cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/12162
Why? Because apparently they need some more incentive to keep units occupied. Also, even though a property might be vacant, there's still imputed rental income there. Its owner is just receiving it in the form of enjoying the unit for himself instead of receiving an actual rent check from a tenant. That imputed rent ought to be taxed like any other income.
Landlords should not exist in the first place. When fantasizing, why aim for mediocrity?
When fantasizing, why aim for mediocrity?
Mediocrity is as ambitious as liberals can be
They pay for it to be built. Unless you think the workers should work for free and not receive any benefit from their labor. Does hexbear know you feel this way? 🤣
Landlords don't pay for buildings to get built, the renters ultimately do. Landlords are just middlemen.
Landlords pay up front (directly or via a loan, which the renters presumably cannot get) and assume the risk of vacancies and repairs. If landlords ceased to exist, how do you propose new housing stock be created? Should the government be your landlord?
Landlords pay up front (directly or via a loan, which the renters presumably cannot get) and assume the risk of vacancies and repairs.
And then they get bailed out by the government when their risk blows up.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/landlords-were-never-meant-to-get-bailout-funds-many-got-it-anyway-11590494400
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/four-reasons-landlords-should-take-advantage-federal-rental-assistance/
And they have little to no risk in the first place because the market has such high demand that they can pretty much instantly fill vacancies, and they barely do repairs if at all. And at least where I live, renters are required to have/pay for renters insurance which further drives down the landlord's risk. And on top of all that, they have security deposits to lower their risk even further. They don't take on any meaningful risk.
If landlords ceased to exist, how do you propose new housing stock be created? Should the government be your landlord?
Government investment into housing development (which then turn into market rate housing/co-ops), zoning fixes, and a LVT is the solution. The builders get paid, home ownership becomes affordable, the risks are dealt with, and renters aren't being priced gouged. It would also do wonders to help fix the homelessness crisis.
And none of it needs the government to own your home.
Investment into housing development, zoning fixes, market rate housing, co-ops, and a LVT is the solution.
You can’t be serious? Let’s review.
Investment into housing development
By who..? Come on, be honest, who do you think is going to do this 🤣
zoning fixes
That allow who to build more housing?
market rate housing
Is literally what the West has right now.
Co-Ops
We have these now.
and a LVT
This is a fine step. Most states have property taxes now that include the land that a rental sits on.
If you can’t pay for your own housing, your choices are either for the government to pay for it, or for the private sector to pay for it. In either event the entity that owns your house, that isn’t you, is your landlord. If you can’t pay for your own housing, and you don’t want the private sector or the government to provide it for you, then you’re homeless.
By who…? Come on, be honest
It was implied, but I later edited my comment, the government should do so. We have a massive housing crisis on our hands and there needs to be a solution. The government is so bloated that there is easily already the money somewhere to divert to something actually worthwhile.
That allow who to build more housing?
Private developers, individual citizens, the government itself, etc. Anybody and everybody with a willingness to build a house should be able to do so without dealing with the ridiculous zoning laws we have now.
Is literally what the West has right now.
We have these now.
We have market-rate housing and co-ops at such a low rate. We need a massive increase in quantity. The private sector won't do this because there is no profit motive, so it largely has to be the government who is building these. But once their built it shouldn't be the government who owns it, it should be the co-ops, market-rate housing orgs, or literally individual citizens who own the housing,
Most states have property taxes now that include the land that a rental sits on.
I don't want property taxes. Those need to be removed along with all other types of taxation. The only valid type of taxation should be land value tax, and a carbon emission tax. A property tax punishes a land owner for developing their land and using it more efficiently. A land value tax on the other hand incentivizes more effective use. It's a massive topic and a massive difference. If you want to learn more I would recommend looking into georgism.
In either event the entity that owns your house, that isn’t you, is your landlord.
I disagree with your definition.
Ah God, I was wondering (cheering for) when you'd make the turn to "politically only possible with a socialist government" or something along those lines, but now I see you're one of the famed georgists. First I've seen in the wild!
I see you’re one of the famed georgists. First I’ve seen in the wild!
If you have a criticism of georgism I'd love to hear it, because so far I've heard basically none. And I don't think I would go quite so far as to call myself a georgist. It's only something I learned about relatively recently, but the more I learn about it the better it sounds than the current dog shit we are dealing with that we somehow call a tax system. Is georgism perfect? Almost certainly not, but it's a massive step in the right direction.
you’d make the turn to “politically only possible with a socialist government”
You are correct in that the solution to the housing crisis is only possible with a socialist government. Socialism and georgism are not mutually exclusive.
Land is in common ownership + tax based on land distribution. What does this do? Georgism is only relevant to capitalism and is only a minor improvement to efficiency and distribution that will also just become calculated into costs within the C of the C+V equation from marx. It would only have a minor impact based on the size of your house+yard, nothing more. It's in no way progressing us towards socialism. It could be useful for a NEP/current China situation of broadly capitalist relations controlled by a socialist state, I guess, and I'm open to that tax dominating, though it doesn't really consider (or tries to theoretically consider but won't ever be able to) imperialism/unequal exchange and extraction in other lands where the raw product is immediately exported to a country that will refine it.
