Anyone whose main income is from other peoples rent has an incredible amount of explaining to do if they want to claim that they are anything but a useless leech.
> Anyone whose main income is from other peoples rent has an incredible amount of explaining to do if they want to claim that they are anything but a useless leech
What would you envision as the alternative to tenanted apartment complexes?
Let’s say you could wave a wand and outlaw rental housing as a business. Do you think the world would be a better or worse place?
Not GP, but wiping out the externalities of property being used as a capital investment vehicle instead of for its inherent utility seems like it would inarguably, in any rational market system, make housing more affordable. It's self-evident that it would be better for anyone without a vested interest in denying the housing needs of the many.
If there absolutely must exist a category of housing that is rented and not owned, that's where the state can step in. Housing, like healthcare, is a commodity with perfectly inelastic demand in the aggregate. Offering such a commodity up to the "free" market is irrational in any system except one that values ability to make a profit over human rights.
The old people with a reverse mortgage & the taxpayer subsidizing the associated losses.
People who put much of their excess savings into an appreciating home they planned to sell to fund their retirement as they moved elsewhere to somewhere cheaper, but now have a home which as a step function is worth far less.
People who would be quickly underwater if the property market tanks deciding to jingle mail, leading to blighted streets for those who stayed.
Local property taxes pay for schools, fire departments, police, etc.
As far as the state being a perfect provider to step in ... in the US about half of healthcare spending is fraud. That the bill is passed onto someone else is a big slice of that (along with ignoring antitrust laws, local CON laws, illegal to import pharmaceuticals directly as a consumer, etc).
I used to live near Chicago as a kid & recalled this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes
"At first, the housing was integrated and many residents held jobs. This changed in the years after World War II, when the nearby factories that provided the neighborhood's economic base closed and thousands were laid off. At the same time, the cash-strapped city began withdrawing crucial services like police patrols, transit services, and routine building maintenance. ... On July 17, 1970, Chicago police patrolman Anthony N. Rizzato and Sergeant James Severin were shot and killed by gang members while patrolling community housing for an all-volunteer "Walk and Talk" project. As the officers proceeded across the Cabrini–Green baseball field, the assailants opened fire from an apartment window. The purpose of the shooting was to seal a pact between two rival gangs."
Which land will the free or subsidized housing go on? Will the people spending a grand or two a month in property taxes want the elevated crime levels near their own front door?
You make a lot of valid points in the first half there, but unfortunately to transition away from housing being an investment and towards it being an amenity, it necessarily means affecting those who choose to treat it as an investment - and frankly, all investments come with some risk. But with all your talk of "old people", I think it's fair to point out that this need not happen overnight, and there should be ample warning for retirees to divest of their investments to the private sector gamblers, for the most part.
>People who would be quickly underwater if the property market tanks deciding to jingle mail, leading to blighted streets for those who stayed.
I really don't understand this point. If it's a house where they want to live, they would just stay. If they can't afford the mortgage, yes, they can leave and buy any of the other now cheap property on the market, and the financial institution that took on the risk on lending can either sell it back to them or to someone else. If they don't live there, they're literally part of the problem of speculators treating houses as assets rather than housing, in which case they should be selling it to whoever actually wants to live there, yes.
Now as for the second part:
>As far as the state being a perfect provider to step in ... in the US about half of healthcare spending is fraud.
I feel like you choosing the only first world country with primarily privatised healthcare kind of strengthens my point, not sure what you're getting at here.
>Which land will the free or subsidized housing go on?
It shows just how badly treating housing as a capital asset rather than a public utility has corrupted how people discuss housing, that when I suggest that the government would handle any absolutely necessary rental housing, you immediately jump to low income people. And I don't blame you for thinking that, but that's basically the opposite demographic of who rental property should be for.
There's no inherent reason that low-income people should be renting rather than owning - they have no particular need for short-term housing. The only reason those two things are associated is because housing is treated as a capital asset.
Rather, the only people who have reason to rent rather than own are those who have a short term need for housing, which is going to be largely moderate-income people who move around for work, as well as students aiming for a higher-income job.
There are other systems, of course, where no one can claim physical ownership of something like land, and everyone rents - like Singapore's public housing model. Singapore's model, by the way, sidesteps the rest of your concern:
>Which land will the free or subsidized housing go on? Will the people spending a grand or two a month in property taxes want the elevated crime levels near their own front door?
