[Pants-of-dog]

Sort of. I'll settle for just increasing housing supply.

Do you understand why builders will refuse to build so many homes that they lose money?

It is because they will lose money. As @Potemkin has pointed out, capitalism does not have the tools to solve this.

Since they will not do this even to reduce the cost of houses, it is illogical to assume they will do this in order to provide houses for the homeless.

Rent control also suppresses supply of existing homes, which is also a major factor to consider.

You often come up with new arguments when you see your old ones do not work.

I will ignore this new argument for now.

What part of "zoning laws restricting densification are contributing to the suppression of the housing supply" isn't clear?

Since this is the first time you said this in the thread, the part where you did not mention it makes it unclear.

Now, both this argument and the hilarious “force contractors to build so much they lose money” idea assume that the only way to address homelessness is to use the existing market system to build more homes.

This assumption is incorrect.

This tangent is one thing America, or at least parts of America, isn't handling well. It is also a problem that affects most developed countries, if anything the US is definitely not the worst example to follow here - even the basket cases like California.

And it's happening in Latin America as well.

See my previous post. Thanks.

[Wellsy]

Which the Chinese Communist Party has done more successfully than anyone else in human history.
...
Somebody once said that a conservative is just a liberal who has been mugged by reality. I would say that a radical is also just a liberal who has been mugged by reality. Lol. Bottom line: liberalism is incompatible with reality.

This is something that should be commended in that somehow the central CCP was able to string together the many different regions of China, which has historically at times fallen apart from one another before being brought back under a central authority to radically change the lives of many in an ambitious tight rope act.

Also I resonate with the point that I think I was automatically, through my upbringing a liberal, and I even see my sympathies with communism and such as still in the spirit of certain liberal humanist ideals, but based in a dissatisfaction with what I see are the limitations and it's foundations within a specific social order. When you really believe in something, it can be quite an experience to have it displaced and one must reorient or reground ones self. Rather than give up on a lot of the grand ideals from the bourgeoisierevolutions, they instead need to move from the more abstract to a more concrete and integrated form.

https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/macintyre2.pdf

Far from this failure to find any firm ground undermining liberalism, MacIntyre believes that it reinforces it, because one of the fundamental bases for liberalism is the conviction that no comprehensive idea (to use Rawls’ term) can enjoy majority, let alone unanimous, support. This then justifies the ban on governments pursuing the general good.

“Any conception of the human good according to which, for example, it is the duty of government to educate the members of the community morally, ... will be proscribed. ... liberal individualism does indeed have its own broad conception of the good, which it is engaged in imposing politically, legally, socially, and culturally wherever it has the power to do so, but also that in doing so its toleration of rival conceptions of the good in the public arena is severely limited.” (p. 336)

Such a ban on governments pursuing the social good of course serves a very definite social interest.

“The weight given to an individual preference in the market is a matter of the cost which the individual is able and willing to pay; only so far as an individual has the means to bargain with those who can supply what he or she needs does the individual have an effective voice. So also in the political and social realm it is the ability to bargain that is crucial. The preferences of some are accorded weight by others only insofar as the satisfaction of those preferences will lead to the satisfaction of their own preferences. Only those who have something to give get. The disadvantaged in a liberal society are those without the means to bargain.” (p. 336)

and consequently,

“The overriding good of liberalism is no more and no less than the continued sustenance of the liberal social and political order”. (p. 345)

In each of the historical settings that MacIntyre investigates, he is able to show that the type of justice and the type of rationality which appears to the philosophical spokespeople of the community to be necessary and universal, turns out to be a description of the type of citizens of the community in question. Accordingly, the justice of liberalism and the rationality of liberalism is simply that justice and that rationality of the “citizens of nowhere” (p. 388), the “outsiders,” people lacking in any social obligation or any reason for acting other than to satisfy their desires and to defend the conditions under which they are able to continue satisfying their desires. Their rationality is therefore that of the objects of their desire.

The above reflecting the felt oppression to impose limits on abstract choice in pursuit of material conditions that meet human needs, if even in a basic form as a precondition to freedom for more of the population. The endless series remain abstract to the person without the money to access it, and so it is the world over where people don't have have a real concept of just how disgustingly wealthy some people are as it is such a radical departure from their own lives.

[wat0n]

Do you understand why builders will refuse to build so many homes that they lose money?