Land is in common ownership
In some versions of socialism, not all. And technically in a georgist system, depending on implementation, all land is considered the governments land, it's owned by the common people. From there individuals pay society for exclusivity to a plot.
It would only have a minor impact based on the size of your house+yard, nothing more. It’s in no way progressing us towards socialism.
I'm not an economist, so my understanding is limited, but my understanding is that a LVT results in the landlords themselves paying the tax instead of tennants. The end result is a giant hit to the wallets of landlords across the country. That's a very good thing, and does indeed get us closer to socialism. Less landlords, less landlord power, the better.
Additionally, even if it only slightly effects land use efficiency (which I disagree that it would be slight) any increase in efficiency will increase the proportion of land that is for sale and therefore reduce prices.
And keep in mind, this is only part of the solution, not the sole solution. Zoning still needs to be fixed and there needs to be massive government investments into co-op housing developments.
Read some theory, it kinda sounds like you're basing this entirely off of YouTube videos you've seen (including your understanding of socialism)
Landlords increase rent to make up for it, what does georgism do? Landlords don't exist as such in socialism, but how they do exist still isn't really impacted by this shift.
Georgism is a misunderstanding of the causes of issues at the "tax affecting productivity" level. That's not the cause of our problems.
The lack of massive investment of housing and zoning are, again, results of a problem not the problem itself. These issues don't exist with good planning, and that's why georgism is just irrelevant except as a bandage for some of the ills of capitalism temporarily
Read some theory, it kinda sounds like you’re basing this entirely off of YouTube videos you’ve seen (including your understanding of socialism)
If you want to convince me, mocking me isn't the way to go about it. I'm as much of a leftist/anti-capitalist as it gets in my area, and I almost certainly agree with you on more things than the average american. If you can't even hold a civil conversation with me, how could you ever hope to convince anybody else?
But yes, most of this is based on a rather light understanding as I have already mentioned. I live in the U.S., a capitalist country that very intentionally does not allow workers to have free time. I have a disabled girlfriend that I take care of. The amount of time I have to myself that is truly free time is extremely limited. I'd rather spend that time playing video games and watching youtube than reading economics books. It's shocking, I know. And during the rare times that I am able to find the time/energy to read, I'd rather read science fiction, which rarely if ever goes into economic theory.
Landlords increase rent to make up for it, what does georgism do? Landlords don’t exist as such in socialism, but how they do exist still isn’t really impacted by this shift.
Again, they can't exactly just increase rent to pass off the tax.
The lack of massive investment of housing and zoning are, again, results of a problem not the problem itself. These issues don’t exist with good planning
How is investment in housing and zoning fixes not a form of better planning?
georgism is just irrelevant except as a bandage for some of the ills of capitalism temporarily
I disagree that it is just a bandage. But even if it was, I'd rather have a bandage than a fucking open wound like we have now.
If the government doesn't collect wealth in the form of a land tax, how do you suggest we do it?
Not to pester too much, but georgism, philosophically, seems entirely based in an attempt to find some liberal justification for a broad solution to many problems. It attempts to find some legal method within the assumptions of the capitalist system (ownership as it exists in capitalism being key) to mitigate the problems that the original assumption creates. Capitalism will just react and reform to its benefit around those new mitigations systems like it always does. But the georgists ideas remain limited to the set of possibilities that capitalists have limited debate to.
If you want to argue that it is a valid use of the state to produce low cost housing then this is an interesting conversation. But much of the rest of your response is nonsense. For instance -
I don't want property taxes. Those need to be removed along with all other types of taxation. The only valid type of taxation should be land value tax, and a carbon emission tax.
You’re going to fund all the social programs of a modern government via, essentially, no taxes? Come on. If you want the government to provide a robust social safety net, including housing, you’ll be looking at Nordics level taxation.
I disagree with your definition.
You’re going to fund all the social programs of a modern government via, essentially, no taxes?
No, it would be funded through land value and carbon taxes. Those two tax types should be the only valid form of taxation. We should still have enough tax to pay for it (after we ditch the bloat our government has. Example).
If you want the government to provide a robust social safety net, including housing, you’ll be looking at Nordics level taxation.
People always complain about such a system but they actually have healthcare, so seems like a moot point to me.
You can be wrong if you want to be.
First off, there's no need to be a dick about it. Second, that definition says person, whereas you said entity.
-
"In either event the entity that owns your house, that isn’t you, is your landlord."
-
"a person who rents land, a building, or an apartment to a tenant."
-
Landlords pay up front (directly or via a loan
You're describing a developer. Most landlords aren't developers.
