***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[Sharpshoeter13]

 

[frank 7he t4nk]

LMAO so good

 

[gry60]

Liz...

Cheney....

Some of them are still delusional enough to think that they can control or contradict Trump.

 

[whywesteppin]

Rent makes sense in an ethical way. The renter does not have the resources, stability, or desire to take on the burden of ownership. The landlord does take on that risk. Both can benefit. One side gets flexibility and the other side the potential for profit.

If proper laws are in place to protect both sides, it makes sense.

 

[whywesteppin]

what a clown response.



that said, neither should need to donate. the government should be providing the necessary resources. we shouldn't have to depend on rich musicians or random white girls to protect our health care workers.

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[dwalk31]

Profit, interest and rent are all unethical as they represent the fruits of someone else' labor going to you, the person who did no labor to "earn" that money.

Well that's certainly an interesting take

 

[flyeed]

What was the reasoning? I rent out an apartment so obviously I'm biased but I don't think what I'm doing is unethical. Someone needs somewhere to live, I give them somewhere to live in exchange for money, a lot of which goes right back into where they stay. Owning property isn't cheap. The only thing in my life I've put more money into than that apartment is my mother's house.

Man Michelle was killing that dress

the reasoning was that people who own land that they themselves don’t live on are driving up the price of property. Instead of leaving the home for someone else to buy to live in. And they’re not “earning“ their money through actual work. There were also more extreme arguments but that was the most potentially rational case.

I’m not exactly sure if it were a brigade of trolls attempting to sow more discord among the 99%, disillusioned millennials looking to have a face that’s closer to themselves to point a finger at for their situations, or if there really is grounds for a case against ownership of homes you don’t live in. And that people of different walks genuinely feel that way.

It was the first time I’d ever heard this argument which is why it intrigued me

 

[dwalk31]

Work is halting production, so we’re gonna start seeing layoffs and furloughs at our facility.

I'm sorry to hear that. If you are included in the layoffs, I hope it's only short-term and they have something in place to somewhat ease the transition.

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

Well that's certainly an interesting take

so is this

 

[boris]

I'm sorry to hear that. If you are included in the layoffs, I hope it's only short-term and they have something in place to somewhat ease the transition.

You say that you are sorry to hear that, but I imagine you will continue to support and vote for the people whose incompetence and inaction allowed the United States to get to this point.

 

[rexanglorum]

Again, as an ethical matter if you didn't do the labor, your source of income is a theft of others' labor.

Rent is essentially a tax that the more affluent, be it private equity or just upper-middle class folks who inherited a house or had familial support to put up a down payment on a second home, levy on poorer people.

Defenders of landlords want to emphasize the exceptional, the little old widowed lady who lives in a retirement home and her grandson does the repairs on her modest home which she rents to upwardly mobile yuppies whose rent payments pay for her arthritis treatment. In reality, most landlords are two types. The big institutional landlords who are seeing the highest rate of return and they find that buying up the housing stock is more profitable than buying stocks or bonds. The other type are usually white families who are leveraging the fact that their dad or granddads had access to home ownership when many others did not.

Housing policy is the biggest driver of inequality and the fact that most millionaires are millionaires due to real estate and most working class households' biggest expense is rent serve to underscore that fact that commodified real estate is the most reliable vehicle for upwardly distributing wealth and income.

 

[dwalk31]

Again, as an ethical matter if you didn't do the labor, your source of income is a theft of others' labor.

Rent is essentially a tax that the more affluent, be it private equity or just upper-middle class folks who inherited a house or had familial support to put up a down payment on a second home, levy on poorer people.

Defenders of landlords want to emphasize the exceptional, the little old widowed lady who lives in a retirement home and her grandson does the repairs on her modest home which she rents to upwardly mobile yuppies whose rent payments pay for her arthritis treatment. In reality, most landlords are two types. The big institutional landlords who are seeing the highest rate of return and they find that buying up the housing stock is more profitable than buying stocks or bonds. The other type are usually white families who are leveraging the fact that their dad or granddads had access to home ownership when many others did not.

Housing policy is the biggest driver of inequality and the fact that most millionaires are millionaires due to real estate and most working class households' biggest expense is rent serve to underscore that fact that commodified real estate is the most reliable vehicle for upwardly distributing wealth and income.

This post better illustrates your point. As radical as it is.

The first post was premised on a lot of assumptions that you concede in this post.

But I guess it was clearly meant to be sensational.

 

[MVP]

 

[whywesteppin]

Again, as an ethical matter if you didn't do the labor, your source of income is a theft of others' labor.

Rent is essentially a tax that the more affluent, be it private equity or just upper-middle class folks who inherited a house or had familial support to put up a down payment on a second home, levy on poorer people.

Defenders of landlords want to emphasize the exceptional, the little old widowed lady who lives in a retirement home and her grandson does the repairs on her modest home which she rents to upwardly mobile yuppies whose rent payments pay for her arthritis treatment. In reality, most landlords are two types. The big institutional landlords who are seeing the highest rate of return and they find that buying up the housing stock is more profitable than buying stocks or bonds. The other type are usually white families who are leveraging the fact that their dad or granddads had access to home ownership when many others did not.

