[Pants-of-dog]

@Puffer Fish

Now prices for homes in NYC are going down.

Is this because immigrants are leaving NYC?

[Truth To Power]

No, it doesn't, mostly because money's *valuation* is not the same as its *face values*.

Gibberish. Value is what something would trade for, and money is what is generally accepted in trade, so value is measured in money. Your claim is like saying the length of a meter is not the same as how long it is.

But just a *moment* ago you said:

And I was correct: only desire backed with willingness and ability to pay counts as demand in the market.

So the point here is 'Does the consumer's interest for lower prices affect the *demand-side* of the economic exchange at all -- ?'

Sure: it's recorded in how much they are willing to pay for stuff. Not how much they would prefer to pay.

Does consumer economic demand *impact* on value and price at all -- ?

Of course, because demand IS what the buyers are willing and able to pay.

I'm arguing that consumer economic demand *does* affect the market-pricing information that's part and parcel of the markets mechanism. Greater demand, as for petroleum or natural gas, will enable the seller to fetch *higher prices* than usual, 'profiteering', thanks to the markets' responsiveness to the value of *money*, overshadowing the consumer's interest for realistic / affordable *pricing* for what they need to buy for their lives and living.

You are confused because you are conflating desire and utility with demand.

Market pricing is not *nearly* as simple as straight supply-and-demand. There are many *other* factors in the mix that affect moment-by-monent prices, so that no one can really say that market prices are 'pure', or 'dependable', really, even -- note Evergreen, etc.

You are confused because you are a Marxist, and thus do not know what supply and demand are. All you know are Marxist anti-concepts concocted to prevent use of valid concepts.

No-dependable-markets means there's *no meritocracy* to the economy,

Any time a producer is paid the market price for goods or services he caused to be produced, there is meritocracy in the economy.

and definitely no 'accurate' pricing regime, thanks to interceding market-mechanism *exchanges* on the road from the manufacturer to the consumer.

Gibberish. There is no price more "accurate" than the market price based on consensual exchange.

Of course I *don't agree* with your opinionating here -- I maintain that one commodity's market 'price' will be functionally stretched *too thin* to cover the disparate interests of the [1] equity investor, [2] commodity speculator, and [3] consumer.

Gibberish. Their "interests" are irrelevant. All that matters is how much they are willing and able to pay or accept.

This means that the resulting price itself is a *zero-sum game* -- higher post-production prices will benefit the *investor* and *speculator*, but not the consumer. *Lower* prices will benefit the *consumer*, but not the investor.

Captain Obvious.

So 'cost', and/*or* 'price'. It's *not* either-or, as you're positing.

I said no such thing. Sometimes price is close to production cost, other times it isn't.

What the hell is a 'non-market pricing arrangement' -- ?

Controlled prices, such as under socialism, where prices are assigned by officials based on some criterion other than the terms of consensual exchange.

You were just *touting* the bounty of *market* pricing arrangements:

Correctly.

[Truth To Power]

quoting some stupid Marxist drivel:
Production takes place, they claim, according to the ‘law of supply and demand’. Demand depends upon the choices individuals make, the margins by which they prefer some things to others as shown by the way they spend their money. Supply depends upon the cost of producing goods – how much it costs to employ the workers and to use the tools they work on. And something will be produced whenever the extra amount people are prepared to pay for it equals the extra cost of producing it.

Or more accurately, to the extent that it is greater than that. Right.

Wonderful graphs can be constructed from these theories with supply moving in one direction and demand moving in the other, with what is finally produced depending on where the two graphs meet. The trouble is, these graphs in reality explain nothing since they do not explain where supply and demand come from in the first place.

Wrong, as usual. They explain that supply comes from producers pursuing profits and demand comes from people being willing and able to pay for what producers produce.

On the demand side they do not explain why the desires of some people (rich landowners, property millionaires or heads of privatised industries) translate themselves into ‘effective demand’, ie demand backed up by hard cash, while the desperate needs of other people (the unemployed, the low paid, the hungry peoples of Africa and Latin America) are ignored.

Sure they do: desire not accompanied by willingness and ability to pay does not constitute demand.

On the supply side they do not explain why things which are desperately needed are not produced when the resources for them exist in abundance.

Sure they do: the payment proffered by those who desperately need those things is not sufficient to pay for their production.

[Puffer Fish]

Now prices for homes in NYC are going down.

Is this because immigrants are leaving NYC?

I think you confuse long-term trends with short term trends.
As everyone knows, there are a couple of factors going on.

