Why does America Suck at Everything? - Page 14 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15235611
Rancid wrote:Guys, just accept the fact that homelessness is an impossible problem to solve.

Have a beer.


It is not an impossible problem to solve. Many societies throughout time have had no homelessness.

If you read @Potemkin’s criticisms, you will note he discusses conditions that are inherent only to capitalism, and those conditions are the ones under which homelessness is impossible to solve.

Within liberal capitalism, the only way I see to do it is to nationalise the housing industry.
#15235620
Pants-of-dog wrote:
It is not an impossible problem to solve. Many societies throughout time have had no homelessness.

If you read @Potemkin’s criticisms, you will note he discusses conditions that are inherent only to capitalism, and those conditions are the ones under which homelessness is impossible to solve.

Within liberal capitalism, the only way I see to do it is to nationalise the housing industry.


One point and one question:

- That ship has sailed a long long time ago. That is to say, the culture that a home is an investment; a financial instrument first and foremost before it is considered a home has been solidified. Not just in the US but basically all around the world. This is why raising home/rent costs is going up globally, not just in the US, not just in west, but globally. THis is why I say it's in impossible problem.

- How would such a system be nationalized, and how would those that sunk time/money into the homes they own be compensated?
#15235623
Rancid wrote:- How would such a system be nationalized, and how would those that sunk time/money into the homes they own be compensated?


Suppose all that gets sorted somehow, the bigger question is what would a government do better than its own existing self? :knife:

Building Regs are fully regulated by government as it is, what would nationalising people's properties achieve exactly? Make everyone a renter paying rent to some fat communist bloke?

PoD and Potemkin haven't said.
#15235628
Rancid wrote:One point and one question:

- That ship has sailed a long long time ago. That is to say, the culture that a home is an investment; a financial instrument first and foremost before it is considered a home has been solidified. Not just in the US but basically all around the world. This is why raising home/rent costs is going up globally, not just in the US, not just in west, but globally. THis is why I say it's in impossible problem.


It is impossible right now, yes, because of social inertia. And yet within this paradigm lie the seeds of its own destruction, since this is causing conditions that people do not like and will want to change more and more as time progresses and things get worse.

- How would such a system be nationalized, and how would those that sunk time/money into the homes they own be compensated?


I have been rolling this around in my mind recently. When I have something more concrete, I will let you know.

The compensation part is easy: cut them a cheque for the market value of their property.
#15235633
Rancid wrote:How would such a system be nationalized

Let those who have a house keep it until death and then confiscate the property without compensation.

Have the government build houses and lots of them.

Introduce a points system based on need; the neediest having first dibs.

When the housing stock rises, means test and rent government housing at variable rates to all comers. The poorest will be paying a social rent, with the richest paying at the market rate. Everyone else, the in-betweens, pay what is agreed they can afford.

Let's have a mixed economy in housing. Anyone daft enough to buy a house under the new scheme can.

Why not?

Problems solved in around 30 years.


:)
#15235657
How would the government manage and build housing? Would they be large properties like those seen in the US, Canada or Australia or shoe boxes like those seen in communist countries?

Wiki wrote:The Khrushchyovka design represented an early attempt at industrialised and prefabricated building, with elements (or panels) made at concrete plants and trucked to sites as needed. Planners regarded elevators as too costly and as too time-consuming to build, and Soviet health/safety standards specified five stories as the maximum height of a building without an elevator. Thus almost all Khrushchyovkas have five stories.

Khrushchyovkas featured combined bathrooms. They had been introduced with Ivan Zholtovsky's prize-winning Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya building, but Lagutenko continued the space-saving idea, replacing regular-sized bathtubs with 120 cm (4 ft) long "sitting baths". Completed bathroom cubicles, assembled at a Khoroshevsky plant, were trucked to the site; construction crews would lower them in place and connect the piping.

Kitchens were small, usually 6 m2 (65 sq ft). This was also common for many non-élite class Stalinist houses, some of which had dedicated dining rooms.

