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More Americans Are Ending Up Homeless–At a Record Rate

56 points by thehoff 3y ago

henrisjenny 3y ago
[flagged]
Nellyz 3y ago
[dead]
TurkishPoptart 3y ago
[flagged]
- consumer451 3y ago
  The harsh reality is that adult life is an endless series of "lesser of two evils" choices. Given the alternatives to Biden, which specific policies do you believe would improve the lives of the lowest economic classes?
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    the President follows the deeply inclusive and infallible directions of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), whose grace touches every poor Americans' checkbook via UBI, fedTokens and a Smart Phone with iris bioinformation keychain.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - digitaltrees 3y ago
      Cool. Conspiracy Bingo. I like this game. I am just waiting on Clinton is a lizard person and I have Bingo!
  - TurkishPoptart 3y ago
    1. Cut interest rates 2. Stop printing billions to defense contractors for Ukraine 3. invest in small business and entrepreneurial training 4. Stop ESG-based investing
    - consumer451 3y ago
      > 1. Cut interest rates So you would nominate a new Fed Chair who will raise inflation? > 2. Stop printing billions to defense contractors for Ukraine Imperialist Russia preys on weakness, you and David Sacks are the weakest links. What precedent does that set for all other nuclear powers which have imperial ambitions? I am sure Turkey's control of the strait is very annoying to Moscow. How is that going to work out in the long run? > 3. invest in small business and entrepreneurial training So more of this? >> The government, through the Small Business Administration, gave out nearly $790 billion in PPP loans between March 2020 and May 2021, when the program ended, public records show. Of that amount, $757 billion has been forgiven. [0] How much of this crony-socialism led to inflation? >> PPP loans cost nearly double what Biden's student debt forgiveness would have. Here's how the programs compare. [0],[1] > 4. Stop ESG-based investing Why? Show your work with a 20 year investment horizon. --- [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ppp-loan-forgiveness-student-loan-relief-cost-comparison/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ppp-loan-forgiveness-student-lo... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money
    - vlozko 3y ago
      1. Would be nice but that can potentially cause inflation to rapidly grow again. It should go down but it would need to be gradual once inflation has fully stabilized. And it’s not just the US that’s suffering heavily under high inflation. 2. Dropping support for Ukraine would signal to China that we wouldn’t have the stamina to support Taiwan if they were attacked. It was only a few years ago that a massive chip shortage hamstrung our economy and nobody wants to repeat that. Dropping support won’t have much significant fiscal impact, either. Most of the billions spent thus far is really the US clearing out older inventories. 3. We already do with tax incentives and other mechanisms. What exactly are you asking for unchecked COVID loans that were forgiven en mass? 4. Do you have figured that indicate ESG-based investing is a net negative and costly to the US? That redirection of such funds would have a notable economic impact?
- LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
  This goes way, way beyond partisan politics. “Late stage capitalism” is a term that more and more people are going to become familiar with in the coming years as profit-driven corporations continue to plunder basic necessities like housing and healthcare and put them behind paywalls that fewer and fewer can afford. The US government has done a good job historically of keeping food prices low enough to prevent mass starvation since that’s a major leading indicator of civil unrest, but the rent is too damn high and it’s only gonna get uglier.
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    Right or wrong, many people will see it this way…under Trump the economy was good for average Americans and under Biden it’s the worst it has been in decades. Joe and Jane Sixpack don’t care about GDP or the government’s official unemployment or inflation numbers. They see the price at the gas pumps and in the grocery store and their dwindling bank account balances. Rent, food, and fuel inflation has been brutal for most Americans.
    - bmarquez 3y ago
      In other words, "it's the economy, stupid" (That phrase was used by James Carville to help Bill Clinton get elected in 1992)
  - HardlyCurious 3y ago
    High rent is caused by limitations on market activity. It is caused by zoning and regulations that prevent building housing, or make building housing more expensive. You are blaming capitalism for a problem that is entirely created by poor government regulation. But hey, if you prefer, check out what life is in like in late stage socialism. There they built walls to keep people in instead of to keep people out.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Shambles or no, the American economy is doing better than every other major economy in the world.
  - kkzz99 3y ago
    China is doing much better compared to the US.
    - cstejerean 3y ago
      Not at the moment it isn't. It's looking quite precarious right now due to the deflation threat.
    - jmclnx 3y ago
      Really. live in rural china and compare that life to rural US, you will not be singing that tune. China now has a lot of economic issues, also economists are now saying it will no longer overtake the US as the largest economy with in 10 years as originally forecast.
    - digitaltrees 3y ago
      Based on what metric? Deflation is worse than inflation. Shrinking trade exports are deadly for an export based economy that doesn’t have a robust consumer base or service sector. China is now decoupling its service sector of law firms, accounting firms and consultants. Extrapolate those trends and you would expect China to be increasingly decoupling from the global trade network after decades of open integration and the growth/wealth that comes with it.
    - ketchupdebugger 3y ago