It is because they will lose money. As @Potemkin has pointed out, capitalism does not have the tools to solve this.

Since they will not do this even to reduce the cost of houses, it is illogical to assume they will do this in order to provide houses for the homeless.

Not really. In fact, plenty of developers will and when allowed do sign up to build high density apartments.

Furthermore, even the subprime crisis shows this is false. Developers in the US and Europe did not suddenly stop and think if the people they were building houses for could afford them, they just saw orders, future cash and went ahead. All of which happened precisely because governments encouraged it, at least in localities whose zoning laws allowed it - in this case, often by building "decent" housing in unpopulated or sparsely populated areas so density would still be kept under control. And thus you would be able to find fully built yet empty areas in countries like Spain and, more recently, China with its higher density yet empty ghost cities.

Are you actually a Marxist? Because this if anything is the typical behavior your camp has been predicting as ending capitalism at some point.

You often come up with new arguments when you see your old ones do not work.

I will ignore this new argument for now.

This is how debates work - you provide new arguments to continue the discussion. It seems somebody is having a tantrum.

And it's not false, also confirmed by studies. Why would you put a housing unit for rent if the government will fix it at a ridiculously low rate? I'd either try to Airbnb it or just sell it.

Since this is the first time you said this in the thread, the part where you did not mention it makes it unclear.

Now, both this argument and the hilarious “force contractors to build so much they lose money” idea assume that the only way to address homelessness is to use the existing market system to build more homes.

This assumption is incorrect.

If you want the government to do so, go ahead. This doesn't mean the way to solve homelessness doesn't include building more, and increasing the supply of housing units. If the government being the one doing it makes you happy, go ahead.

I have already said this. Government building would have its own set of problems, but I agree it's better than just leaving people homeless. Unfortunately, however, large swaths of the public will not accept this or even private sector solutions. We know this because zoning laws restricting densification are often passed by voters themselves. We also know this from experience, as those people living in public housing units would protest when these did not conform to their perception of what "decent housing" is.

See my previous post. Thanks.

Still having a tantrum.

[Pants-of-dog]

Not really. In fact, plenty of developers will and when allowed do sign up to build high density apartments.

Okay.

This does not change the fact that their business model means they can charge market prices for these high density apartments and price out homeless and low income people, thereby contradicting your claim that market forces will solve homelessness.

Furthermore, even the subprime crisis shows this is false. Developers in the US and Europe did not suddenly stop and think if the people they were building houses for could afford them, they just saw orders, future cash and went ahead. All of which happened precisely because governments encouraged it, at least in localities whose zoning laws allowed it - in this case, often by building "decent" housing in unpopulated or sparsely populated areas so density would still be kept under control. And thus you would be able to find fully built yet empty areas in countries like Spain and, more recently, China with its higher density yet empty ghost cities.

Are you actually a Marxist? Because this if anything is the typical behavior your camp has been predicting as ending capitalism at some point.

This still does not support your point that builders will build houses with the intent of oversupplying the market and driving prices down.

In fact, it shows that capitalism will make and sell expensive houses even when it makes ho sense.

This is how debates work - you provide new arguments to continue the discussion. It seems somebody is having a tantrum.

And it's not false, also confirmed by studies. Why would you put a housing unit for rent if the government will fix it at a ridiculously low rate? I'd either try to Airbnb it or just sell it.

Since you are being rude about this tangent, I will ignore it.

If you want the government to do so, go ahead. This doesn't mean the way to solve homelessness doesn't include building more, and increasing the supply of housing units. If the government being the one doing it makes you happy, go ahead.

Since it sidesteps the contradiction of profit seeking and providing for people who cannot pay, then nationalising the housing industry would make more sense.

I have already said this. Government building would have its own set of problems, but I agree it's better than just leaving people homeless. Unfortunately, however, large swaths of the public will not accept this or even private sector solutions. We know this because zoning laws restricting densification are often passed by voters themselves. We also know this from experience, as those people living in public housing units would protest when these did not conform to their perception of what "decent housing" is.

You are making an illogical assumption that zoning laws restricting densification somehow magically means that people will oppose public housing.

[wat0n]

Okay.

This does not change the fact that their business model means they can charge market prices for these high density apartments and price out homeless and low income people, thereby contradicting your claim that market forces will solve homelessness.

And then the greater supply will help bring those prices down after a while.

