this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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I don't want to own, I'm happy to rent. Landlords provide a service I want, just like my butcher, my dentist, my hairdresser, etc.
Ticket scalpers don't provide tickets, GPU scalpers don't provide GPUs, and landlords don't provide housing. Owning isn't providing a service
A non-market co-op would better suit you. It's still renting, just without the leech on your paycheck.
Here is an example in practice:
https://www.wesa.fm/development-transportation/2022-05-16/how-an-old-housing-model-could-help-pittsburghs-affordability-crisis
All housing should be like this, or outright owned by the user.
they do provide all those things, but they dont produce them. with this logic, grocery stores also do not provide food.
Correct. Grocery stores do not provide food. They instead provide a service, moving and storing food until such time as you buy it. They are a buffer, a cache in the food transportion network.
Farmers produce food.
Landlords do not produce or provide housing. Construction workers, plumbers, electricians, etc provide housing.
That same logic applies to landlords though. They don't provide housing, they provide a service. They provided the capital for the construction workers, plumbers, electricians, etc.
Insurance and taxes are forced as part of typical mortgage payments because otherwise people wouldn't pay them. Coordinating repairs and hiring out those jobs is also part of the service.
Part of the problem is that rent is more expensive than a mortgage. Another problem is that a majority of rentals are owned by corporations that cartel to have ever increasing rental rates. Rent increases aren't tied to anything except they can raise the price on a whim.
If you mortgaged $200k at 3% in 2020 you had a house note of $850. That same house would require a $350k mortgage at 7.5% is $1400. The landlord has the same house note on the same property but is charging rent like they just bought the house last week.
Owning isn't a service.
No, the bank did that when they gave the landlord a mortgage.
That's a property manager, not a landlord. Nine times out of ten, that property management is being handled by a low level worker, while the rich company owner owns everything and extracts the wealth for themselves.
Exactly, they're leeches.
Yeah, you would be a crappy landlord, and if you wouldn't provide any service to me I would have somebody else do it and would sue you to get my expenses back.
"Yeah, you would be a crappy leech"
I ain't got a problem with that. I have no desire to exploit others.
You seem to be confusing maintenance, utilitiy management, and other actual services and therefore actual jobs with landlording, which is not a service.
I guess in your fantasy world all of those jobs happen because the service providers are benevolent clairvoyants and don't need to be vetted, managed, or need oversight.
No, those jobs are still managed and overseen in a co-op.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_cooperative
The system is identical, but instead of the owner profiting for their own sake, there is no owner other than the collection themselves, and no profit.
Hurr durr, so in your fantasy world everybody lives in a coop, and people like me who don't want to are forced into it. No, thanks, I don't want that totalitarian shit.
It's just as "totalitarian" either way. It's esentially the same system without the surplus being taken out of your pocket.
In a landlord system:
You pay $2000 a month. Of that, $1500 goes towards mortgage. Another $200 goes to maintenance, utilities, etc. The landlord pockets $300 for himself.
You have no choice but to rent from a landlord, buy housing yourself, or be homeless
Eventually the landlord pays off the mortgage, and pockets the additional $1500 for themselves because it's "market rate". Your rent remains at $2000/month.
The landlord dictates the rules of the building. You cannot get rid of a tyrant landlord except for moving, which isn't free, easy, or time convenient
In a co-op:
You pay $1000 a month. Of that, $800 goes towards mortgage, far less because it is no longer a speculative investment. The remaining $200 goes to maintenance, utilities, etc. There is no landlord, the collective collectively owns the housing. Nobody pockets any money for themselves.
You have no choice but to rent from a co-op, buy housing yourself, or be homeless
Eventually the co-op pays off the mortgage and your rent then drops to $200/month.
You vote for who is the manager/council of the building(s), which is almost always a tenant themselves. It's generally not a full time job usually single digit hours, and they are compensated. If the manager/council become tyrannical, you vote them out.
You have a clearly better system available, both in terms of your freedom and your wallet. And the better option isn't the landlord. They're all too happy to use your paycheck to buy another yacht or private jet.
And this isn't fantasy, non-market co-ops do exist. Look at the above link about Pittsburgh.