      china is facing a 20% unemployment rate with its youth population. Thats even with heavy age discrimination at 35. Honestly its not better.
    - arcticbull 3y ago
      Most recently their economy is showing significant slowdowns in growth. [1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-q2-gdp-growth-slows-08-qq-just-above-expectations-2023-07-17/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-q2-gdp-growth-slo...
- ketchupdebugger 3y ago
  whats the alternative? Trump? I'll take the sleepy senior over the unstable senior any day. Besides its not like the president sets the economic plans these days. Their only influence is on government spending. Fed controls the interest rate which affects a broader segment of the economy.
  - anon291 3y ago
    Can you name what was so volatile under Trump? We had no new wars under Trump. No new military engagements. We were planning withdrawals. The economy was doing fine. People say things were volatile under Trump, but I have found that this is only true if you're addicted to the 24/7 news cycle. For most American's day to day, life under Trump was just as boring as life under Biden / Obama / Bush / etc. I mean.. when Trump was in office, things were good. My local grocery store couldn't even find enough workers they were hiring disabled people (which is great... everyone deserves the ability to make a living). Now everything is expensive and people seem unhappy; not to mention new military engagements in Europe of all places.
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      What was so volatile? American democracy. Constitutional law. The economy matters, but some things matter more.
      - anon291 3y ago
        In what way was constitutional law volatile during Trump's term?
        AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Trying to overturn the results of the election via fake electors, "find the votes" in Georgia, pressuring the Arizona governor, pressuring Pence to accept the fake electors...
        3y ago
satao 3y ago
People keep arguing about the left without thinking that this degree of income inequality is unsustainable. Liberals should be ashamed of what they have become. There’s no liberty when there’s a de facto Royal class, which are the extremely wealthy.
- pjscott 3y ago
  I'm not understanding the causation here. Some people are very rich, yes, but how does that harm the people who aren't rich?
  - HarryHirsch 3y ago
    Wealth translates directly into political influence - just look at Alabama! Also - consider that a good amount of wealth is locked up in real estate. Whoever falls in that bucket has political influence and no interest at all that more housing will be built, because that will diminish their wealth. It's not envy, it's rational self-interest.
    - pjscott 3y ago
      > Wealth translates directly into political influence - just look at Alabama! Is this bad on net? From what I've heard, the main political difference between the rich and the rest of the population is that they tend to be more pro-business. That sounds like a good counterweight to the popular antipathy toward business. > Also - consider that a good amount of wealth is locked up in real estate. Whoever falls in that bucket has political influence and no interest at all that more housing will be built, because that will diminish their wealth. NIMBYism is overwhelmingly driven by non-rich people, and most people who are rich have most of their wealth in stocks, which gives them an incentive to favor the construction of housing as a complementary good. Again, I'm not seeing the harm here.
  - drannex 3y ago
    I'll take your "very rich" and primarily include billionaires and the extremely affluent in my following statement: Billionaires shouldn't exist. They shouldn't. We should re-implement proper progressive tax rates (like the US had in the 50s), and ensure that that type of wealth can never happen again.
ndneighbor 3y ago
I am fortunate enough like most HN users to be working in tech, and although I can't speak for everyone in this field, we seem to be better off than most. Inflation's hit me hard but knock on wood if anything was to happen, I'd be okay. However, my brother, who is just starting his career works in IT and has a $50,000~ a year salary. He lives in a Tier 3 city in Florida and the median rent for a studio there is $1,500, up from $600 five or so years ago. After taxes, car insurance, car payment, food, and a night out here and there, he barely can save anything after his student loan payments. This is ridiculous. I can't imagine what others are facing when it comes to the cost of living crisis that is ongoing here. (And for other folks across the pond in England, it's even worse from what I hear.) Throughout my travels of America, anecdotally, I am seeing more families making long term accommodations out of motels and we seem unwilling from our governments to even address this. I think it's going to get much worse until it gets better unfortunately...
- cinntaile 3y ago
  Why did the rent increase so much? Much higher demand than before?
  - butler14 3y ago
    Interest rates go up, getting a mortgage becomes less affordable -> more people in the market for renting (in many areas, there's also a lack of rental housing stock) Professional landlords have built empires on low interest rates -> interest rates go up -> landlords pass the cost onto renters (or for smaller landlords, exit the market, potentially reducing supply further)
    - importantbrian 3y ago
      Rent prices in Florida were skyrocketing long before interest rates started rising. Our last rent increase before we moved was going to be around 25% back when interest rates were still 0. If anything rent increases -- in South Florida at least -- are partly a zero interest rate phenomenon. There are a ton of half full midrise luxury condos that priced lots of people out of previously affordable communities built as the result of access to cheap capitol and money laundering. There was also the massive influx of people moving into the area during covid. All that to say rent prices in Florida are the perfect example of monocausal explanations for complex phenomenon almost always being wildly incorrect.
digitaltrees 3y ago
