6 ms·

Anyone whose main income is from other peoples rent has an incredible amount of explaining to do if they want to claim that they are anything but a useless leec

by zwkrt 5y ago

Anyone whose main income is from other peoples rent has an incredible amount of explaining to do if they want to claim that they are anything but a useless leech.

azth 5y ago
And so are money lenders, correct?
- Thetawaves 5y ago
  Of course.
  - pbourke 5y ago
    Car rentals? Tool rentals? Camera equipment rentals? Leeches, all of them?
    - LordDragonfang 5y ago
      You're being disingenuous. All of those things you listed fulfill a temporary or geographically localized need, and are very short term. On the other hand, people often spend an entire generation in one apartment. Those categories are wholly unalike each other, and it's clear because the category of actually short term housing also exists, hotels. Likewise, long term car rentals exist, they're called leases.
      - grayhatter 5y ago
        The point I was trying to make, so I assume the person you replied to see it the same. Is that no one else really attempts to explain the context around the assertion. Everyone previous is happy to blame people who are winning the game, labeling anyone who's not losing as a cheater. No one else is willing to explain why or how they're cheating. Which, if you don't know all the rules, and exploits looks like complaining not about the exploitation, but about even playing. So a fair interpretation is that every game must be cheating. It's not disingenuous to not already know the ways people try to control others to make some money. It's disingenuous to pretend like you've already made a point you haven't.
        LordDragonfang 5y ago
        The assertion is that rent seekers are "leeches", providing no value, while extracting value for themselves. It's very hard to prove the existence of a negative. That's the context. Note that no one said "cheating", that's context you read in yourself. It's interesting that you haven't made a single attempt to provide an actual counterpoint of your own, of what value rent seekers actually provide, especially since you're complaining that no one else is explaining their position. "No one" attempts to explain, including yourself?
        grayhatter 5y ago
        > The assertion is that rent seekers are "leeches", providing no value, while extracting value for themselves. It's very hard to prove the existence of a negative. That's the context. Note that no one said "cheating", that's context you read in yourself. You wouldn't be proving a negative. The assertion is that doing so (extracting value without providing any) is bad requires that bad thing to be stated. It's bad because opportunity cost, it's bad because people have to exchange currency for goods or services, it's bad because houses being in possession of money is itself immoral. These aren't negatives that need to be proved. As for cheating, what should I call acting so that others don't get a chance to participate? > It's interesting that you haven't made a single attempt to provide an actual counterpoint of your own, of what value rent seekers actually provide, especially since you're complaining that no one else is explaining their position. "No one" attempts to explain, including yourself? I don't have an assertion I want to make. Nothing other than to point out the problematic rhetoric. As an example, pointing out that 2+2=6 is invalid, or unconvincing because if you only have 1,2 and another for 3,4 can't reach 6. Does contribute, because the assertion that 2+2=6 is bad to leave unchallenged. Just like me making an assertion that 2+2=5 which would also be wrong. I don't know enough about the housing market in CA to make an any argument I'd want to stand behind. But I'm willing to say, just owning and renting property isn't enough to call them malicious, leaches, nor shitty.
        aaronwall 5y ago
        People are not required to live in the biggest & most expensive cities in the world. Doing so is a premium good. Removing the pricing signal just turns everything into a lottery and/or lowest common denominator practices demonstrating the tragedy of the commons. Sorry your neighbor has mental health issues, uses meth and screams as they throw stuff against the wall at night. Hope you got a good night sleep! When I got started on the web I moved a couple states over to live with a friend who was going to college. We lived in a mobile home & our rentier extractor landlord captured like $110 a month. I was able to spend little time doing work I didn't want to do in order to pay rent & could spend a lot of time learning. High rents can offer some level of exclusivity and give people an opportunity to express their values, what they value, and how much they value it. There's a reason that most people who are in subsidized public housing end up wanting to move away if they can afford to.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - dumbfoundded 5y ago
