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Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

economist.com

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Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#91

Post by [deleted] »

anovikov wrote: post #83
pochekailov wrote: post #14

Nothing will change while the homeowners have more political power than the renters. Even in the cities where the renter population is bigger than the homeowners, such as in Seattle, half of the votes come from people of > 65 years old (all of whom are homeowners, likely more than one home). Young people simply won't vote at all. There is very little incentives for the young people to vote. Even if you cancel all the…

I think you are more than exaggerating. Thinking of someone who's 65 now and owns several homes, these people are utter fools. How much would money put into houses 40 years ago when they bought, and put into stocks at the same time, would make? You don't even need to google up to know the answer. SP500 would make 96x with dividends reinvested and 37x without. Median home price is not even 10x, and the median home has…

[deleted]

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#92

Post by bbarn »

newsclues wrote: post #61
pochekailov wrote: post #14

Nothing will change while the homeowners have more political power than the renters. Even in the cities where the renter population is bigger than the homeowners, such as in Seattle, half of the votes come from people of > 65 years old (all of whom are homeowners, likely more than one home). Young people simply won't vote at all. There is very little incentives for the young people to vote. Even if you cancel all the…

I’m not sure. At a certain point, if landlords strangle renters it can make hiring hard (workers can’t afford Cost of living if rents are too high), thus making the business environment uncompetitive. Will the business community have more power than landlords? I think so, eventually.

So far the business community's response has been "no one wants to work." because they can't afford to pay salaries.

Ultimately, people vote with their feet, or government intervenes on behalf of those who would lose money.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#93

Post by edmcnulty101 »

Housing is not the problem.

Population is the problem.

This is because the 'rich' people countries are having a population explosion despite the native 'rich' people havong a negative birth rate.

You can do the math as to why.

Housing has never been this much of a problem up until the past decade or two.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#94

Post by Workaccount2 »

pochekailov wrote: post #23
plankers wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems humanity is headed towards Asimov's Caves of Steel anyway due to climate collapse, so you'll get your wish.

Have more futuristic optimism. We are doing quite well on the climate. We will prevent it once we get fully to solar and then build CO2 scrubbers using solar energy. Energy percentage that come from renewables is more than 10x higher than anticipated 10 years ago. And don't call it a "collapse": a change is not necessary to the worse, sometimes it is to the better.

I'm a bit less optimistic than that. I think we will be forced to start atmospheric spraying, and hopefully use that bandaid to fix the underlying wound.

In theory it will stop warming, which may cause many people to take that as "Well, looks like we can go back to burning fossil fuels!".

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#95

Post by doliveira »

alistairSH wrote: post #77
lambertsimnel wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people find it difficult to vote, for reasons I suspect disproportionately affect renters. Where people must be registered with their home address in order to vote, renters are at more risk of being unregistered at election time, because they move home more frequently. People experiencing economic hardship (who are more likely to be renters) are less likely to make time for voting (especially if polling stations…

Not sure why you're being downvoted. Whether it's intentional or not, voting in the US is not always easy for several reasons... 1 - No national election day holiday, so wage-earners often have to forgo income to vote. 2 - Long lines, too few voting stations, exacerbate point 1 3 - Inconsistent voting laws as you cross municipal boundaries (mostly state to state). 3b - particularly WRT mail-in/absentee ballots. 4 - c…

Election day not being a holiday in the USA is weird

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#96

Post by woofyman »

lambertsimnel wrote: post #55
danielrpa wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are free and able to vote but won't do it, it's hard for me to feel too much pity for your situation. I started voting when I was 16 (my birth country allows that) and voted on every single election until I immigrated to the US - and then voted on every US election since becoming a citizen.

Some people find it difficult to vote, for reasons I suspect disproportionately affect renters. Where people must be registered with their home address in order to vote, renters are at more risk of being unregistered at election time, because they move home more frequently. People experiencing economic hardship (who are more likely to be renters) are less likely to make time for voting (especially if polling stations…

There’s early voting.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#97

Post by ghaff »

mikkergp wrote: post #84
lambertsimnel wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people find it difficult to vote, for reasons I suspect disproportionately affect renters. Where people must be registered with their home address in order to vote, renters are at more risk of being unregistered at election time, because they move home more frequently. People experiencing economic hardship (who are more likely to be renters) are less likely to make time for voting (especially if polling stations…

I was curious on the data on this. I mean difficulty voting certainly is a major narrative and passes the smell test but the survey in this article suggests 3/4’s of non voters say it is easy to vote: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/561886-whos-not-voting-... This is however contrasted by the confusing bit that not being registered was the biggest reason people didn’t vote, above apathy and political disengageme…

> not being registered was the biggest reason people didn’t vote, above apathy and political disengagement.

And it seems likely they didn't make the (often minimal) effort to get registered because of apathy or political disengagement.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#98

Post by fallingfrog »

Increasing real estate values are directly related to increasing poverty and homelessness. The reason is pretty simple- when housing prices go up, rents go up. When rents go up, people have trouble affording them. They deplete their savings and are at risk of becoming homeless. That's why you get million dollar homes with people sleeping on the sidewalk outside.

Normally, there would be a negative feedback mechanism to push back against this- when people can't pay rent or mortgage, then the prices would go back down. But if inequality increases enough, and there's a lot of extra cash sloshing around in the economy to be pushed into real estate as an investment rather than as a place to live, the feedback path breaks down as you have investors buying homes to flip them or just have a place to park their money, and the people who actually need homes to live in suffer for it.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#99

Post by 29athrowaway »

pochekailov wrote: post #14

Nothing will change while the homeowners have more political power than the renters. Even in the cities where the renter population is bigger than the homeowners, such as in Seattle, half of the votes come from people of > 65 years old (all of whom are homeowners, likely more than one home). Young people simply won't vote at all. There is very little incentives for the young people to vote. Even if you cancel all the…

Then each renter will become a homeowner, they will feel very comfortable, have 4 kids, and now you will need 4x more units.

Then their kids will have 4 kids, and you'll need 16x more units with respect to where you started.

Few generations after you have a much deeper problem that the one you started with. Now you live in a country with a population of over 1 billion, where protests cannot be controlled anymore and now you need a totalitarian regime with a massive surveillance and censorship apparatus to keep things under control.

The alternative is that everyone is stressed out and feels the pressure of a system that is over capacity.

Have you heard of Earth day? In 2022, it was April 22. It means that by April 22 we already consumed our environmental budget for the full year.

If we continue like this it's not going to be long until there's mandatory population control.

NOTE: this was edited

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#100

Post by powerhour »

dwater wrote: post #74
choko wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have all that and more. There are even groups that seek people out to teach them to vote. When you file a change of address with the post office, they send you a packet with all kinds of moving resources including how to re-register. In addition, a really quick Google search gives you all you need to know to register and vote. I don't understand why some people pretend the process is difficult. If people still are…

55% of Americans have hourly jobs, most of which do not control their hours. There are many polling places, particularly in underserved communities, where it can take multiple hours to get to vote. Elections are nearly always held on workdays. So if you are a single parent working an hourly wage job from 8am to 6pm and the polls close at 7pm, would you vote? The voting process is difficult in America for some people…

Unfortunately even states with all-mail voting don't see a large increase in turnout. For example, WA state has had all-mail voting since 2011 and here's the numbers: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voter-participation.aspx
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