4 ms·

The easiest surefire way to lift the bottom of the economy right now is to go on a mass home building spree. If people had their rents cut in half, it would so

The easiest surefire way to lift the bottom of the economy right now is to go on a mass home building spree. If people had their rents cut in half, it would solve most other money problems they complain about (shy of those who will just inflate their lives into being money constrained again). Of course this will come mostly at the expense of regular middle-class homeowners, who will see the enormous paper gains of their properties in the last 5-10 years be decimated. Red or Blue, I don't care who, hates losing money and will emphatically vote against this happening.

toomuchtodo 9mo ago
Indeed. If you destroy housing costs [1], medical costs with single payer [2], and energy costs with renewables [3], that gets you to Abundance everyone so desperately opines about. But too much of the country is driven by the inefficiency (rent seeking, broadly speaking), that is the US system and the economy. That is all the country builds anymore. We collectively know what the foundational problems are, there is simply no political will to course correct. Increased supply will disempower the extraction system. AI replaces jobs people need to survive, but does not fix anything I've enumerated; in some cases, it even makes the problem worse (algorithmic price fixing [RealPage] and price discrimination [Instacart], for example). I would like to imagine a world with enough housing for every human, affordable, accessible medical care for all, and cheap clean energy deployed at scale. When is AI going to deliver that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43119657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43119657 (housing cost citations) [2] Health Care Costs and Affordability - https://www.kff.org/health-costs/health-policy-101-health-care-costs-and-affordability/?entry=table-of-contents-how-has-u-s-health-care-spending-changed-over-time https://www.kff.org/health-costs/health-policy-101-health-ca... - October 8th, 2025 [3] U.S. electricity prices continue steady increase - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65284 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65284 - May 14th, 2025
- card_zero 9mo ago
  I don't understand POSIWID at all. "Purpose" is inherently good intention and moral judgement.
  - cameron_b 9mo ago
    The main token in POSWID seems to apply to reasonably mature instances of S for which several passes have been taken through the build loop. Once someone has edited the thing, it is reasonable to assume that the outputs are the fruits of the intentions.
    - card_zero 9mo ago
      Oh, so it's more like "the purpose of a system emerges".
      - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
        Yes.
- bluGill 9mo ago
  What would people spend that excess on if they had it? Adam Smith observed that most people spent it in nicer houses. While I think there is a limit I think for most we would turn around an spend that extra on a nicer house and return to living paycheck to paycheck hoping we have enough to make the end of the month after paying for it. Nicer cars would likely take a good portion of the difference as well.
  - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
    > What would people spend that excess on if they had it? Humans do not exist to be extracted from for their basic needs imho, which is how the current system is configured, so this is not an excuse to keep extraction systems in place. Give humans a 4 day work week if the argument is "what else would you spend this money on?" with the excess. Humans do not exist for the profits of others, again, imho. I understand others have different opinions on this topic. https://4dayweek.com/ https://4dayweek.com/ | https://workfour.org/ https://workfour.org/ | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%224%20day%20week%22&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... It might even help with the cratering fertility rate across the developed world. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://thezvi.substack.com/p/fertility-roundup-5-causation https://thezvi.substack.com/p/fertility-roundup-5-causation "What if we put all of this effort in and all that happens is people live better lives!?" sounds...silly, no?
micromacrofoot 9mo ago
If we had reasonable safety nets for healthcare, retirement, and housing I wouldn't give a flying fart about my home value... but right now it's the only safety net I have.
unstatusthequo 9mo ago
Wait, then who will the Boomers unload their overpriced real estate to?
- vablings 9mo ago
  I think the sad thing is its already massively overvalued and the only thing propping up the market is the ability to get more mortgages for longer creating servitude and debt bondage like you have never seen.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
jayd16 9mo ago
If we did, what's to stop the rich from buying it all anyway?
- seanalltogether 9mo ago
  Property taxes that need to be paid regardless of occupancy. They become more of a liability if you can't keep it rented 12 months of the year.
  - jayd16 9mo ago
    If the idea is they're needed then why wouldn't they get rented? Unless something gets done about economic equality, the rich are in a position to benefit the most.
delaminator 9mo ago
[flagged]
mattmaroon 9mo ago
You are missing the bigger problem, healthcare spending. We as a society now spend more on that than our housing, and the gulf between the two widens every year. We should do what you say, but we should also focus on pumping out more doctors, etc.
lif 9mo ago
Have you looked around? We actually have plenty of "housing", however most do not meet the qualities/criteria that make them desirable enough to be "homes". Lower density, family and pet friendly. You know, the kinds of places that landlords live in. Not the places they are trying to force on others as "inevitable".
OGEnthusiast 9mo ago
Blackrock will just buy all the new homes you build and charge exorbitant rent.
- zozbot234 9mo ago
  If they charge "exorbitant" rent no one's going to rent from them. They're constrained by broader market conditions.
  - m000 9mo ago
    > If they charge "exorbitant" rent no one's going to rent from them. We will. There are just not enough bridges for everyone to live under. /s
- BobaFloutist 9mo ago
  Trying to corner a healthy market is famously a bad idea.
commandlinefan 9mo ago
> regular middle-class homeowners, who will see the enormous paper gains of their properties As one of those homeowners, I keep hoping that housing values go down because I'm taxed on the value of my home every year, and that tax burden is crushing me. My property taxes are 2% of the (appraised) value of my house. The fact that its worth twice what I paid for it is meaningless to me when the tax bill comes - I can't really sell it and cash out the 'investment' because I need somewhere to live.
- zozbot234 9mo ago
  Why "can't"? You can always move out to somewhere cheaper and pocket the difference. Besides, when property tax rates are lower, housing prices are higher to begin with. It's a wash for anyone except those property owners who were lucky to get grandfathered into cheaper ownership when the tax rate fell.
haizhung 9mo ago
No. Mass building (while not touching inequality) will NOT solve the issue. It’s easy to see why: there already IS enough housing around for everybody. If there wasn’t, you would see a massive amount of homeless people. And even in the US where that might be the case - the amount of empty real estate is larger than the amount of homeless people. You could easily house them if you wanted. It’s a question of distribution. The other reason to see why this doesn’t work is: there is no country that managed to do it. Miraculously, the housing crisis has hit all (western) countries on the planet. All of them try to build their way out of it, no one succeeds. Why? If you just mass build, the new units will be bought immediately by the rich, and the working people will have no housing still.
- zozbot234 9mo ago
  > It’s easy to see why: there already IS enough housing around for everybody. Maybe in Detroit this statement is true, or a ghost town in the middle of nowhere. The fact that housing costs money mostly anywhere else is trivially evidence that there isn't enough of it to go around. > Miraculously, the housing crisis has hit all (western) countries on the planet. All of them try to build their way out of it, no one succeeds. Why? Very few western countries are trying to "build their way out" in a meaningful sense. Folks aren't buying that housing en masse for no reason; they just expect it to become even scarcer and more expensive in the future. If you fail to build any more, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- margalabargala 9mo ago
  Most western countries have not tried. They prefer a capitalist let-the-market-decide approach, and also have tended not to cut down the mountains of red tape they've associated with building. The handful of countries that have really tried, have succeeded. Jordan and Finland are the two I'm aware of.