      It's actually pretty simple to break it down if you try to think about it. Rent seeking is evil when the renters absolutely need the service and cannot afford ownership. Otherwise, it's a service that some find useful. Home rentals would be awesome if it was only for vacations or because someone didn't feel like dealing with maintenance. In reality, everyone needs a place to sleep at night and many cannot afford it. The people who make it unaffordable to own a home by buying up all inventory and then renting it back are absolutely leaches. Comparing camera equipment rentals to home ownership likewise lacks morality. In the San Francisco for example, the minimum wage is $16.32/hr or ~$33K/year. The median price per square foot is $1000/sqft. A person earning minimum wage will never be able to buy property in San Francisco. Instead they're forced to spend most of their income on rent creating a cycle of poverty by preventing property ownership & wealth accumulation. The property owning class of the Bay Area desperately depends the poverty class yet burns the ladder up. We complain about the homelessness and crime yet trap people into poverty by blowing up every bill that would create affordable housing. I will absolutely cheer for the failure of any company looking to profit from exacerbating the problem. I hope you can now understand the difference between renting a camera and being permanently unable to afford a place to sleep.
      - grayhatter 5y ago
        > It's actually pretty simple to break it down if you try to think about it. Rent seeking is evil when the renters absolutely need the service and cannot afford ownership. Do they absolutely need the service? I assume you're going to give an example where someone buys out the market so they can control the price like a monopoly. If so, I'd like to point out controlling the market like a monopoly isn't the same description as "rent seeking is evil if you're selling a service people need". People need many things that can only be provided by an expert. Are they evil if they don't provide their service at cost too? If not what's the difference? Or was my assumption of your example wrong from the start? > Otherwise, it's a service that some find useful. Home rentals would be awesome if it was only for vacations or because someone didn't feel like dealing with maintenance. In reality, everyone needs a place to sleep at night and many cannot afford it. The people who make it unaffordable to own a home by buying up all inventory and then renting it back are absolutely leaches. Comparing camera equipment rentals to home ownership likewise lacks morality. I'm in agreement with you, but this nuance is *very* important, and you're the first to actually explain in detail exactly what's wrong. > In the San Francisco for example, the minimum wage is $16.32/hr or ~$33K/year. The median price per square foot is $1000/sqft. A person earning minimum wage will never be able to buy property in San Francisco. Instead they're forced to spend most of their income on rent creating a cycle of poverty by preventing property ownership & wealth accumulation. True, but a gross oversimplification of all the factors that go into something like this. The hyperbole becomes disingenuous with the reasonable expectation that not all parties are aware of the full content. Saying rent seeking makes you a leach, doesn't look like hyperbole. It looks like an assertion that owning property is immoral. This argument is going to drive people away from the realization that people are abusing the rules of the game at the expense of people who now can't even begin to play. > The property owning class of the Bay Area desperately depends the poverty class yet burns the ladder up. We complain about the homelessness and crime yet trap people into poverty by blowing up every bill that would create affordable housing. I suspect the intersection of the people opposing anything affordable aren't the same who actually complain about the problem. Here I'm trying to not equate the people complaining about the problem, or the injustice, from the people complaining because they're angry and need to complain. Or those complaining about the inconvenience of having to see someone poorer than they are. > I will absolutely cheer for the failure of any company looking to profit from exacerbating the problem. I hope you can now understand the difference between renting a camera and being permanently unable to afford a place to sleep. Me too, but it seems a bit unfair to state it like this. You're the first person to actually explain these real problems in enough detail to convey the idea and how unfair it really is. I say this because you didn't offer to explain deeper, or invite additional participation. The only thing I was able to parse out of this was a final mic drop because we both know you're right about it.
    - yodelshady 5y ago
      That's the core of the issue, tools have elastic supply and demand. A tool rental business meaningfully assists in matching the two - it's very likely a tool I rent would not exist otherwise, or if it did, it's because I financed it, a much greater expense for me for little gain. I wish there was more tool and car rental. Housing, for the most part, does not do this. New housing is rare, and I can't walk away from that market, or even reduce my usage without severe loss of quality of life. So yes, the only thing a landlord did for me is have more money than me when I was born, which if you look closely, isn't actually a service at all.