Housing policy is the biggest driver of inequality and the fact that most millionaires are millionaires due to real estate and most working class households' biggest expense is rent serve to underscore that fact that commodified real estate is the most reliable vehicle for upwardly distributing wealth and income.

i guess I'm looking more local at the efficient form, where rent satisfies the need of transient workers / students to get housing without having to commit long-term.

that said, it seems like ideal solution is that buying/selling property would become much easier in the ideal case? so you could "buy" a property for a couple years and then sell it to the next inhabitant? or would housing not be owned by individuals at all? or tenants pay the mortgage and condo fee outright so that no profit is made?

ultimately I think working from home, if it takes hold after this pandemic, is more of a solution in that people will be more willing to live in areas with plentiful housing.

 

[rexanglorum]

This post better illustrates your point. As radical as it is.

The first post was premised on a lot of assumptions that you concede in this post.

But I guess it was clearly meant to be sensational.

Whether or not it's radical is subjective. What's undeniable is that this analysis is neither novel nor is it sensational.

 

[IATT]

 

[dwalk31]

Whether or not it's radical is subjective. What's undeniable is that this analysis is neither novel nor is it sensational.

Never said it was novel; no doubt regurgitated.

And sensational, like radical, is subjective.

Personally I don't think that rent is generally unethical. Ignoring the old lady you describe as exceptional, the characterization of big institutional landlords as per se unethical is a reach. And it would be interesting to see how you define morality.

I actually agree with you as it relates to the inequality surrounding housing. I've mentioned my views on black ownership related to rental properties in the past.

 

[rexanglorum]

i guess I'm looking more local at the efficient form, where rent satisfies the need of transient workers / students to get housing without having to commit long-term.

that said, it seems like ideal solution is that buying/selling property would become much easier in the ideal case? so you could "buy" a property for a couple years and then sell it to the next inhabitant? or would housing not be owned by individuals at all? or tenants pay the mortgage and condo fee outright so that no profit is made?

ultimately I think working from home, if it takes hold after this pandemic, is more of a solution in that people will be more willing to live in areas with plentiful housing.

When it comes to the the specifics of housing policy in my ideal, end-game anarcho-communist world, let's just say that the specifics would not be described as having a Liz Warrenesque degree of specificity.

Although you outline the general strategy for a decommodified housing setup in democratic-socialist world. The state and/or the local building co-op would build housing units and everyone would pay like 10% of their income to occupy a unit. If you are living in that community for a few months or intend to settle down and raise a family in that place, it would be the same.

Even a democratic-socialist setup is off in the distance so the best for right now would be to reform the existing housing system. That would involve much more public housing, denser housing from the public and private sector in high cost areas. Changing tax laws, locally and nationally, to make real estate speculation unprofitable (if you want big returns, park your money in venture capital or consider a mix of differently rated bonds, just don't treat housing, especially housing in places with major homelessness problems as an asset to be bought and sold like you would an intangible financial instrument) and to, as you also mentioned, get the jobs dispersed from the urban centers and make it viable for people to pursue good, professional careers while living outside of a small number of metro areas.

 

[-Red-]

Rent makes sense in an ethical way. The renter does not have the resources, stability, or desire to take on the burden of ownership. The landlord does take on that risk. Both can benefit. One side gets flexibility and the other side the potential for profit.

If proper laws are in place to protect both sides, it makes sense.

What would make much more sense ethically is if everyone were entitled to housing as a human right.

The fact that a renter doesn’t have adequate resources and stability while the owner has such an abundance of those things that they own not just one but multiple units of housing is a fundamental problem and not something we should accept as inevitable.

 

[-Red-]

What was the reasoning? I rent out an apartment so obviously I'm biased but I don't think what I'm doing is unethical. Someone needs somewhere to live, I give them somewhere to live in exchange for money, a lot of which goes right back into where they stay. Owning property isn't cheap. The only thing in my life I've put more money into than that apartment is my mother's house.

Man Michelle was killing that dress

What you’re doing is not unethical, but the entire premise of a small minority of people owning multiple housing units—for some people, this amounts to tens of thousands of units—while more than a hundred million people don’t own any housing and many millions more are actually homeless is indeed unethical.

But again the problem is the system not small-time (no disrespect) landlords.

 

[dwalk31]

When it comes to the the specifics of housing policy in my ideal, end-game anarcho-communist world, let's just say that the specifics would not be described as having a Liz Warrenesque degree of specificity.

Although you outline the general strategy for a decommodified housing setup in democratic-socialist world. The state and/or the local building co-op would build housing units and everyone would pay like 10% of their income to occupy a unit. If you are living in that community for a few months or intend to settle down and raise a family in that place, it would be the same.

Even a democratic-socialist setup is off in the distance so the best for right now would be to reform the existing housing system. That would involve much more public housing, denser housing from the public and private sector in high cost areas. Changing tax laws, locally and nationally, to make real estate speculation unprofitable (if you want big returns, park your money in venture capital or consider a mix of differently rated bonds, just don't treat housing, especially housing in places with major homelessness problems as an asset to be bought and sold like you would an intangible financial instrument) and to, as you also mentioned, get the jobs dispersed from the urban centers and make it viable for people to pursue good, professional careers while living outside of a small number of metro areas.

As you mention, white families have long taken advantage of housing policy based largely on discrimination and racism that you characterize as "leveraging the fact that their dad or granddads had access to home ownership when many others did not."

And your plan is to de-commodify housing as more black families are able to capitalize on it?

Please

 

[Mark Antony]

These people have no idea what it's like to be poor. Sad ****. I wish they could get stripped and robbed of every single dime they have.