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.
