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Do you rent? If yes, how much does rent have to increase before you decide, "Ah yes, I would much rather be homeless, but at least I am voting with my wallet, t

Do you rent? If yes, how much does rent have to increase before you decide, "Ah yes, I would much rather be homeless, but at least I am voting with my wallet, that will show the greedy landlords not to raise rents!" I personally cannot think of a limit at which I would decide to be homeless. I would much rather have a home to live in than buy any food beyond what sustains me, or get new clothes, or go out for any entertainment reasons. I believe I am not the only one in this. Thus, from a purely economic perspective, the landlord in these cases are "leaving money on the table", i.e. they could capture more of my surplus income if rents happened to increase in a coordinated fashion. Unfortunately, there is nothing in Econ 101 which tells you why that would be bad or unsustainable (social unrest etc.) and thus these concepts will be hard to grasp for people who do not have to live this life.

cjbgkagh 4y ago
I’m not the marginal renter, and from the sounds of it neither are you, it’s the person who can barely afford rent and doesn’t have good options to chose from. The person deciding between fuel, food, medicine, or rent. The person rationing their insulin. How do you think many homeless people became homeless to begin with. They didn’t all start out as drug addicts. And as mentioned homelessness isn’t the only option, I know plenty of people who have moved back in with family or still have room mates into their 30s and 40s.
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  I think I agree with you, and so I will not risk talking past each other. Let me just take this spot to point out that from a landlord's perspective renting out two units at 100% is economically equivalent to renting out one unit at 200% while letting the other unit sits empty. However, it is strictly worse for society at large because of the artificial scarcity of a basic right.
  - landemva 4y ago
    You had me until this "artificial scarcity of a basic right." Housing is not a natural right. Rights don't have limits (until they harm someone else), so something like speech can't be artificially scarce.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      That is a matter of ideology. The natural rights doctrine you're using to claim rights cannot have limits up to the right of someone else is mostly an artifact of Abrahamic religions and is not founded by much in the way of logic. There is no hard reason why socially adequate housing cannot be considered a right.
      - landemva 4y ago
        Post your address so we can all visit your pad and exercise our right to housing. Maybe there is also a right to a job at Google.
        sudosysgen 4y ago
        That's not a hard argument, it's a soft argument. But generally these rights are backed by a responsibility to society in general as a collective.
        landemva 4y ago
        I'm not part of your collective nor social contract. I do pay use taxes and fees for public goods such as roads. When did society get the responsibility to bail out the high-paid bankers who failed in 2008/9? Occupy wall street didn't think we should bail them out. Soft vs hard means what? More like a slippery slope until too big to fail bankers are rescued by the working class collective. Rights are endowed by our creator (higher power or whatever your words may be). Rights are not backed by a responsibility.
    - polygamous_bat 4y ago
      What about clean drinking water? Or breathing air? Would you like Nestle to buy the rights to and bottle up all the available clean water in your area so that you can only buy it from them? If your response is "they're not natural rights either", then maybe it's a matter of semantics, because I consider housing rights on the same level as clean drinking water.

cjbgkagh 4y ago

I’m not the marginal renter, and from the sounds of it neither are you, it’s the person who can barely afford rent and doesn’t have good options to chose from. The person deciding between fuel, food, medicine, or rent. The person rationing their insulin. How do you think many homeless people became homeless to begin with. They didn’t all start out as drug addicts. And as mentioned homelessness isn’t the only option, I know plenty of people who have moved back in with family or still have room mates into their 30s and 40s.

polygamous_bat 4y ago
I think I agree with you, and so I will not risk talking past each other. Let me just take this spot to point out that from a landlord's perspective renting out two units at 100% is economically equivalent to renting out one unit at 200% while letting the other unit sits empty. However, it is strictly worse for society at large because of the artificial scarcity of a basic right.
- landemva 4y ago
  You had me until this "artificial scarcity of a basic right." Housing is not a natural right. Rights don't have limits (until they harm someone else), so something like speech can't be artificially scarce.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    That is a matter of ideology. The natural rights doctrine you're using to claim rights cannot have limits up to the right of someone else is mostly an artifact of Abrahamic religions and is not founded by much in the way of logic. There is no hard reason why socially adequate housing cannot be considered a right.
    - landemva 4y ago
      Post your address so we can all visit your pad and exercise our right to housing. Maybe there is also a right to a job at Google.
      - sudosysgen 4y ago
        That's not a hard argument, it's a soft argument. But generally these rights are backed by a responsibility to society in general as a collective.
        landemva 4y ago
        I'm not part of your collective nor social contract. I do pay use taxes and fees for public goods such as roads. When did society get the responsibility to bail out the high-paid bankers who failed in 2008/9? Occupy wall street didn't think we should bail them out. Soft vs hard means what? More like a slippery slope until too big to fail bankers are rescued by the working class collective. Rights are endowed by our creator (higher power or whatever your words may be). Rights are not backed by a responsibility.
  - polygamous_bat 4y ago
    What about clean drinking water? Or breathing air? Would you like Nestle to buy the rights to and bottle up all the available clean water in your area so that you can only buy it from them? If your response is "they're not natural rights either", then maybe it's a matter of semantics, because I consider housing rights on the same level as clean drinking water.