toomuchtodo 9mo ago

Indeed. If you destroy housing costs [1], medical costs with single payer [2], and energy costs with renewables [3], that gets you to Abundance everyone so desperately opines about. But too much of the country is driven by the inefficiency (rent seeking, broadly speaking), that is the US system and the economy. That is all the country builds anymore. We collectively know what the foundational problems are, there is simply no political will to course correct. Increased supply will disempower the extraction system. AI replaces jobs people need to survive, but does not fix anything I've enumerated; in some cases, it even makes the problem worse (algorithmic price fixing [RealPage] and price discrimination [Instacart], for example). I would like to imagine a world with enough housing for every human, affordable, accessible medical care for all, and cheap clean energy deployed at scale. When is AI going to deliver that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43119657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43119657 (housing cost citations) [2] Health Care Costs and Affordability - https://www.kff.org/health-costs/health-policy-101-health-care-costs-and-affordability/?entry=table-of-contents-how-has-u-s-health-care-spending-changed-over-time https://www.kff.org/health-costs/health-policy-101-health-ca... - October 8th, 2025 [3] U.S. electricity prices continue steady increase - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65284 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65284 - May 14th, 2025

card_zero 9mo ago
I don't understand POSIWID at all. "Purpose" is inherently good intention and moral judgement.
- cameron_b 9mo ago
  The main token in POSWID seems to apply to reasonably mature instances of S for which several passes have been taken through the build loop. Once someone has edited the thing, it is reasonable to assume that the outputs are the fruits of the intentions.
  - card_zero 9mo ago
    Oh, so it's more like "the purpose of a system emerges".
    - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
      Yes.
bluGill 9mo ago
What would people spend that excess on if they had it? Adam Smith observed that most people spent it in nicer houses. While I think there is a limit I think for most we would turn around an spend that extra on a nicer house and return to living paycheck to paycheck hoping we have enough to make the end of the month after paying for it. Nicer cars would likely take a good portion of the difference as well.
- toomuchtodo 9mo ago
  > What would people spend that excess on if they had it? Humans do not exist to be extracted from for their basic needs imho, which is how the current system is configured, so this is not an excuse to keep extraction systems in place. Give humans a 4 day work week if the argument is "what else would you spend this money on?" with the excess. Humans do not exist for the profits of others, again, imho. I understand others have different opinions on this topic. https://4dayweek.com/ https://4dayweek.com/ | https://workfour.org/ https://workfour.org/ | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%224%20day%20week%22&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... It might even help with the cratering fertility rate across the developed world. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://thezvi.substack.com/p/fertility-roundup-5-causation https://thezvi.substack.com/p/fertility-roundup-5-causation "What if we put all of this effort in and all that happens is people live better lives!?" sounds...silly, no?

