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The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

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Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#111

Post by somewhereoutth »

carlosjobim wrote: post #87
somewhereoutth wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not supply and demand for houses - there are plenty enough to go around (though often in the wrong place). The issue is that a sizeable underclass is being created that have no wealth, not least because what wealth they did have has been funnelled to the very wealthy. For example, medical bills. For example student loans. For example zero interest rates with zero wage inflation meaning accommodation cost…

> The issue is that a sizeable underclass is being created that have no wealth, not least because what wealth they did have has been funneled to the very wealthy. This has happened in all of the industrialized world, and it's happening very quickly right now. The reasons you mention are very US-specific, but the funneling happens everywhere, usually by more traditional means such as rents and taxes. Yes, taxes are gr…

> The reason for this massive wealth distribution is the inflationary monetary system

Inflation serves to reduce wealth (if just stuffed under the mattress), and encourages investment (to beat inflation). The real problem is that wealth begets wealth - if left to it's own devices the capitalist system will ensure wealth becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The only way this can be counter-balanced is with government regulation (e.g. anti-monopolistic laws, wealth redistribution).

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#112

Post by jwestbury »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #63
somewhereoutth wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not supply and demand for houses - there are plenty enough to go around (though often in the wrong place). The issue is that a sizeable underclass is being created that have no wealth, not least because what wealth they did have has been funnelled to the very wealthy. For example, medical bills. For example student loans. For example zero interest rates with zero wage inflation meaning accommodation cost…

Most Metro areas do not have enough affordable housing. It's well established that local governments cannot build enough new affordable housing, partly because any contractor that bids goes way over the value of a private housing venture. The idea that there's enough housing but "in the wrong place" is like saying there's plenty of jobs, they're just in third world countries and Scandinavia. The idea that the solutio…

> Most Metro areas do not have enough affordable housing.

There's no such thing as affordable housing[0]. Just housing. You can certainly argue that building a house is too expensive -- and due to NIMBYism, discriminatory policies, and anti-density regulatory environments, this is often true -- but affordability is not an intrinsic value of a building, and the problem is generally that housing stock simply doesn't keep up with demand in places which demand lots of housing (e.g., San Francisco, Seattle, NYC, London, etc.).

0. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/1/3/theres-no-such-...

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#113

Post by Ensorceled »

fnimick wrote: post #108
Ensorceled wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Regulations are not building for high capacity, preferring to sprawl and build monster homes that house few, wealthier people. > So you’re saying regulations are blocking new home construction. Got it. Oh come on, new home construction is doing just fine ... but the homes are 5600 sq ft, $2+ million and 30-40 minute drive from city centre. And it's not regulation requiring it , developers prefer to build condos a…

Actually I will disagree, regulations are very much blocking development of the type of housing that is needed, at least in my experience. Whenever a dense block of housing is proposed, people abuse zoning regulations here to shut it down. They add on tons of extra costs (mandatory parking etc) and then complain about how much the houses cost. Go look at your city and see if it's actually legal to build a new mid ris…

> Actually I will disagree, regulations are very much blocking development of the type of housing that is needed, at least in my experience.

We might just be disagreeing on terminology, there is a difference, in my mind, between regulations that require something bad to happen and regulations that ALLOW something bad to happen. If the regulations ALLOW something bad to happen that's a "lack of regulation"

> Go look at your city and see if it's actually legal to build a new mid rise apartment in the city center.

This might be a US vs. Canada thing ... we are building mid-rise and high-rise in multiple cities around me right now: Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Hamilton, Burlington.

What we are NOT building is a lot of apartments. Developers want to build and flip if they are allowed to.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#114

Post by somewhereoutth »

chii wrote: post #93
somewhereoutth wrote: post #52

It never ceases to astonish me how the richest country on the planet is still in 'survival mode' where everyone has to justify their claim to, well, anything at all. In Europe (even as it was largely laid waste after WW2), it is understood that we are all together, and simply by existing we have a right to at least a basic level of living. Perhaps part of that is that because communism was so close, for so long, it w…

> where everyone has to justify their claim but why shouldn't that be the case? There's no natural rights to anything, and it's the law of the jungle. There's a veneer of civility so as not to cause anarchy with people killing each other for some food. But just because someone exists, doesn't give them any privileges to own anything, except for what they worked for (or get given from parents).

> There's no natural rights to anything, and it's the law of the jungle.

Except the crowning achievement of our civilisation is the realisation that there are natural rights (see UN Declaration of Human Rights, US Constitution etc). Indeed, the Rule of Law is perhaps a greater achievement than democracy, and from a jungle perspective not self evident. The property rights you allude to are also part of this Rule of Law, otherwise stuff would belong to whoever was strong enough to take it!

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#115

Post by lm28469 »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #74
lm28469 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generally immigrants are job creators and entrepreneurs, and take less from the system than native born people do I don't want to generalise things, but since you're doing it yourself: In France migrants and descendant of migrants are between 50% and 100% more unemployed than the rest of the population. They also represent 28% of social spending despite being 12% of the population https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiqu…

Be very careful how you frame things. Here’s another framing: 1. Migrants and their descendants are poorer than average. 2. Social spending is higher among poor people, because that’s the whole point. 3. Disproportionately poor people represent a disproportionate amount of social spending, duh .

