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What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

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Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#111

Post by amelius »

satvikpendem wrote: post #105
amelius wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the rich get richer (...) and the poor get poorer It's always the same story. Can't we just make the economy more fair by saying that the wealth gap must at least be smaller than some value or else the rich will pay (taxes) to make it so?

Lots of people say this but very few have a concrete idea of what is needed to accomplish this. What taxes are the rich going to pay? Who among the rich? How does one define "rich?" Et cetera.

Well, it could be simple, but the most important reason that it is not simple is because the rich control the system.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#112

Post by xist »

imwithstoopid wrote: post #100
varispeed wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

> its not even trying to hide any of this, you can still find it on the web

> this was the goal of Lenin and Trotsky - complete destruction of the idea of the individual person

You're right UN Agenda 21 _is_ available on the web. Have you actually read it - or have you only read opinions on it?

I have read it and I think you're taking a VERY big leap of faith to connect the dots this way.

If they're trying to destroy the idea of the individual person, what is the end goal? ie. 2023 you say they're going to destroy the idea of the individual person. 2030 they succeed. 2035 ?????

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#113

Post by satvikpendem »

amelius wrote: post #111
satvikpendem wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people say this but very few have a concrete idea of what is needed to accomplish this. What taxes are the rich going to pay? Who among the rich? How does one define "rich?" Et cetera.

Well, it could be simple, but the most important reason that it is not simple is because the rich control the system.

It really isn't that simple, because again, no one really can say how it is so simple, merely that it is, somehow. Economists also talk about this point often, and they also can't agree, generally speaking, on how to, or even if to, reduce the inequality gap.

The best solutions I've seen are land value taxes, inheritance and estate taxes, and taxes on loans backed by stock; and among the worst are unrealized capital gains taxes.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#114

Post by jmspring »

brailsafe wrote: post #69
jdmoreira wrote: post #61

I'm in the highest percentiles of income in Sweden (public data is available) and it doesn't matter. It's basically impossible for me to afford a house / apartment for my family in the best neighborhoods. What's the point? What is the point of trying to be a high performer if wealth can't be acquired by income? Why would I want to work for anyone in this country? Only way out is equity and that game is even harder to…

I'm in Vancouver working remotely for an EU/US company because I couldn't get anything here. At $100k CAD, my partner and I wouldn't be able to afford a modest upgrade to a 1 bedroom condo... anywhere in the city (from a tiny basement studio) without significantly increasing our take home. The place I just visited would require $4000/m after a 20% down payment (which I don't have). If I double my savings in the next…

Back in the mid/late 90s Vancouver was affordable and a lot of flats being built. It was still more expensive that the suburbs, etc. but still cheaper than metros across the border. Sometime in the 2000s money started flowing in and those flats I was seeing in place like Kits for $150-$200k were suddenly going up a lot. Rents were also escalating. A lot seemed to be fueled by foreign money.

I was looking at relocating at the time and wish I had followed through.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#115

Post by pcthrowaway »

LegitShady wrote: post #96
sumedh wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The government doesn't want to do anything Looks like the voters dont want to do anything either, if they keep re-electing the same party/politicians.

All 3 of the major parties are pro huge immigration. Any discussion to the contrary is labelled racist regardless of a housing and healthcare crisis. Businesses underpay and when they can't find people willing to impoverish themselves to work for them, they apply to the government to bring in "temporary foreign workers" - for things like fast food restaurant workers not essential business, keeping the wages down. Tem…

I wonder how much of this issue is due to our (enormous) amount of immigration, given that fertility rate has been below the replacement rate since 1970 or so

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#116

Post by maxFlow »

watrami wrote: post #103

It seems like it's the same story everywhere I look. Housing is the main driver of inequality and there is little change happening. We have the same problem here in Germany. I am currently living in Munich to finish my CS Master's at TUM and build a startup, and it is absolutely impossible to find anything remotely affordable. I am supported by two startup scholarships and make enough to get by, but no landlord even…

> We are already looking to move to other places and created a university-wide google sheet where we compare different countries and cities around the world for those kinds of categories.

Could you share a few places at the top of your list? As you yourself pointed out, it looks like the same story is playing out everywhere one looks, especially in the West.

Given the current situation, the more I think about it, the more I conclude that going fully remote from a low-COL location may be the better answer. Unfortunately I think this complicates things for founders to raise.

Also, this makes me think how utterly unprepared Germany is to receive all those immigrants needed to keep the economy working.

Best of luck with your plans.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#117

Post by Aeolun »

holoduke wrote: post #62
timkam wrote: post #10

A key problem in Sweden -- besides the weird interaction of privatization and legacy over-regulation -- is that the current inflation and rising interest rates break the social contract: a relatively even salary distribution allowed many people to have a solid middle-class life style, recently albeit with never-ending mortgages. Now, the interest rates are too high for these mortgages to be even superficially sustain…

Same in every single rich country in Europe. Same story with housing issues, interest etc.

Pretty much yeah. At least housing in the Netherlands gets rapidly more expensive with no correspondant increase in wages.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#118

Post by bluefirebrand »

LegitShady wrote: post #84
rhaway84773 wrote: post #45

The Sweden story sounds so much like the SF story. Area doesn’t building housing, leading to a massive increase in house prices and a destruction of class mobility as the rich get richer (as their houses get more valuable) and the poor get poorer (as they pay more to rent the same living space). The growing wealth inequality leads to all sorts of other dysfunction including increased crime, worsening services, etc. a…

In Canada even if they do build housing 1) the immigration rate is so high it isn't enough to keep up 2) the house values in areas that dont build in enough housing have skyrocketed, and smart homeowners in those areas have decided to sell and move to places with lower house prices and purchase more than one, which of course rockets the price even in the places that do build a lot. So even in provinces where lots of…

Many immigrants come to Canada with more wealth than the average Canadian too.

Or at least more family wealth.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#119

Post by UncleOxidant »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #45

The Sweden story sounds so much like the SF story. Area doesn’t building housing, leading to a massive increase in house prices and a destruction of class mobility as the rich get richer (as their houses get more valuable) and the poor get poorer (as they pay more to rent the same living space). The growing wealth inequality leads to all sorts of other dysfunction including increased crime, worsening services, etc. a…

> The Sweden story sounds so much like the SF story.

It sounds like the same story being repeated all over the world. There was someone on comments here on another thread talking about how this is a problem in Ireland now as well. It's not just SF in the US, it's all over the place. A friend recently told me about his search for a place to rent in rural western Washington and they said it was just impossible to find even a one bedroom place under $1800/mo even in this rural area where incomes are much lower than in the urban centers like Seattle and Tacoma.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#120

Post by Tijdreiziger »

gruez wrote: post #33
styren wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure, I live in a rent controller apartment and it certainly is great for the many people in my apartment who work in the city but could never pay the rents. Thankfully me and my girlfriend can afford and we're therefore planning to buy and lose our contract, but to be honest it probably going to go to someone who needs it. Because owning your own place, being able to modify it to your liking and having peopl…

> I'm not sure, I live in a rent controller apartment and it certainly is great for the many people in my apartment who work in the city but could never pay the rents. That's kind of like saying "What's so bad about zoning restrictions? I own a house and it's not affecting me at all!". Of course it's great for you and other people who have a rent controlled unit. The OP explicitly acknowledges this. The issue is for…

If there were no rent control, all the units would go to the wealthy and everyone else would be driven out of the city.
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