New York Times complains about lack of affordable "starter homes" - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15249580
Truth To Power wrote:
IMO it's ironic that the USA, which was built on unrestricted immigration, is now largely anti-immigrant. As a general rule, I think borders should be open. People should be able to choose where they live. But in practice, a lot of countries are $#!=-holes (often at least in part because of US interference) that people want to escape to have a better life, and communities do have a right to keep out invaders.



*Expert* fence-sitting. Truly first-rate.


Truth To Power wrote:
It is self-evident justice that people have property rights in the fruits of their labor, as that is the reward commensurate with their contribution.



Here's the thing, though -- not all value in circulation is from *paychecks*. You *know* from your politics that rent payments to landlords (from either labor or capital) is not the same kind of money as *wages*.

Do *you* really think 'property rights' when you think 'wages', as you're emphasizing / linking, or are you being *disingenuous* with that association, while it's *private capital* that has interests in 'property rights', and *not* the wages of workers.

Property ownership is the *caste* social system in the U.S., and worldwide, and merely *re-tossing* the mixed public-sector-private-sector salad doesn't really *mean* much in the real-world context.


[2] G.U.T.S.U.C., Simplified

Spoiler: show
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Truth To Power wrote:
No. Central banking is associated with finance capitalism because of the debt money system, which I oppose. In a just monetary system, the function of the central bank would mainly be oversight, and the money supply would be managed by an independent Mint.



And how is this description any different than what exists *today* -- the Fed -- ?

You're disingenuously trying to distance yourself from central banking, by veering off to a side issue, but in the past you've described a CCP-like central administration for the officialdom over official government all-encompassing land leasing. Presumably the same degree of centralization would apply to *currency* for the same as well.


Truth To Power wrote:
The subject was distributive justice. Rights to life and liberty are only tangentially involved.



How, then, would you 'valuate' (as into present-day *exchange-values*), for 'distributive justice' -- besides just land parcels, please.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Maybe the world needs a system of distribution based on human *need*, and not on the world-of-its-own *financial* valuations -- featuring market crashes, runs on the banks, public subsidizations, economic seizing-up, etc.



viewtopic.php?p=15249172#p15249172
#15249596
ckaihatsu wrote:*Expert* fence-sitting. Truly first-rate.

It's just a little complicated.
Here's the thing, though -- not all value in circulation is from *paychecks*. You *know* from your politics that rent payments to landlords (from either labor or capital) is not the same kind of money as *wages*.

That is why "property rights" is inherently a conflation, an equivocation fallacy, like "the means of production." Chattel slavery was about property rights, but so is the right of the worker to his product. These rights are self-evidently not at all the same thing, yet you pretend property rights are all the same. If you are not willing to talk about the difference between rightful property in the fruits of one's labor and wrongful property in others' rights to liberty, then you are interested in deceit, not honesty, and obscurity, not clarity.
Do *you* really think 'property rights' when you think 'wages', as you're emphasizing / linking, or are you being *disingenuous* with that association, while it's *private capital* that has interests in 'property rights', and *not* the wages of workers.

See above. The property right in production originates in the act of production: the entrepreneur's labor (decision and initiative) of arranging for all the factors of production to be applied to it, thus causing the product to exist rather than not exist. The producer fulfills that causal role -- in the modern context, almost always a contractual one -- that originates his property right in the product. It is neither the provider of labor nor the owners of land and producer goods who will necessarily have that role, though in practice it could be either of them.
Property ownership is the *caste* social system in the U.S., and worldwide, and merely *re-tossing* the mixed public-sector-private-sector salad doesn't really *mean* much in the real-world context.

No. It is not property in production that drives the socioeconomic caste system, it is property in privilege: legal entitlements to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation. The reason is very simple: those who rightly own property in the fruits of their labor get richer by making others richer, while those who enjoy wrongful property in privilege get richer by making others poorer.
And how is this description any different than what exists *today* -- the Fed -- ?