Build more homes, lower permitting requirements, prohibit institutional ownership of single family, duplex up to 6 unit buildings. L
- inetknght 3y ago
  > Build more homes Building more homes... purchasable only by people (corporations) with money... to be rented out. Yes that is definitely something that hasn't been happening over the past several decades.
  - taylodl 3y ago
    Reminds me of a meme where a lady is complaining that she can't approved for a mortgage and is forced to pay rent that's even higher than the mortgage would have been! Yeah, that's going to work! I think people are starting to learn again that the point to the game of Monopoly was that once someone has cornered the housing market, everybody else goes bankrupt. Now you're just watching it in real life. It's a human tragedy, but the market doesn't care.
  - digitaltrees 3y ago
    The rest of my post would address that point. Prohibition on institutions investing. If needed put a cap on the number of units a person can own in one jurisdiction. Housing could be for use not investment if we wanted such a policy landscape. There may be unintended consequences but it’s a worthy experiment.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      What about apartment buildings built for rent only? Surely these can only be done by institutional investors, no single person has the capital to do a 100-200 unit apartment building?
    - inetknght 3y ago
      > If needed put a cap on the number of units a person can own in one jurisdiction. Individual people? Let's talk about investment companies as vehicles then.
ChrisLTD 3y ago
States need to step in and rezone cities and their immediate surrounding areas to allow for more housing.
- tech_ken 3y ago
  I fully agree, but it's a tall order given how unpopular it is both among voters and politicians. Governor of CO just tried it and every single municipal lawmaker was howling for his head. The bill some of his allies introduced to the state legislature got gutted beyond recognition and then dumped unceremoniously, and the majority of state citizens were glad for it.
  - ChrisLTD 3y ago
    Not surprising, since it's the municipal lawmakers that are part of the existing problem.
webosdude 3y ago
I think one of the cause is we don’t tax the landlords higher for the investment property. That’s why lot of upper middle class and HNIs have lot of investment properties around the country. It’s so easy to buy and rent out properties without even seeing them ever. One of my friend who works at Microsoft in Seattle, owns 4 properties around US(3 in WA and 1 in TX). It was so easy to get cheap mortgages between 2017-21 if you had 100-200k lying around.
- ChrisLTD 3y ago
  Higher or lower taxes doesn't change the market rate for a given unit. If your landlord has to pay higher or lower taxes, they still can charge what the market will bear. However, increasing the supply of rental units will lower rents or at least slow the increase.
  - webosdude 3y ago
    That is one instrument to deincentivizing accumulation of more than 1 property. Increasing supply is definitely another one but as I mentioned that earlier most of those rental units get acquired by richer landlords. One can also make those investment property mortgages much higher.
    - ChrisLTD 3y ago
      What is the point of disincentivizing the accumulation of more than one property?
      - beej71 3y ago
        To allow more people to buy property and to prevent price increases due to speculation.
        bryanlarsen 3y ago
        Fewer landlords means cheaper to buy and more expensive to rent. Helps the upper middle class at the expense of the poor.
commandlinefan 3y ago
When the government shut down the country for a few years and started sending out "covid pandemic checks", economists warned that the economy would crash. I'm not sure about the true cause and effect here, but the economy sure has crashed.
- stetrain 3y ago
  I think perhaps the effects of a pandemic which killed upwards of 1m Americans may have had a base level of economic impact regardless of the mitigation measures. Perhaps people forget that things like air travel, restaurants, and going into the office were shutting down naturally in the US even before government recommendations to do so. And there were actually very few US-wide mandates or anything resembling a government forced “shutting down the country” outside of restrictions on international air travel.
- batshibstein 3y ago
  Are you really talking about the couple thousand dollars that people received during the pandemic? In most of the country that might have paid your rent for a month or a few weeks of groceries or if you're fortunate maybe one luxury good.
  - pauldenton 3y ago
    It's more like when you flatten production, but steady consumption, by having people get paid for work without producing anything, you produce a mismatch between the dollars and the goods they are chasing that results in Inflation. If you drop money out of helicopters and people spend that money instead of working you get inflation
mitchbob 3y ago
https://archive.ph/2023.08.14-154543/https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/homelessness-increasing-united-states-housing-costs-e1990ac7 https://archive.ph/2023.08.14-154543/https://www.wsj.com/amp...
isx726552 3y ago
This seems like it’s due to a triple threat of at least three things: - Real estate speculation driving up prices - Lack of new housing being built - Wage stagnation Each of those also having multiple underlying causes. And that’s without even getting into things like drug addiction.
SaintSeiya 3y ago
After capitalism comes Rentism (Feudalism 2.0): the rent economy. The rich hoard the resources and means of production and instead of creating new value, they rent it to the rest (Landlords, etc). You'll own nothing and you will be happy.
dsign 3y ago
