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You are or should be mad at city governments that use legal means to restrict the housing supply, not at people who own multiple properties: https://www.theatla

You are or should be mad at city governments that use legal means to restrict the housing supply, not at people who own multiple properties: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-supply-shortage-crisis-2022/672240/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing... The solution is abundance not scarcity.

tshaddox 4y ago
I think it’s reasonable to be upset at both the people who implement bad policies and the people who intentionally profit from those bad policies at others’ expense.
- cryptonector 4y ago
  > I think it’s reasonable to be upset at both the people who implement bad policies and the people who intentionally profit from those bad policies at others’ expense. It's not who profits from bad economic policy but who pushes for it. It's not always the same set of people.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    You can partition the people in many different ways. I think it's reasonable to be upset with all of them.
    - saiya-jin 4y ago
      > I think it's reasonable to be upset with all of them That's unreasonable to be polite... don't hate people wanting to save some money, humans were always selfish first and I havent seen this changed, anywhere, ever. Change the system if you hate it so much, don't hate the little man for using means legally available to him. Just don't think you would be above the others if you were the owner/investor, folks that want change are often just the last ones coming to the party
      - Supermancho 4y ago
        > That's unreasonable to be polite. It is not. It's the defacto stance of most people (to be upset at multiple groups), regardless of the specific reasoning. Everyone I've ever talked to (40+ years), has a lifetime of people they passionately disagree with. This isn't just democracy, it's humanity.
lazide 4y ago
It’s both. And making it too easy to overextend oneself making for a bigger crash. Easy money == can multiply consumption == eventual consumption of all supply == eventual starvation of options == competition for options (rapid price increases) == eventual topping out at a higher equilibrium == trying to get easier money, etc. The cheaper the money, the more options get ‘consumed’. Making more options works, to a point, but people find a way to leverage if they can to consume those too. Eventually, the ability to leverage more ends. Often this causes a corresponding crash, as a lot of the drive to go higher is driven by the trajectory of ever increasing prices. When the trajectory changes, the math inverts, and now it becomes scary risky to buy instead of scary risky NOT to.
- pksebben 4y ago
  I have this (totally unprofessional and mostly unverified) theory about liquidity in general: that it's a conduit and amplifier for many things, but chief amongst them is exploitation. Highly liquid markets mean that value of one kind can be translated into value of another kind easily. Every time money changes hands, there's an almost unavoidable difference in the pricing each party does for the transaction (an example is the company of migrant workers offering to mow your lawn; each dollar is likely worth more to them than to you, so you can play with the margins to save a buck and they'll probably still take it). This leads to an asymmetry that creates an imbalanced power dynamic. Put another way, liquidity allows the projection of this power imbalance. For each dollar you have, you can externalize so much of your costs. This is something you almost don't have to decide to do; because markets represent aggregated pricing power, you can take advantage of it simply by buying goods or services. If you aggregate this projection over a large and highly liquid market, what you have is a massive shifting of externalized costs from the haves to the have nots. Insert picture of a fish eating a fish eating a fish here. From this perspective, it seems as though the system as a whole is given to a collapsing instability, from first principles. I believe that what we've seen in terms of periodic financial crisis is an expression of this system being propped up by the actors at the "heavy end", despite it's inherent tendency towards catastrophic failure. Which is why I'm always a little curious when folks start talking about credit collapsing like it would be the worst thing in the world - a global cooling of liquidity could very well be the thing that saves us, by cajoling the system into playing fair at scale.
locallost 4y ago
Those are the same people. People holding properties have capital, thus more political power than the average Joe. Which they then use to influence city governments.

tshaddox 4y ago

I think it’s reasonable to be upset at both the people who implement bad policies and the people who intentionally profit from those bad policies at others’ expense.

cryptonector 4y ago
> I think it’s reasonable to be upset at both the people who implement bad policies and the people who intentionally profit from those bad policies at others’ expense. It's not who profits from bad economic policy but who pushes for it. It's not always the same set of people.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  You can partition the people in many different ways. I think it's reasonable to be upset with all of them.
  - saiya-jin 4y ago
    > I think it's reasonable to be upset with all of them That's unreasonable to be polite... don't hate people wanting to save some money, humans were always selfish first and I havent seen this changed, anywhere, ever. Change the system if you hate it so much, don't hate the little man for using means legally available to him. Just don't think you would be above the others if you were the owner/investor, folks that want change are often just the last ones coming to the party
    - Supermancho 4y ago
      > That's unreasonable to be polite. It is not. It's the defacto stance of most people (to be upset at multiple groups), regardless of the specific reasoning. Everyone I've ever talked to (40+ years), has a lifetime of people they passionately disagree with. This isn't just democracy, it's humanity.

lazide 4y ago

It’s both. And making it too easy to overextend oneself making for a bigger crash. Easy money == can multiply consumption == eventual consumption of all supply == eventual starvation of options == competition for options (rapid price increases) == eventual topping out at a higher equilibrium == trying to get easier money, etc. The cheaper the money, the more options get ‘consumed’. Making more options works, to a point, but people find a way to leverage if they can to consume those too. Eventually, the ability to leverage more ends. Often this causes a corresponding crash, as a lot of the drive to go higher is driven by the trajectory of ever increasing prices. When the trajectory changes, the math inverts, and now it becomes scary risky to buy instead of scary risky NOT to.

pksebben 4y ago
I have this (totally unprofessional and mostly unverified) theory about liquidity in general: that it's a conduit and amplifier for many things, but chief amongst them is exploitation. Highly liquid markets mean that value of one kind can be translated into value of another kind easily. Every time money changes hands, there's an almost unavoidable difference in the pricing each party does for the transaction (an example is the company of migrant workers offering to mow your lawn; each dollar is likely worth more to them than to you, so you can play with the margins to save a buck and they'll probably still take it). This leads to an asymmetry that creates an imbalanced power dynamic. Put another way, liquidity allows the projection of this power imbalance. For each dollar you have, you can externalize so much of your costs. This is something you almost don't have to decide to do; because markets represent aggregated pricing power, you can take advantage of it simply by buying goods or services. If you aggregate this projection over a large and highly liquid market, what you have is a massive shifting of externalized costs from the haves to the have nots. Insert picture of a fish eating a fish eating a fish here. From this perspective, it seems as though the system as a whole is given to a collapsing instability, from first principles. I believe that what we've seen in terms of periodic financial crisis is an expression of this system being propped up by the actors at the "heavy end", despite it's inherent tendency towards catastrophic failure. Which is why I'm always a little curious when folks start talking about credit collapsing like it would be the worst thing in the world - a global cooling of liquidity could very well be the thing that saves us, by cajoling the system into playing fair at scale.

locallost 4y ago

Those are the same people. People holding properties have capital, thus more political power than the average Joe. Which they then use to influence city governments.