This still does not support your point that builders will build houses with the intent of oversupplying the market and driving prices down.

In fact, it shows that capitalism will make and sell expensive houses even when it makes ho sense.

Weird, I thought you were the one complaining about "adding arguments".

But anyway, this is also not true. That's why literature shows rent control and zoning have pushed prices upwards after a while, for non-controlled units of course.

Since you are being rude about this tangent, I will ignore it.

Since it sidesteps the contradiction of profit seeking and providing for people who cannot pay, then nationalising the housing industry would make more sense.

Instead, it would replace it by the contradiction between providing desirable housing and not being an employment agency.

You are making an illogical assumption that zoning laws restricting densification somehow magically means that people will oppose public housing.

No, what I'm saying is that people will oppose public housing for the same reason they oppose densification.

[Pants-of-dog]

And then the greater supply will help bring those prices down after a while.

No.

You have misunderstood.

Builders will not create that amount of supply since it will work against their own profits.

But anyway, this is also not true. That's why literature shows rent control and zoning have pushed prices upwards after a while, for non-controlled units of course.

My point had nothing to do with rent control and zoning, so you have obviously misunderstood.

Instead, it would replace it by the contradiction between providing desirable housing and not being an employment agency.

This makes absolutely no sense.

No, what I'm saying is that people will oppose public housing for the same reason they oppose densification.

And what reason is that?

[wat0n]

No.

You have misunderstood.

Builders will not create that amount of supply since it will work against their own profits.

That's not what happened during the housing bubble. Again, are you actually a Marxist? Overproduction, does it ring a bell to you?

But more importantly, a lower market price than what we see now need not make the industry as a whole unprofitable. We know this, too, because in the US in particular there's variation in the prevailing price levels between different locations, even for dwellings that are similar (sometimes even the same) to each other, and I don't think developers have somehow gone bust in those cheaper cities.

My point had nothing to do with rent control and zoning, so you have obviously misunderstood.

So what's your point?

This makes absolutely no sense.

Yes, because government run enterprises do not have their own issues, including political hiring. Am I right?

Or how the government will prioritize cheapest housing possible over "decent" one, since it will obviously take economic considerations into account. Governments are not businesses but that doesn't mean they don't often make business-like decisions.

And what reason is that?

Living in densely populated areas goes against what most people would regard as a good quality of life. Densely populated areas tend to be noisier, have less privacy (even inside your own home, since people can look from outside), they will tend to have more congestion, may have more crime, etc. So, voters will often prefer zoning laws that restrict densification even though it is cheaper and can most certainly help those who are financially constrained. NIMBYism is real.

[Pants-of-dog]

That's not what happened during the housing bubble.

Yes, exactly.

What you describe is not what happened during the housing bubble.

… Overproduction, ….

At no point did builders (intentionally or unintentionally) overproduce or produce so many houses that they overwhelmed demand.

The housing bubble was due to a lack of regulation in mortgage financing.

But more importantly, a lower market price than what we see now need not make the industry as a whole unprofitable. We know this, too, because in the US in particular there's variation in the prevailing price levels between different locations, even for dwellings that are similar (sometimes even the same) to each other, and I don't think developers have somehow gone bust in those cheaper cities.

Variation in market prices does not support your claim in any way.

Just because an effect occurs for reasons that are completely different from those we are discussing does not mean that your desired effect will happen.

Yes, because government run enterprises do not have their own issues, including political hiring. Am I right?

Or how the government will prioritize cheapest housing possible over "decent" one, since it will obviously take economic considerations into account. Governments are not businesses but that doesn't mean they don't often make business-like decisions.

In all the low income housing projects I have worked on, the level of quality has been consistently higher than in private market housing.

It has to do with projected maintenance costs over the life cycle of the building. So, unless you provide clear and verifiable examples of your claim, I will dismiss it as libertarian hyperbole just like your claim that rent control causes homelessness.

Living in densely populated areas goes against what most people would regard as a good quality of life. Densely populated areas tend to be noisier, have less privacy (even inside your own home, since people can look from outside), they will tend to have more congestion, may have more crime, etc. So, voters will often prefer zoning laws that restrict densification even though it is cheaper and can most certainly help those who are financially constrained. NIMBYism is real.

So no one wants to live in Manhattan. Got it. Very realistic claim.

[Potemkin]

No.

You have misunderstood.

Builders will not create that amount of supply since it will work against their own profits.