The devil's advocate here! One would think there isn't enough land in America for people to build houses (of any type?). Or, are you going to tell me that laws made by men (and women, but mostly men) make it illegal to be housed and poor at the same time, no matter the amount of land? And, that changing the laws it's an uphill battle? I understand the concept, America is not the only country like that. But if memory serves me right, America is the result of people from Europe (and Asia, and Africa, and South America) escaping from exactly the same problem? So, here is my proposal: build new nations people can escape to. There is Greenland[^1], Svalbard[^2], Antarctica, the Sahara[^3], the oceans, the Moon, the space habitats and Mars[^4]. We have the technology to build livable spaces[^5]. [^1]: Which is Danish, but can be rented from them for a (high) price. [^2]: Ident, but from Norway. Rent is going to be more expensive. [^3]: Rents and labor are cheap. [^4]: A bad idea, even according to my client. [^5]: Anybody who has been in Las Vegas knows that humans are perfectly adapted to live in big dens of concrete with no vegetation nor walking spaces[^6]. Anything better than that. [^6]: Yes, there are golf curses.
- foxyv 3y ago
  Spend some time looking at county zoning maps. There are huge legal barriers to developing affordable housing. Zoning, minimum offsets, covenants, height restrictions, usage limits, land use regulation, etc... If you want to re-classify some land you will need to go through extensive legal procedures and you will never get through them without HUGE amounts of capital. In addition, large swaths of land in the most popular states is owned by the federal government. All of this is in opposition to one or more of the most powerful lobbies in the United States. There is a reason the only homes you see being built these days are massive single family homes and luxury apartments. It just isn't economical to build low income housing. If people could move to Greenland, Svalbard, Antarctica, or the Sahara they would have. But those places just don't support human life. If we used technology to make them livable, they would cost an order of magnitude more than living in California or New York.
inetknght 3y ago
There's a lot of comments about building more homes. That's only part of the problem. Another part is the fact that rents are a thing. Make it unprofitable to rent and you'll find a lot fewer people forced to rent.
local_issues 3y ago
Remember that this is a policy choice: we chose to enrich Boomers who own houses, at the expense of these people. We could build more homes on golf courses, we could build affordable housing, we could build up, we could get rid of parking mandates. All of that would cost The Boomer, and so is forbidden.
- yardie 3y ago
  California passed Prop 13 way back in the 70s that locked property taxes at 1% increase when nationally inflation has been 1.5-2%. It doesn't require a math degree to see that after a few years if you already own the discounts compound in just a few years. So newer, younger buyers have to shoulder the burden of paying for and providing civil services. Even when the shortcomings are pointed out it remains popular. The people that benefit from it vote to keep it in place and the ones that don't realize they'll have to move to Arizona or Nevada. We could build homes no golf courses and it still wouldn't matter because only the rich could afford to live in them anyway.
  - russellbeattie 3y ago
    I've heard the other side of this argument - basically the original argument focused on fixed income retirees. And I can see the logic and sympathize. The law simply needs to be updated - though it's basically political suicide to attempt it - to only include primary residences of a certain relative value. If you have three houses and a mansion, you should be paying way more tax.
    - yardie 3y ago
      If they wanted it to apply to fixed income retirees they could have applied it to just fixed income retirees. This law applies to all land and property owners and the more you own the better you benefit. They may have used retirees to sell this scheme but it's not what was sold. BTW many other states have Homestead Exemption that only applies to homeowners, retirees, widows, or veterans. Unlike Prop 13 they were designed to specifically help those groups while making sure the state was still able to collect tax revenue from those not in that group.
koube 3y ago
I tried to go lower on the price of a house once because nobody else was bidding on it during the pandemic. The owners decided to just leave it empty and move to another country. They probably made 400k by leaving the house empty. Every time I look at houses, I hear the same story: There's a lot of people who have been waiting to buy houses from the previous year, so there's a lot of competition now. The problem is this will always be true if there's more people looking for houses than houses. This is not a left-right problem. The right and left will equally say we should not build housing. NIMBYism is common across the political spectrum. The most left places like New York have let the housing situation get so bad that now anyone that arrives there is instantly homeless because there is simply nowhere to live[0]. This is New York, the place everyone thinks of when you say "the land of opportunity" and the location of the statue that everyone cites whenever Trump says something about migrants. A lot of stories I read these days I think about The Housing Theory of Everything. Why is everything so expensive? Why are employees so expensive? Why are these expensive employees not able to pay their bills? It seems like a large part of this is that we have structured our economy to pour all of our money into land. Not landowners, land. When you're working for a faang but paying a 5-10k mortgage for a condo, how rich do you really feel? How would it feel to be the ones that didn't get a place to live? How can there ever be a middle class when those that don't make above a certain amount just end up homeless? When there is more housing than people, then people have freedom to ask for better or cheaper housing. Until then, we will be like crabs in a barrel, pulling other people down for a place to live. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/nyregion/migrants-homeless-asylum-nyc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/nyregion/migrants-homeles...
pauldenton 3y ago
Hotel California. You can check out but you can never leave. The policies of the state hollow out the middle class so you get the very rich and the desperately poor.

