solstice

Man it's always govt with you people. I challenge you to codify your feelings into actual policy with facts and figures rather than loaded emotional imagery like 'govt should pay for housing for everyone.'

I read something recently analyzing what tends to happen when there's tons of artificially cheap public housing. Market forces determine housing prices regardless of government interference, so when the govt rules by decree that their public housing will be cheaper, the price differential doesn't go away, it just changes form. And more importantly, it changes hands. The price difference changes form from money into power, and it changes hands from the landlord into the govt agency or official in charge of determining who gets to live there and benefit from the lower cost. Make sense?

I don't disagree that housing costs are out of control. I think everyone is missing the point though, and the cause. It isn't mean rich people being evil bastards charging people too much. Right now what we are seeing is the natural result of decades of exponential economic growth. Real estate is an asset like any other with prices strongly positively correlated with other asset classes. If everything is growing exponentially like equities, of course real estate is going to grow along with them. I don't know what the solution is, but it certainly isn't anything suggested in this thread.

Who pays is a very valid question because right now you guys are all saying the owner should pay instead of the squatter. Then you go on to talk about tax money which implies the govt should pay. We live in a world of finite goods and resources which is why things are the way they are. These comments are like letters to Santa.

So govt forces owner to donate to 93 year old squatter charity instead of donating to a different charity of their choice. Still a forced donation because money is fungible, doesn't matter who got there first.

The tax write-off bit means being rich enough that donating the building to charity won’t even make a dent in their wealth

Codify that. Ready set go.

You didn't answer the question.

What does that even mean? Concrete, lumber, electric, plumbing, plus location location location that everyone else wants. How can it NOT be a commodity with fluctuating prices based on basic market forces like supply and demand? Explain

Ok so govt is the landlord then, got it. Who gets to decide who gets free housing? Housing inventory is limited so somebody is going to be homeless. Seems like the govt agency, or worse, agent, has the keys to the kingdom and wields a lot of power in your scenario.

She was there first?!? It's the owner's building! What does "easily afford to lose that building as a tax write-off" even mean? What do you know about tax? I presume zero based on your comment. smh

You're not, Lemmy is just filled with young naive quasi communist morons. It's really breathtaking how dumb this community is, financially.

They call it "Lincoln's Tax War" in the South.