Typical apartments of the K-7 series have a total area of 30 m2 (323 sq ft) (one-room), 44 m2 (474 sq ft) (two-room) and 60 m2 (646 sq ft) (three-room). Later designs further reduced these meager areas.

Rooms of K-7 are "isolated", in the sense that they all connect to a small entrance hall, not to each other. Later designs (П-35, et al.) disposed with this "redundancy": residents had to pass through the living room to reach the bedroom.

Some apartments had a "luxurious" storage room. In practice it often served as another bedroom, albeit one without windows or ventilation.

These apartments were planned for small families, but in reality it was not unusual for three generations of people to live together in two-room apartments.[citation needed]


Statista has a comparison in average built dwelling size in the US and USSR in the 1970s and 1980s:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/124 ... -cold-war/

How many middle and upper-middle class Western leftists and progressives, especially those in the US, Canada and Australia, are willing to trade their current dwelling for one of these, which they would not even own, for the sake of helping the homeless? Do they regard these apartments as an acceptable solution to homelessness?

Most 1 BR apartments I've seen here are 45-60m2, and I think these count as "small" (even some studios/0 BR units are that size). This would have been equivalent to 2-3 BR apartments in the USSR.
#15235664
Rancid wrote:One point and one question:

- That ship has sailed a long long time ago. That is to say, the culture that a home is an investment; a financial instrument first and foremost before it is considered a home has been solidified. Not just in the US but basically all around the world. This is why raising home/rent costs is going up globally, not just in the US, not just in west, but globally. THis is why I say it's in impossible problem.

- How would such a system be nationalized, and how would those that sunk time/money into the homes they own be compensated?

A home as an investment means people aren't just owning the homes they live in but many people are buying 2nd homes as investment properties and renting them out. Foreign investors are doing the same, especially with condos. All of this decreases supply and increases demand, making prices rise and creating a feedback loop of ever-rising prices.

They need to regulate this. Introduce a speculation tax on homeowners who don't live in the home they own so that it is no longer profitable to speculate on housing. Homes are for living in, not to make money. Raise the tax slowly over 10-15 years so a ton of homes aren't dumped on the market at once and crashes the housing market again. The result will be increased supply and reduced demand, thus lower prices. They also need to regulate real estate industry practices like blind bidding etc.

It is difficult to do this because real estate developers and banks are very rich and politically powerful. Nationalizing all housing is not necessary, housing wasn't a problem until the last 15-20 years.

Other homeless people aren't priced out of the market they are simply addicts who spend all of their money on their addiction and can't manage their own finances and/or can't hold a full-time job and therefore will never have the money for rent needed for housing. This is a health issue. These people need treatment and/or public housing that is already paid for since they can't manage any money they are given.
#15235670
@Unthinking Majority most people working full time making $20 dollars US an hour can't even afford this type of tiny apartment in markets like Denver, Colorado.

I had business meetings here and work. I wanted to avoid the high hotel and costly airbnb rentals. So my husband found a basement two bedroom and one bath apartment in a suburban home for $1200 a month with no security deposit. It includes hot water, and electricity, and a kitchenette, washer and dryer access and she threw in partial time a Honda Accord to drive around in. But the majority of people are paying upwards of $2300 a month for a one bedroom. And it is not furnished like the place I am in. It is very expensive Unthinking. Most people are just priced out of the rental markets.

https://www.apartmentguide.com/apartmen ... 100059039/
#15235671
Tainari88 wrote:@Unthinking Majority most people working full time making $20 dollars US an hour can't even afford this type of tiny apartment in markets like Denver, Colorado.

I had business meetings here and work. I wanted to avoid the high hotel and costly airbnb rentals. So my husband found a basement two bedroom and one bath apartment in a suburban home for $1200 a month with no security deposit. It includes hot water, and electricity, and a kitchenette, washer and dryer access and she threw in partial time a Honda Accord to drive around in. But the majority of people are paying upwards of $2300 a month for a one bedroom. And it is not furnished like the place I am in. It is very expensive Unthinking. Most people are just priced out of the rental markets.

https://www.apartmentguide.com/apartmen ... 100059039/


LET THE FREE MARKET RING!!!


