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That's a fair statement. I should have stated my original position being that making smart financial decisions creates wealth more than simply owning things. Ob

by netfire 11y ago

That's a fair statement. I should have stated my original position being that making smart financial decisions creates wealth more than simply owning things. Obviously access to education, capital, laws that favor certain classes of people, and just plain luck all influence one's ability to create wealth. That being said, the smart financial decision, in your position, might be to relocate to a different city with significantly cheaper housing, education, food, etc. That has the social/emotional downside of not being as near to friends, family or the things that you like in your city, which may not be it worth it to you. If a lot of people want to live in a certain area, and there is limited space to construct housing (or laws that prohibit new construction) its hard to see how prices would be able to stay low. What do you think the best solution to this problem would be? In my mind, the biggest problem is that we have laws that favor bigger companies and richer people and provider an unfair advantage to those people. (some big companies pay no income tax for example, where that's not an option for a smaller businesses, or small businesses or poorer people can't defend themselves in civil cases due to excessive legal costs)

Silhouette 11y ago
That being said, the smart financial decision, in your position, might be to relocate to a different city with significantly cheaper housing, education, food, etc. That has the social/emotional downside of not being as near to friends, family or the things that you like in your city, which may not be it worth it to you. One difficulty with this is that moving somewhere cheaper often also means moving somewhere that work is harder to find and/or doesn't pay as well, so you can easily find that your gains are mostly cancelled out and you're just saving up even more slowly relative to more expensive areas with better paid work. In any case, as you say, it's just not worth it to me to move somewhere far from the region where most of my family and friends live, my hobbies are well catered for, and work/schools/other practical facilities are readily available. What do you think the best solution to this problem would be? Build more houses -- lots and lots more houses. It's really as simple as that. Here in the UK at present, we build very roughly half as many houses per year as most credible commentators reckon we need to support demand, and we have been underdeveloping for decades now. There is no need for artificial "help to buy" schemes, punitive taxes on landlords or holiday home owners or people with large homes, or any of that other complicated economic stuff the great and powerful keep talking about. Just build enough houses for everyone to find somewhere to live and the rest will take care of itself. In reality, this means fixing our horrendously broken and onerous planning system. Right now, private individuals are up against a barrage of complexity and ambiguity if they want to build/extend themselves, so most new homes are built as part of large-scale commercial developments. Those developments typically receive planning consent on the basis of having a certain proportion of so-called affordable housing -- itself something of a joke in a city like mine, because no teacher or nurse or office junior can actually afford even an entry-level place -- but then the developers have a whole box of tricks for managing to build/sell the high-end, expensive, more profitable homes first and somehow a lot of the affordable ones never quite seem to get built.

by netfire 11y ago

Silhouette 11y ago

That being said, the smart financial decision, in your position, might be to relocate to a different city with significantly cheaper housing, education, food, etc. That has the social/emotional downside of not being as near to friends, family or the things that you like in your city, which may not be it worth it to you. One difficulty with this is that moving somewhere cheaper often also means moving somewhere that work is harder to find and/or doesn't pay as well, so you can easily find that your gains are mostly cancelled out and you're just saving up even more slowly relative to more expensive areas with better paid work. In any case, as you say, it's just not worth it to me to move somewhere far from the region where most of my family and friends live, my hobbies are well catered for, and work/schools/other practical facilities are readily available. What do you think the best solution to this problem would be? Build more houses -- lots and lots more houses. It's really as simple as that. Here in the UK at present, we build very roughly half as many houses per year as most credible commentators reckon we need to support demand, and we have been underdeveloping for decades now. There is no need for artificial "help to buy" schemes, punitive taxes on landlords or holiday home owners or people with large homes, or any of that other complicated economic stuff the great and powerful keep talking about. Just build enough houses for everyone to find somewhere to live and the rest will take care of itself. In reality, this means fixing our horrendously broken and onerous planning system. Right now, private individuals are up against a barrage of complexity and ambiguity if they want to build/extend themselves, so most new homes are built as part of large-scale commercial developments. Those developments typically receive planning consent on the basis of having a certain proportion of so-called affordable housing -- itself something of a joke in a city like mine, because no teacher or nurse or office junior can actually afford even an entry-level place -- but then the developers have a whole box of tricks for managing to build/sell the high-end, expensive, more profitable homes first and somehow a lot of the affordable ones never quite seem to get built.