If it is more profitable for them to build houses, then they will build more houses. The supply of housing will therefore increase. With the same demand and more supply, the price will go down. The builders will calculate the amount of supply and the price which will maximise their profits; this will be a higher supply and a lower price than previously. This is the basic law of supply and demand, @Pants-of-dog. @wat0n is not asserting anything controversial here.

[wat0n]

Yes, exactly.

What you describe is not what happened during the housing bubble.

It was. Firstly, let's look at the levels and YoY change in the nominal Case-Shiller home price index:





https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2022 ... index.html

Here's the inflation-adjusted version:



And the price/rent ratio:



https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2021 ... -rent.html

Now here are some series with dwelling starts and completions for the same period:







https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/p/h ... l-increase

This in turn led to a very large increase in housing inventory nationwide in the mid 2000s that took 6 years to go back to normal levels:



https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/p/h ... key-metric

At no point did builders (intentionally or unintentionally) overproduce or produce so many houses that they overwhelmed demand.

The above graphs would disagree, indeed, it's exactly what happened during the bubble

The housing bubble was due to a lack of regulation in mortgage financing.

Correct, which is why the above happened. Construction did increase, so did inventory which implies many units had not been sold at the time, and eventually it all had to end.

Variation in market prices does not support your claim in any way.

Just because an effect occurs for reasons that are completely different from those we are discussing does not mean that your desired effect will happen.

That location-based variance increased shortly after some jurisdictions approved zoning laws from the 1970s onwards, the current laws are just somewhat reformed/updated versions of the laws passed from the 1970s.

You can even notice it in the graphs above. From the 1970s onwards, there's a clear change in the completions mix towards a greater share of single family homes and a smaller share of multi-family and manufactured homes, as years passed. This makes sense because jurisdictions gradually passed these zoning laws, I think Honolulu and some jurisdictions in California were the early adopters in the 1970s, which is why that doesn't show immediately, but jurisdictions in other states would eventually follow during the 1980s and 1990s. The graph with the starts and completions of 5+ unit structures shows this quite clearly.

In all the low income housing projects I have worked on, the level of quality has been consistently higher than in private market housing.

It has to do with projected maintenance costs over the life cycle of the building. So, unless you provide clear and verifiable examples of your claim, I will dismiss it as libertarian hyperbole just like your claim that rent control causes homelessness.

Didn't we go through the cases of NYC and Chicago a while ago?

So no one wants to live in Manhattan. Got it. Very realistic claim.

Plenty of people don't, actually. I wouldn't, if anything, partly because it's way too expensive for what I'd get but also because I was a bit overwhelmed by the density, and I live in another big city.

But more importantly, why do you think many people moved to the suburbs? Why do voters in suburbs and even in some cities pass zoning laws that limit densification?

[Truth To Power]

Builders will not create that amount of supply since it will work against their own profits.

No, you have completely misapprehended how markets for produced goods work. "Builders" does not describe a single agent with unitary interests capable of making one decision. It is a large set of independently acting agents each with their own interests and business conditions. The fact that it is in the interest of each individual builder that supply be reduced does not matter, because no builder can stop other builders from building (except by funding NIMBY organizations, etc. to influence political decisions about building, which they of course do).

So although it is in the interest of each individual builder that TOTAL supply be reduced, it is also in each INDIVIDUAL builder's interest that HIS OWN supply be INCREASED until his marginal profit is near zero. So through competition, Smith's Invisible Hand ensures that the public interest in greater production and relief of scarcity trumps all the individual producers' interest in reduced production and aggravated scarcity. Smith did observe that producers have a natural tendency to try to reduce supply and increase their profits through collusion, much as labor unions do; but while modern capitalist democracies typically extend legal rent-seeking privileges to labor unions to enable their anti-competitive behavior, they often take just the opposite tack with most types of productive business, actively prohibiting collusive behavior that reduces competition. Of course, the prospect of extracting monopoly rents animates a tremendous amount of political lobbying by business, often successful. But except for natural monopolies like transportation and utility infrastructure, such monopolies are generally imposed politically, from outside the market, and are not a natural result of producers' exercise of their own self-interest in competitive industries like building.