Seriously though, as stated earlier. One of the big issues of the housing market is that developers only build higher end housing. This may help stabilized the top a little, but not so much the bottom. There's no money in housing for the poors.
#15235676
Rancid wrote:Guys, just accept the fact that homelessness is an impossible problem to solve.

It's not impossible because I remember when we had no homelessness. It's actually easily solved if everyone receives just compensation for the forcible removal of their rights to liberty by private landowners. But that would probably require people to find a willingness to know the fact that landowning is nothing but legalized stealing, and people refuse to know that fact.
#15235680
Pants-of-dog wrote:If the wealthiest and most powerful capitalist country cannot deal with homelessness, it is logical to assume that Marxist criticisms are correct.

No it isn't. That is nothing but an absurd and disingenuous false dichotomy fallacy. Both socialists and capitalists push the same stupid lie: that socialism and capitalism are the only alternatives.
#15235681
Tainari88 wrote:@Unthinking Majority most people working full time making $20 dollars US an hour can't even afford this type of tiny apartment in markets like Denver, Colorado.

I had business meetings here and work. I wanted to avoid the high hotel and costly airbnb rentals. So my husband found a basement two bedroom and one bath apartment in a suburban home for $1200 a month with no security deposit. It includes hot water, and electricity, and a kitchenette, washer and dryer access and she threw in partial time a Honda Accord to drive around in. But the majority of people are paying upwards of $2300 a month for a one bedroom. And it is not furnished like the place I am in. It is very expensive Unthinking. Most people are just priced out of the rental markets.

https://www.apartmentguide.com/apartmen ... 100059039/


Now that you mentioned this I'm looking at 1 BR apartments around my neighborhood (Chicago) and it seems my rent will go up :*(

I still don't pay anywhere close to $2300 a month though. I'm currently paying $1200.

Honestly, each metro area is a different market in itself. $2300 for 1 BR is still cheap in NYC or the Bay Area, here it's closer to (but still below) luxury range.
#15235685
wat0n wrote:Now that you mentioned this I'm looking at 1 BR apartments around my neighborhood (Chicago) and it seems my rent will go up :*(

I still don't pay anywhere close to $2300 a month though. I'm currently paying $1200.

Honestly, each metro area is a different market in itself. $2300 for 1 BR is still cheap in NYC or the Bay Area, here it's closer to (but still below) luxury range.


It means you need to make about $6300 a month before taxes to rent a $2300 a month apartment.

A lot of people don't make that gross a month. It would require two people working full time.

Forget about having children and child care living in some small apartment.

Denver, Colorado in the 1980s was cheap! Some $260 dollars a month for rent in a nice hood. Now? No.

I would say If I were to rent again here? It would be max about $1800 a month hopefully a 2 bedroom. But the security deposit would make it a move in cost of about $6000 cash. A lot of people don't have that.

I am so happy, I got rid of all mortgages and fees. Living mortgage free and got income that will come in for years steady. Pension kicking in and social security and taxes in Mexico are very very inexpensive for a property you own outright.

The beauty of remote and work from home is that you can have clients from all over the world. They pay you in dollars, or euros and x or y currencies. You process them through paypal or some bank account from either the states or Mexico. You get a professional international accountant to straighten it all out for you tax wise? And you are set. You work part time and make excellent money and contribute to both Mexican government taxes and US based taxes. It is ideal for me Wat0n.

Mexico has a great standard of living for people allowed to work other markets. For the ones here in Mexico only? Super low salaries. Never get out of the hole. But? The future is changing. Mexican professionals can start charging in other currencies and get hired by US based employers. It will change the standard of living for the Mexicans with degrees, English skills, and computer literacy skills.

The key is going to be the Mexican government investing in their young people and giving them excellent educations. I plan on helping out with that too.
#15235690
Truth To Power wrote:No it isn't. That is nothing but an absurd and disingenuous false dichotomy fallacy. Both socialists and capitalists push the same stupid lie: that socialism and capitalism are the only alternatives.