pbourke 5y ago
> Anyone whose main income is from other peoples rent has an incredible amount of explaining to do if they want to claim that they are anything but a useless leech What would you envision as the alternative to tenanted apartment complexes? Let’s say you could wave a wand and outlaw rental housing as a business. Do you think the world would be a better or worse place?
- LordDragonfang 5y ago
  Not GP, but wiping out the externalities of property being used as a capital investment vehicle instead of for its inherent utility seems like it would inarguably, in any rational market system, make housing more affordable. It's self-evident that it would be better for anyone without a vested interest in denying the housing needs of the many. If there absolutely must exist a category of housing that is rented and not owned, that's where the state can step in. Housing, like healthcare, is a commodity with perfectly inelastic demand in the aggregate. Offering such a commodity up to the "free" market is irrational in any system except one that values ability to make a profit over human rights.
  - aaronwall 5y ago
    There are a lot of cross currents there. The old people with a reverse mortgage & the taxpayer subsidizing the associated losses. People who put much of their excess savings into an appreciating home they planned to sell to fund their retirement as they moved elsewhere to somewhere cheaper, but now have a home which as a step function is worth far less. People who would be quickly underwater if the property market tanks deciding to jingle mail, leading to blighted streets for those who stayed. Local property taxes pay for schools, fire departments, police, etc. As far as the state being a perfect provider to step in ... in the US about half of healthcare spending is fraud. That the bill is passed onto someone else is a big slice of that (along with ignoring antitrust laws, local CON laws, illegal to import pharmaceuticals directly as a consumer, etc). I used to live near Chicago as a kid & recalled this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes "At first, the housing was integrated and many residents held jobs. This changed in the years after World War II, when the nearby factories that provided the neighborhood's economic base closed and thousands were laid off. At the same time, the cash-strapped city began withdrawing crucial services like police patrols, transit services, and routine building maintenance. ... On July 17, 1970, Chicago police patrolman Anthony N. Rizzato and Sergeant James Severin were shot and killed by gang members while patrolling community housing for an all-volunteer "Walk and Talk" project. As the officers proceeded across the Cabrini–Green baseball field, the assailants opened fire from an apartment window. The purpose of the shooting was to seal a pact between two rival gangs." Which land will the free or subsidized housing go on? Will the people spending a grand or two a month in property taxes want the elevated crime levels near their own front door?
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Being a landlord actually involves a lot of work and risk. If it were free money, everyone would do it and it wouldn’t be free money anymore. I don’t have the nerve or free to be a landlord myself, but I’m sure I own some small parts property management companies via the index funds I own shares in.
- LordDragonfang 5y ago
  As someone who previously worked for, and is also the child of, landlords, I can attest to the fact that, yes, there is some work and some risk, but you're wildly overselling it. The reason "everybody" doesn't do it is that in order to do it, you have to already have money (even if you can do it on a loan, the terms won't be favorable unless you have significant starter capital). At that point, it's basically free money, yes, to the extent that you can pay someone to do all the actual work for you and still make a comfortable income.
  - grayhatter 5y ago
    Why is that, specifically, wrong? I'm going to reply to your other comment as well, but I'd like to drive this point/idea to a conclusion as well.
    - LordDragonfang 5y ago
      Are you asking why, in a system that its supporters claim is a meritocracy, it wrong for it to be easier for the rich to get richer than for the poor to achieve parity, given equal merit? Is that a rhetorical question, or are you about to argue in favor of the ethics of feudalism? Because bridging that ethical divide would take more than a simple hacker news comment. edit: Ah, to more directly address you point earlier, and lay it out in simple ethical terms: withholding essential goods (housing) from others is a moral wrong according to consequentialist ethics systems. Doing things with a motivation of greed (profit) is also considered a moral wrong in intent-based ethics systems. The agreed upon axiom that they contribute nothing in return means there is no moral good to outweigh the moral wrong in either system, so in combination it is a net moral wrong. This really shouldn't need to be spelled out.
dang 5y ago
Please do not post flamewar comments to HN. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29090845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29090845.