There will always be short-term business cycles, up and down, but you have to zoom out on the larger picture.
Those short-term things can obscure the more powerful longer-term things that are going on.

I don't think prices in NYC are going down right now any more than they are in the rest of the country. The Federal Reserve Bank has raised interest rates (or in actuality, reduced the level to which they are artificially subsidising interest rates trying to keep them down). That of course has resulted in prices going down, since it is more expensive for people to borrow.
How about we look at rent levels instead? Are they going down right now?

[Pants-of-dog]

I think you confuse long-term trends with short term trends.
As everyone knows, there are a couple of factors going on.

There will always be short-term business cycles, up and down, but you have to zoom out on the larger picture.
Those short-term things can obscure the more powerful longer-term things that are going on.

I notice you avoid mentioning if immigration is a short term or long term trend.

I don't think prices in NYC are going down right now any more than they are in the rest of the country.

Then you should look it up.

The Federal Reserve Bank has raised interest rates (or in actuality, reduced the level to which they are artificially subsidising interest rates trying to keep them down). That of course has resulted in prices going down, since it is more expensive for people to borrow.
How about we look at rent levels instead? Are they going down right now?

No.

The fact that prices go down even when immigration is steady or increasing is enough to disprove the claim that immigration is the main factor of housing costs.

[Unthinking Majority]

The fact that prices go down even when immigration is steady or increasing is enough to disprove the claim that immigration is the main factor of housing costs.

That's not true, although i'm not saying immigration is the #1 driver of housing costs. I have no idea what is the #1.

However, immigration #'s in the US have decreased in the US in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID.

[ckaihatsu]

quoting some stupid Marxist drivel:

Production takes place, they claim, according to the ‘law of supply and demand’. Demand depends upon the choices individuals make, the margins by which they prefer some things to others as shown by the way they spend their money. Supply depends upon the cost of producing goods – how much it costs to employ the workers and to use the tools they work on. And something will be produced whenever the extra amount people are prepared to pay for it equals the extra cost of producing it.

Or more accurately, to the extent that it is greater than that. Right.

Wonderful graphs can be constructed from these theories with supply moving in one direction and demand moving in the other, with what is finally produced depending on where the two graphs meet. The trouble is, these graphs in reality explain nothing since they do not explain where supply and demand come from in the first place.

Wrong, as usual. They explain that supply comes from producers pursuing profits and demand comes from people being willing and able to pay for what producers produce.

On the demand side they do not explain why the desires of some people (rich landowners, property millionaires or heads of privatised industries) translate themselves into ‘effective demand’, ie demand backed up by hard cash, while the desperate needs of other people (the unemployed, the low paid, the hungry peoples of Africa and Latin America) are ignored.

Sure they do: desire not accompanied by willingness and ability to pay does not constitute demand.

'Demand', or *demand* -- ?

It seems like we need a whole *new word* -- (I call it 'organic demand') -- for whatever it is when people can't %#^#@! eat, because food happens to be *commodified*, while air and water *aren't*.

Instead of continuing to uphold *currency valuations* with your monetarist economics, maybe let that part *go*, because people's lives matter more than the ups and downs of the dollar.


---

On the supply side they do not explain why things which are desperately needed are not produced when the resources for them exist in abundance.

Sure they do: the payment proffered by those who desperately need those things is not sufficient to pay for their production.

(See the previous.)


---


[10] Supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy

Spoiler: show

[ckaihatsu]

No, it doesn't, mostly because money's *valuation* is not the same as its *face values*.

Gibberish. Value is what something would trade for, and money is what is generally accepted in trade, so value is measured in money. Your claim is like saying the length of a meter is not the same as how long it is.

Of *course* value is measured in money -- I prefer the term 'exchange value'.

*But*, would you say that currency is totally *inert* -- ? Is it really as 'neutral' as you make it out to be -- ?

I'll maintain that currency has *two* different valuations, its *face value*, and then its *market* value:

The face value of coins, stamps, or bill is usually its legal value. However, their market value need not bear any relationship to the face value. For example, some rare coins or stamps may be traded at prices considerably above their face value. Coins may also have a salvage value due to more or less valuable metals that they contain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_value

And:

The 2018–2022 Turkish currency and debt crisis (Turkish: Türkiye döviz ve borç krizi) is an ongoing financial and economic crisis in Turkey. It is characterized by the Turkish lira (TRY) plunging in value, high inflation, rising borrowing costs, and correspondingly rising loan defaults. The crisis was caused by the Turkish economy's excessive current account deficit and large amounts of private foreign-currency denominated debt, in combination with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's increasing authoritarianism and his unorthodox ideas about interest rate policy.[1][2][3][4] Some analysts also stress the leveraging effects of the geopolitical frictions with the United States. Following the detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson, who was confined of espionage charges after the failed 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, the Trump administration exerted pressure towards Turkey by imposing further sanctions. The economic sanctions therefore doubled the tariffs on Turkey, as imported steel rises up to 50% and on aluminium to 20%. As a result, Turkish steel was priced out of the US market, which previously amounted to 13% of Turkey’s total steel exports. [5][6]

While the crisis was prominent for waves of major depreciation of the currency, later stages were characterized by corporate debt defaults and finally by contraction of economic growth. With the inflation rate stuck in the double digits, stagflation ensued. The crisis ended a period of overheating economic growth under Erdoğan-led governments, built largely on a construction boom fueled by foreign borrowing, easy and cheap credit, and government spending.[7]

After a period of modest recovery in 2020 and early 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Turkish lira plunged following the replacement of Central Bank chief Naci Ağbal with Şahap Kavcıoğlu,[8] who slashed interest rates from 19%[9] to 14%.[10] The lira lost 44% of its value in 2021 alone.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%8 ... ebt_crisis

---

No, I'm saying that the consumer's desire to get things at lower prices does not affect the information that generates the market price.

But just a *moment* ago you said:

Consumer utility is only relevant to value and price to the extent that is expressed in demand.

And I was correct: only desire backed with willingness and ability to pay counts as demand in the market.

What's at-issue here in my estimation is whether the consumer has any *bearing*, and *passive influence* (times 'x'-number of like-positioned consumers) on market pricing. The simple economic fact that the consumer has an intrinsic interest in *lower prices* means that they're *definitely* stakeholders in the economic exchange and will favor *lower prices* in the market, *impacting* the market's general pricing for any given item -- 'supply and demand'.

So the point here is 'Does the consumer's interest for lower prices affect the *demand-side* of the economic exchange at all -- ?'

Sure: it's recorded in how much they are willing to pay for stuff. Not how much they would prefer to pay.

Okay, thank you. That clarifies things with regard to the above because you had also made *this* statement, which is *contradictory*.

No, I'm saying that the consumer's desire to get things at lower prices does not affect the information that generates the market price.

---

Does consumer economic demand *impact* on value and price at all -- ?

Of course, because demand IS what the buyers are willing and able to pay.

(See the previous segment.)

I'm arguing that consumer economic demand *does* affect the market-pricing information that's part and parcel of the markets mechanism. Greater demand, as for petroleum or natural gas, will enable the seller to fetch *higher prices* than usual, 'profiteering', thanks to the markets' responsiveness to the value of *money*, overshadowing the consumer's interest for realistic / affordable *pricing* for what they need to buy for their lives and living.

You are confused because you are conflating desire and utility with demand.

(See the previous.)

Market pricing is not *nearly* as simple as straight supply-and-demand. There are many *other* factors in the mix that affect moment-by-monent prices, so that no one can really say that market prices are 'pure', or 'dependable', really, even -- note Evergreen, etc.

You are confused because you are a Marxist, and thus do not know what supply and demand are. All you know are Marxist anti-concepts concocted to prevent use of valid concepts.

Since you object to 'Marxist concepts', I'll use plain language to say that market pricing is *hardly* described adequately by simple supply-and-demand dynamics *solely* -- note the Turkish lira currency update above, where the article clearly notes the regular factors of [1] excessive current account deficit, [2] private foreign currency denominated debt, [3] lowered interest rates, [4] geopolitics / tariffs.


---

No-dependable-markets means there's *no meritocracy* to the economy,

Any time a producer is paid the market price for goods or services he caused to be produced, there is meritocracy in the economy.

Where is the *value judgment* coming from -- from *qualitative*, let's-put-our-money-on-the-most-deserving-company kind of *quality*-based criteria, or is it let's-put-our-money-so-that-it-makes-more-money.

As noted previously, the capitalist political economy doesn't run on betting-on-the-right-horse, as may be *intuitively* felt, but rather on 'Can I get a *return* from this.'

That's *flows of capital*, and *not* roundtable brainstorming on which potential property should get the 1st-place blue-ribbon.

and definitely no 'accurate' pricing regime, thanks to interceding market-mechanism *exchanges* on the road from the manufacturer to the consumer.

Gibberish. There is no price more "accurate" than the market price based on consensual exchange.

It's not your delicate civil *sensibilities* that are being ruined here -- it's that every time a middleman shows up with a bag of cash for a piece of the action, that's just one more hand in the till, providing arguable 'financial services' (internal labor) for the company's revenue stream.