[Pants-of-dog]

If it is more profitable for them to build houses, then they will build more houses. The supply of housing will therefore increase. With the same demand and more supply, the price will go down. The builders will calculate the amount of supply and the price which will maximise their profits; this will be a higher supply and a lower price than previously. This is the basic law of supply and demand, @Pants-of-dog. @wat0n is not asserting anything controversial here.

Yes.

And if you look back, you will note that I addressed this exact model and claimed it was too simplistic to provide a useful solution to homelessness.

For example, demand is not stable. It is increasing. Another: the value of a dollar is decreasing, so prices increase regardless.

So simply providing more incentives for builders to make crappy but expensive condos and suburban houses will not magically make builders work themselves into overabundance.

@wat0n seems to be parroting a libertarian meme that was made famous by a man named William Tucker who wrote a book about how rent control creates homelessness. People like the Cato Institute have made the same claim.

Studies that have looked at it have found some very slight correlation, while other analysts have described the claim as “just plain silly”.

————————

It was. Firstly, let's look at the levels and YoY change in the nominal Case-Shiller home price index:





https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2022 ... index.html

Here's the inflation-adjusted version:



And the price/rent ratio:



https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2021 ... -rent.html

Now here are some series with dwelling starts and completions for the same period:







https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/p/h ... l-increase

This in turn led to a very large increase in housing inventory nationwide in the mid 2000s that took 6 years to go back to normal levels:



https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/p/h ... key-metric

The above graphs would disagree, indeed, it's exactly what happened during the bubble

No.

No builders intentionally built so many houses as to force them to reduce their prices.

While your simplistic model of supply and demand that you and others have repeated many times in this thread is displayed in this last graph, the builders at all times thought they would get the price they were planning on getting before the 2008 financial crisis.

The crisis, by the way, was a far more significant factor when it comes to dropping housing prices.
To simply show that last graph without mentioning the crisis and letting reeaders assume it was due solely to high inventory is incorrect.

Correct, which is why the above happened. Construction did increase, so did inventory which implies many units had not been sold at the time, and eventually it all had to end.

Yes, those are the steps that happened.

None of that supports your claim that builders will intentionally do it all over again.

That location-based variance increased shortly after some jurisdictions approved zoning laws from the 1970s onwards, the current laws are just somewhat reformed/updated versions of the laws passed from the 1970s.

You can even notice it in the graphs above. From the 1970s onwards, there's a clear change in the completions mix towards a greater share of single family homes and a smaller share of multi-family and manufactured homes, as years passed. This makes sense because jurisdictions gradually passed these zoning laws, I think Honolulu and some jurisdictions in California were the early adopters in the 1970s, which is why that doesn't show immediately, but jurisdictions in other states would eventually follow during the 1980s and 1990s. The graph with the starts and completions of 5+ unit structures shows this quite clearly.

No.

You may be reading that into the graphs because you want to be correct, but you may easily be ignoring other factors.

and even if zoning laws have some sort of impact, that does not mean merely changing zoning laws to allow developers to do whatever they want will magically change things.

Didn't we go through the cases of NYC and Chicago a while ago?

Since you are not supporting your point, I will simply thank you for conceding to my experience and you now agree that government will invest in better quality construction when compared to private contractors making private residences for sale.

Plenty of people don't, actually. I wouldn't, if anything, partly because it's way too expensive for what I'd get but also because I was a bit overwhelmed by the density, and I live in another big city.

But more importantly, why do you think many people moved to the suburbs? Why do voters in suburbs and even in some cities pass zoning laws that limit densification?

Loaded questions. Ignored.

Since we see that many people do want to live in dense cities like NYC and Chicago, we can assume that whatever weird notion you think is bad is not considered bad by others.

[wat0n]

@wat0n seems to be parroting a libertarian meme that was made famous by a man named William Tucker who wrote a book about how rent control creates homelessness. People like the Cato Institute have made the same claim.

Studies that have looked at it have found some very slight correlation, while other analysts have described the claim as “just plain silly”.

I have not cited CATO. I cited Brookings, which is not libertarian.

No.

No builders intentionally built so many houses as to force them to reduce their prices.

While your simplistic model of supply and demand that you and others have repeated many times in this thread is displayed in this last graph, the builders at all times thought they would get the price they were planning on getting before the 2008 financial crisis.

Yes, they thought home prices would not go down. So what?

The crisis, by the way, was a far more significant factor when it comes to dropping housing prices.
To simply show that last graph without mentioning the crisis and letting reeaders assume it was due solely to high inventory is incorrect.