What exists today is the debt-money system, wherein the central bank tries to supervise and control private commercial banks' issuance of money to stop them from periodically wrecking the economy. It's a ridiculous system that benefits bankers at everyone else's expense.
You're disingenuously trying to distance yourself from central banking, by veering off to a side issue,

It's not a side issue. Who issues money, how, when, and to whom is the crucial issue in the monetary system.
but in the past you've described a CCP-like central administration for the officialdom over official government all-encompassing land leasing. Presumably the same degree of centralization would apply to *currency* for the same as well.

It would be more centralized, because currency has to be widely accepted to be useful.
How, then, would you 'valuate' (as into present-day *exchange-values*), for 'distributive justice' -- besides just land parcels, please.

Value is what something would trade for, so the market measures value.
#15249613
Truth To Power wrote:
It's just a little complicated.

That is why "property rights" is inherently a conflation, an equivocation fallacy, like "the means of production." Chattel slavery was about property rights, but so is the right of the worker to his product. These rights are self-evidently not at all the same thing, yet you pretend property rights are all the same. If you are not willing to talk about the difference between rightful property in the fruits of one's labor and wrongful property in others' rights to liberty, then you are interested in deceit, not honesty, and obscurity, not clarity.



Cut the boilerplate -- you acknowledge only *land* / real estate as being rentier capital, when rentier capital *does* behave consistently as the drain you describe, but for *all* 'assets' and 'resources' that are *non-productive* of commodities, and which legally collect interest and rent payments from both labor and capital, from the *pre-existing* economy, without any new production / new values taking place.

I'll invite you to comment on the following, since it may be relevant here:


labor and capital, side-by-side

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Truth To Power wrote:
See above. The property right in production originates in the act of production: the entrepreneur's labor (decision and initiative) of arranging for all the factors of production to be applied to it, thus causing the product to exist rather than not exist. The producer fulfills that causal role -- in the modern context, almost always a contractual one -- that originates his property right in the product. It is neither the provider of labor nor the owners of land and producer goods who will necessarily have that role, though in practice it could be either of them.



You're simply glorifying the *manager's* executive-type role, in relation to capital, when what's more pertinent is that it's the *capital* (amount) that's providing the main impetus behind any given commercial activity.


Truth To Power wrote:
No. It is not property in production that drives the socioeconomic caste system, it is property in privilege: legal entitlements to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation. The reason is very simple: those who rightly own property in the fruits of their labor get richer by making others richer, while those who enjoy wrongful property in privilege get richer by making others poorer.



Your entire politics is simply that the choiciest real estate is already gone / scarfed-up, and that makes land costs higher for the investor class.

You'd like a capitalist 'equity heaven' wherein all necessary administrative overhead, for the perfectly-equitable leasing of land to the public, is perfectly servile, neutral, and without cost.


Truth To Power wrote:
What exists today is the debt-money system, wherein the central bank tries to supervise and control private commercial banks' issuance of money to stop them from periodically wrecking the economy. It's a ridiculous system that benefits bankers at everyone else's expense.



You're misrepresenting basic information. Here:



Banking supervision and other activities

In some countries a central bank, through its subsidiaries, controls and monitors the banking sector. In other countries banking supervision is carried out by a government department such as the UK Treasury, or by an independent government agency, for example, UK's Financial Conduct Authority. It examines the banks' balance sheets and behaviour and policies toward consumers.[clarification needed] Apart from refinancing, it also provides banks with services such as transfer of funds, bank notes and coins or foreign currency. Thus it is often described as the "bank of banks".

Many countries will monitor and control the banking sector through several different agencies and for different purposes. The Bank regulation in the United States for example is highly fragmented with 3 federal agencies, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and numerous others on the state and the private level. There is usually significant cooperation between the agencies. For example, money center banks, deposit-taking institutions, and other types of financial institutions may be subject to different (and occasionally overlapping) regulation. Some types of banking regulation may be delegated to other levels of government, such as state or provincial governments.