56 points by thehoff 3y ago

henrisjenny 3y ago

[flagged]

Nellyz 3y ago

[dead]

TurkishPoptart 3y ago

[flagged]

consumer451 3y ago
The harsh reality is that adult life is an endless series of "lesser of two evils" choices. Given the alternatives to Biden, which specific policies do you believe would improve the lives of the lowest economic classes?
- mistrial9 3y ago
  the President follows the deeply inclusive and infallible directions of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), whose grace touches every poor Americans' checkbook via UBI, fedTokens and a Smart Phone with iris bioinformation keychain.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - digitaltrees 3y ago
    Cool. Conspiracy Bingo. I like this game. I am just waiting on Clinton is a lizard person and I have Bingo!
- TurkishPoptart 3y ago
  1. Cut interest rates 2. Stop printing billions to defense contractors for Ukraine 3. invest in small business and entrepreneurial training 4. Stop ESG-based investing
  - consumer451 3y ago
    > 1. Cut interest rates So you would nominate a new Fed Chair who will raise inflation? > 2. Stop printing billions to defense contractors for Ukraine Imperialist Russia preys on weakness, you and David Sacks are the weakest links. What precedent does that set for all other nuclear powers which have imperial ambitions? I am sure Turkey's control of the strait is very annoying to Moscow. How is that going to work out in the long run? > 3. invest in small business and entrepreneurial training So more of this? >> The government, through the Small Business Administration, gave out nearly $790 billion in PPP loans between March 2020 and May 2021, when the program ended, public records show. Of that amount, $757 billion has been forgiven. [0] How much of this crony-socialism led to inflation? >> PPP loans cost nearly double what Biden's student debt forgiveness would have. Here's how the programs compare. [0],[1] > 4. Stop ESG-based investing Why? Show your work with a 20 year investment horizon. --- [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ppp-loan-forgiveness-student-loan-relief-cost-comparison/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ppp-loan-forgiveness-student-lo... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money
  - vlozko 3y ago
    1. Would be nice but that can potentially cause inflation to rapidly grow again. It should go down but it would need to be gradual once inflation has fully stabilized. And it’s not just the US that’s suffering heavily under high inflation. 2. Dropping support for Ukraine would signal to China that we wouldn’t have the stamina to support Taiwan if they were attacked. It was only a few years ago that a massive chip shortage hamstrung our economy and nobody wants to repeat that. Dropping support won’t have much significant fiscal impact, either. Most of the billions spent thus far is really the US clearing out older inventories. 3. We already do with tax incentives and other mechanisms. What exactly are you asking for unchecked COVID loans that were forgiven en mass? 4. Do you have figured that indicate ESG-based investing is a net negative and costly to the US? That redirection of such funds would have a notable economic impact?
LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
This goes way, way beyond partisan politics. “Late stage capitalism” is a term that more and more people are going to become familiar with in the coming years as profit-driven corporations continue to plunder basic necessities like housing and healthcare and put them behind paywalls that fewer and fewer can afford. The US government has done a good job historically of keeping food prices low enough to prevent mass starvation since that’s a major leading indicator of civil unrest, but the rent is too damn high and it’s only gonna get uglier.
- lockhouse 3y ago
  Right or wrong, many people will see it this way…under Trump the economy was good for average Americans and under Biden it’s the worst it has been in decades. Joe and Jane Sixpack don’t care about GDP or the government’s official unemployment or inflation numbers. They see the price at the gas pumps and in the grocery store and their dwindling bank account balances. Rent, food, and fuel inflation has been brutal for most Americans.
  - bmarquez 3y ago
    In other words, "it's the economy, stupid" (That phrase was used by James Carville to help Bill Clinton get elected in 1992)
- HardlyCurious 3y ago
  High rent is caused by limitations on market activity. It is caused by zoning and regulations that prevent building housing, or make building housing more expensive. You are blaming capitalism for a problem that is entirely created by poor government regulation. But hey, if you prefer, check out what life is in like in late stage socialism. There they built walls to keep people in instead of to keep people out.
bryanlarsen 3y ago
Shambles or no, the American economy is doing better than every other major economy in the world.
- kkzz99 3y ago
  China is doing much better compared to the US.
  - cstejerean 3y ago
    Not at the moment it isn't. It's looking quite precarious right now due to the deflation threat.
  - jmclnx 3y ago
    Really. live in rural china and compare that life to rural US, you will not be singing that tune. China now has a lot of economic issues, also economists are now saying it will no longer overtake the US as the largest economy with in 10 years as originally forecast.
  - digitaltrees 3y ago
    Based on what metric? Deflation is worse than inflation. Shrinking trade exports are deadly for an export based economy that doesn’t have a robust consumer base or service sector. China is now decoupling its service sector of law firms, accounting firms and consultants. Extrapolate those trends and you would expect China to be increasingly decoupling from the global trade network after decades of open integration and the growth/wealth that comes with it.
  - ketchupdebugger 3y ago
    china is facing a 20% unemployment rate with its youth population. Thats even with heavy age discrimination at 35. Honestly its not better.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    Most recently their economy is showing significant slowdowns in growth. [1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-q2-gdp-growth-slows-08-qq-just-above-expectations-2023-07-17/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-q2-gdp-growth-slo...
ketchupdebugger 3y ago
whats the alternative? Trump? I'll take the sleepy senior over the unstable senior any day. Besides its not like the president sets the economic plans these days. Their only influence is on government spending. Fed controls the interest rate which affects a broader segment of the economy.
- anon291 3y ago
  Can you name what was so volatile under Trump? We had no new wars under Trump. No new military engagements. We were planning withdrawals. The economy was doing fine. People say things were volatile under Trump, but I have found that this is only true if you're addicted to the 24/7 news cycle. For most American's day to day, life under Trump was just as boring as life under Biden / Obama / Bush / etc. I mean.. when Trump was in office, things were good. My local grocery store couldn't even find enough workers they were hiring disabled people (which is great... everyone deserves the ability to make a living). Now everything is expensive and people seem unhappy; not to mention new military engagements in Europe of all places.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    What was so volatile? American democracy. Constitutional law. The economy matters, but some things matter more.
    - anon291 3y ago
      In what way was constitutional law volatile during Trump's term?
      - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Trying to overturn the results of the election via fake electors, "find the votes" in Georgia, pressuring the Arizona governor, pressuring Pence to accept the fake electors...
        3y ago

