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Housing crisis. In our country, it's being framed as an immigrant problem, but it is both a political choice and political inaction that is the culprit.
Also, big inflation...
Not to mention out-and-out corruption. The scumbags collecting money off of it just give it to their family and buddies while not a drop "trickles down" to the ones who need it. This is most glaring in California, but I'm not some MAGA retard. Corruption is spread through all of government.
Climate change, and how we're doing fuck all about it.
There are news stories about wildfires, droughts, water shortages, hurricanes, changing weather patterns, etc. But the climate change part is usually mentioned as an "oh by the way" and it's rarely tied to stuff we need to do.
Depending how far we push it, climate change is either "just" going to cause mass starvation and novel weather patterns; or it's going to make the Earth uninhabitable for humans.
Either way is fucking bad.
There's virtually no mainstream news coverage of what we need to do. People say to buy EVs, but that's not enough. We need to either radically limit the amount of energy we consume, or dramatically change how we generate energy. Probably both.
But there's no coverage. Just tRuMp HaTeS wInDmIlLs.
Education around the actual cause of the housing crisis.
Everything in the news and politics is intentionally ignoring the core issue and blaming it on scapegoats (immigrants, corporate landlords, developers)
The single biggest group making the most money off housing by a massive margin? Regular everyday single house owners.
They make up like 65%+ of the residential market, and yet we're busy blaming everything else under the sky while trying to protect that group.
You want affordable houses? House prices have to drop, A LOT, for EVERYONE.
They might be the biggest group of home owners, but they're not themselves the issue. The optimal situation would more or less be every family owning a single home.
If house prices go down equally across the market, single home owners don't really lose out because people typically sell houses when they want to buy a different house. People who recently took out big mortgages will complain about negative equity and some idiots are happy to see a number go up but by and large single home owners will be fine and won't even complain a lot - they know from their children or other sources that its too damn expensive to buy a house.
The real losers would be people who own property as an investment, and developers. And those two groups have powerful lobbies and the majority of politicians are in the first group.
The single home owner NIMBYs are a problem in cases where prices will be affected but only locally. Then they really stand to lose out. So you basically need to have a massive nationwide house building program, either done by the state or through strong legal incentives to force developers to build a lot more of the right kind of homes and prevent them from sitting on land waiting for the price to go up. Or probably both.
The optimal situation would more or less be every family owning a single home.
A) This is not the optimal situation, and B) Owning a home, and being able to profiting off it appreciating are not the same thing and the latter is the problem
If house prices go down equally across the market, single home owners don’t really lose out Yes they do, this is such a fucking common argument and it's just straight up false.
If you have a million dollar home that you raised your family in, and now want to downsize into a $400k town house, you'd currently get $600k in cash freed up to spend on whatever you wanted. If house prices drop by 50%, you'd sell your $500k home, buy a $200k town house, and you'd have $300k in cash.
The majority of people who would lose money are the MAJORITY of people who own homes, which are single home owners.
That homeowner stands to lose a lot of money if a politician says they will pass a policy that drops home prices by 50%, so they wouldn't vote for that politician.
People like you keep proposing "build more" like it's going to work. Let me ask you this, how many houses would we need to build to drop national house prices by 50%?
The simple answer is "you can't realistically do that" No developer can be forced to lose money in the long term, and they quite literally couldn't build housing at 50% of current prices even if the land itself was completely free. The state could take on a stupidly massive debt to build homes at a loss, but then instead of paying higher rents/housing prices, you're just paying higher taxes.
Currently, there's no realistic way forward. It needs to get far worse (fewer homeowners, so that the balance of voting power shifts to renters) before we can start passing policies to make it better. I expect it to be about 20-30 years before that happens, and then it's probably going to be 20-30 more before the results get realized.
You're right, if homeowners downsize they'll lose out with lower prices. People don't downsize very often.
But what policies are you talking about? How can the answer be anything other than increasing the supply of housing (or decreasing the demand i.e. the population)? Prices are only as high as they are because people pay them because they don't have any other options. Rent is high because demand is high relative to supply.
The only thing I can think of would be higher taxes specifically in places with high house prices in order to fund huge investment in poorer areas to make them more attractive to people and businesses.
People don't downsize very often
Hence why my proposal (land value taxes) incentivizes them to do so by taxing people based on how much land they use (and how desirable that land is) and returning it equally to everyone. Live in a smaller place like a condo? Benefit to you. Want to live in a detached house with a big yard in a desirable area? Pay everyone else for the privledge. Have 5 people in your 4 bedroom home? Excellent. Have 2 people in your 5 bedroom home? Pay everyone else for the privledge.