Any cartel of banks is particularly closely watched and controlled. Most countries control bank mergers and are wary of concentration in this industry due to the danger of groupthink and runaway lending bubbles based on a single point of failure, the credit culture of the few large banks.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_b ... activities



My prior point remains, that *any* political camp would logically and logistically want the *benefits* of centralization and hierarchy -- a standing bureaucracy, for whatever the given political goals happen to be.


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Truth To Power wrote:
It's not a side issue. Who issues money, how, when, and to whom is the crucial issue in the monetary system.

It would be more centralized, because currency has to be widely accepted to be useful.



Okay, in the interests of clarity, please differentiate between the Fed, and an 'independent mint'.

Do you mean *this* -- ?


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


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Truth To Power wrote:
Value is what something would trade for, so the market measures value.



Okay, you're saying that the market measures the day-by-day *fluctuations* in the value of a commodity, due to the balance between the forces of supply and demand.

Now -- what about the *costs of production*. If I use available funds to manufacture something, I'm going to be looking for pricing -- irrespective of subsequent supply-and-demand pricing fluctuations -- that gives me a *return* on my money.

This is my standing critique of capitalist 'money' / exchange-values, that it's having to do *triple duty*, which is impossible -- here's recently from another thread:


ckaihatsu wrote:
[T]he radial gradient of metropolitan upscale land values, outward, means that the real estate pricings / values are out-of-whack with the *utility* provided to renters / owners / users of land. In other words we're all led to believe by default that market real estate prices are 'valid', and that they somehow reflect the *use*, or utility, that people get out of each unit or parcel.

But this obviously can't be the case, because these market prices *fluctuate*, according to supply-and-demand, as you've covered. So if more people are economically 'demanding' pricier areas with their money, then the price goes *up*, as we're currently seeing. This pricing / valuation then has *little* to do with the cost of *creating* that unit or parcel, nor does it accurately reflect the sense of 'use value' to the purchaser / renter, in the sense of proportion-of-income (spent on rent).

Yet we're expected to believe that the one 'price' value can somehow represent *all three* variables / qualities at once, 'use', 'supply and demand', and 'construction', all at once.



viewtopic.php?p=15246744#p15246744



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ckaihatsu wrote:
Social Production Worldview



Truth To Power wrote:
Production is inherently private, not social.



Well, *yeah*, of course -- that's *capitalism*, and that's not saying much.

The diagram shows that society has to pony-up, in one way or another, those fundamental social components that enable *production*, and modern society and 'civilization' (in the best possible sense of the term).
#15249868
ckaihatsu wrote:Well, *yeah*, of course -- that's *capitalism*, and that's not saying much.

Are you just going to sit there all day and blame capitalism, or are you going to advocate a stop to the things that cause capitalism not to work very well?

Your type seem like the type of people who throw a wrench into a running engine, and then when that engine has problems your only response is "Well, this wouldn't be a problem if we had an electric car. Let's get an electric car".

Yeah, sorry, that's not going to happen. We're never going to be getting an electric engine any time soon. You need to deal with the system you've got.

Maybe the "problem" isn't capitalism, it's the policies you support that cause "capitalism" to have big problems.
#15249878
ckaihatsu wrote:
Social Production Worldview



Truth To Power wrote:
Production is inherently private, not social.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Well, *yeah*, of course -- that's *capitalism*, and that's not saying much.

The diagram shows that society has to pony-up, in one way or another, those fundamental social components that enable *production*, and modern society and 'civilization' (in the best possible sense of the term).



Puffer Fish wrote:
Are you just going to sit there all day and blame capitalism, or are you going to advocate a stop to the things that cause capitalism not to work very well?

Your type seem like the type of people who throw a wrench into a running engine,



That's inappropriate, and unkind -- you're slandering me and my politics by comparing me to *Luddites*.

