Isn't the issue, far more than a lack of houses, that landlords will literally own tens to hundreds to even thousands of properties, therefore removing the free market aspect?
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Serious The Politics Thread
- Thread starter Oglemi
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It’ll certainly be interesting to see what happens to the national GOP if Trump loses.
If there’s another failed coup in the mix, or if he gets completely spanked those are other interesting factors. Will they revert course towards pre-MAGA, will they completely implode, or continue this weird spiral they’re in— who knows.
I don’t think it’s great that the GOP is crazy fascists even if they keep imploding-- by going further right allows the Democrats theoretical room to move right as well... but oddly, even though the GOP going further right, the Democrats are continuing/accelerating the further left pivot Biden’s domestic and pre-Oct 7th foreign policies had them on.
If you compare Kamala Walz to UK Labour, they’re in totally different worlds in rhetoric. Maybe a fever break for the US— no idea.
If there’s another failed coup in the mix, or if he gets completely spanked those are other interesting factors. Will they revert course towards pre-MAGA, will they completely implode, or continue this weird spiral they’re in— who knows.
I don’t think it’s great that the GOP is crazy fascists even if they keep imploding-- by going further right allows the Democrats theoretical room to move right as well... but oddly, even though the GOP going further right, the Democrats are continuing/accelerating the further left pivot Biden’s domestic and pre-Oct 7th foreign policies had them on.
If you compare Kamala Walz to UK Labour, they’re in totally different worlds in rhetoric. Maybe a fever break for the US— no idea.
We are nowhere near hitting the point where we have run out of land, half of our country is basically barren. Until we are Japanese-level packed into a city like sardines I do not think we are actually using our land to its maximum capacity (although, we shouldn't make it that bad).
The problem in cities is that we're building entire skyscrapers that are basically just rich people virtue signaling. I live in a suburb area and when we drive to the local shops, they're building condos rather than affordable housing; it's less about if we can build affordable housing, affordable apartments, have good pricing- it's if capitalists want to allow it to happen, and the answer is no. Why accumulate cash slowly when we can force everything to be expensive? Why make cheaper property when we can just build more expensive property?
One could say, someone could make competition with cheaper housing. But people forget that oligarchs are common, or simple class consciousness- every landlord understands their job in the pipeline, and how they directly benefit from what's happening. Plus, the startup to make new property itself is expensive.
I am looking at the situation like it is: This is an unnatural, industry wide decision to boost up prices because it boosts up profits with less cost.
No, landlords contribute to the issue but it is still a supply vs. demand equation. Need to build more houses and need to convince people to stop wanting to live in California, NYC, Boston, DMV, and Miami.
Yes, but no one wants to live in those areas. If you want cheap housing, why don’t you move to a cheap af area? Or buy a house in Detroit or Memphis? I think you know this…
Rent-seekers buying up a lot of properties is part of the problem, but it's not the whole story. As RaikouLover pointed out, there's also the matter of demand for housing being concentrated in a few areas. Cheap homes in Detroit don't do much good for homeless people in Los Angeles. A lot of the new housing being built is also out of the price range of the people who really need it because higher-end housing is more lucrative for developers. Politicians aren't incentivized to do much about the problem because it's easier to simply push homeless people out of sight and out of mind, and they often stand to benefit from luxury housing that brings more affluent people (read: more tax money) into their districts. That's not to say that there's nothing to be done, but it's not as simple as just building more houses. Incentives have to change.
Several reasons. One, moving away from family. Two, job security. Three, some people like living in the city.
I for one live in a suburb that is already way too expensive, but one day I want to move to the city because I feel it'd be better for me for several reasons. I hate relying on cars, I want to be able to walk to places, and I like being around people and other cultures.
But also, I am going for a Computer Science degree and unless I relied on WFH it'd be harder to find the type of job I want to if I lived far from a city.
I think it's a bit of ashame that in the current market the only option given is "if you want it to be livable why don't you upend your entire life and basically shut your off to many career paths", we only live once and for me, I don't think I'd be satisfied with my life if I didn't live by a city. On the other hand, plenty of people like my Dad love being away from people, love cars, love the space.
In my ideal, the difference in cost cannot entirely be gone, but people can choose the type of lifestyle they prefer depending on what they want their path to be in life, honestly.