micromacrofoot 9mo ago

If we had reasonable safety nets for healthcare, retirement, and housing I wouldn't give a flying fart about my home value... but right now it's the only safety net I have.

unstatusthequo 9mo ago

Wait, then who will the Boomers unload their overpriced real estate to?

vablings 9mo ago
I think the sad thing is its already massively overvalued and the only thing propping up the market is the ability to get more mortgages for longer creating servitude and debt bondage like you have never seen.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

jayd16 9mo ago

If we did, what's to stop the rich from buying it all anyway?

seanalltogether 9mo ago
Property taxes that need to be paid regardless of occupancy. They become more of a liability if you can't keep it rented 12 months of the year.
- jayd16 9mo ago
  If the idea is they're needed then why wouldn't they get rented? Unless something gets done about economic equality, the rich are in a position to benefit the most.

delaminator 9mo ago

[flagged]

mattmaroon 9mo ago

You are missing the bigger problem, healthcare spending. We as a society now spend more on that than our housing, and the gulf between the two widens every year. We should do what you say, but we should also focus on pumping out more doctors, etc.

lif 9mo ago

Have you looked around? We actually have plenty of "housing", however most do not meet the qualities/criteria that make them desirable enough to be "homes". Lower density, family and pet friendly. You know, the kinds of places that landlords live in. Not the places they are trying to force on others as "inevitable".

OGEnthusiast 9mo ago

Blackrock will just buy all the new homes you build and charge exorbitant rent.

zozbot234 9mo ago
If they charge "exorbitant" rent no one's going to rent from them. They're constrained by broader market conditions.
- m000 9mo ago
  > If they charge "exorbitant" rent no one's going to rent from them. We will. There are just not enough bridges for everyone to live under. /s
BobaFloutist 9mo ago
Trying to corner a healthy market is famously a bad idea.

commandlinefan 9mo ago

> regular middle-class homeowners, who will see the enormous paper gains of their properties As one of those homeowners, I keep hoping that housing values go down because I'm taxed on the value of my home every year, and that tax burden is crushing me. My property taxes are 2% of the (appraised) value of my house. The fact that its worth twice what I paid for it is meaningless to me when the tax bill comes - I can't really sell it and cash out the 'investment' because I need somewhere to live.

zozbot234 9mo ago
Why "can't"? You can always move out to somewhere cheaper and pocket the difference. Besides, when property tax rates are lower, housing prices are higher to begin with. It's a wash for anyone except those property owners who were lucky to get grandfathered into cheaper ownership when the tax rate fell.

haizhung 9mo ago

No. Mass building (while not touching inequality) will NOT solve the issue. It’s easy to see why: there already IS enough housing around for everybody. If there wasn’t, you would see a massive amount of homeless people. And even in the US where that might be the case - the amount of empty real estate is larger than the amount of homeless people. You could easily house them if you wanted. It’s a question of distribution. The other reason to see why this doesn’t work is: there is no country that managed to do it. Miraculously, the housing crisis has hit all (western) countries on the planet. All of them try to build their way out of it, no one succeeds. Why? If you just mass build, the new units will be bought immediately by the rich, and the working people will have no housing still.

zozbot234 9mo ago
> It’s easy to see why: there already IS enough housing around for everybody. Maybe in Detroit this statement is true, or a ghost town in the middle of nowhere. The fact that housing costs money mostly anywhere else is trivially evidence that there isn't enough of it to go around. > Miraculously, the housing crisis has hit all (western) countries on the planet. All of them try to build their way out of it, no one succeeds. Why? Very few western countries are trying to "build their way out" in a meaningful sense. Folks aren't buying that housing en masse for no reason; they just expect it to become even scarcer and more expensive in the future. If you fail to build any more, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
margalabargala 9mo ago
Most western countries have not tried. They prefer a capitalist let-the-market-decide approach, and also have tended not to cut down the mountains of red tape they've associated with building. The handful of countries that have really tried, have succeeded. Jordan and Finland are the two I'm aware of.