That's a lot of mental gymanstics to justify forcing me into a lifestyle I don't want.
That's my decision, not yours.
Why do you not want a system of cheaper housing, with more power/freedom in your hands?
it's clearly just a landlord pretending to be a happy renter
While possible, there is no way to be certain. Corporate interests like these don't get perpetuated solely by the owning class. It requires swaths of the working class to have stockholm syndrome. So until it devolves into insults, generally I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Botting on the other hand is a different story.
Don't attribute to malice what is adequately explained by ignorance. Owners have had centuries of propaganda to fool people that they actually do anything.
It is bizarre that you think that housing is used as a "speculative" investment. Housing and stocks were monetized because our money is centrally planned and devalues through excessive money creation, and people simply need a place where they can store wealth without having it destroyed. If people could use money to store their wealth housing would be demonetized and prices would go down, then your coop model could naturally outcompete renting if it truly is superior. Fix the money, fix the world.
No it's not.
https://create.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Real-Estate-Speculation.pdf
That's what banks are for.
This is a load of nonsense. People already use money to store their wealth.
Coops haven't taken off because it is in the financial interest of the owning class to maintain the status quo. They do everything in their power to buy up every property they can, and to influence the law to keep their business in power.
The problem is systematic, it requires a fundamental change to the structure of our economy.
I guess you never heard about inflation, must be nice to be that privileged.
I guess you never heard about a savings account or corporate greed, must be nice to be that privileged.
If you believe that a savings account outpace inflation I don't know how to help you. You've obviously never been poor, or very rich, if you swallow the official CPI numbers.
Mine does, at least, actual inflation.
The fake inflation that is just corporate greed is something that can never be outpaced by anything, not even housing as an investment which just makes your point double moot.
The solution is to put an end to the current economic system. It's not serving me or you. It's just stealing from us:
https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
You almost get it, the system is stealing from you, but through monetary debasement. Corporate greed is actually mostly a side effect of monetary debasement, because people are forced to invest into companies to preserve their wealth, and the companies need to increase profits excessively to keep up with inflation, pay out dividends, and raise their stock price.
This is only one of the many ways in which the rich steal from us. Believe me, I fucking get that part.
Cool! You may want to look more into the consequences of monetary debasement though.
Will do. You should look more into non market housing and co-ops though.
And why does monetary debasement happen? you use it like it's just something some evil person did to harm you. when in reality it's a necessity to counteract wealth hoarding.
The Libertarian fever dream of a society without inflation, or straight up wealth taxation can only lead to the creating of a new aristocratic dictatorship, because eventually a small group of people would own everything, literally recreating feudalism.
Ah, another rich, privileged asshole. Inflation hits poor people the hardest, they have nothing to invest, they have no surplus money to absorb increased cost, they have no bargaining power with their employer.
now that is entirely your fault for not being part of a union, the magic thing that actually got the working man everything he has, literally. and no, inflation hits the wealthy the hardest because they have more actual savings, it affects you heavily because you are a good little drone and drank the liberal coolaid.
what is the alternative in a world where people can amass money without anything reducing the real value of said wealth? Entire cities owned by one person?
Of course a privileged asshole blames the victims. Just stop being poor!
I'm unionized, why aren't you? it doesn't make me privileged to not drink libertarian coolaid.
Ah yes, in your fantasy unions exist everywhere. You obviously don't know reality because you're fucking privileged.
no one's stopping you, you think that unions just appeared out of nowhere like some natural resource?
Like I said, victim blaming. Fuck you.
not really, but honestly, most Americans were completely implicit in killing off the unions, you are a victim of your own doing, but hey, if I'm rich just because I work as a cashier at a store that has a union, then you need to really reevaluate your standards.
PS: there is a reason the rich pay millions to pump out propaganda about "muh evil inflation", because unlike you, they do have class consciousness, ironically
that would be an apt comparison if your "butcher" was just a space where you would bring your own cow and butcher it with your own blade, and pay for the privilege of doing all that yourself. but unlike landlords butchers do provide a service.
I guess you live in a ruin if your landlord provides no services. Must be some shithole country, that would be illegal here.
services are provided by service people. plummers, electricians etc. landlords don't do shit themselves.