And yes, the government should take on the role of developing residential properties and ensuring everyone has access to them. Housing is not a commodity, it's a basic human need.
not to mention, many big developers aren't paying cash to construct housing. they get a loan or establish a line of credit with or brokered via investors/banks/funds. the first rule of doing anything under capitalism is to use somebody else's money to do it, and all those loans drawing on lines of credit ultimately leads back to the central bank anyway.
it's a massive shell game to obscure the fact that workers do all the work to create the products and services and then have to pay their shitty wages right back to access the very things they create, just so maybe 2-3 million megarich assholes can roll around in piles of money and make an income for doing literally nothing.
landlords are among the most nakedly parasitic sectors of society, and even then we still get bootlicking bozos pretending they "provide" housing or are somehow responsible for the community infrastructure that makes living in the place where the house exists desirable.
Oh the risk! Well sure that entitles them to take money from people who actually work. Go find a landlord and
Oh, so you just want the state to be your landlord? Enjoy your cinderblock gulag.
You can rent from someone else. That’s actually easier than moving cities, states, or countries.
If you want to argue that the government should develop low cost housing, that’s an interesting discussion. In general, “supply” regardless of how it’s created, is the answer to high housing prices. I do fear that you’ll be dissatisfied with the quality of that government housing.
No it's not. That's why you have houses and apartments for hypothetical millionaires going empty because no one can actually afford them. As long as homes and real estate have speculative value there is no guarantee that "supply" will positively affect prices or affect them enough to provide housing for everyone.
The simple fact that there are more empty homes and apartments than there are homeless people disproves your premise.
Yes, Socialism has home ownership.
The only thing that is state affiliated more than in Capitalism is the mean of production (businesses) being owned by the state. Everything else is still owned by individuals.
You are thinking of Communism.
A private domicile is not private property, so yes even under communism people will own thier own homes.
Western countries already provide resources for our less fortunate friends and neighbors. But we don’t use the police power of the state to force those resources on people that don’t want them. We also don’t round them up and force them to fight for our Moscovi overlords that are just a itsy-bitsy more equal than the rest of us. Hmmmm
In the west all of your children have the freedom to grow up as homeless crack heads living in tent cities, how inspiring.
😂🤣😂
Median US Household Income - $70,784
Median Moscovi Household Income -$27,634
Well shit, little Yuri, looks like a good deal for us.
now compare the amount of homeless people in both, also you linked the same article twice
btw now you have edited your article remind me, is russia a socilaist country or a neo-liberal one, like the USA?
you have linked me info of Russian from 2010-present, in what way am I remotely suggesting a capitalist, neo-liberal country is what im adovcating for?
Homeless in the US - 0.2% of the population.
Homeless in Russia - 3.5% of the population.
Is this going the way you thought it would?
Where did I use modern day capitalist russia to prove my point again?
mfw countries where the median income is 10% of the USA's can provide more housing for the people living in it, you are so cucked lmao
The US murder rate (6.81) and Russia (6.80) are virtually identical. The suicide rates though…
US suicide rate - 14.04
Russia suicide rate - 21.6
No word on the window rate for each country.
US - 6.951
Russia - 5.477
I think it's pretty hilarious that you assume everybody opposed to capitalism is Russian, and use that as a counter-example for why "communism" is failing today.
Did history stop for you in 1991 or something? The neoliberals won; Russia has been a hyper-capitalist abomination living in the corpse of the USSR for over three decades now. Why would we care that Russia sucks? Everybody knows it sucks now.
"socialism is when you're in russia. the more russia you are in, the more socialism is what's wrong america #1 football hotdog toby keith." - the diabetic gym teacher who taught this guy's social studies class.
I've read and re-read this thread... Do you think Russia is currently communist? Like... Putin is a communist, the United Russia Party is communist etc etc. Is this actually your belief?
them up and force them to fight for our Moscovi overlords that are just a itsy-bitsy more equal than the rest of u
Nice whataboutism you tankie! Centrist liberal tankie!!!
Western countries already provide resources for our less fortunate friends and neighbors
Lol. Lmao even
It’s true. That’s why our homelessness incidence are less than 10% of yours. Maybe that’s why you’re trying to drive yours down by conscripting your homeless and forcing them into “former glory” wars?
- Do you just assume that everyone who disagrees with you is a Russian?
- Did you forget Russia hasn't been communist for over three decades?
Hahahahahahahhahaha
You aren't a real person, 'opinion' discarded
Oh, so you just want the state to be your landlord? Enjoy your cinderblock gulag.
As someone who has been homeless, I would MUCH rather live my entire life in a "cinderblock gulag" then spend even a second homeless. So, yes, if we ever were to get such buildings provided to us from the government, I would greatly enjoy them.
sis, I would love living in a small apartment complex where everything is either five minutes away or easily accessed by public transportation
I would love being in an environment that promotes a collective spirit where people spend more time outside than inside
I would love having housing be 4% AT MOST of my monthly paycheck
but we gotta have idiots with trillions because they deserve to hang us out to dry, is that it?
of course they do. we actually understand that production doesn't require middle men. we're communists, fool.