Consider *government intervention* in the markets -- would *big players* like the U.S. government usually cause *disruptions* to regular market pricing -- ?

Of course I *don't agree* with your opinionating here -- I maintain that one commodity's market 'price' will be functionally stretched *too thin* to cover the disparate interests of the [1] equity investor, [2] commodity speculator, and [3] consumer.

Gibberish. Their "interests" are irrelevant. All that matters is how much they are willing and able to pay or accept.

You're *sidestepping* that this is about the *pricing* valuation under capitalism -- one singular value is not sufficient information for three different stakeholder parties with three different private-interest strategies.

This means that the resulting price itself is a *zero-sum game* -- higher post-production prices will benefit the *investor* and *speculator*, but not the consumer. *Lower* prices will benefit the *consumer*, but not the investor.

Captain Obvious.

So 'cost', and/*or* 'price'. It's *not* either-or, as you're positing.

I said no such thing. Sometimes price is close to production cost, other times it isn't.

What the hell is a 'non-market pricing arrangement' -- ?

Controlled prices, such as under socialism, where prices are assigned by officials based on some criterion other than the terms of consensual exchange.

Yup -- here's my standing *critique* of that:


Pies Must Line Up

Spoiler: show

---

You were just *touting* the bounty of *market* pricing arrangements:

Then money does the job just fine.

Correctly.

(See earlier in the post.)

[ckaihatsu]

Of course I *don't agree* with your opinionating here -- I maintain that one commodity's market 'price' will be functionally stretched *too thin* to cover the disparate interests of the [1] equity investor, [2] commodity speculator, and [3] consumer.

Gibberish. Their "interests" are irrelevant. All that matters is how much they are willing and able to pay or accept.

---

Gibberish. There is no price more "accurate" than the market price based on consensual exchange.

---

Non-financial firms focus on business risk more generally: i.e. those events and occurrences which could negatively impact cash flow or profitability, and hence result in a loss of business value or a decline in share price.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_management#Finance

[Puffer Fish]

No.

The fact that prices go down even when immigration is steady or increasing is enough to disprove the claim that immigration is the main factor of housing costs.

If home prices are going down but rent prices are not going down, then that would tend to indicate that these falling home prices in this specific situation do not show anything about immigration.

I would have thought something like that would be obvious to you.

It shows it has something to do specifically with people buying homes, not demand for housing overall.

[Puffer Fish]

The fact that prices go down even when immigration is steady or increasing is enough to disprove the claim that immigration is the main factor of housing costs.

I agree with Unthinking Majority. That's definitely not necessarily true at all.

It might seem that way to you, but it only takes some basic mathematical analysis to see it is not.

If there is more than one factor going on, then a secondary factor, even if it is not the main factor, can be adequate enough to explain a temporary effect that is contrary to the first factor.

The only thing that proves is that immigration is not the only variable in the equation.

[Pants-of-dog]

That's not true, although i'm not saying immigration is the #1 driver of housing costs. I have no idea what is the #1.

However, immigration #'s in the US have decreased in the US in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID.

If prices change independent of immigration, then we can safely say that immigration is either not a factor, or the other factors are significant enough to overwhelm the influence of immigration.

—————

If home prices are going down but rent prices are not going down, then that would tend to indicate that these falling home prices in this specific situation do not show anything about immigration.

I would have thought something like that would be obvious to you.

How?

Explain it clearly.

It shows it has something to do specifically with people buying homes, not demand for housing overall.

Please explain how people buying homes is not demand for housing.

I agree with Unthinking Majority. That's definitely not necessarily true at all.

It might seem that way to you, but it only takes some basic mathematical analysis to see it is not.

If there is more than one factor going on, then a secondary factor, even if it is not the main factor, can be adequate enough to explain a temporary effect that is contrary to the first factor.

The only thing that proves is that immigration is not the only variable in the equation.

So you now concede that other factors are overwhelming any influence that immigration may (or may not) have.

We now see that your argument is minimally suffering from a lack of comprehensiveness, and could be entirely wrong.

[ckaihatsu]

If home prices are going down but rent prices are not going down,

---

What the Price-to-Rent Ratio Can Tell You

The price-to-rent ratio is used as an indicator for whether housing markets are fairly valued, or in a bubble. The dramatic increase in the ratio leading up to the 2008-2009 housing market crash was, with hindsight, a red flag for the housing bubble.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pr ... -ratio.asp

[Truth To Power]

That's not true, although i'm not saying immigration is the #1 driver of housing costs. I have no idea what is the #1.