satao 3y ago

People keep arguing about the left without thinking that this degree of income inequality is unsustainable. Liberals should be ashamed of what they have become. There’s no liberty when there’s a de facto Royal class, which are the extremely wealthy.

pjscott 3y ago
I'm not understanding the causation here. Some people are very rich, yes, but how does that harm the people who aren't rich?
- HarryHirsch 3y ago
  Wealth translates directly into political influence - just look at Alabama! Also - consider that a good amount of wealth is locked up in real estate. Whoever falls in that bucket has political influence and no interest at all that more housing will be built, because that will diminish their wealth. It's not envy, it's rational self-interest.
  - pjscott 3y ago
    > Wealth translates directly into political influence - just look at Alabama! Is this bad on net? From what I've heard, the main political difference between the rich and the rest of the population is that they tend to be more pro-business. That sounds like a good counterweight to the popular antipathy toward business. > Also - consider that a good amount of wealth is locked up in real estate. Whoever falls in that bucket has political influence and no interest at all that more housing will be built, because that will diminish their wealth. NIMBYism is overwhelmingly driven by non-rich people, and most people who are rich have most of their wealth in stocks, which gives them an incentive to favor the construction of housing as a complementary good. Again, I'm not seeing the harm here.
- drannex 3y ago
  I'll take your "very rich" and primarily include billionaires and the extremely affluent in my following statement: Billionaires shouldn't exist. They shouldn't. We should re-implement proper progressive tax rates (like the US had in the 50s), and ensure that that type of wealth can never happen again.

ndneighbor 3y ago

I am fortunate enough like most HN users to be working in tech, and although I can't speak for everyone in this field, we seem to be better off than most. Inflation's hit me hard but knock on wood if anything was to happen, I'd be okay. However, my brother, who is just starting his career works in IT and has a $50,000~ a year salary. He lives in a Tier 3 city in Florida and the median rent for a studio there is $1,500, up from $600 five or so years ago. After taxes, car insurance, car payment, food, and a night out here and there, he barely can save anything after his student loan payments. This is ridiculous. I can't imagine what others are facing when it comes to the cost of living crisis that is ongoing here. (And for other folks across the pond in England, it's even worse from what I hear.) Throughout my travels of America, anecdotally, I am seeing more families making long term accommodations out of motels and we seem unwilling from our governments to even address this. I think it's going to get much worse until it gets better unfortunately...

cinntaile 3y ago
Why did the rent increase so much? Much higher demand than before?
- butler14 3y ago
  Interest rates go up, getting a mortgage becomes less affordable -> more people in the market for renting (in many areas, there's also a lack of rental housing stock) Professional landlords have built empires on low interest rates -> interest rates go up -> landlords pass the cost onto renters (or for smaller landlords, exit the market, potentially reducing supply further)
  - importantbrian 3y ago
    Rent prices in Florida were skyrocketing long before interest rates started rising. Our last rent increase before we moved was going to be around 25% back when interest rates were still 0. If anything rent increases -- in South Florida at least -- are partly a zero interest rate phenomenon. There are a ton of half full midrise luxury condos that priced lots of people out of previously affordable communities built as the result of access to cheap capitol and money laundering. There was also the massive influx of people moving into the area during covid. All that to say rent prices in Florida are the perfect example of monocausal explanations for complex phenomenon almost always being wildly incorrect.