No they usually don't pay for anything to be built. Even if they did, they just pay for it with other peoples labor (their renters)
Because you don't seem to be connecting the points together. Lead a horse to water but can't force it to drink kinda situation.
Landlords didn't do anything but have capital. Workers built the damn thing.
That's the water I was talking about.
smh at the products of the American school system
you're replying to someone who said landlords are unnecessary middlemen in the construction of housing. your mocking analogy is "people buying things with credit cards". do you not see how funny a self-own that is?
the landlords are the credit cards in your analogy. people bought things before credit cards existed. people built housing before landlords existed. landlords are as necessary to the building of housing as credit cards are to the buying of toilet paper.
tho I wouldn't be surprised if you thought Buttcoin was necessary for cleaning your shitty ass.
Housing can get built without the professional middlemen involved, believe it or not.
People, collectively.
Ideally all the shitheads obsessed with "owning" get removed from the equation
Communism brought Russia from a feudal industrial backwater to putting the first people in space in the span like 20-30 years, and they crushed the Nazi war machine in the process.
Literally every other western country had some sort of nonaggression pact with the Nazis in that time period, Stalin wanted to send a million men to Czechoslovakia to stop Hitler there but the allies said no.
Communist governance is responsible for dramatically increasing living standards of people across the world. A clever trick that capitalists like to do is pretend that all the work done by the CPC in the last few decades has actually been done by capitalism!
A pact that was a necessity when all the Allies rebuffed the USSR, but also a pact that documents show the USSR never even intended to honour from day one.
Poland was invaded by both the Soviet Union and Germany.
The USSR entered Poland after it was clear the Polish army was collapsing. The alternative was to let the Nazis occupy the whole thing. Britain and France went to war with Germany to preserve Polish independence. If they thought the USSR was just as bad as the Nazis, why didn't they also declare war on the Soviets in 1939?
Poland was invaded by both the Soviet Union
More like the Soviet Union liberated Polish-occupied Belarus and Ukraine after Poland stole Belarusian and Ukrainian land during the early 1920s. Or are you one of those Polish ultranationalists seething that Lviv is a Ukrainian city instead of a Polish one?
My grandmother would be dead or germanified and we would probably be speaking german if not for the Soviet Union.
They saved Poland dumbass.
Go and have a look at Russia to see how how this communist/socialist mindset worked out for them.
With an 89% home ownership rate? Yeah, damn, it would really suck for 9/10 people to live in a home that they own.
Almost all the top countries on that list are socialist or were socialist until the 90s. It's almost as if socialism actually results in homes being treated as basic needs for people instead of commodities for landlords to make money off of.
I used to be a bourgeois land owner, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
Did you see that poor person? Filthy creatures.
Let me guess, it was also Venezuela's fault too?
People like you are all NPCs.
Heres one of the largest housing developments in new york: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-op_City,_Bronx
Let's start with pretty much the entirety of millenials and gen z that would love to own a home.
I mean, then there's the homeless.
Not landlords, because we're imagining a different society than the single model in your aphantasia afflicted head, believe it or not
Landlords do not build houses, they just rent them out. Housing, shelter call it whatever you like is human right and essential need, so it should not be a part of speculations for profits. Now you can see overpriced real estate because of investors who buy it and never live there. All this "helpers" who rent out their apartments bring more harm than benefit for society (they at least contribute to a price growth in real estate). Buildings could be constructed by government owned organizations in order to provide society with housing, no need in speculators to solve problems.
Ok, so you want the government to be the landlord as you have more trust in a government monopoly than in a market.
Yup. Basically. Although it is worth noting that the type of government we currently have, beholden to capital, is not trustworthy. Their priorities first and foremost are to serving corporate interests, which is probably why you trust them so little. Any power or public capital they are entrusted with gets pumped into private companies whose sole purpose is to make as much profit as possible for as little expenditure.
Any government brave enough to outlaw private landlords is going to have much more socially oriented priorities and will be much more inclined to serve the public good rather than the almighty market.
depends on problem you are going to solve, if you want to provide people with affordable housing, then challenge your beliefs in almighty market.
Fair.
If we, the workers, are the ones running that government monopoly and not an oligopoly of landlords and other speculators then yes, that would be more fair. It's also a vastly more efficient way to guarantee that everyone is housed, as history shows
Hmm yes, when I want a house built I call up a landlord, this is very logical behavior
70% of housing stock in the UK was built by the government in the 1970s
The same crews who do now 🤨
I never saw a landlord or developer do any work to prepare an area or build anything on any of the jobsites I was on.
Landlords should pay 100% tax on their empty rentals.
You'll see how fast they will accept any and all new tenants, at a much lower price.
Which would also flood the market with housing, lowering the prices even more until renting becomes an actual beneficial option compared to buying and paying off a loan.
Real estate would also not be seen as an investment anymore.
