BF2S Forums Investment

Maybe we could build some cheap tenements and stuff all the poor people into that. Never tried that before.

Or we could build outward so the poor people can go live there and still commute to the city, with the added bonus of more insufficient infrastructure between their homes and their jobs. Great for reducing pollution and rush hour madness.

Only to still get priced out by landlords and scummy flippers. Better move further out!

I didn't say that.

I don't think centralizing poor people into ghetto apartments will help. I also don't think "expanding housing out into the bush" (because "other-house-expensive") will help to create an environment for affordable housing either. That'll create other problems too such as the extra pollution and road burden I mentioned.

Are there no other ways..

the chinese had a billion people living in agrarian poverty making several dollars a week. building cities was part of transitioning to a modern-industrial society and made total sense.

not relevant to america.

I have no love for the the rich but you can't blame them for everything. Or at least you should add the caveat that middle class Americans need to do some cutting back on their waste also.

Last edited by SuperJail Warden (2021-08-04 13:14:57)

i don't think you can blame the rich for everything, but they are palpable proof that society isn't working. i agree with the basic line that 'every billionaire is a policy failure'. wealth is created in large part by workers, or in advanced economies by specialists. labour is integral to wealth creation, in any case. a billionaire who makes $100,000+ a day has become completely untethered from reality and the entire mechanism of wealth creation.

the rich have become exceedingly good at gaming the global capitalist system. they use their resources to evade tax and to funnel wealth into private and labyrinthine avenues. all of that money could have a social and collective 'use', even in the sense of just being circulated in a local/national economy by average middle-class workers spending it. instead, capitalism directs wealth upwards, where it sits in fancy foreign bank accounts and occasionally is used to construct and float immensely wasteful (and environmentally destructive) super-yachts, etc, etc.

the super-rich are easy targets but they really represent everything that is wrong in the current model. your average working stiff pays all of their taxes and dues (is compelled to do so by law), whilst the upper echelon exists in a different stratosphere where none of the same rules apply to them. and we call this 'democracy'?

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

I didn't say that.

I don't think centralizing poor people into ghetto apartments will help. I also don't think "expanding housing out into the bush" (because "other-house-expensive") will help to create an environment for affordable housing either. That'll create other problems too such as the extra pollution and road burden I mentioned.

Are there no other ways..

Well you don't have an answer.

There are plenty of people who you could give a mansion and a million dollars, or a fully functioning farm. Six months later they'd still be starving and broke.

Inner city tenements or out of city tenements are the best and cheapest options at this point.

What are you even on about, in either of those posts. I was replying to mac who said to cut off immigration and build more houses. Obviously agricultural efficiency, power supply, and fuel consumption are things that need to be addressed sooner than later. Paraphrasing what I said before about a flaw to moving part of a city population out into the sticks to address expensive urban housing/rent: without additional infrastructure, and an efficient way to shuttle people in and out to work, it's just more polluting cars on the road stuck in rush hour traffic jams.

I've made plenty of mention of wasteful lifestyles, don't @ me. In the tech thread I criticized the stupid anti-computer regulation. It barely scratches the surface, while larger entities proudly flaunt their energy waste. Do you think I could order a $3000 gaming rig in California to play Minecraft if I tell the government there that I'm offsetting carbon in a two-line blurb in the obligatory eco-smugging on my website? Stock photo of someone smiling vaguely into the distance next to clipart of a leaf. Or do I need to get a massively air-conditioned retail warehouse with 30 meters of big screen TVs on display for that kind of gravitas.

Obligatory "many dogs are vicious and violent. We should ban dogs." I think just doing away with renting could be more than a little problematic, with precedential impact on other rental services.

Rental homes can be a valuable thing for people who would rather not live in an apartment complex, but don't want to commit to buying a house in an area. Rent-to-own should perhaps be a more accessible thing, with streamlined pathways for long term renters of a property and incentives for the rentiers.

Certainly protections should be balanced out, but I don't really see American politics realistically declaring war on the four-houses-and-a-hotel pattern class anytime soon.

Should we do anything about predatory mortgage lending? Also make it easier for people to buy their first homes, or even move into new homes?

I am not advocating banning rentals. (???)

I do support the bailouts rent relief programs for landlords that was passed. I am just frustrated with people clogging my group timelines complaining about "nobody is working , nobody is paying their rent." You know all of that is going to turn into energy to cut social programs completely unrelated to the eviction mortarium. And all of that negative energy was created in defense of checks notes the rights of boomers to own 2 homes they can barely maintain in the best of times? The least needy group of people in the world want to overthrow their state and local governments for that?

Now for an actual discussion about how to fix the situation...

Newbie wrote:

Rent-to-own should perhaps be a more accessible thing, with streamlined pathways for long term renters of a property and incentives for the rentiers.

I do like this concept but in practice it would be something almost only offered by big banks and investment groups backed with generous federal aid. MoM aNd PoP boomer landlords would still dearly hold onto the rental units they own and many communities would still stagnate. The whole idea of "giving corporations money to build homes they then use to rope people into predatory rent-to-own schemes" does sounds very American. I can see it happening. And I guess it would be progress if they were adding units.

The solution I hope for is for the government to just build more NYC style housing projects.



The NIMBYs would scream of course if we just starting dotting landscape with these things but according to something I read we are at a 5 million unit defict. You can stick a few hundred people into one of these and be good to go. Maybe if we want to get fancy, we can create mixed use buildings and lease the lower parts to 7/11 and other corporations to recoup the cost.

Newbie wrote:

Those NYC housing projects are notorious for crime and violence.

Yeah but that isn't the building's fault. We stick college kids into smaller more cramped spaces just fine.

Please further explain how you would fix the crisis. I understand you mentioned considering buying a home so I suspect you have strong opinions.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Obviously if houses were as comparatively cheap as they were once upon a time, maybe we wouldn't need rentals.

Pretty well everyone needs to go through a period of rental early in their careers, as they go through probationary periods in their jobs, as they move around for career progress, and as they build up a mortgage deposit. People aren't going to just buy a home on day one.

The eviction moratorium was fairly stupid in a supposedly free market. If the govt thinks people with no income should have accommodation the govt should pay a rent subsidy, not expect the private sector to do so.

If there is a wave of evictions then landlords will either have to reduce their rent until its affordable in the market or sell their property and the new buyer can figure it out, thats how the market works.
They'll also probably have to give up on the idea that rental will more than cover the mortgage cost and deliver them a house for nothing, bad luck.

Dilbert_X wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

I wasn't offering A Solution because I don't know exactly everything it would entail, and it would differ from place to place. But building a bunch of cheapo hives or moving everyone out into the sticks so that they can commute into the city aren't Good Solutions.

Then you've got nothing.

ThEn YoU'Ve GoT NoThInG.

"Is the destination this left or the one after that?"
"I don't know, but could we please get out from under this tanker trailer?"
"Oh you're no help."

If you'd paid attention, I said the govt should provide rent subsidy if it thinks thats the right thing.
If poor mom and pop investors, who were just trying to make a packet of money for themselves, don't make as much as they thought they were going to bad luck.

You live in America, food, shelter and medicine are absolutely controlled by the market, if you don't like it set up a meth lab.