How can the answer be anything other than increasing the supply of housing (or decreasing the demand i.e. the population)?
This is the key, and the simple answer is that it's not that simple.
There are multiple factors to demand for housing, it's not just "X million people need a house"
The price of housing reflects ALL of the factors of demand, and one of those factors currently is causing all of the problems. The factor that's at fault is that buying a house will make you money (or at least not lose you money) in the long run.
Think about it for a second. If you're looking to buy somewhere to live, and you know that despite it costing a lot, you won't lose money on it and will get that money back later for retirement, how much are you willing to spend? Compare that to how much you'd be willing to spend if you knew that you would lose money every month.
This isn't hard to actually understand, take a simple tax idea (it's not realistic, it would crash the economy to do it all at once)
The government comes along and says "there's a 100% tax on any increase in the value of the land (not including the building) when you sell it" on top of the monthly/yearly property tax amounts you're already paying.
What would happen to housing prices for most places? They would instantly drop, and a lot in some places.
Did we change the supply? No Did we change the demand? There's still X million people that need a home, so we didn't change that factor in any way Did the price change? Yes
Why? Because people were willing to spend more money on a home than they got in value from simply living there, because they were valuing it as an investment in addition to the living space. Now any home buyer coming along won't be able to realize that value, so they're not going to be willing to spend as much money. It hits investors even harder than regular people, that appreciation over time was a huge amount of their profit.
TL;DR; If something is an investment, the prices will continue to climb up until it's no longer profitable. If you want home prices to go down and be priced only based on their usefulness as accommodation, you have to make them not an investment.
Why would they educate you on that.
They don't even teach people about alternatives to FPTP, good thing there is the internet to cover the missing info public schools decided to hide.
Hard to say it's not getting enough attention - there are a lot of serious problems going on in the world today, that people are justified in making noise about.
But one of my pet issues is the switch to the metric system in the US. Why are we not working towards this? It was standardized decades ago. Should be uncontroversial to deprecate imperial, even though it obviously can't happen overnight.
The worst is that a lot of professions will use metric even in the US. So you spend your childhood learning this fucking crazy imperial and go to become a doctor and have to relearn a lot of metric stuff
Going to university for engineering showed me the light and has blessed me with an everlasting appreciation for the number 10.
I have received complaints over sharing weather screenshots in Celsius and I just chuckle.
"uncontroversial"
I don't think you know us very well, do you?
(that's purely Bugs Bunny sarcasm there)
Right! Emphasis, however sadly, on 'should be'.
The Epstein Files
Reporters need to keep asking until Trump has a mental break.
Win/Win.
The supermassive island of plastic waste that no one's doing anything about other than dumping more plastic, which finds its way to that pile
that no one’s doing anything about
Don't forget fungus is hard at work evolving at a rapid pace to eat plastic! Nature's trying its heart out but it ain't fast.
I think calling it an island is doing it a disservice. It's not visible as any collective mass of anything. It's a diffuse mess of micro and macroscopic plastic spread across a truly massive area. Its essentially invisible from the surface.
You call it an island and the first thing people will want to see is images or video of this island. When they find out it doesn't exist as described it makes them think the issue is overblown.
I think a huge issue online is just how incredibly mean people can be to each other - and the fact that they don’t even see themselves as mean. They’ve built a story around how their behavior is justified, so they keep doing it, completely oblivious to the fact that they’re part of the problem.
If your going to be an asshole at least own being an asshole.
There are thousands of diseases that need more research. For every ice bucket challenge, there are a hundred more diseases with similar prognoses that go under-researched.
I think this is a result of severely misplaced priorities in society. How many marketers do we really need? Couldn't they be doing something far more useful?
Counterpoint: medical researchers don’t make line go up
Medical research is like youth sports.
Sure, 99.9% of these kids aren't going to go pro, but most of them will learn something useful.
Imagine if making society better made the line go up instead of being a dickhead.
How covid didn't really disapear and airbornes diseases are still there.
I have a respiratory disease and I feel alone wearing my mask in public transist or struggling to remind people around me to vaccinate ( wich seems to fall on deaf ears ).
Things were different during the pandemic because there was a real risk of vastly overwhelming the healthcare system. Airborne diseases never went away, but the difference is that if you catch one now, you can get treated - which wasn’t always the case back then. That's why we urged people to wear masks and get vaccinated; that we all wouldn't get sick at the same time.