by zwkrt 5y ago

Anyone whose main income is from other peoples rent has an incredible amount of explaining to do if they want to claim that they are anything but a useless leech.

azth 5y ago

And so are money lenders, correct?

Thetawaves 5y ago
Of course.
- pbourke 5y ago
  Car rentals? Tool rentals? Camera equipment rentals? Leeches, all of them?
  - LordDragonfang 5y ago
    You're being disingenuous. All of those things you listed fulfill a temporary or geographically localized need, and are very short term. On the other hand, people often spend an entire generation in one apartment. Those categories are wholly unalike each other, and it's clear because the category of actually short term housing also exists, hotels. Likewise, long term car rentals exist, they're called leases.
    - grayhatter 5y ago
      The point I was trying to make, so I assume the person you replied to see it the same. Is that no one else really attempts to explain the context around the assertion. Everyone previous is happy to blame people who are winning the game, labeling anyone who's not losing as a cheater. No one else is willing to explain why or how they're cheating. Which, if you don't know all the rules, and exploits looks like complaining not about the exploitation, but about even playing. So a fair interpretation is that every game must be cheating. It's not disingenuous to not already know the ways people try to control others to make some money. It's disingenuous to pretend like you've already made a point you haven't.
      - LordDragonfang 5y ago
        The assertion is that rent seekers are "leeches", providing no value, while extracting value for themselves. It's very hard to prove the existence of a negative. That's the context. Note that no one said "cheating", that's context you read in yourself. It's interesting that you haven't made a single attempt to provide an actual counterpoint of your own, of what value rent seekers actually provide, especially since you're complaining that no one else is explaining their position. "No one" attempts to explain, including yourself?
        grayhatter 5y ago
        > The assertion is that rent seekers are "leeches", providing no value, while extracting value for themselves. It's very hard to prove the existence of a negative. That's the context. Note that no one said "cheating", that's context you read in yourself. You wouldn't be proving a negative. The assertion is that doing so (extracting value without providing any) is bad requires that bad thing to be stated. It's bad because opportunity cost, it's bad because people have to exchange currency for goods or services, it's bad because houses being in possession of money is itself immoral. These aren't negatives that need to be proved. As for cheating, what should I call acting so that others don't get a chance to participate? > It's interesting that you haven't made a single attempt to provide an actual counterpoint of your own, of what value rent seekers actually provide, especially since you're complaining that no one else is explaining their position. "No one" attempts to explain, including yourself? I don't have an assertion I want to make. Nothing other than to point out the problematic rhetoric. As an example, pointing out that 2+2=6 is invalid, or unconvincing because if you only have 1,2 and another for 3,4 can't reach 6. Does contribute, because the assertion that 2+2=6 is bad to leave unchallenged. Just like me making an assertion that 2+2=5 which would also be wrong. I don't know enough about the housing market in CA to make an any argument I'd want to stand behind. But I'm willing to say, just owning and renting property isn't enough to call them malicious, leaches, nor shitty.
        aaronwall 5y ago
        People are not required to live in the biggest & most expensive cities in the world. Doing so is a premium good. Removing the pricing signal just turns everything into a lottery and/or lowest common denominator practices demonstrating the tragedy of the commons. Sorry your neighbor has mental health issues, uses meth and screams as they throw stuff against the wall at night. Hope you got a good night sleep! When I got started on the web I moved a couple states over to live with a friend who was going to college. We lived in a mobile home & our rentier extractor landlord captured like $110 a month. I was able to spend little time doing work I didn't want to do in order to pay rent & could spend a lot of time learning. High rents can offer some level of exclusivity and give people an opportunity to express their values, what they value, and how much they value it. There's a reason that most people who are in subsidized public housing end up wanting to move away if they can afford to.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - dumbfoundded 5y ago
