.
- jelliclesfarm 6y agoFood is not only insanely subsidized ..in the United States, it is cheap due to imports from developing countries and exploited farm labour. Also: farmers get 7.8c of every food dollar. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/02/why-farmers-only-get-7-8-cents-of-every-dollar-americans-spend-on-food/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/02/why-f... [..] Economists say those trends, coupled with low commodity prices, caused farmers’ share of consumer food spending to fall 1.2 cents in 2016, reaching the lowest point, adjusted for inflation, since USDA began the measure in 1993. (It's the latest year for which data is available).[..]
- stale2002 6y agoSo, then you agree that nobody is going to the grocery store, and forcing them to sell cereal for less than 5 dollars? You agree that nobody is going in to restaurants and telling them that they must sell a hamburger for less than 15$? That is the kind of thing that I am comparing it to. Rent control does this, whereas the government is not forcing restaurants to sell a hamburger for less than 15$.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]