I am interested in your ideas for making things better TTP.

I hope you open up a thread for me to read your ideas eh?

My ideas for sharing and cooperating have always worked for me. But they only work with really wonderful people who like sharing a lot. The ones who don't? No, they want to control and dominate and have 100 times more than the other person next to them. No way to cure that mentality. They need to do it on their own.
#15235694
Tainari88 wrote:@Unthinking Majority most people working full time making $20 dollars US an hour can't even afford this type of tiny apartment in markets like Denver, Colorado.

I had business meetings here and work. I wanted to avoid the high hotel and costly airbnb rentals. So my husband found a basement two bedroom and one bath apartment in a suburban home for $1200 a month with no security deposit. It includes hot water, and electricity, and a kitchenette, washer and dryer access and she threw in partial time a Honda Accord to drive around in. But the majority of people are paying upwards of $2300 a month for a one bedroom. And it is not furnished like the place I am in. It is very expensive Unthinking. Most people are just priced out of the rental markets.

https://www.apartmentguide.com/apartmen ... 100059039/

Yes i realize this, it is a big problem, for everyone but the rich really. My proposal would reduce housing costs, probably significantly, through regulation.
#15235695
Tainari88 wrote:It means you need to make about $6300 a month before taxes to rent a $2300 a month apartment.

A lot of people don't make that gross a month. It would require two people working full time.

Forget about having children and child care living in some small apartment.

Denver, Colorado in the 1980s was cheap! Some $260 dollars a month for rent in a nice hood. Now? No.

I would say If I were to rent again here? It would be max about $1800 a month hopefully a 2 bedroom. But the security deposit would make it a move in cost of about $6000 cash. A lot of people don't have that.


Yeah, I don't know if Denver passed some restrictive zoning laws in the 1980s. Unfortunately many large cities did, not just in California.

For $2300 you probably need to make something closer to $7500 a month. IIRC the affordability rule of thumb is that rent should take 30% of your income at most.

Of course, this is clearly not the case in many markets. I think Miami is currently the worst, with the average household paying up to 50% of its income in rent.

Tainari88 wrote:I am so happy, I got rid of all mortgages and fees. Living mortgage free and got income that will come in for years steady. Pension kicking in and social security and taxes in Mexico are very very inexpensive for a property you own outright.

The beauty of remote and work from home is that you can have clients from all over the world. They pay you in dollars, or euros and x or y currencies. You process them through paypal or some bank account from either the states or Mexico. You get a professional international accountant to straighten it all out for you tax wise? And you are set. You work part time and make excellent money and contribute to both Mexican government taxes and US based taxes. It is ideal for me Wat0n.

Mexico has a great standard of living for people allowed to work other markets. For the ones here in Mexico only? Super low salaries. Never get out of the hole. But? The future is changing. Mexican professionals can start charging in other currencies and get hired by US based employers. It will change the standard of living for the Mexicans with degrees, English skills, and computer literacy skills.

The key is going to be the Mexican government investing in their young people and giving them excellent educations. I plan on helping out with that too.


Indeed, remote work will make this type of arrangement feasible. It should also show in terms of apartment prices at some point, at the more crazy expensive areas first.

In fact, I recall reading some tech workers in SF were willing to take pay cuts to be allowed to work remotely from a cheaper state, and would move out of California pretty much immediately. Going from, say, San Francisco to Tampa shouldn't represent such a big loss in terms of quality of life (and that's assuming it's even a loss) yet still save you money in terms of rent/mortgage and taxes to make it worthwhile even if you take a pay cut.

By the way, did you have to downsize when you moved there? I'm asking because apartments are pretty large here, a lot larger than in Chile. The standard of how "decent" housing looks like is far more demanding in the US. This type of thing is not easily considered when comparing rents, etc.

I do think Americans are too pampered and could perfectly downsize in the long run, at least in large cities. Not to Soviet levels, that's just way too much, but maybe to e.g. British levels.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/105 ... worldwide/
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