The solution for large scale behavioral problems isn’t telling loads of people to do better, it’s systemic change, and in this case that means infrastructure for safe biking. That includes traffic calming measures, separated and protected bike lanes, regulation to reign in vehicle sizes and weight, etc.
True, but the keys of power, the ownership, the control are in the hands of capitalists.
None exist in mine.
They don’t provide housing, they provide a service.
Owning isn’t a service.
They provided the capital for the construction workers, plumbers, electricians, etc.
No, the bank did that when they gave the landlord a mortgage.
Coordinating repairs and hiring out those jobs is also part of the service.
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.
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.
Exactly, they’re leeches.
A land value tax is a good tool to help ease the transition away from landlords, but it alone is not enough.
Regardless, we definitely should be primarily relying on LVT for government income.
Will do. You should look more into non market housing and co-ops though.
property managers are taking care of all that for you, and if that’s not a job I honestly don’t know what is.
Nobody is saying property management isn’t a job. But that property manager probably works for a real estate company, owned by the rich.
It’s that last part that’s the issue. The residents should collectively own the housing, not the rich.
the system is stealing from you, but through monetary debasement
This is only one of the many ways in which the rich steal from us. Believe me, I fucking get that part.
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.
If you believe that a savings account outpace inflation I don’t know how to help you.
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:
I guess you never heard about a savings account or corporate greed, must be nice to be that privileged.
It is bizarre that you think that housing is used as a “speculative” investment.
No it’s not.
https://create.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Real-Estate-Speculation.pdf
people simply need a place where they can store wealth without having it destroyed
That’s what banks are for.
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.
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.
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.
Why do you not want a system of cheaper housing, with more power/freedom in your hands?
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.
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.
Yeah, you would be a crappy landlord
“Yeah, you would be a crappy leech”
I ain’t got a problem with that. I have no desire to exploit others.
and if you wouldn’t provide any service to me
You seem to be confusing maintenance, utilitiy management, and other actual services and therefore actual jobs with landlording, which is not a service.
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:
All housing should be like this, or outright owned by the user.
They don’t really exist anymore. 3rd places have more or less been killed off.
You must now own a car and pay money to exist somewhere, at all times.
For sure, that is still a big part of this.
But a blanket statement pointing to cyclists as the source of the problem is just ridiculous.