The #1 driver of housing costs is always the exorbitant welfare subsidy giveaway shoveled into landowners' pockets for holding desirable locations vacant.

[late]

If prices change independent of immigration, then we can safely say that immigration is either not a factor, or the other factors are significant enough to overwhelm the influence of immigration.


We now see that your argument is minimally suffering from a lack of comprehensiveness, and could be entirely wrong.

Didn't read his argument, don't see the point.

Immigrants have had an effect at the high end, in some affluent areas. Manhattan is the best example, really rich foreigners want a place to come to if things get hot where they live. Some just stay, we don't kick out multi-millionaires.

But, overall, housing prices have been driven by government policies, cheap credit, zoning, that sort of thing.

Now that credit is getting expensive, that is starting to unwind..

[Truth To Power]

Please explain how people buying homes is not demand for housing.

People often buys "homes" as "investments," not to live in them. In lots of places there are tax advantages to owning a home, or to having a mortgage on one, or on capital gain income from selling one's "principal residence." So many homes are bought by land speculators simply to be held vacant, awaiting the inevitable shoveling of unearned wealth into the owners' pockets when land values rise:

“The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive way for a capitalist to increase his fortune, is to put all monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price.”
-- Andrew Carnegie

[Pants-of-dog]

People often buys "homes" as "investments," not to live in them.

This is still demand for housing.

It is demand for housing as a good, instead of a demand for housing per se.

In lots of places there are tax advantages to owning a home, or to having a mortgage on one, or on capital gain income from selling one's "principal residence." So many homes are bought by land speculators simply to be held vacant, awaiting the inevitable shoveling of unearned wealth into the owners' pockets when land values rise:

“The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive way for a capitalist to increase his fortune, is to put all monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price.”
-- Andrew Carnegie

Is this the case in NYC?

[ckaihatsu]

The #1 driver of housing costs is always the exorbitant welfare subsidy giveaway shoveled into landowners' pockets for holding desirable locations vacant.

---

Artificial scarcity is scarcity of items despite the technology for production or the sufficient capacity for sharing. The most common causes are monopoly pricing structures, such as those enabled by laws that restrict competition or by high fixed costs in a particular marketplace. The inefficiency associated with artificial scarcity is formally known as a deadweight loss.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity

---

Permanent limited war also allows for the Party to divert attention away from domestic concerns and their failures. Instead of promises of an "easy, safe life", Slater writes that Orwell believed that the populace requires heroic nationalism. Thus, war becomes a psychological tool to establish a kind of ironic "peace", a stasis where progress is impossible and nothing ever changes, except for the possibility of eventual global conquest.[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theor ... llectivism

[Truth To Power]

'Demand', or *demand* -- ?

Demand in the relevant sense of supply and demand.

It seems like we need a whole *new word* -- (I call it 'organic demand') -- for whatever it is when people can't %#^#@! eat, because food happens to be *commodified*, while air and water *aren't*.

We already have such a word: scarcity, the common condition of all living organisms. Atmospheric air to breathe is not scarce -- though it could certainly be made scarce by legally entitling someone to own it as their property, as land is owned. Water -- i.e., safe water to drink -- is scarce in many places -- indeed, millions of people, mostly children, die for lack of it every year. In such places, potable water has to be produced by labor, and merely needing it does not perform that labor. You seem highly resistant to knowing that fact.

The ultimate purpose of all economic activity is to relieve scarcity, and economics is the study of how people relieve scarcity through production, allocation and exchange. Marxists/socialists have merely decided not to know the fact that scarcity is only relieved when someone takes responsibility for, and performs the labor of, arranging for the necessary factors to be allocated to production of some specific good or service, thus earning ownership of said good or service.

Instead of continuing to uphold *currency valuations* with your monetarist economics, maybe let that part *go*, because people's lives matter more than the ups and downs of the dollar.

You are conflating the function of money as the medium of exchange with the unintended effects of trying to overrule that function for political purposes.

<silly Marxist drivel mercifully snipped>

[Truth To Power]

This is still demand for housing.

No, it's actually demand for land. The housing just happens to be sitting on top of it.

It is demand for housing as a good, instead of a demand for housing per se.

No, it's demand for the financial advantages appertaining to ownership of the land. Often it's more advantageous for tax purposes if a house, vacant or occupied, is sitting on the land, because it can be depreciated.

Is this the case in NYC?

Certainly. But in NYC, as in other highly unaffordable cities like San Francisco and Vancouver, the shortage is aggravated and rents much higher because they have had rent control for many decades.