I totally get it but that is the problem. Everyone desires good jobs, schools, and quality of life.. and those are concentrated in say… a dozen or so prosperous metropolitan areas. Hence, the demand for housing is extreme in those areas and there is a finite amount of existing housing units and buildable housing units.
There’s a mass exodus out of places like NYC and California to places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Texas, South Florida, and Atlanta. As such, those areas are getting pricier. No longer are they bargain. Have to build more housing units. And we need to talk about making economically depressed areas and mid-tier cities more desirable.
There’s a mass exodus out of places like NYC and California to places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Texas, South Florida, and Atlanta. As such, those areas are getting pricier. No longer are they bargain. Have to build more housing units. And we need to talk about making economically depressed areas and mid-tier cities more desirable.
i think everyone should be able to have a house regardless of employment status!!!
By house shall we assume you mean basic housing unit not detached house?
if they were going to enact this I think they would have done so already. It’s a great policy but I’m sure it’s gonna be a tax deduction for 5 consecutive years or something and will depend on both your income and the value of the home.
Anyways, I hope it happens. 25K is a lot to many of us…
This is true but I was too much of a coward to say it
I agree with this wholeheartedly
Alright, time to give my wild economy take that I've had for a while.
We should switch to communism. (The economic practice, not the government practice. The one where everyone gets equal money.)
Now, I know what you are thinking. Communism is not a sustainable economic practice. And that was true, because it would give no one an incentive to work.
Anyways, the current problem capitalist economies face is that robots are taking all of our jobs, and so no one can work to get a living.
Now, lets say we switched to a communist economic system. Now, the two problems cancel each other out. Robots taking all of our jobs? No one is working anyways. No one is working? Now you have robots to do everything for you. Obviously there are still many jobs that humans have to do, but we can figure something out. The point is that we have the chance to live in a society that works fine even if most of the population is not working, and that doesn't need people to struggle to find a job to have the right to live. Yes there will be complications, but if we can figure the complications out, we can essentially live in a utopia.
Anyways, please tell me what I am missing here, because this is clearly too good to be true, and it almost certainly is.
We should switch to communism. (The economic practice, not the government practice. The one where everyone gets equal money.)
Now, I know what you are thinking. Communism is not a sustainable economic practice. And that was true, because it would give no one an incentive to work.
Anyways, the current problem capitalist economies face is that robots are taking all of our jobs, and so no one can work to get a living.
Now, lets say we switched to a communist economic system. Now, the two problems cancel each other out. Robots taking all of our jobs? No one is working anyways. No one is working? Now you have robots to do everything for you. Obviously there are still many jobs that humans have to do, but we can figure something out. The point is that we have the chance to live in a society that works fine even if most of the population is not working, and that doesn't need people to struggle to find a job to have the right to live. Yes there will be complications, but if we can figure the complications out, we can essentially live in a utopia.
Anyways, please tell me what I am missing here, because this is clearly too good to be true, and it almost certainly is.
Sir I believe you mean to say Socialism.
Well the American education system disagrees. It also agrees. My teachers have said both.
Communism isn't an economic system, communism is the theoretical post-socialist utopia. Communism is derived from the part of Marxist theory where economic systems (and other system, philosophical or scientific) must be replaced over time as the old system of understanding things becomes outdated.
Communism is, in essence, "if socialism was the correct answer", and the final economic rotation. This is not likely, coming from me, a socialist- I do not believe socialism would never be overturned, nor possibly become outdated, but that was the possibility and Marx believed in it.
Communism is noted by a stateless equal society. It's less economical in theory. The reason communism became a word that was used to describe movements (that Marx eventually came around to support) is not something I fully understand from a historical perspective, but the USSR calling itself communist kinda ruined how people would come to understand the word. Socialism itself has never truly been attempted.
Since I'm writing this post out anyways, socialism is less about paying everyone the same wage or whatever, and it's more about workers getting the value from their worth. If the company spends $0.50 on the materials, $0.15 on shipping and ends up selling it for $1.25, the means of profit that comes from this is whatever value was not given to the wage of the worker. If the worker makes on average $0.20 per the time it takes to do the labor for one product, then that last $0.40 is going to the boss, who's only real role here was owning the means of production (the facility, the property, the ability to pay people to do labor).
Socialism is giving workers the means of production, allowing them to make their money directly without profits being taken from a middleman.
