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 don't build housing
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?
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.
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.
You can’t be serious? Let’s review.
By who..? Come on, be honest, who do you think is going to do this 🤣
That allow who to build more housing?
Is literally what the West has right now.
We have these now.
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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!
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 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.
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.
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
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.
Again, they can't exactly just increase rent to pass off the tax.
How is investment in housing and zoning fixes not a form of better planning?
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 -
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.
You can be wrong if you want to be.
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).
People always complain about such a system but they actually have healthcare, so seems like a moot point to me.
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."
You're the one person I hope becomes homeless
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
of course they do. we actually understand that production doesn't require middle men. we're communists, fool.
wait till you understand what 'tax' is
Oh, so you just want the state to be your landlord? Enjoy your cinderblock gulag.
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You can rent from someone else. That’s actually easier than moving cities, states, or countries.
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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.
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hmmmm
hmmm
Socialism is...... When you own your own home??
spoiler
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.
it's a play on "communism means no toothbrush*
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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?
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Where did I use modern day capitalist russia to prove my point again?
Haha. Ok !lemmygrad 😂🤣😂. Here’s your L. Have a nice day.
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
boomer
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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.
Happiness index
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?
Nice whataboutism you tankie! Centrist liberal tankie!!!
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?
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racism to own the gommies. gottem
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Hahahahahahahhahaha
You aren't a real person, 'opinion' discarded
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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.
If you own property the state is already your landlord.
Well, then tell the government to come clean my gutter.
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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?
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)
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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.
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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.
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