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> The price of food is a function of demand and supply. If there is a famine, price of food goes up. This is a good thing because it ensures that food is used b
by db48x 6y ago
> The price of food is a function of demand and supply. If there is a famine, price of food goes up. This is a good thing because it ensures that food is used by the most productive and profitable citizens, right?
Increasing food prices cause more food to be grown and food to be shipped over longer distances, lessening the impact of a famine. It also causes people to spend less on luxury foods that cost more per calorie.
> We have more empty houses than homeless people. Efficient market my ass.
Have you bought an unused home and given it to someone homeless lately? There are many that are quite inexpensive out there.
On the whole, I agree that our current housing and property market is not as efficient as it could be. One reason for this are our building codes; they raise the cost of housing making truly inexpensive homes illegal. There is definitely a lot of benefits to living in a properly–built house, but that is always going to be more expensive than a shack you built yourself on land you claimed from the wilderness at the edge of a growing population. When governments eliminate that possibility, they cause people to go homeless. I suspect that you will want to “fix” this by having the government step in and buy a house for everyone who wants one.
The bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.
- sudosysgen 6y ago>Increasing food prices cause more food to be grown and food to be shipped over longer distances, lessening the impact of a famine. It also causes people to spend less on luxury foods that cost more per calorie. Yes, this doesn't work with land.
- jonas21 6y agoIt does in places with reasonable zoning laws. Taking a lot with one 1-story house on it and replacing it with two 2-story houses (or, say, a 4-story apartment building) is essentially "growing" new land. And higher housing prices cause people to reduce the square-footage they occupy as well.
- maxsilver 6y ago> It does in places with reasonable zoning laws I don't know why anyone would believe that. It doesn't even work in places with no zoning restrictions at all. Building up gets you more housing, sure, but it also costs way more cash per square foot, it inherently drives the price of all nearby housing higher. > higher housing prices cause people to reduce the square-footage they occupy as well. This is just "famine" being spun as a benefit. "Bread prices at $10,000 per loaf and rising is good, actually. It will help those silly obese Americans lose weight!"
- sudosysgen 6y agoThere are places with extremely lax zoning laws and very high population densities where housing is still incredibly expensive. Your point is apriorism and not supported by evidence.