Where will lower income people go? The same places everyone else goes. The only reason you have "bad" neighborhoods is because you've shoved all the economically disadvantaged people into one spot, and allowed the wealthy to cloister themselves into enclaves where the issues with poverty are out of sight and out of mind. As I said, Singapore's public housing distributes income levels much more evenly, and shows major benefits from it.
It's actually pretty simple to break it down if you try to think about it. Rent seeking is evil when the renters absolutely need the service and cannot afford ownership. Otherwise, it's a service that some find useful. Home rentals would be awesome if it was only for vacations or because someone didn't feel like dealing with maintenance. In reality, everyone needs a place to sleep at night and many cannot afford it. The people who make it unaffordable to own a home by buying up all inventory and then renting it back are absolutely leaches. Comparing camera equipment rentals to home ownership likewise lacks morality.
In the San Francisco for example, the minimum wage is $16.32/hr or ~$33K/year. The median price per square foot is $1000/sqft. A person earning minimum wage will never be able to buy property in San Francisco. Instead they're forced to spend most of their income on rent creating a cycle of poverty by preventing property ownership & wealth accumulation. The property owning class of the Bay Area desperately depends the poverty class yet burns the ladder up. We complain about the homelessness and crime yet trap people into poverty by blowing up every bill that would create affordable housing.
I will absolutely cheer for the failure of any company looking to profit from exacerbating the problem. I hope you can now understand the difference between renting a camera and being permanently unable to afford a place to sleep.
> It's actually pretty simple to break it down if you try to think about it. Rent seeking is evil when the renters absolutely need the service and cannot afford ownership.
Do they absolutely need the service? I assume you're going to give an example where someone buys out the market so they can control the price like a monopoly. If so, I'd like to point out controlling the market like a monopoly isn't the same description as "rent seeking is evil if you're selling a service people need". People need many things that can only be provided by an expert. Are they evil if they don't provide their service at cost too? If not what's the difference? Or was my assumption of your example wrong from the start?
> Otherwise, it's a service that some find useful. Home rentals would be awesome if it was only for vacations or because someone didn't feel like dealing with maintenance. In reality, everyone needs a place to sleep at night and many cannot afford it. The people who make it unaffordable to own a home by buying up all inventory and then renting it back are absolutely leaches. Comparing camera equipment rentals to home ownership likewise lacks morality.
I'm in agreement with you, but this nuance is *very* important, and you're the first to actually explain in detail exactly what's wrong.
> In the San Francisco for example, the minimum wage is $16.32/hr or ~$33K/year. The median price per square foot is $1000/sqft. A person earning minimum wage will never be able to buy property in San Francisco. Instead they're forced to spend most of their income on rent creating a cycle of poverty by preventing property ownership & wealth accumulation.
True, but a gross oversimplification of all the factors that go into something like this. The hyperbole becomes disingenuous with the reasonable expectation that not all parties are aware of the full content. Saying rent seeking makes you a leach, doesn't look like hyperbole. It looks like an assertion that owning property is immoral. This argument is going to drive people away from the realization that people are abusing the rules of the game at the expense of people who now can't even begin to play.
> The property owning class of the Bay Area desperately depends the poverty class yet burns the ladder up. We complain about the homelessness and crime yet trap people into poverty by blowing up every bill that would create affordable housing.
I suspect the intersection of the people opposing anything affordable aren't the same who actually complain about the problem. Here I'm trying to not equate the people complaining about the problem, or the injustice, from the people complaining because they're angry and need to complain. Or those complaining about the inconvenience of having to see someone poorer than they are.
> I will absolutely cheer for the failure of any company looking to profit from exacerbating the problem. I hope you can now understand the difference between renting a camera and being permanently unable to afford a place to sleep.
Me too, but it seems a bit unfair to state it like this. You're the first person to actually explain these real problems in enough detail to convey the idea and how unfair it really is. I say this because you didn't offer to explain deeper, or invite additional participation. The only thing I was able to parse out of this was a final mic drop because we both know you're right about it.
You're being disingenuous. All of those things you listed fulfill a temporary or geographically localized need, and are very short term. On the other hand, people often spend an entire generation in one apartment. Those categories are wholly unalike each other, and it's clear because the category of actually short term housing also exists, hotels.
Likewise, long term car rentals exist, they're called leases.