100% on their rental value, which for many landlords is directly tied to massive loans they're underwater on. That's why they'd rather have unoccupied rentals with nominally high values than reduce the rental price to match the market and have their loans called in.
The rental value would be $0.
Contrary to lemmy.world logic, 0% of 0 is 0
No, the rental value is the nominal price of the rental. This is extremely simple, a child could understand this. The landlords have gotten loans based on the assumed rental income, which is not $0.
They aren't making any income on rent. So what % would an income tax have to be to be >0$ exactly?
Seriously? OK, you must not really have thought about this before. They are listing their properties for rent but nobody is renting them. They're listing those properties at the nominal rental value. So the tax would be on that nominal rental cost. This is like, babytown frolics level simple to connect the dots on even if you don't agree with it - understanding this should have clicked like two replies back.
nominal income
nominal income
nominal income
you're welcome to disagree but wasting this much time pretending to not understand is just childish, have a very nice day weirdo
It's taxed upon selling, for the value of the house, which would tax exactly what you're talking about.
Trying to act like I'm not understanding makes you sound "childish" my dude. Grow tf up and READ. INCOME TAX ON ZERO DOLLARS IS ZERO DOLLARS
Edit: This dude's banner is a 9/11 photo. Nice.. I'm arguing with a literal troglodyte over the semantics of a dumb article title.
Edit: This dude's banner is a 9/11 photo. Nice.. I'm arguing with a literal troglodyte over the semantics of a dumb article title.
amazing, now you understand and it's almost like I didn't have to waste any time explaining this stupid concept to you
thanks, good job, very useful
You are 100% part of the problem for hexbear's negative view from outsiders.
Tax the rich's 0$ monthly rents! That'll show um.
The sad part is that I'm on your team and you're trolling me for no reason.
One more reply, since I expect you haven't got the testicular fortitude to keep up - I, and probably all hexbears, think landlords shouldn't exist at all. Your idea that some liberal plan to tax them differently is indicative of hexbear is a fundamental ignorance of our actual politics.
Landlords should not exist in any fashion.
I think you're barking up the wrong tree, comrade. I think u/Zuberi really is anti-landlord and hasn't said anything to suggest otherwise. And their comment about hexbear's reputation on other instances wasn't anything having to do with the OP, it was about how you were insulting them.
if that's the case it's weird that they decided to be a pedant and pretend not to understand the extremely plain and simple original statement. It's plain they disagreed with it but didn't want to just say that.
For real, nat—take a chill pill. I say this with all the good faith love I share with all my comrades. Somebody being a pedant doesn't automatically make them a chud. @Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com reads like a fellow traveler still working out their
. Cut them a little slack.Hear me out, FUCK landlords. But I shouldn't have to say that to get respect out of the leftist crowd.
In the event we're keeping capitalism here, an empty-home tax would make more sense than an income tax on empty homes. But that would still NOT be an "income" tax. Just let me be pedantic and shit on an article title without throwing me in w/ the lemmy.world crowd :(
Thumbs up emoji goes here.
Sorry that we come across as hostile weirdos sometimes. We're actually very nice hostile weirdos once you get to know us!
next time just explicitly state your objection instead of pretending to misunderstand
They got mad about my 9/11 user banner image, beyond just intentionally pretending to misunderstand instead of stating their objection. I think my chud detector is in good working order tbh
Weird, maybe, but the argument wasn't an ideological one from what I can tell, it was one about the wording not making sense that I honestly didn't understand either. I admit to being stupid about economic things, but I didn't know that "nominal income" meant something different than just income.
Like, you're going off with "You're typical of the "HEXBEAR IS RUINING THE LEMMYVERSE" chud" when glancing at their history, it doesn't look like they're a chud at all and were actually defending Hexbear when lemmy.world did the preemptive defederation shit.
They got mad about my 9/11 user banner image, beyond just intentionally pretending to misunderstand instead of stating their objection. I think my chud detector is in good working order tbh
The best part of this is the person whose idea I was trying to explain to you - and never once endorsed - isn't a Hexbear user. You're just full-on making up shit when all I was trying to do was explain the concept a user from a completely different instance suggested. Congrats on being too dumb to both a) get the idea and b) attribute the idea to the correct instance.
This is all entirely too perfect, I hope you don't delete your replies because they are a perfect encapsulation of the liberal anti-hexbear derangement.
I literally just tried to explain the idea that you were feigning misunderstanding, I have not endorsed anything. You're typical of the "HEXBEAR IS RUINING THE LEMMYVERSE" chud - making up ideas in your head and getting mad about them. Reading comprehension and your big feelings really get in the way of your engagement with the lemmyverse.
Any outsider observing this interaction and taking your side is an idiot. You behaved like a petulant child, repeating your one point no matter how many times the actual situation was explained to you. And then getting up on your soapbox acting haughty when someone with more patience for you than you deserved gives up. Reddit tier troll.