I'm not anti-tech, even if it's primarily used for the interests of big business -- *but* it would be far better to *collectivize* such societal implements, including any and all *automation*, for the sake of *people's* interests in its output.

*Of course* capitalism is to blame, because look at the title of this thread -- general complaints about the *housing market*.


Puffer Fish wrote:
and then when that engine has problems your only response is "Well, this wouldn't be a problem if we had an electric car. Let's get an electric car".



You're thinking of the Democrats / liberals. *My* line here is 'free electricity for all', and robust public transportation infrastructure.


Puffer Fish wrote:
Yeah, sorry, that's not going to happen. We're never going to be getting an electric engine any time soon. You need to deal with the system you've got.

Maybe the "problem" isn't capitalism, it's the policies you support that cause "capitalism" to have big problems.



So 'my' politics is making *capitalism* hurt -- ?

Wow.

I never thought I'd *get* here.


x D


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*Personally*, I've been poking around *this* kind of stuff lately....


dubble cylinder engine 100% working

#15249883
Pants-of-dog wrote:The increase in housing costs is due to labour shortages in construction,

If that was really the case, then that should reduce the ratio of housing price to wage levels. That is, wage levels should be rising by a greater percentage than housing prices.
I'll leave it up to you to determine if that's actually happening.

Pants-of-dog wrote:and zoning regulations from people trying to keep non-whites out of their neighborhood.

That sounds like a red herring. We're talking about why home prices have been increasing.
Unless you are claiming that the amount of zoning regulations have been increasingly tightening, that cannot be an explanation for the increase.

Maybe you are saying that part of the reason for the high prices is that certain neighborhoods don't want to squeeze in more people?
But that sounds like more people might be part of the problem in the first place.
#15249885
ckaihatsu wrote:That's inappropriate, and unkind -- you're slandering me and my politics by comparing me to *Luddites*.

I'm not anti-tech, even if it's primarily used for the interests of big business -- *but* it would be far better to *collectivize* such societal implements, including any and all *automation*, for the sake of *people's* interests in its output.

*Of course* capitalism is to blame, because look at the title of this thread -- general complaints about the *housing market*.

It seems you misunderstood me or missed the point.
I was not saying you were anti-technology.

I was simply pointing out that many of these problems can be traced back to being caused by policies that the Left widely supports.
But people like you don't want to hear that. And you just ignore it by trying to divert the argument into being about capitalism.

You sabotaged the system, and then you want to complain that the problem is the system.
That's the issue.
#15249886
Puffer Fish wrote:If that was really the case, then that should reduce the ratio of housing price to wage levels. That is, wage levels should be rising by a greater percentage than housing prices.
I'll leave it up to you to determine if that's actually happening.


No. Wages can stay low due to other aspects.

Are you arguing that there is no labour shortage in housing?

That sounds like a red herring. We're talking about why home prices have been increasing.
Unless you are claiming that the amount of zoning regulations have been increasingly tightening, that cannot be an explanation for the increase.


Yes, regulations have been tightening in some majority white neighborhoods.

This is because some people are irrationally scared.of immigrants and use regulations to keep non-whites out of their neighborhood.

Maybe you are saying that part of the reason for the high prices is that certain neighborhoods don't want to squeeze in more people?
But that sounds like more people might be part of the problem in the first place.


No.

Much like you have no problem with rising housing costs if white people are to blame, these people do not care if more white people move in.
#15249887
ckaihatsu wrote:*My* line here is 'free electricity for all', and robust public transportation infrastructure.

I agree.
If government is going to add more people, then government needs to build new cities.

It needs to build the infrastructure for new cities, new cities in places where large numbers of people do not already live.

But that is probably never going to happen.
#15249890
Puffer Fish wrote:
It seems you misunderstood me or missed the point.
I was not saying you were anti-technology.

I was simply pointing out that many of these problems can be traced back to being caused by policies that the Left widely supports.
But people like you don't want to hear that. And you just ignore it by trying to divert the argument into being about capitalism.