Sure, but we're a far cry from most migrants being "job creators and entrepreneurs"

The reality is that a lot of them struggle to find jobs, and a lot of them end up working illegally for unscrupulous bosses. And yes there are a whole lot of reasons for that, but at the end of the day it's the reality we have to deal with

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#116

Post by zemvpferreira »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #101
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Metro areas do not have enough affordable housing. It's well established that local governments cannot build enough new affordable housing, partly because any contractor that bids goes way over the value of a private housing venture. The idea that there's enough housing but "in the wrong place" is like saying there's plenty of jobs, they're just in third world countries and Scandinavia. The idea that the solutio…

Let's take SF as an example. If a significant number of new units were built (somehow without detracting from the character of the city), would it really lower prices much? Likely not - instead prices would dip just enough to make it viable for large numbers of high income people from outside SF to come to the city (which by massing effect may make SF even more desirable, so actually higher prices!) Wealth taxes are…

This is a bizarre idea contrary to how many housing affordability crisis were actually solved in the past. Would SF's housing prices go down if you were to build 10,000 new units? You're right, probably not that much. Would SF's housing prices go down if you were to build 1M new units? No doubt.

Shenzhen grew from 100,000 people in the 1980s to 13M now with no housing affordability crisis...by building. The whole pearl river delta region is essentially an 80M people megacity with no housing problems...because they continuously built. Tokyo is also a classical example of continuously building infrastructure to support millions more people per decade.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#117

Post by carlosjobim »

Ensorceled wrote: post #50
jongjong wrote: post #16

Part of the problem is government regulation. In some places, it's almost impossible to build new houses due to regulations. Some portion of the population wants to see house prices continue to increase and they will vote for politicians who will implement policies which will support that agenda. Of course this happens at the expense of another, also large portion of the population who do not own a house and have to…

This is the standard conservative "big government" and "young people today don't want to work" rant. > The problem is government regulation. In some places, it's almost impossible to build new houses due to regulations. Regulation yes, but it's not the lack of building; we're building like crazy all over North America. Many new homes are "lost" and become second or third homes for the wealthy or airbnb rentals. Regul…

> People have "checked out from the system" because the system has abandoned them. When homes are $1M or more, there is no point working a second or harder job in order to afford a home, for many people owning a home is now forever out of reach.

In the past decade I've seen a ton of young labourers who just do seasonal work and then spend the rest of the year backpacking or living in a cheap country Asia. These are talented and very hard workers, but they have little chance to make a life for themselves in the country they grew up in.

They will loose money if they stay and work the whole year, because of the cost of living, and the progressive taxes, not to mention that all-year employment is usually the 9-5 with no overtime. Better to make a quick buck working hard in the season and then go travel and have a much higher quality of life for much less expenses. You'd be dumb not to do it.

The people who have a chance of owning a home are either those whose parents help them financially or those who manage to get a government or corporate full time job that the bankman likes. The rest are completely screwed, and have been for decades.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#118

Post by bigbacaloa »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #35
jongjong wrote: post #16

Part of the problem is government regulation. In some places, it's almost impossible to build new houses due to regulations. Some portion of the population wants to see house prices continue to increase and they will vote for politicians who will implement policies which will support that agenda. Of course this happens at the expense of another, also large portion of the population who do not own a house and have to…

The issue is not supply and demand for houses - there are plenty enough to go around (though often in the wrong place). The issue is that a sizeable underclass is being created that have no wealth, not least because what wealth they did have has been funnelled to the very wealthy. For example, medical bills. For example student loans. For example zero interest rates with zero wage inflation meaning accommodation cost…

[dead]

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#119

Post by friendzis »

scotty79 wrote: post #49
lm28469 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more about real estate being seen as an investment vessel than "government regulations". Most building regulations have sounds basis, they exist because without them people were building very shady and dangerous housing Also people aren't homeless because there are no "homes", it usually runs much deeper than that

Houses being investment is the bulk of it. But what's absurd is that people in US think they have right to have the value of their investment protected. So they oppose any regulation that might influence supply or demand for housing in unfavorable way for them. And politicians treat them as if they have a point instead lauging in their faces and saying, the point of investment is that you take the risk of having a lo…

Look, public healthcare is socialism. Just invest and cover your health expenses from profit. Look, public pension is socialism that is subject to political corruption, just invest and cover your expenses. Hey, we are going to slightly nuke your investment values for public good, which may seem a bit socialist...

I'm partly joking, partly serious. The current state of affairs is roughly by design. At some point USA is going to be forced to have this conversation: how much socialism are we going to have? Are you going to deal with angry "homeless" or is universal housing availability so fundamentally good for society as a whole, that the government is going to enforce it some way, even if it comes at the expense of already housed?

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#120

Post by BirAdam »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #111
carlosjobim wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue is that a sizeable underclass is being created that have no wealth, not least because what wealth they did have has been funneled to the very wealthy. This has happened in all of the industrialized world, and it's happening very quickly right now. The reasons you mention are very US-specific, but the funneling happens everywhere, usually by more traditional means such as rents and taxes. Yes, taxes are gr…

> The reason for this massive wealth distribution is the inflationary monetary system Inflation serves to reduce wealth (if just stuffed under the mattress), and encourages investment (to beat inflation). The real problem is that wealth begets wealth - if left to it's own devices the capitalist system will ensure wealth becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The only way this can be counter-balanced is with g…

In the absence of government intervention, wealth is more likely to tend toward the center. The issue is that any democratic form of government featuring any kind of legislature reliant on voting will be bought. First, large companies will want small little advantages like a new road to their factory. Overtime, it becomes massive like immunity from prosecution from drugs that kill people like opioids. Over time, these companies receiving benefits become indistinguishable from the government itself and drive nearly all policy like Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed, JP Morgan, Goldman, etc. Generally, all attempts to stop this are subverted and used to the benefit of these megacorporations via riders on any such bill introduced by politicians who’re on the take. Further, the agencies tasked with enforcement of any regulation usually have people who previously worked at these companies or who hope to work at them in the future on their staff.

Humans respond to incentives, and all incentives line up toward the merger of corporation and state in a democracy. I’d like to see a free market democracy that lacks corporate personhood to see if that changes the structure, but a human life isn’t long enough to really witness such a thing.

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