harryh

7 ms·

31.
by harryh 5y ago
Decades of under-building due to restrictive zoning laws will do that.
32.
by harryh 5y ago
Super interesting answer. Thanks!
33.
by harryh 5y ago
If demand so significantly exceeds supply, why aren't folks with these skills raising prices?
34.
by harryh 5y ago
The big HFT firms are, in fact, well known. https://medium.com/automation-generation/15-well-known-high-... They're also regulated in various ways.
35.
by harryh 5y ago
I thought HFTers only got involved in between two parties when they knew they could make a profit. You thought wrong. While there are a variety of things that HFT firms do, most of it is market making. https://en.wikipedia.org&
36.
by harryh 5y ago
When someone buys liquidity, they don't do so to close their order 500ns faster. They do it to ensure they can trade at the current market price because they don't want to take the risk that the market will move away from them whi
37.
by harryh 5y ago
But maybe if the trades were priority queued it would negate that. If the trades are priority queued, then you have just recreated the speed "arms race" that this idea hopes to eliminate.
38.
by harryh 5y ago
Probably worth appending 2015 to the title on HN.
39.
by harryh 5y ago
One of my more controversial opinions is that tax advantaged retirement accounts should be eliminated entirely. Almost all of the advantages of them accrue to the top decile of income earners. Why should we have exceptions in the tax code j
40.
by harryh 5y ago
I don't think anyone is talking about banning lawmakers from investing in broad market indexes and the like. They're talking about banning buying and selling individual stocks because that opens the door to trading on non-public i
41.
by harryh 5y ago
I can't speak for Berlin, but it's basically illegal to build new housing in sufficient quantities in virtually every major American city. Due to this fact, prices have shot up everywhere. The entire state of California now has a
42.
by harryh 5y ago
The interests in favor of zoning are almost all homeowners actually. Not sure if that is what you mean by "real estate interests."
43.
by harryh 5y ago
It depends on what you mean by "solve." Can the market 100% solve all housing problems? No, probably not. Can the market solve A LOT more housing problems than it currently is? Yes, absolutely. The market is hugely constrained by
44.
by harryh 5y ago
But you did say that it was "False" that additional supply would put competitive pressure on housing prices.
45.
by harryh 5y ago
I'm not saying social housing is bad. We should definitely have more social housing. I am saying "The problem is not that there isn't sufficient housing" is wrong. Very very very wrong. There are massive supply shortages
46.
by harryh 5y ago
Your thought exercise is interesting, but not in the way you think. Property owners do, in fact, conspire with each other to prevent the construction of new housing (via zoning laws). They do this, as you say, so that they can get richer. A
47.
by harryh 5y ago
If you don't use price to determine who receives a scarce good, then you're stuck with other bad mechanisms. In Stockholm, for example, waiting lists for apartments can be over a decade long. Much better to recognize that "Th
48.
by harryh 5y ago
There is plenty of evidence that housing supply is significantly limited by zoning regulations in lots of places. And in those places the little bit of construction that does happen tends to be targeted to the top of the market. So I'm
49.
by harryh 5y ago
Adding more housing means there is more room for people. Your question is almost non-sensical?
50.
by harryh 5y ago
Zoning. Yes.
51.
by harryh 5y ago
Indeed! As I acknowledge in the last sentence of my comment. Because of these things, I think the healthiest housing markets are those with a good mix of suppliers (both govt and private). Supplier competition comes with many benefits.
52.
by harryh 5y ago
Government run housing can have its own problems too. For example in Singapore, there have been huge issues with gay couples being unable to rent housing. This can happen with some private landlords too, but at least in that situation there
53.
by harryh 5y ago
Imagine car suppliers were only allowed to build 1M new cars per year (in the US, consumers currently buy about 17M new cars per year). Suppliers would no doubt use their limited quota to produce high end cars for the richest customers. Thi
54.
by harryh 5y ago
Because housing isn’t completely in-fungible either. So, while there might be irregularities here and there, increasing supply will in fact put downward pressure on prices.
55.
by harryh 5y ago
Corporate ownership of housing is good. Every time I’ve rented from a corporate landlord, it’s been great. They’re organized, have staff, fix problems promptly. Every time I’ve rented from an individual owner, it’s sucked. They are undercap
56.
by harryh 5y ago
Owner occupied housing already gets a tax deduction because owners don’t have to pay taxes on imputed rent (in the vast majority of tax jurisdictions). It would be great to actually fix this because it distorts the housing market to the det
57.
by harryh 5y ago
While I can't speak for Berlin specifically, I can say that in most places with very expensive housing this isn't true. You can see this because other problems tend to occur when housing gets very expensive: - Overcrowding - Peopl
58.
by harryh 5y ago
If you declare housing "a fundamental right" then you still need more supply when you have a location (like Berlin) that doesn't have sufficient housing for the number of people that want to live there.
59.
by harryh 5y ago
Even if you were right (and I don't think you are) about the same 5 real estate companies buying up all added supply, it wouldn't matter. Those 5 companies would still be subject to the forces of supply and demand. Increased suppl
60.
by harryh 5y ago
You don't need to earn a 400k salary to have your QSBS qualification reduced, you just need to have 400k of income and proceeds from stock sales are income.

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