The crisis began because inventory was too high, indeed, prices bottomed out once inventory had finally gone back to normal levels.

Yes, those are the steps that happened.

None of that supports your claim that builders will intentionally do it all over again.

It's not about builders planning to increase supply so much as to cause prices to fall. I think @Truth To Power explained it quite intuitively.

No.

You may be reading that into the graphs because you want to be correct, but you may easily be ignoring other factors.

and even if zoning laws have some sort of impact, that does not mean merely changing zoning laws to allow developers to do whatever they want will magically change things.

It's not something I simply made up, there's research suggesting jurisdictions/states where zoning laws were passed are those where developers have been getting the largest margins:

Does America face an affordable housing crisis and, if so, why? This paper argues that in much of America the price of housing is quite close to the marginal, physical costs of new construction. The price of housing is significantly higher than construction costs only in a limited number of areas, such as California and some eastern cities. In those areas, we argue that high prices have little to do with conventional models with a free market for land. Instead, our evidence suggests that zoning and other land use controls play the dominant role in making housing expensive.

Note this is from 2002, before the housing bubble. California was already seen as a poster child for expensive housing even then.

Since you are not supporting your point, I will simply thank you for conceding to my experience and you now agree that government will invest in better quality construction when compared to private contractors making private residences for sale.

Do you want me to bring back the NYC fiasco?

Loaded questions. Ignored.

Since we see that many people do want to live in dense cities like NYC and Chicago, we can assume that whatever weird notion you think is bad is not considered bad by others.

The questions are valid. Why do jurisdictions pass zoning laws to limit density?

[Potemkin]

Yes.

And if you look back, you will note that I addressed this exact model and claimed it was too simplistic to provide a useful solution to homelessness.

It’s not a solution to homelessness, which was precisely my point (though not @wat0n’s point, I’ll grant you). My point was that capitalism, left to its own devices, cannot solve the problem of homelessness. The market value of homes, at equilibrium between supply and demand, will always price some people out of the market. And even if we do not leave capitalism to its own devices, we have the problem of unintended consequences of any intervention in the market - market forces and the profit motive will tend to erase any good we try to do. This is not an argument for more capitalism, it’s an argument to end capitalism. You can’t fix it just by tinkering with it or trying to ‘reform’ it. Ultimately, only socialism can resolve the problem of homelessness.

For example, demand is not stable. It is increasing. Another: the value of a dollar is decreasing, so prices increase regardless.

None of these factors are relevant to the analysis. Demand increases slowly from generation to generation, due to population increase, and inflation has been close to zero for more than a decade now.

So simply providing more incentives for builders to make crappy but expensive condos and suburban houses will not magically make builders work themselves into overabundance.

Crises of overproduction are a thing, @Pants-of-dog. And they keep happening, which rather suggests that capitalists magically will work themselves into overabundence, time and time and time again. Market forces and the profit motive drive the Gaderene swine over the cliff again and again and again….

@wat0n seems to be parroting a libertarian meme that was made famous by a man named William Tucker who wrote a book about how rent control creates homelessness. People like the Cato Institute have made the same claim.

Studies that have looked at it have found some very slight correlation, while other analysts have described the claim as “just plain silly”.

The logic of capitalism leads to it, @Pants-of-dog. If it didn’t, then rent control and zoning would have solved the problem of homelessness long ago. And it hasn’t. The problem is not that the rents are too damn high, the problem is that we live in a capitalist system.

No builders intentionally built so many houses as to force them to reduce their prices.

While your simplistic model of supply and demand that you and others have repeated many times in this thread is displayed in this last graph, the builders at all times thought they would get the price they were planning on getting before the 2008 financial crisis.

Intentionality has nothing to do with it, as @Truth To Power has pointed out. Market forces under capitalism are impersonal and remorseless - man proposes, the market disposes.

The crisis, by the way, was a far more significant factor when it comes to dropping housing prices.
To simply show that last graph without mentioning the crisis and letting reeaders assume it was due solely to high inventory is incorrect.

The financial crisis of 2008 was caused by making mortgages too easy to obtain by people who could never have realistically repaid those loans. This led to an artificially inflated demand for housing stock, which led to a crisis of overproduction in that sector of the economy. Hence the scenes we saw of street after street after street of brand new, empty houses left to rot.

Yes, those are the steps that happened.