You sabotaged the system, and then you want to complain that the problem is the system.
That's the issue.



Fortunately my far-leftist politics aren't *obligated* to defend 'Left'-type bourgeois reformist policies (like 'elections', for rearranging personnel).

That said, I *probably* share the same, or similar, positions as those on the Left, as for increasing social domains of *equality* -- especially considering our present-day technological *capabilities*.


3-Dimensional Axes of Social Reality

Spoiler: show
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Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals

Spoiler: show
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#15249893
Puffer Fish wrote:You seem to be being contradictory.

How can you argue that housing prices are higher due to labor costs, but wages have not gone up???

Why would those two things not be in direct proportion?


I never said wages have not gone up.

I said the labour shortage has made housing more expensive.

This is true regardless of the impact on wages.
#15249894
Pants-of-dog wrote:I never said wages have not gone up.

I said the labour shortage has made housing more expensive.

This is true regardless of the impact on wages.

You ignored the issue that I pointed out to you.

If housing goes up 15% entirely due to increasing labor costs, then wage levels should also be going up 15%, shouldn't they?

Seems kind of like pretty basic logic to me. Unless you have some other explanation.
#15249895
Puffer Fish wrote:
I agree.
If government is going to add more people, then government needs to build new cities.

It needs to build the infrastructure for new cities, new cities in places where large numbers of people do not already live.

But that is probably never going to happen.



Remember, real estate is done by the *private sector* mostly, and yet here we are on a thread about a *market failure* -- a *typical* one, I'd add, since it's about a *bubble*, which is fairly common in capitalism / finance.

Let me know the moment you're willing to let-go and *relinquish* capitalism as the current working political-economy.
#15249900
Puffer Fish wrote:You ignored the issue that I pointed out to you.


No. I pointed out that housing costs could go up while labour wages may remain low.

So a lack of high wages (which does not seem to be the case) would not disprove the fact there is a labor shortage.

If housing goes up 15% entirely due to increasing labor costs, then wage levels should also be going up 15%, shouldn't they?


I never made a claim about labour wages.

I made a claim about a labor shortage.

If you want to disprove the claim that there is a labor shortage by showing wages are still low, feel free.
#15249902
ckaihatsu wrote:
Remember, real estate is done by the *private sector* mostly, and yet here we are on a thread about a *market failure* -- a *typical* one, I'd add, since it's about a *bubble*, which is fairly common in capitalism / finance.

Let me know the moment you're willing to let-go and *relinquish* capitalism as the current working political-economy.



This all started when Puff the Magic Fish said immigration was causing rising home prices.

What is beyond comprehension is that this silliness has dragged on for 4 pages. You are kinda adding to the silliness... This isn't market failure, it's bad governance, or to use your language, mismanagement.

But I don't hate calling it a bubble. Money was cheap, and that fuels a number of behaviors, speculation, for example. The money guys have been buying up homes and renting them. They make crap landlords, the only good news in that is that I expect them to take a bath when property values inevitably go down. If we have a recession, the income inequality we have (along with Boomers like me dying) could make the drop precipitous (in some areas).

Anyway, this thread needs to die.
#15249903
Housing prices are based on supply and demand. An increase in population, whether via births or immigration, will increase demand and thus raise prices.

Immigration alone is not the sole cause, it is a supply and demand issue with different pressures on supply and demand. It is a public policy problem. You fix the problem by either lowering demand or increasing supply. If immigration is good for the economy and therefore desirable, then fix the supply problem by reducing barriers for building more units. You can also reduce other pressures on demand by reducing incentives for housing speculation by fortitude and domestic investors.

But governments didn't react when this problem was beginning, and are pretty slow now that it's occurring. Supply problems are managed at the city and state/ provincial levels too so it complicates things.

Since immigrants typically only go to big cities anyways, is it even a problem at all if high prices force people to move to smaller towns where the populations have been decreasing, or not rising as fast?
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