Co-ops are not socialism, but in nature they are closer to what the ideal may look like than regular capitalist companies- usually a few people who all own shares in this temporary venture, all getting paid according to the value produced by the group overall. Because everyone owns a part of the company, they also have democratic options to act, rather than workers being directly under the thumb of a boss. The main difference is that there is still a major profit motive, and the profit motive causes other problems, co-ops still exist under capitalism of course. Socialism is a society-wide change.
Communism is, in essence, "if socialism was the correct answer", and the final economic rotation. This is not likely, coming from me, a socialist- I do not believe socialism would never be overturned, nor possibly become outdated, but that was the possibility and Marx believed in it.
Communism is noted by a stateless equal society. It's less economical in theory. The reason communism became a word that was used to describe movements (that Marx eventually came around to support) is not something I fully understand from a historical perspective, but the USSR calling itself communist kinda ruined how people would come to understand the word. Socialism itself has never truly been attempted.
Since I'm writing this post out anyways, socialism is less about paying everyone the same wage or whatever, and it's more about workers getting the value from their worth. If the company spends $0.50 on the materials, $0.15 on shipping and ends up selling it for $1.25, the means of profit that comes from this is whatever value was not given to the wage of the worker. If the worker makes on average $0.20 per the time it takes to do the labor for one product, then that last $0.40 is going to the boss, who's only real role here was owning the means of production (the facility, the property, the ability to pay people to do labor).
Socialism is giving workers the means of production, allowing them to make their money directly without profits being taken from a middleman.
Co-ops are not socialism, but in nature they are closer to what the ideal may look like than regular capitalist companies- usually a few people who all own shares in this temporary venture, all getting paid according to the value produced by the group overall. Because everyone owns a part of the company, they also have democratic options to act, rather than workers being directly under the thumb of a boss. The main difference is that there is still a major profit motive, and the profit motive causes other problems, co-ops still exist under capitalism of course. Socialism is a society-wide change.
As I've said before, most people conflate communism with specifically Marxist-Leninism and its offshoots, and that includes most self-identified communists. The Marxian definition of communism as a classless, stateless, moneyless society is colloquially dead (and also indistinguishable from the end-goal of anarchism, and yet most self-identified communists will bend over backwards to distinguish themselves from anarchists). It's better from an optical standpoint to cut past all the "venezuela no iphone 100 billion dead" bullshit and argue for leftist principles while leaving poisoned terms like communism out of the conversation, at least for the time being. What matters are the principles, not what we call them.
That is the problem. You can pick between selling an organ or two every few months to live in a city with access to a good job, public services, etc., or you can live in the sticks for only an organ every year or so where you're less likely to have a good job and wages are likely to be less, which sort of cancels out the theoretical benefit of a lower cost of living. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
On top of that, moving's fucking expensive, yo. Not all of us have a few thousand dollars lying around to just up and move to a cheaper place, especially if you live in a state like Cali, Mass, or god forbid Hawaii where the entire fucking state is expensive. If you're looking to move for economic reassons, you're probably looking at moving to another state outright. That's to say nothing of losing your social safety net, being further away from hospitals or other potentially necessary facilities, or the fact that most low cost-of-living states are conservative shitholes that tend to be very hostile to LGBTQ+ people. "Just move somewhere cheaper" is not a viable option for everyone's circumstances, especially if it might not even solve the issue.
That is the problem. You can pick between selling an organ or two every few months to live in a city with access to a good job, public services, etc., or you can live in the sticks for only an organ every year or so where you're less likely to have a good job and wages are likely to be less, which sort of cancels out the theoretical benefit of a lower cost of living. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
On top of that, moving's fucking expensive, yo. Not all of us have a few thousand dollars lying around to just up and move to a cheaper place, especially if you live in a state like Cali, Mass, or god forbid Hawaii where the entire fucking state is expensive. If you're looking to move for economic reassons, you're probably looking at moving to another state outright. That's to say nothing of losing your social safety net, being further away from hospitals or other potentially necessary facilities, or the fact that most low cost-of-living states are conservative shitholes that tend to be very hostile to LGBTQ+ people. "Just move somewhere cheaper" is not a viable option for everyone's circumstances, especially if it might not even solve the issue.
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There was talk of Universal Basic Income for a bit. It kind of went away. It is not really a mainstream conversation when a country is teetering on the brink of fascism.