Idk my guy the other poster explains it pretty well, at this point it just looks like you're refusing to learn
Real estate should be considered an investment. It's one of the few things people invest in that is actually valuable. It's the speculative and labrynthine financial markets that are the problem in that regard.
The only reason mega-renters like Blackrock and Vanguard are able to monolithically buy property in the first place is because of dubious speculative earnings and government bailouts.
It's not surprising that home ownership was actually a lot higher 60 years ago.
But why should it be anything but a personal investment? I'm not seeing your point there. Isn't it better for everyone to decommodify housing?
Why should it be anything but a personal investment?
What do mean? I don't see how what I said negates that.
Isn't it better for everyone to decommodify housing?
Not really no. Commodfication is why things used to be cheap. High [insert item here] prices are directly related to money printing, corporate welfare and regulations that are designed to raise the barrier of entry for normal people.
Commodifying things makes them cheap? As opposed to decommodifying? That makes no sense
Making something unsuitable for investment so we preserve its primary function (houses being a home to a family and not an airbnb or an empty rental).
People require to land to live on, it is a basic necessity, and basic necessities absolutely should not be considered an investment.
What should people invest in then? How is land ownership handled? Etc etc etc
What should people invest in then?
Literally any other type of business.
How is land ownership handled?
People should still be able to own land for their own personal use. Land used to extract wealth on the other hand should be more tightly controlled. We should ideally implement georgism to free up the land that the rich own and to increase land use efficiency. After that ownership should look pretty much identical.
Literally any other type of business
You've just eliminated perhaps the safest, most attainable method for the average person to achieve passive income.
Owning land for personal use
Other than living on it, why would someone want to own land?
You’ve just eliminated perhaps the safest, most attainable method for the average person to achieve passive income.
If the "safest most attainable way" to get wealth requires others to be homeless or unable to afford a basic necessity then it isn't not worth it.
And it arguably isn't the most attainable way, because so many people are being priced out of owning a home because of the current system's failures.
Other than living on it, why would someone want to own land?
To use it for a business or enjoyment. I'm not sure where you are going with this.
To use it for a business
This is wealth extraction
Or enjoyment
So you're okay with some rich person owning acreage as long as it's for their own enjoyment but not for a normal dude who has an investment property and is holding out for a renter that will adequately cover his costs and generate some profit?
This is wealth extraction
Yup. I'm ok with some kinds, just not the kind that fucks over the creation/distribution of basic necessities.
So you’re okay with some rich person owning acreage as long as it’s for their own enjoyment
Yeah that's bullshit too and shouldn't be allowed. Even for personal use/enjoyment there should be a hard limit.
but not for a normal dude who has an investment property and is holding out for a renter that will adequately cover his costs and generate some profit?
That's bullshit too.
I'm okay with some kinds (of making money with land)
Like what? There are infinite ways to make money with land that are more useless and exploitative to society than renting a house.
Yeah that's bullshit too (in regard to rich people owning acreage for enjoyment)
I'm glad you changed your mind.
Yeah that's bullshit too (in regard to a normal dude owning an investment property)
Why?! What's so morally reprehensible about someone working hard and being fiscally responsible to provide a service that people actually need as opposed to an ice cream shop or whatever? Do you realize someone has to actually build/maintain/renovate houses? Usually at great financial risk to themselves? The primary reason most houses exist is because someone took a personal risk in the hopes of coming out ahead from where they were originally. They can only charge what the market will bear after all.
Like what?
Anything not needed for human survival.
There are infinite ways to make money with land that are more useless and exploitative to society than renting a house.
This is just a whataboutism fallacy.
What’s so morally reprehensible about someone working hard and being fiscally responsible to provide a service that people actually need
Landlords do no more to provide housing than ticket scalpers do to provide concert tickets.
Landlords don't work hard. Owning is not a job that provides for society.
Do you realize someone has to actually build/maintain/renovate houses?
I sure am aware. And I'm always aware that the people who do those things aren't landlords. They're construction workers and maintenance workers.
The primary reason most houses exist is because someone took a personal risk in the hopes of coming out ahead from where they were originally.
The landlords take no such risk because the demand for housing is so high that any vacancies can be filled as quick as they like.
They can only charge what the market will bear after all.
Funny how "what the market can bare" equates to entire generations being priced out of owning a home.
Anything not needed for human survival.
A thriving business selling stuff people don't need for them to buy with excess capital they no longer have.
This is just a whataboutism fallacy.
No you're just ignoring a hole in your argument. I could profitably buy a plot of land and use it to store pig feces which happens in North Carolina.
Landlords do no more to provide housing than ticket scalpers do to provide concert tickets.
This analogy doesn't track. They aren't selling something the person could otherwise afford or even want to buy.
Landlords don't work hard. Owning is not a job that provides for society.
Massive overgeneralization. I know contractors that built houses and eventually built one and rented it out for additional income. This means they worked to make the money to buy the land and the materials and invested their own time in building it which saved them a ton on labor costs. Somebody moved into it and lived there (e.g. value). Somebody should report them to the secret police!