    It's actually pretty simple to break it down if you try to think about it. Rent seeking is evil when the renters absolutely need the service and cannot afford ownership. Otherwise, it's a service that some find useful. Home rentals would be awesome if it was only for vacations or because someone didn't feel like dealing with maintenance. In reality, everyone needs a place to sleep at night and many cannot afford it. The people who make it unaffordable to own a home by buying up all inventory and then renting it back are absolutely leaches. Comparing camera equipment rentals to home ownership likewise lacks morality. In the San Francisco for example, the minimum wage is $16.32/hr or ~$33K/year. The median price per square foot is $1000/sqft. A person earning minimum wage will never be able to buy property in San Francisco. Instead they're forced to spend most of their income on rent creating a cycle of poverty by preventing property ownership & wealth accumulation. The property owning class of the Bay Area desperately depends the poverty class yet burns the ladder up. We complain about the homelessness and crime yet trap people into poverty by blowing up every bill that would create affordable housing. I will absolutely cheer for the failure of any company looking to profit from exacerbating the problem. I hope you can now understand the difference between renting a camera and being permanently unable to afford a place to sleep.
    - grayhatter 5y ago
      > It's actually pretty simple to break it down if you try to think about it. Rent seeking is evil when the renters absolutely need the service and cannot afford ownership. Do they absolutely need the service? I assume you're going to give an example where someone buys out the market so they can control the price like a monopoly. If so, I'd like to point out controlling the market like a monopoly isn't the same description as "rent seeking is evil if you're selling a service people need". People need many things that can only be provided by an expert. Are they evil if they don't provide their service at cost too? If not what's the difference? Or was my assumption of your example wrong from the start? > Otherwise, it's a service that some find useful. Home rentals would be awesome if it was only for vacations or because someone didn't feel like dealing with maintenance. In reality, everyone needs a place to sleep at night and many cannot afford it. The people who make it unaffordable to own a home by buying up all inventory and then renting it back are absolutely leaches. Comparing camera equipment rentals to home ownership likewise lacks morality. I'm in agreement with you, but this nuance is *very* important, and you're the first to actually explain in detail exactly what's wrong. > In the San Francisco for example, the minimum wage is $16.32/hr or ~$33K/year. The median price per square foot is $1000/sqft. A person earning minimum wage will never be able to buy property in San Francisco. Instead they're forced to spend most of their income on rent creating a cycle of poverty by preventing property ownership & wealth accumulation. True, but a gross oversimplification of all the factors that go into something like this. The hyperbole becomes disingenuous with the reasonable expectation that not all parties are aware of the full content. Saying rent seeking makes you a leach, doesn't look like hyperbole. It looks like an assertion that owning property is immoral. This argument is going to drive people away from the realization that people are abusing the rules of the game at the expense of people who now can't even begin to play. > The property owning class of the Bay Area desperately depends the poverty class yet burns the ladder up. We complain about the homelessness and crime yet trap people into poverty by blowing up every bill that would create affordable housing. I suspect the intersection of the people opposing anything affordable aren't the same who actually complain about the problem. Here I'm trying to not equate the people complaining about the problem, or the injustice, from the people complaining because they're angry and need to complain. Or those complaining about the inconvenience of having to see someone poorer than they are. > I will absolutely cheer for the failure of any company looking to profit from exacerbating the problem. I hope you can now understand the difference between renting a camera and being permanently unable to afford a place to sleep. Me too, but it seems a bit unfair to state it like this. You're the first person to actually explain these real problems in enough detail to convey the idea and how unfair it really is. I say this because you didn't offer to explain deeper, or invite additional participation. The only thing I was able to parse out of this was a final mic drop because we both know you're right about it.
  - yodelshady 5y ago
    That's the core of the issue, tools have elastic supply and demand. A tool rental business meaningfully assists in matching the two - it's very likely a tool I rent would not exist otherwise, or if it did, it's because I financed it, a much greater expense for me for little gain. I wish there was more tool and car rental. Housing, for the most part, does not do this. New housing is rare, and I can't walk away from that market, or even reduce my usage without severe loss of quality of life. So yes, the only thing a landlord did for me is have more money than me when I was born, which if you look closely, isn't actually a service at all.