The point I was trying to make, so I assume the person you replied to see it the same. Is that no one else really attempts to explain the context around the assertion. Everyone previous is happy to blame people who are winning the game, labeling anyone who's not losing as a cheater. No one else is willing to explain why or how they're cheating. Which, if you don't know all the rules, and exploits looks like complaining not about the exploitation, but about even playing. So a fair interpretation is that every game must be cheating. It's not disingenuous to not already know the ways people try to control others to make some money. It's disingenuous to pretend like you've already made a point you haven't.
The assertion is that rent seekers are "leeches", providing no value, while extracting value for themselves. It's very hard to prove the existence of a negative. That's the context. Note that no one said "cheating", that's context you read in yourself.
It's interesting that you haven't made a single attempt to provide an actual counterpoint of your own, of what value rent seekers actually provide, especially since you're complaining that no one else is explaining their position. "No one" attempts to explain, including yourself?
People are not required to live in the biggest & most expensive cities in the world. Doing so is a premium good. Removing the pricing signal just turns everything into a lottery and/or lowest common denominator practices demonstrating the tragedy of the commons. Sorry your neighbor has mental health issues, uses meth and screams as they throw stuff against the wall at night. Hope you got a good night sleep!
When I got started on the web I moved a couple states over to live with a friend who was going to college. We lived in a mobile home & our rentier extractor landlord captured like $110 a month. I was able to spend little time doing work I didn't want to do in order to pay rent & could spend a lot of time learning.
High rents can offer some level of exclusivity and give people an opportunity to express their values, what they value, and how much they value it. There's a reason that most people who are in subsidized public housing end up wanting to move away if they can afford to.
> The assertion is that rent seekers are "leeches", providing no value, while extracting value for themselves. It's very hard to prove the existence of a negative. That's the context. Note that no one said "cheating", that's context you read in yourself.
You wouldn't be proving a negative. The assertion is that doing so (extracting value without providing any) is bad requires that bad thing to be stated. It's bad because opportunity cost, it's bad because people have to exchange currency for goods or services, it's bad because houses being in possession of money is itself immoral. These aren't negatives that need to be proved. As for cheating, what should I call acting so that others don't get a chance to participate?
> It's interesting that you haven't made a single attempt to provide an actual counterpoint of your own, of what value rent seekers actually provide, especially since you're complaining that no one else is explaining their position. "No one" attempts to explain, including yourself?
I don't have an assertion I want to make. Nothing other than to point out the problematic rhetoric. As an example, pointing out that 2+2=6 is invalid, or unconvincing because if you only have 1,2 and another for 3,4 can't reach 6. Does contribute, because the assertion that 2+2=6 is bad to leave unchallenged. Just like me making an assertion that 2+2=5 which would also be wrong. I don't know enough about the housing market in CA to make an any argument I'd want to stand behind. But I'm willing to say, just owning and renting property isn't enough to call them malicious, leaches, nor shitty.
That's the core of the issue, tools have elastic supply and demand. A tool rental business meaningfully assists in matching the two - it's very likely a tool I rent would not exist otherwise, or if it did, it's because I financed it, a much greater expense for me for little gain. I wish there was more tool and car rental.
Housing, for the most part, does not do this. New housing is rare, and I can't walk away from that market, or even reduce my usage without severe loss of quality of life.
So yes, the only thing a landlord did for me is have more money than me when I was born, which if you look closely, isn't actually a service at all.
Being a landlord actually involves a lot of work and risk. If it were free money, everyone would do it and it wouldn’t be free money anymore. I don’t have the nerve or free to be a landlord myself, but I’m sure I own some small parts property management companies via the index funds I own shares in.
As someone who previously worked for, and is also the child of, landlords, I can attest to the fact that, yes, there is some work and some risk, but you're wildly overselling it.
The reason "everybody" doesn't do it is that in order to do it, you have to already have money (even if you can do it on a loan, the terms won't be favorable unless you have significant starter capital). At that point, it's basically free money, yes, to the extent that you can pay someone to do all the actual work for you and still make a comfortable income.
Yes, you need capital, or at least good credit. Property management companies are hella expensive, and in this labor market hiring a super is difficult, so...you are going to wind up doing a lot of things on your own, the most important of which is screening tenants to avoid credit risks according to whatever the local laws are that discourage such screening.