None of that supports your claim that builders will intentionally do it all over again.

Crises of overproduction are a thing, @Pants-of-dog. And capitalists never learn from their mistakes. How can they? This is the whole point that Marx was trying to make when he wrote Das Kapital - capitalism cannot be saved through reform or better management. Capitalists cannot “learn from their mistakes”, because these ‘mistakes’ are inherent to capitalism itself as a mode of production.

[Pants-of-dog]

@Potemkin

Do you agree with @wat0n when he claims that builders should and will intentionally build so many homes that overabundance brings down the orice of houses and condis?

———————

@wat0n

1. I do not think that over abundance of homes caused the 2008 financial crisis. This seems like something you made up just now.

2. So you think builders will unintentionally start a new financial crisis or housing bubble that will bring down home prices?

3. Quote the relevant text.

I ignored the rest since it was loaded questions, refusal to support claims, or based on misunderstanding.

[Potemkin]

@Potemkin

Do you agree with @wat0n when he claims that builders should and will intentionally build so many homes that overabundance brings down the orice of houses and condis?

I don’t agree with it, and I don’t think that’s what @wat0n is saying. He is simply saying that if there is more profit to be made from building houses and condos, then they will build more of them. This seems uncontroversial to me. Capitalists will invest their money where they expect a good return on investment. Increase the profitability, and they will invest more money in it. More houses and condos will get built. Will this solve the problem of homelessness? No, because capitalism always prices some people out of the marketplace. This is an inevitable consequence of using the price mechanism to achieve equilibrium between supply and demand. I repeat: only socialism can solve the problem of homelessness.

[Rancid]

I don’t agree with it, and I don’t think that’s what @wat0n is saying. He is simply saying that if there is more profit to be made from building houses and condos, then they will build more of them. This seems uncontroversial to me. Capitalists will invest their money where they expect a good return on investment. Increase the profitability, and they will invest more money in it. More houses and condos will get built. Will this solve the problem of homelessness? No, because capitalism always prices some people out of the marketplace. This is an inevitable consequence of using the price mechanism to achieve equilibrium between supply and demand. I repeat: only socialism can solve the problem of homelessness.

Correct. It will not solve homelessness. Housing isn't a commodity. There are different classes of housing, and those which are most profitable are the higher end. Basically, capitalism will help high end housing cost to stabilize or go down, while low end housing costs will not go down. There's no money in low end basic apartments for example. It's all about the "luxury" apartments that middle class professionals can afford.

I lived in one of those "Luxury" apartments once. They are poorly built, but do a good job of creating a facade like they are fancy with high end materials. The scam works though.

In fact, it's in the interest of builders to keep low end housing costs high, this way they can price up the higher end housing even more using the low end as the market floor to prop the higher end stuff.

[Pants-of-dog]

I don’t agree with it, and I don’t think that’s what @wat0n is saying. He is simply saying that if there is more profit to be made from building houses and condos, then they will build more of them.

@wat0n seems to have gone from arguing that rent control causes homelessness to arguing.that increasing supply will lower prices if demand stays the same, and other basic mechanisms in economics.

This basic mechanism is the kernel of truth around which is wrapped the libertarian myth of rent control causing homelessness.

This is a classic libertarian debate tactic: identify a logical and accepted economic maxim and assume it is the only relevant factor..

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I lived in one of those "Luxury" apartments once. They are poorly built, but do a good job of creating a facade like they are fancy with high end materials. The scam works though.

This is so common that I now refuse to make construction drawings for developers selling condos. I was forced to use details that would inevitably result in moisture damage in the near future.

The builder saves money on construction and the added repair cost is passed on to the buyer.

[BlutoSays]

The Texas republican party is slow boiling towards fascism. This will eventually spread to other parts of the Republican party.

My point? If you are an America hater... America will get it's due and fall into disorder and corruption when the fascists take over.

Disorder? Corruption?

Somewhere out there is a two year old girl whose mother is a stripper, her father is a crackhead (who fucks his dead brother's wife), and grandpa is President of the United States. Fact check THAT.

[Rancid]

Disorder? Corruption?

Somewhere out there is a two year old girl whose mother is a stripper, her father is a crackhead (who fucks his dead brother's wife), and grandpa is President of the United States. Fact check THAT.

What does that have to do with the undeniable anti-democracy and authoritarian tendencies growing in conservative America and the Republican party?