Thing aren't that much different now, WHO and other org are still trying ( and sadly failling ) to get stuff done to prepare for the next pandemic ( Look at the US for example ). Not everyone can get treated, If someone vulnerable like an elderly person or someone like me catches the new covid variant there is little to no hope of recovery. Even if you perfecly recover covid can leave damaged lung and nerves. And even if treament can be done without consequences, medicine as always warned to prevent rather than treat.
I don't ask for much, put a mask when going in crowded area and vaccinate at least once every six month.
Lemmy mod log is authoritarian shit that does not say who took actions. It is cowardly garbage that should absolutely be the lynch pin for this place unless transparency is restored immediately.
Instance admins can see which mod did what, and set the modlog to be visible. You just need to find a open instance and look at the modlog from there
Well that seems to suck even worse. The Alexandrite front end and being mod of 3d printing is what grounds me despite grievances.
I think I need to grow up and figure out how to write my own front end for this stuff because being subject to other people's ethics and priorities is not really working out for me. The fundamental liberal ethos around first do no harm, live and let live, and be a good neighbor seem to be dead from both Left and Right fascist ideologues. It appears another great war is coming for new generations to learn the importance of liberalism. Transparency of authority is foundational to ethics of any sort and its absence is deplorable. I feel ashamed for failing to sign my name to each modlog entry in the assumption that I was fundamentally aligned with the instance. How embarrassing it is to now be associated with fascist authoritarianism by nonconsensual proxy.
I find most instance admins are reasonable people, I haven't seen much over-reach
The mechanism of trust is fundamentally fascist. It should never be required with an authority acting in people's best interests. It sets a precedent for future harm. That is totally unnecessary.
I want to know who I am dealing with in any interaction with authority. I have no respect for any coward in authority that hides their identity. Anyone hiding their authoritative actions loses the benefit of doubt and is presumed criminal. Authority comes with a fundamental responsibility to measure to a higher standard when acting as an authority. Failure to measure to the fundamental requirement of transparency is an offense against the constituency and that citation calls into question all further jurisprudence. Trust is a tool of fascism that always fails because people change with time and there is always the succession crisis. The lack of absolute transparency here is a mortal flaw.
Trust is a tool of fascism that always fails because people change with time and there is always the succession crisis.
Can you cite an example of a society that functions with zero trust?
The lack of absolute transparency here is a mortal flaw.
In the context of lemmy there is absolute transparency, at the activity pub / instance level. hence open modlogs and lemvotes.
Most democratic legislative branches are fundamentally transparent except in very rare instances where disclosure itself causes harm. The study of case law is foundational to the institution.
Imagine a world with a reflective 2 way mirror in a courtroom where your life and wellbeing are decided with anonymity. This is the dystopian equivalent of an anonymous modlog. You fundamentally have a right to see the face and know the name that determines your fate in all matters ranging from life itself to the most trivial quibble. This unalienable right is fundamental to freedom, democracy, self determinism and autonomy.
When I am abused by an authority, I have a fundamental right to avoid them and protect myself from their potential harm. I'm a slave to their misgivings when I do not know the identity of such an authority figure.
No one is a perfect judge of others. These types of places attract narcissistic personalities and those that lack the depth to understand liberalism does not mean tribalism and requires tolerance even when one strongly disagrees on a personal level. I experienced this both on ask Lemmy on .ml and 196 recently. I have the mindset of a citizen and equal. I expect to be able to message anyone that takes action against what I post in good faith and without any harmful intent whatsoever. Taking any actions against such a person without being subject to discussion is the equivalent of going to court and never being allowed to defend yourself. This is undemocratic and reduces the user from a respected citizen and digital neighbor to a peasant caste of subjects with unequal rights and inequality.
Full transparency and openness creates leaders and custodians among equals. Authoritative anonymity creates slaves subject to tyranny.
Benevolent altruism in leadership is honorable and a best case situation but only in the short term. These traits are fleeting with age and certainly not hereditary in humans. The rot of time and the succession crisis is why any institution that relies on the benevolent altruism of one or a few humans always disintegrates into tyranny. Transparency is the check and balance that ejects those that have run their useful course by shining a spotlight on the damage they cause. It also enables those that are in edge case situations to better protect themselves and their individual needs. These are most at risk from the oversimplified policies and tyranny of a closet authoritarian.
That we are no longer in a democracy and have left it in the past.
Enjoy everybody.
Very USA-Centric of you, there are still functional democracies around the world.
Lol take it as you will.