I sure am aware. And I'm always aware that the people who do those things aren't landlords. They're construction workers and maintenance workers.
Again. Sometimes that's the case. Sometimes it's a dude taking care of everything himself on the weekend.
The landlords take no such risk because the demand for housing is so high that any vacancies can be filled as quick as they like.
You've never had to clean up a house destroyed by drug addicts. Believe me they can do a ton of damage. There's plenty of risk. No one in this thread understands that though.
Funny how "what the market can bare" equates to entire generations being priced out of owning a home.
I wonder if the macroeconomic factors could play into that? You know? Stagnating wages, a falling dollar, endless wars, cronyism, endless immigration, enriching Blackrock during the 2008 bank crisis so that it can single handedly buy more single-family homes than any other entity in American history. Nope it's Jim from work that rents a condo.
to buy with excess capital they no longer have.
That's not true because housing is not the only form of wealth.
I could profitably buy a plot of land and use it to store pig feces which happens in North Carolina.
And did I say I approve of that? No. That's why it is a whataboutism fallacy. The topic is housing. Pointing out other horrible ways to use land doesn't change the fact that the current housing situation is bullshit.
They aren’t selling something the person could otherwise afford or even want to buy.
More people could afford to own their house if not for landlords hoarding the supply.
I know contractors that built houses and eventually built one and rented it out for additional income.
Those cases are rare.
https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/landlord-statistics
You’ve never had to clean up a house destroyed by drug addicts. Believe me they can do a ton of damage. There’s plenty of risk. No one in this thread understands that though.
This is again a rare case.
I wonder if the macroeconomic factors could play into that? You know? Stagnating wages, a falling dollar, endless wars, cronyism, endless immigration, enriching Blackrock during the 2008 bank crisis so that it can single handedly buy more single-family homes than any other entity in American history. Nope it’s Jim from work that rents a condo.
It's all of the above. Landlords are a part of the problem, and I never once said they are the sole problem.
There's more than enough housing that everyone can afford to own? Why are there homeless people then?
So, so many reasons...
At the individual level drugs are a HUGE reaaon, mental illness, poor care for veterans etc Although there is SOME government housing and charitable housing for people that need it.
At a macro level there is money printing, endless war, corporate welfare, cronyism etc
Let's face it though we could probably house everyone in Europe within South Dakota alone. Not to mention most homeless people are in extremely expensive areas like LA, Austin, Seattle and New York.
Passing an ill-conceived law that will have unintended consequences should be way, way low on the list of ways to lower housing prices. Especially since it's highly likely it won't be enforced properly.
Its interesting that you say drugs and mental illness are the problems. Isn't the fact that housing is commodified and costs money the HUGE problem? They can't afford it, is the reason they're homeless. The way you're making it look is that the problem is just them, which is an extremely dehumanizing starement, especially when you are ignoring the obvious answer that's its because some people are allowed to profit off of others need for shelter.
Are you a libertarian? The way you bring up printing money, cronyism, ill-conceived laws etc. sounds like you might be
I'm not a libertarian. Printing money, endless wars, corporate welfare, cronyism, ill-conceived laws and poor enforcement are very real MACRO (not individual) causes and you've not refuted them at all. These affect the price of EVERYTHING.
At the individual level homelessness can be fueled by all the things I mentioned. Some of those things are self inflicted and some are out of the control of the person. Either way there's nothing dehumanizing about stating facts.
I get the feeling in this thread that everyone thinks housing should be free which is... ridiculous... Nothing is free because everything has a cost. I agree, however, with the overall issue of corruption and exploitative wealth -- wealth that is often derived by anticompetitive, preferential treatment etc The average dude renting a house doesn't want to screw poor people they just want an alternative to a 401k so they can retire.
You're getting that feeling because people in this thread do think that housing should be decommodified. We don't think anyone should be able to profit off of human needs. Housing should be a right. Our needs shouldn't be exploited so some "average dude" can use us to fund the retirement we aren't going to get.
The reason you think this is ridiculous is because you're a
You think if you invest smart then you'll get to wear the boot, but there's a crisis in profitablity. They're going to be all out of boots, no matter what you do.
And when you say "there's more than enough housing for everyone" and then say there's homeless people because they're addicts and mentally ill, that's not just facts, its a pretty fucked up dehumanizing perspective
You've resorted to name-calling in a way that is not only innaccurate but indicative of how hard you've thought about your argument.
I have no illusions about "wearing the boot" in fact I've already talked about the actual injustice that's causing pricing issues across the board. (e.g. avoidable macroeconomic factors) You're not proposing some revolutionary idea. 'Everyone should have a house man..' Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. You can disagree with me but don't bother unless you're going to explain yourself.
"Housing is a human right!"
Now what? Do you plant a house seed and grow a house? You can demand whatever you want but that doesn't mean you're going to get it. Even in a world of minimal scarcity the one thing that will always be at a premium is people's time and they usually they don't hustle unless there is something in it for them especially if they are tacking on a roof in the middle of July.
