4 ms·

A housing 'market' just makes no sense. It's all the downsides of a market, with speculation, supply/demand-strikes, etc, etc, but then it's not actually a 'ma

A housing 'market' just makes no sense. It's all the downsides of a market, with speculation, supply/demand-strikes, etc, etc, but then it's not actually a 'market' in the sense that new supply cannot be simply conjured to meet demand (land is finite, and of course location, location, location) - so any 'demand market signals' only go to inflate the price, not stimulate production. Truly, economics is the dismal science, and it's wholesale embrace by govt and society is making our lives dismal too.

pixl97 3y ago
I mean, you're being downvoted, but you're not wrong. >Housing can’t both be a good investment and be affordable
- mcntsh 3y ago
  In Germany housing is both not a good investment nor affordable :)
  - bigblue19 3y ago
    [flagged]
hotpotamus 3y ago
> Truly, economics is the dismal science, and it's wholesale embrace by govt and society is making our lives dismal too. Yes, I think of this a lot in the context of healthcare; applying market economics to human morbidity and mortality is just grim and macabre. At points it is unavoidable I'm sure, but in the end you end up with unanswerable questions regarding the value of human life. I sort of get the feeling that in that context, "Logan's Run" was basically the optimal economic solution.
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  The thing I keep coming back to is, we spend huge sums on grueling end-of-life interventions that a doctor himself might be reluctant to receive.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    As someone who eventually needs a hip replacement, I'd say we spend huge sums on lots of other things too. I can't really fault people for trying to stave off death as long as possible, but I also understand that doctors are unwilling to receive a lot of those interventions for good reason.
dtech 3y ago
What's your alternative, government allocation? That hasn't historically turned out much better. As long as you can mostly buy and sell houses freely it's a market, it being supply constrained just means high prices (which is what we see).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tarboreus 3y ago
  I guess Georgism is the usual alternative proposed by internet urbanists. Interesting but largely untried.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
The problem in the housing market is land taxes are too low to incentivize land owners to do something (more) productive with the land, like building more dense housing.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
"Truly, economics is the dismal science, and it's wholesale embrace by govt and society is making our lives dismal too." Calling economics a "science" is a stretch. If one subscribes to a definition of science that requires a process for falsifying hypotheses,^1 then how are economic theories falsified. (Prediction: No replies will answer this question.) Originally economics was called "political economy" and that's the era from which the "dismal science" term came from.^2 The original use of the term "dismal science" to refer to economics occured long before the scientific method was widely adopted. 1. This did not appear until the 1930s. 2. The first use of the term "dismal science" was an article in an 1849 issue of Fraser's Magazine about trying to use political economy ("economics") to justify the use of slavery on plantations in the West Indies. "It may be granted that, even in its purest form, economic theory has implications for policy and in that sense makes political propaganda of one kind or another. This element of propaganda is inherent in the subject and, even when a thinker studiously maintains a sense of Olympian detachment, philosophical and political preferences enter at the very beginning of the analysis in the formation of, as Schumpeter would have it, his vision: the preanalytical act of selecting certain features of reality for examination." Blaug, Economic Theory in Retropsect
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
  "Economics is Not a Science" https://www.aubreydaniels.com/blog/economics-is-not-a-science https://www.aubreydaniels.com/blog/economics-is-not-a-scienc... "No, Economics Is Not a Science" https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/economics-science-wang/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/economics-scie... "Don't let the Nobel prize fool you. Economics is not a science" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/11/nobel-prize-economics-not-science-hubris-disaster https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/11/nobel-... "10 reasons why economics is an art, not a science" https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/10-reasons-why-economics-is-an-art-not-a-science/2013/08/08/7c501020-ffb5-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/10-reasons-why-econo... "ECONOMICS IS NOT NATURAL SCIENCE" https://www.edge.org/conversation/douglas_rushkoff-economics-is-not-natural-science https://www.edge.org/conversation/douglas_rushkoff-economics... "Is Economics a Science? Well, Not Yet." https://www.ricardodahis.com/papers/Dahis_IEAS.pdf https://www.ricardodahis.com/papers/Dahis_IEAS.pdf

pixl97 3y ago

I mean, you're being downvoted, but you're not wrong. >Housing can’t both be a good investment and be affordable

mcntsh 3y ago
In Germany housing is both not a good investment nor affordable :)
- bigblue19 3y ago
  [flagged]

hotpotamus 3y ago

> Truly, economics is the dismal science, and it's wholesale embrace by govt and society is making our lives dismal too. Yes, I think of this a lot in the context of healthcare; applying market economics to human morbidity and mortality is just grim and macabre. At points it is unavoidable I'm sure, but in the end you end up with unanswerable questions regarding the value of human life. I sort of get the feeling that in that context, "Logan's Run" was basically the optimal economic solution.

erik_seaberg 3y ago
The thing I keep coming back to is, we spend huge sums on grueling end-of-life interventions that a doctor himself might be reluctant to receive.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  As someone who eventually needs a hip replacement, I'd say we spend huge sums on lots of other things too. I can't really fault people for trying to stave off death as long as possible, but I also understand that doctors are unwilling to receive a lot of those interventions for good reason.

dtech 3y ago

What's your alternative, government allocation? That hasn't historically turned out much better. As long as you can mostly buy and sell houses freely it's a market, it being supply constrained just means high prices (which is what we see).

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tarboreus 3y ago
I guess Georgism is the usual alternative proposed by internet urbanists. Interesting but largely untried.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

The problem in the housing market is land taxes are too low to incentivize land owners to do something (more) productive with the land, like building more dense housing.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

"Truly, economics is the dismal science, and it's wholesale embrace by govt and society is making our lives dismal too." Calling economics a "science" is a stretch. If one subscribes to a definition of science that requires a process for falsifying hypotheses,^1 then how are economic theories falsified. (Prediction: No replies will answer this question.) Originally economics was called "political economy" and that's the era from which the "dismal science" term came from.^2 The original use of the term "dismal science" to refer to economics occured long before the scientific method was widely adopted. 1. This did not appear until the 1930s. 2. The first use of the term "dismal science" was an article in an 1849 issue of Fraser's Magazine about trying to use political economy ("economics") to justify the use of slavery on plantations in the West Indies. "It may be granted that, even in its purest form, economic theory has implications for policy and in that sense makes political propaganda of one kind or another. This element of propaganda is inherent in the subject and, even when a thinker studiously maintains a sense of Olympian detachment, philosophical and political preferences enter at the very beginning of the analysis in the formation of, as Schumpeter would have it, his vision: the preanalytical act of selecting certain features of reality for examination." Blaug, Economic Theory in Retropsect

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
"Economics is Not a Science" https://www.aubreydaniels.com/blog/economics-is-not-a-science https://www.aubreydaniels.com/blog/economics-is-not-a-scienc... "No, Economics Is Not a Science" https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/economics-science-wang/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/economics-scie... "Don't let the Nobel prize fool you. Economics is not a science" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/11/nobel-prize-economics-not-science-hubris-disaster https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/11/nobel-... "10 reasons why economics is an art, not a science" https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/10-reasons-why-economics-is-an-art-not-a-science/2013/08/08/7c501020-ffb5-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/10-reasons-why-econo... "ECONOMICS IS NOT NATURAL SCIENCE" https://www.edge.org/conversation/douglas_rushkoff-economics-is-not-natural-science https://www.edge.org/conversation/douglas_rushkoff-economics... "Is Economics a Science? Well, Not Yet." https://www.ricardodahis.com/papers/Dahis_IEAS.pdf https://www.ricardodahis.com/papers/Dahis_IEAS.pdf