Rather than?
As a fellow fan of the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI), I appreciate that you've got the spirit, though others have correctly pointed out that what you're describing isn't really communism. I would quite like it if we implemented some sort of UBI, but I've accepted that it's too adjacent to socialism for America to ever do it.
I see that “Genocide Joe” thinks those protestors at the DNC “have a point”
https://aje.io/rytvni?update=3128792
With respect to the Americans in the thread, my apologies, but you’re not going to ever convince me that Biden’s own well known Zionist leanings haven’t at least led us to this very real, ongoing genocide. He could have stopped the bombing at ay time by withholding weaponry: instead, in a move that is cynical and appalling, the state department runs cover for Israel in ceasefire talks whilst congress approves billions of weapons to drop on an unarmed population.
People keep making the comparison to Vietnam - the Vietnamese at least had a way of fighting back against their invaders, Palestinians are literally being flattened and sniped every single day.
https://aje.io/rytvni?update=3128792
With respect to the Americans in the thread, my apologies, but you’re not going to ever convince me that Biden’s own well known Zionist leanings haven’t at least led us to this very real, ongoing genocide. He could have stopped the bombing at ay time by withholding weaponry: instead, in a move that is cynical and appalling, the state department runs cover for Israel in ceasefire talks whilst congress approves billions of weapons to drop on an unarmed population.
People keep making the comparison to Vietnam - the Vietnamese at least had a way of fighting back against their invaders, Palestinians are literally being flattened and sniped every single day.
Just finished watching the DNC role call (not really official since she was already confirmed as the nominee a few weeks ago) and god DAMN that shit got me libbed up. They had a whole ass party announcing the delegates and had lots of young people speak for their state instead of just the establishment. They had Lil Jon, Sean Aston, trans people, zoomer boomer alliances, people rocking Palestinian pins, and more. They played Not Like Us as Newsom announced the delegate votes. Just insane amounts of energy and coordination when you consider how last minute this shit was probably put together. I never thought in my lifetime I would see this level of energy and excitement from Democrats. And to top it all off Kamala is giving a speech from a full arena in Milwaukee RIGHT NOW where the RNC was held. This bitch literally filled the DNC and RNC arena in a single night. Insane power move.
Anyway, I'm usually very cynical when it comes to politics but it was hard to watch this and not feel like this is a reinvigorated party that's going to continue well after they win in November. There are no shortage of policy issues I wish the Democratic party would adopt but if this is a sign of the party, for the first time in a long time I don't feel complete dread when thinking about the future of the Democratic party.
Anyway, I'm usually very cynical when it comes to politics but it was hard to watch this and not feel like this is a reinvigorated party that's going to continue well after they win in November. There are no shortage of policy issues I wish the Democratic party would adopt but if this is a sign of the party, for the first time in a long time I don't feel complete dread when thinking about the future of the Democratic party.
most aggressively Atlantan thing I've ever seen
I tend not to get too high or excited about political performances because they don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. However, this production was well done all around. The party was well represented and they knocked this out of the park. Also, super impressed that Harris / Walz took the road trip up 94 to hold a rally in the more important venue- Milwaukee. Are these Democrats?!? They certainly aren’t the Dems of 2016.
I had a running joke with my friends that I hope Kathy Hochul doesn’t speak for NY and kill the vibe (can’t fucking stand her she is the worst high ranking Democrat and single handedly cost us the House in 2022). Predictably, Hochul was right on que. NY has 6.5 million Democrats and the second largest congressional delegation. Couldn’t find anyone else to put center stage?
Only time will tell if this new zoomer-conscious PR actually translates to a significant shift in platform, and I have my doubts, but it's nice to see the Dems seemingly on the front foot for once.
Help not JD Vance or whoever his name is again tty to say that Andy Beshear wished harm on his family..... the fuck he even say about bus family again because last time I checked he used a hypothetical statement toward JD Vance himself saying that Vance might understand why being forced to carry a voided pregnancy to term after being sexually abused isn't okay if he experienced it himself (also note, Beshear never wished harm on Vance, Vance took a hypothetical statement out of context and tried playing the victim because he knows his tea got clocked)
(Also note this is an opinion I really don't want a war in the comments)
(Also note this is an opinion I really don't want a war in the comments)
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