No thanks. A lot of people are getting out of it, or finding it is often better to keep a house empty and just record the missing tenant as a loss to write off than risk renting to tenant who is anything but perfect. The future of renting is from big companies who have enough scale and experience to manage the risk. Small-scale private landlords are on the way out.
The immorality of such rent-seeking not with standing, it is just not a very good way to make money unless you are really. diligent or get lucky.
Are you asking why, in a system that its supporters claim is a meritocracy, it wrong for it to be easier for the rich to get richer than for the poor to achieve parity, given equal merit? Is that a rhetorical question, or are you about to argue in favor of the ethics of feudalism? Because bridging that ethical divide would take more than a simple hacker news comment.
edit: Ah, to more directly address you point earlier, and lay it out in simple ethical terms: withholding essential goods (housing) from others is a moral wrong according to consequentialist ethics systems. Doing things with a motivation of greed (profit) is also considered a moral wrong in intent-based ethics systems. The agreed upon axiom that they contribute nothing in return means there is no moral good to outweigh the moral wrong in either system, so in combination it is a net moral wrong.
Oh boy, this jumps around a lot and very little is very deep so my answers will have to jump around a bit to make sure I didn't miss anything.
> Are you asking why, in a system that its supporters claim is a meritocracy,
who's made these assertions, and where? Not anywhere in the thread's I've read...
> it wrong for it to be easier for the rich to get richer than for the poor to achieve parity, given equal merit?
Is it wrong though? Should everything be equally as hard? Or is it permissible that some things should be harder than others. And where/how do I draw the lines to know when it's unfair?
> Is that a rhetorical question,
It was, I even said as much. I'd ready to agree, but I can't until you actually make a conclusion.
> or are you about to argue in favor of the ethics of feudalism? Because bridging that ethical divide would take more than a simple hacker news comment.
I'm not trying to argue anything, I'd like like try and tease out arguments worth considering.
> edit: Ah, to more directly address you point earlier, and lay it out in simple ethical terms: withholding essential goods (housing) from others is a moral wrong according to consequentialist ethics systems.
Perhaps, but this evaluation is shallow enough to be useless for me to apply in the reality in which I live. What about the consequence of destruction of value from freely allowing anyone without an interest from living off your property? But they might die, and life is more important than money? Sure, but what about in an area where they wouldn't die, then is it moral? But people deserve to be comfortable! So do I need to provide heat and water, and other utilities? To what extent? Any conclusion that adds more questions than answers is useless. Ethics aren't scientific research, answers that only create more questions aren't useful...
> Doing things with a motivation of greed (profit) is also considered a moral wrong in intent-based ethics systems.
This is new to me, I assumed it was amoral. What makes it immoral?
> The agreed upon axiom that they contribute nothing in return means there is no moral good to outweigh the moral wrong in either system, so in combination it is a net moral wrong.
So there is an example where the net morality could come out in the positive?
> This really shouldn't need to be spelled out.
And... we're back the the original problem that I tried to call out from the beginning. Anyone that doesn't already know what you know, and preemptively agree with you is the problem? Now who's arguing for feudalism if you don't already have knowledge and power, you're undeserving?
One time I had a client who thought it was "unfair" to pay me just because I knew how algorithms worked. He was quickly fired, but he did not find inheriting his family owned business unfair. He did not find his ranking boost which gave him outsized profits unfair.
There is no way to go back in time to make everything fair from some arbitrary starting point. All you can do is your best to do your best.
Pricing can lead to unequal outcomes, but it at least provides a signal that you are on the right track or not.
A quest for universal fairness can only work by lowering people rather than by promoting them doing what they are best at.
Anyone seeking universal fairness & equal outcomes in all aspects of life should read Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron as many times as required to change that mindset.
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
"THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."
>Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
>Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Moreover, you've complained about no one providing explanations (they have) while providing none of your own.
There's no point in responding further to your questions, since you're providing no substance of your own, but have a very short list of what you should google for context, in the event you're not trolling, and are just somehow trying the socratic method while ignorant of philosophy:
>who's made these assertions, and where? Not anywhere in the thread's I've read...
The topic is Capitalism, read what its supporters say.
>This is new to me, I assumed it was amoral. What makes it immoral?
Virtue ethics, Judeo-Christian-influenced philosophy, some deontologists.
While you're at it, maybe look up logical induction. I recall Philosophy Tube [1] has a good video on it, if you're so inclined.