pbourke 5y ago

> Anyone whose main income is from other peoples rent has an incredible amount of explaining to do if they want to claim that they are anything but a useless leech What would you envision as the alternative to tenanted apartment complexes? Let’s say you could wave a wand and outlaw rental housing as a business. Do you think the world would be a better or worse place?

LordDragonfang 5y ago
Not GP, but wiping out the externalities of property being used as a capital investment vehicle instead of for its inherent utility seems like it would inarguably, in any rational market system, make housing more affordable. It's self-evident that it would be better for anyone without a vested interest in denying the housing needs of the many. If there absolutely must exist a category of housing that is rented and not owned, that's where the state can step in. Housing, like healthcare, is a commodity with perfectly inelastic demand in the aggregate. Offering such a commodity up to the "free" market is irrational in any system except one that values ability to make a profit over human rights.
- aaronwall 5y ago
  There are a lot of cross currents there. The old people with a reverse mortgage & the taxpayer subsidizing the associated losses. People who put much of their excess savings into an appreciating home they planned to sell to fund their retirement as they moved elsewhere to somewhere cheaper, but now have a home which as a step function is worth far less. People who would be quickly underwater if the property market tanks deciding to jingle mail, leading to blighted streets for those who stayed. Local property taxes pay for schools, fire departments, police, etc. As far as the state being a perfect provider to step in ... in the US about half of healthcare spending is fraud. That the bill is passed onto someone else is a big slice of that (along with ignoring antitrust laws, local CON laws, illegal to import pharmaceuticals directly as a consumer, etc). I used to live near Chicago as a kid & recalled this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes "At first, the housing was integrated and many residents held jobs. This changed in the years after World War II, when the nearby factories that provided the neighborhood's economic base closed and thousands were laid off. At the same time, the cash-strapped city began withdrawing crucial services like police patrols, transit services, and routine building maintenance. ... On July 17, 1970, Chicago police patrolman Anthony N. Rizzato and Sergeant James Severin were shot and killed by gang members while patrolling community housing for an all-volunteer "Walk and Talk" project. As the officers proceeded across the Cabrini–Green baseball field, the assailants opened fire from an apartment window. The purpose of the shooting was to seal a pact between two rival gangs." Which land will the free or subsidized housing go on? Will the people spending a grand or two a month in property taxes want the elevated crime levels near their own front door?

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

Being a landlord actually involves a lot of work and risk. If it were free money, everyone would do it and it wouldn’t be free money anymore. I don’t have the nerve or free to be a landlord myself, but I’m sure I own some small parts property management companies via the index funds I own shares in.

LordDragonfang 5y ago
As someone who previously worked for, and is also the child of, landlords, I can attest to the fact that, yes, there is some work and some risk, but you're wildly overselling it. The reason "everybody" doesn't do it is that in order to do it, you have to already have money (even if you can do it on a loan, the terms won't be favorable unless you have significant starter capital). At that point, it's basically free money, yes, to the extent that you can pay someone to do all the actual work for you and still make a comfortable income.
- grayhatter 5y ago
  Why is that, specifically, wrong? I'm going to reply to your other comment as well, but I'd like to drive this point/idea to a conclusion as well.
  - LordDragonfang 5y ago
    Are you asking why, in a system that its supporters claim is a meritocracy, it wrong for it to be easier for the rich to get richer than for the poor to achieve parity, given equal merit? Is that a rhetorical question, or are you about to argue in favor of the ethics of feudalism? Because bridging that ethical divide would take more than a simple hacker news comment. edit: Ah, to more directly address you point earlier, and lay it out in simple ethical terms: withholding essential goods (housing) from others is a moral wrong according to consequentialist ethics systems. Doing things with a motivation of greed (profit) is also considered a moral wrong in intent-based ethics systems. The agreed upon axiom that they contribute nothing in return means there is no moral good to outweigh the moral wrong in either system, so in combination it is a net moral wrong. This really shouldn't need to be spelled out.

dang 5y ago

Please do not post flamewar comments to HN. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29090845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29090845.