digitaltrees 3y ago

Build more homes, lower permitting requirements, prohibit institutional ownership of single family, duplex up to 6 unit buildings. L

inetknght 3y ago
> Build more homes Building more homes... purchasable only by people (corporations) with money... to be rented out. Yes that is definitely something that hasn't been happening over the past several decades.
- taylodl 3y ago
  Reminds me of a meme where a lady is complaining that she can't approved for a mortgage and is forced to pay rent that's even higher than the mortgage would have been! Yeah, that's going to work! I think people are starting to learn again that the point to the game of Monopoly was that once someone has cornered the housing market, everybody else goes bankrupt. Now you're just watching it in real life. It's a human tragedy, but the market doesn't care.
- digitaltrees 3y ago
  The rest of my post would address that point. Prohibition on institutions investing. If needed put a cap on the number of units a person can own in one jurisdiction. Housing could be for use not investment if we wanted such a policy landscape. There may be unintended consequences but it’s a worthy experiment.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    What about apartment buildings built for rent only? Surely these can only be done by institutional investors, no single person has the capital to do a 100-200 unit apartment building?
  - inetknght 3y ago
    > If needed put a cap on the number of units a person can own in one jurisdiction. Individual people? Let's talk about investment companies as vehicles then.

ChrisLTD 3y ago

States need to step in and rezone cities and their immediate surrounding areas to allow for more housing.

tech_ken 3y ago
I fully agree, but it's a tall order given how unpopular it is both among voters and politicians. Governor of CO just tried it and every single municipal lawmaker was howling for his head. The bill some of his allies introduced to the state legislature got gutted beyond recognition and then dumped unceremoniously, and the majority of state citizens were glad for it.
- ChrisLTD 3y ago
  Not surprising, since it's the municipal lawmakers that are part of the existing problem.

webosdude 3y ago

I think one of the cause is we don’t tax the landlords higher for the investment property. That’s why lot of upper middle class and HNIs have lot of investment properties around the country. It’s so easy to buy and rent out properties without even seeing them ever. One of my friend who works at Microsoft in Seattle, owns 4 properties around US(3 in WA and 1 in TX). It was so easy to get cheap mortgages between 2017-21 if you had 100-200k lying around.

ChrisLTD 3y ago
Higher or lower taxes doesn't change the market rate for a given unit. If your landlord has to pay higher or lower taxes, they still can charge what the market will bear. However, increasing the supply of rental units will lower rents or at least slow the increase.
- webosdude 3y ago
  That is one instrument to deincentivizing accumulation of more than 1 property. Increasing supply is definitely another one but as I mentioned that earlier most of those rental units get acquired by richer landlords. One can also make those investment property mortgages much higher.
  - ChrisLTD 3y ago
    What is the point of disincentivizing the accumulation of more than one property?
    - beej71 3y ago
      To allow more people to buy property and to prevent price increases due to speculation.
      - bryanlarsen 3y ago
        Fewer landlords means cheaper to buy and more expensive to rent. Helps the upper middle class at the expense of the poor.

commandlinefan 3y ago

When the government shut down the country for a few years and started sending out "covid pandemic checks", economists warned that the economy would crash. I'm not sure about the true cause and effect here, but the economy sure has crashed.

stetrain 3y ago
I think perhaps the effects of a pandemic which killed upwards of 1m Americans may have had a base level of economic impact regardless of the mitigation measures. Perhaps people forget that things like air travel, restaurants, and going into the office were shutting down naturally in the US even before government recommendations to do so. And there were actually very few US-wide mandates or anything resembling a government forced “shutting down the country” outside of restrictions on international air travel.
batshibstein 3y ago
Are you really talking about the couple thousand dollars that people received during the pandemic? In most of the country that might have paid your rent for a month or a few weeks of groceries or if you're fortunate maybe one luxury good.
- pauldenton 3y ago
  It's more like when you flatten production, but steady consumption, by having people get paid for work without producing anything, you produce a mismatch between the dollars and the goods they are chasing that results in Inflation. If you drop money out of helicopters and people spend that money instead of working you get inflation

mitchbob 3y ago

https://archive.ph/2023.08.14-154543/https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/homelessness-increasing-united-states-housing-costs-e1990ac7 https://archive.ph/2023.08.14-154543/https://www.wsj.com/amp...

isx726552 3y ago

This seems like it’s due to a triple threat of at least three things: - Real estate speculation driving up prices - Lack of new housing being built - Wage stagnation Each of those also having multiple underlying causes. And that’s without even getting into things like drug addiction.