The reality is this non-renter economy idea is just going to move the cost elsewhere and those with the means are going to abuse it in even worse ways that you haven't thought of yet.
We know that housing can be decommodified and that everyone can have a home because socialist nations have already done that.
The concept has been thought through. Theres a nearly 200 year long intellectual tradition of thinking this through. You're just really into the idea of exploiting other people because you and people like you feel entitled to passive income.
Really butchering the language here to not say "passive income" or "making other people work for me"
I don't have a problem with either one of those things so pick your favorite.
You forget that for one to acquire said property one must first "exploit" one's self. What I do with the earnings from my exploitation is my business.
ITT: "If not for ticket scalpers, concerts wouldn't happen! They're providing a valuable service by hoovering up supply with their high capital and low morals, and then drip feeding it back to us at increased prices! Ticket scalpers, by buying all tickets at once, increase demand for bigger concerts, a net win for everyone!"
Anyway, yes, it won't fix the whole systemic issue and calling it an "income tax" is silly (it can just be a tax), but if the way to get you over the line is getting landlords to pay extra for empty apartments/houses so be it.
Landlords should not
Not a response to the post. Just making a statement about landlords.
Well eminent domain says we have to pay you a fair rate for the house. The property was taxed $2000 and earned no income last year so here's a bill for $40,000.
Income tax on no income sounds fucking stupid. Just up property tax on the 3th or 4th house or apartment by a fuckton, watch everyone panic sell their shit crashing the housing market into oblivion and call it a day. Ez affordable housing.
But then the almighty homeowners home value might collapse too!
But for real landlords wohld start destroying their own housing stock to take some tax write off or insurance fraud.
Most landlords are like massive corporations, if all the property your corporation owned suddenly exploded it may rise a few eyebrows. Someone's rich aunt renting their second summer home isn't having that much of a detrimental effect on the housing market as corpos buying up all available housing.
My point is they would find some way to legally dispose of their stock to artificially decrease supply and raise prices again. Its particularly the big corporations who would do this.
Maybe but then like stop whatever loophole they are using. Doing nothing is quite a lot worse.
Thankfully the housing market is still fine in my country so I don't have a dog in the race but people in the US should take some pointers from the French and fucking riot at this point. All of yall have like 5 guns per person yet you are like the most demure country when it comes to politicians and corpos just exploiting the fuck out of you.
people in the US should take some pointers from the French and fucking riot at this point. All of yall have like 5 guns per person yet you are like the most demure country when it comes to politicians and corpos just exploiting the fuck out of you.
Careful, that kind of talk gets you labeled a tankie
Multiple holder companies incoming. Now that will need to be plugged up.
Not saying this is a bad idea. But they will find loopholes.
landlords should be forced to pay a house tax on every house they don't live in to the value of one house
Whoa now, let's not be unreasonable. They can be taxed at a geometric rate, starting at 100% the value of the house and doubling for every one thereafter.
Property taxes do generally work this way. Maybe they should increase property taxes 2-3x, but also raise the homestead exemption so that owning and living in the home is no more expensive.
yeah I wasn't being serious any actual solution is going to need to be more nuanced than that. Probably involving state provided housing and likely involving high density accomodation. Although it's a real shame that high density accomodation is archtecturally associated with shoddily built housing intended for people the government doesn't give a fuck about because palaces and castles are also examples of high density accomodation.
I think the ideal solution would look like high density state provided housing that is designed to be beautiful and pleasant to live in.
How are you supposed to keep them from passing on the cost of taxes to their tenants?
You have to realize that they still "own" a limited resource that lends them power to leverage over others. The only way you make this abuse go away is to have the people collectively own the land. Any accommodating regulations you place on landlords will only be temporary until they are worn down and removed.
I hear this argument a lot and it's a trick to get the libs to not support taxes against landlords. In this situation, rental rates are dictated by how much the market can bare because there just aren't enough houses. Prices are set to the maximum so landlords would bare the cost of the tax rather than renters. If the taxation threat was real and long term enough, it would incentivize landlords to do something with empty units, rather than it not costing them anything to sit on it.
The state should stop enforcing the legal rights of landlords to own property and exclude people from its use through physical force, and should organize the people enough that they can defend themselves from retaliation to this change.
This article title makes ZERO sense. Empty house tax, sure.
But an "income" tax on no rent being paid?
Why would that EVER be passed by the people who own all of the houses? Don't waste the poors' time lol
"Income tax on no income" is exactly what imputed income is, as mentioned by OP. Free perks from an employer are, for example, (in the US), taxed as income.
https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/income/what-is-imputed-income/
They can extrapolate the supposed income by looking at how much they asked previous renters.
Fyi, what you want to say is that we should have a wealth tax. I agree with you on that. We should also tax stock holdings similarly.
I have an idea
i deserve passive income 
