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The Landlord's Game

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Re: The Landlord's Game

#31

Post by throwawaywrench »

mrits wrote: post #26
hnick wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> marketed as a get rich quick scheme I am seeing bus stop ads here in Sydney with a tagline from a BTC exchange saying something like "If you're seeing bitcoin on a billboard, it's time to buy". Now I'm hardly an astute investor but I thought the usual rule is that if your cabbie starts talking about it, it's time to get out of the market.

If your cabbie understands BTC you might have a point. We aren't even close to there yet

>the usual rule is that if your cabbie starts talking about it, it's time to get out of the market.

>If your cabbie understands BTC you might have a point. We aren't even close to there yet

The point is that the cabbie likely doesn't understand BTC. When an asset class becomes so popular that people who have no idea how it works are putting money into it and loudly campaigning for others to do the same that is a sign that you are in a bubble.

It doesn't necessarily mean that the bubble is about to pop. Some bubbles can last decades. See real estate in a variety of locations around the world as an example. However lot of dumb money (people who don't understand what they're buying) flowing into a thing because of fomo can be a predictor that prices are unsustainable.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#34

Post by mannerheim »

rebuilder wrote: post #27
colinmhayes wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who live in dense areas use the least energy on average.

Do you have numbers on that? The last time I looked it up, over here at least, that wasn't really the case. It seemed that while people in cities use less energy on personal transportation and housing, they consume much more goods and services than people in rural areas.

Personal transportation and housing are precisely the source of most energy usage:

> "The average emissions in New York City are about 30 percent less than the U.S. average," said Dodman. "This is because the primary factors contributing to individuals' greenhouse gas emissions are their use of energy and transportation. New York City residents tend to have smaller dwellings than the average American, so their heating needs are less, and they are also more reliant on public transportation."

https://www.livescience.com/13772-city-slicker-country-bumpk...

Re: The Landlord's Game

#36

Post by mjevans »

wombatmobile wrote: post #23

Monopoly was popular with kids on my block back in Palo Alto in the 60's. At least, it was omnipresent in collections, and we'd attempt to play it every so often... I can't remember one game that didn't feature (a) disputes about rules and the administration of the bank; (b) animosity and dissatisfaction upon exit; and (c) hollow emptiness for the (newly friendless)"winner".

Short version: You're _supposed_ to strictly follow the rules AND the lack of pieces. Depleting the bank of houses to upgrade property with as a market cornering tactic. IRL similar to urban growth boundaries and no programs for upgrading the housing within them.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#37

Post by epistasis »

valuearb wrote: post #22
epistasis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of different forms, and much like Pigoivian taxes that are intended to offset negative externalities, it can be hard to exactly find the right number. But even if one doesn't know the exact number, be it land rent or negative externality, getting closer than the arbitrary $0 can provide improvements. For real estate, at the optimum land rent, land would exchange hands at a value of roughly $0 (structure…

It’s an environmental anti-pattern.

Edit: I phrased something very very poorly in my comment: "But even somewhat small changes in density can open up massively more land for use.". This should instead say that small changes in density can allow less land accomplish far more use. The entire idea is to make sure that land is not wasted, which means that humans will use less land overall, and will let more of it stay as nature.

No, the anti-pattern is sprawl and living far from other people, impacting huge amounts of land at low density.

Look at any suburb in satellite view, and see how much area it takes to get to, say, 40 houses. Compare that to a standard apartment complex with park space. Now add in all the roads that are needed to service the suburban detached housing, which requires driving for every single trip be it kids going to school or picking up some groceries. Then all the extra insulation, building materials, roofing, needed to create housing that is still far less energy efficient to heat and cool than an apartment building.

There are two efficient living forms: 1) urban life where needs are mostly within walking distance (be it a town of 5,000 or 500,000 or 5,000,000), and 2) isolated farm life where you only go into town infrequently because it takes too long, and you're kids take the bus.

Suburban living promotes daily driving for every task. Check out this map of consumption-based carbon emissions, which roughly track with most other pollution:

https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps

Georgist taxes greatly shrink those huge red belts that are in between cities and farmland.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#38

Post by flower-giraffe »

mjevans wrote: post #36
wombatmobile wrote: post #23

Monopoly was popular with kids on my block back in Palo Alto in the 60's. At least, it was omnipresent in collections, and we'd attempt to play it every so often... I can't remember one game that didn't feature (a) disputes about rules and the administration of the bank; (b) animosity and dissatisfaction upon exit; and (c) hollow emptiness for the (newly friendless)"winner".

Short version: You're _supposed_ to strictly follow the rules AND the lack of pieces. Depleting the bank of houses to upgrade property with as a market cornering tactic. IRL similar to urban growth boundaries and no programs for upgrading the housing within them.

A very interesting twist is to play with real money.

Set a sensible exchange rate to real money and treat the Monopoly money as “chips”.

The tactics and strategy significantly change because there is real external value to the assets and currency - but only for the duration of the game.

Apart from anything else it means the game ends much faster.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#39

Post by Jasper_ »

wombatmobile wrote: post #23

Monopoly was popular with kids on my block back in Palo Alto in the 60's. At least, it was omnipresent in collections, and we'd attempt to play it every so often... I can't remember one game that didn't feature (a) disputes about rules and the administration of the bank; (b) animosity and dissatisfaction upon exit; and (c) hollow emptiness for the (newly friendless)"winner".

That's the whole point, yes. You're supposed to hate the banker who has the easiest ability to cheat and thus control the game. There are parallels and metaphors being laid here...

Re: The Landlord's Game

#40

Post by anonporridge »

LambdaComplex wrote: post #11
nwah1 wrote: post #4

Fascintating piece of history. The inspiration behind the game Monopoly was an attempt to educate people on the immoral nature of the current landownership paradigm. But interestingly, it is based on the same original classical liberal arguments that spawned free market philosophy.

Even Adam Smith complained about landlords though.

Adam Smith also wanted inheritance mostly abolished except for the small amount necessary to continue supporting a man's wife and young children.
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