SaintSeiya 3y ago

After capitalism comes Rentism (Feudalism 2.0): the rent economy. The rich hoard the resources and means of production and instead of creating new value, they rent it to the rest (Landlords, etc). You'll own nothing and you will be happy.

dsign 3y ago

The devil's advocate here! One would think there isn't enough land in America for people to build houses (of any type?). Or, are you going to tell me that laws made by men (and women, but mostly men) make it illegal to be housed and poor at the same time, no matter the amount of land? And, that changing the laws it's an uphill battle? I understand the concept, America is not the only country like that. But if memory serves me right, America is the result of people from Europe (and Asia, and Africa, and South America) escaping from exactly the same problem? So, here is my proposal: build new nations people can escape to. There is Greenland[^1], Svalbard[^2], Antarctica, the Sahara[^3], the oceans, the Moon, the space habitats and Mars[^4]. We have the technology to build livable spaces[^5]. [^1]: Which is Danish, but can be rented from them for a (high) price. [^2]: Ident, but from Norway. Rent is going to be more expensive. [^3]: Rents and labor are cheap. [^4]: A bad idea, even according to my client. [^5]: Anybody who has been in Las Vegas knows that humans are perfectly adapted to live in big dens of concrete with no vegetation nor walking spaces[^6]. Anything better than that. [^6]: Yes, there are golf curses.

foxyv 3y ago
Spend some time looking at county zoning maps. There are huge legal barriers to developing affordable housing. Zoning, minimum offsets, covenants, height restrictions, usage limits, land use regulation, etc... If you want to re-classify some land you will need to go through extensive legal procedures and you will never get through them without HUGE amounts of capital. In addition, large swaths of land in the most popular states is owned by the federal government. All of this is in opposition to one or more of the most powerful lobbies in the United States. There is a reason the only homes you see being built these days are massive single family homes and luxury apartments. It just isn't economical to build low income housing. If people could move to Greenland, Svalbard, Antarctica, or the Sahara they would have. But those places just don't support human life. If we used technology to make them livable, they would cost an order of magnitude more than living in California or New York.

inetknght 3y ago

There's a lot of comments about building more homes. That's only part of the problem. Another part is the fact that rents are a thing. Make it unprofitable to rent and you'll find a lot fewer people forced to rent.

local_issues 3y ago

Remember that this is a policy choice: we chose to enrich Boomers who own houses, at the expense of these people. We could build more homes on golf courses, we could build affordable housing, we could build up, we could get rid of parking mandates. All of that would cost The Boomer, and so is forbidden.

yardie 3y ago
California passed Prop 13 way back in the 70s that locked property taxes at 1% increase when nationally inflation has been 1.5-2%. It doesn't require a math degree to see that after a few years if you already own the discounts compound in just a few years. So newer, younger buyers have to shoulder the burden of paying for and providing civil services. Even when the shortcomings are pointed out it remains popular. The people that benefit from it vote to keep it in place and the ones that don't realize they'll have to move to Arizona or Nevada. We could build homes no golf courses and it still wouldn't matter because only the rich could afford to live in them anyway.
- russellbeattie 3y ago
  I've heard the other side of this argument - basically the original argument focused on fixed income retirees. And I can see the logic and sympathize. The law simply needs to be updated - though it's basically political suicide to attempt it - to only include primary residences of a certain relative value. If you have three houses and a mansion, you should be paying way more tax.
  - yardie 3y ago
    If they wanted it to apply to fixed income retirees they could have applied it to just fixed income retirees. This law applies to all land and property owners and the more you own the better you benefit. They may have used retirees to sell this scheme but it's not what was sold. BTW many other states have Homestead Exemption that only applies to homeowners, retirees, widows, or veterans. Unlike Prop 13 they were designed to specifically help those groups while making sure the state was still able to collect tax revenue from those not in that group.

koube 3y ago

I tried to go lower on the price of a house once because nobody else was bidding on it during the pandemic. The owners decided to just leave it empty and move to another country. They probably made 400k by leaving the house empty. Every time I look at houses, I hear the same story: There's a lot of people who have been waiting to buy houses from the previous year, so there's a lot of competition now. The problem is this will always be true if there's more people looking for houses than houses. This is not a left-right problem. The right and left will equally say we should not build housing. NIMBYism is common across the political spectrum. The most left places like New York have let the housing situation get so bad that now anyone that arrives there is instantly homeless because there is simply nowhere to live[0]. This is New York, the place everyone thinks of when you say "the land of opportunity" and the location of the statue that everyone cites whenever Trump says something about migrants. A lot of stories I read these days I think about The Housing Theory of Everything. Why is everything so expensive? Why are employees so expensive? Why are these expensive employees not able to pay their bills? It seems like a large part of this is that we have structured our economy to pour all of our money into land. Not landowners, land. When you're working for a faang but paying a 5-10k mortgage for a condo, how rich do you really feel? How would it feel to be the ones that didn't get a place to live? How can there ever be a middle class when those that don't make above a certain amount just end up homeless? When there is more housing than people, then people have freedom to ask for better or cheaper housing. Until then, we will be like crabs in a barrel, pulling other people down for a place to live. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/nyregion/migrants-homeless-asylum-nyc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/nyregion/migrants-homeles...

pauldenton 3y ago

Hotel California. You can check out but you can never leave. The policies of the state hollow out the middle class so you get the very rich and the desperately poor.