I did what you did and found a number of stories with that photo connected to turning vacant houses into social housing, one going back to at least 2010.
My story is at least plausible. Yours is clear fiction.
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Câmon, buddy, eat up. Itâs only getting cold.
No thanks, Iâm not hungry for other peoplesâ dunking failures.
This whole thread is ridiculous. The leftists are failing by thinking small (letâs scapegoat one type of bad acting capitalist!) and the free market people are as wrong headed as always.
We should be taxing the living daylights out of every dollar over 200k anyone makes and redistributing it downwards. We should make lowering the gini coefficient by a large amount a straight up policy goal. That would fix almost every problem with the landlord/renter relationship almost instantly.
Someone please explain to me why a landlord owning a building is somehow worse than anyone else owning a large thing and getting paid for it. The problem isnât that people are making money from capital, the problem is that we arenât taxing them fairly on that income.
I deeply resent the fact that there are people who earn 1000+x more than I do who have a lower overall tax rate than me. Thatâs the problem. Tax avoidance, tax evasion, different rates of taxation for money earned from working vs capital, and tax rates on high earners that are half of the optimal level are the problem. Not landlords in particular.
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So if you have to choose between âLosing money on an investmentâ and âBecoming homelessâ, you flip a coin, is it?
Is it different than someone getting paid because they own a factory that makes insulin? Or someone owning a farm that makes food? Or a factory that produces something essential?
From my perspective fast food franchisees are on average way worse people than landlords.
To the bolded, thatâs different, which doesnât mean itâs not bad. It might even be worse. Not terribly interested in establishing a hierarchy. For the rest, see this post and much of Saboâs posts ITT (for someone making such sweeping statements about the thread, you seem oddly unfamiliar with its contents).
Landlords are just one tentacle of the crazy anime monster that is inequality. You go after the body not the tentacles IMO. There is absolutely nothing bad or abusive about my relationship with my landlord, and thatâs because I have the leverage that comes from being able to do something about it if he were to act like an asshole.
The problem is that people are desperately poor and canât find 400 dollars for an unexpected expense, not that they have landlords. Show me any human with a one sided power relationship with someone else and Iâll show you abuse. The problem is the power imbalance, not that some people buy long term housing and sell it for a profit to people who need short term housing.
If anything the real villains in the slumlord-tenant relationship are the tenants employers who pay them less than a living wage, which means they donât have the financial resources to hold the landlord accountable.
If taxes over $200k are basically confiscatory, youâre basically saying no one can increase what they âownâ by more than $200k per year. I think itâs just as fair to say no one can âownâ more than $x worth of anything period. Maybe $5M.
Iâm not going to respond any further since itâs very obvious youâre grunching here, this has been gone over extensively ITT.
60-70% is what I was thinking. Still plenty of room to be very well off⌠but past a certain point society is getting most of it back, and that is as it should be. Obviously with that kind of tax rate on higher incomes things like school and healthcare should be 100% free and everyone should get X$ a month just for having a pulse.
Also totally fine with having a good sized VAT tax to fund UBI to hedge against Amazon style tax avoidance.
Need a big carbon tax that is instantly redistributed as well ldo.
No, the thread isnât stupid, and itâs not ridiculous. If you are sensing stupidity and ridiculousness⌠well, Iâve already mentioned you are a source of that.
Well, weâre still batting 1.000 with the premise that anyone who uses the term âleftistâ un-ironically is a fool. Does the fool thing that Donkeys are âleftistsâ? Or does the fool think anti-capitalists are âleftistsâ? Perhaps, and Iâve heard this only from fools who un-ironically use the term âleftist?â, does he think the historical German Nazis were âleftistsâ? Or⌠does he imagine that Donkeys have something in common with anti-capitalists, or anti-capitalists have something in common with the historical Naziâs⌠so they are all âleftistsâ to the fool. Who knows? Generally you canât ask these kinda fools to clarify, as (a) theyâll get bitter, and (b) they have never given it the slightest bit of thought anyways. The only thing you can tell for sure⌠is that they are a fool.
But, maybe we have an exception here. Letâs do an experimentâŚ
Any chance youâd clarify what you mean by âleftistâ here?
WTF? Is this the 5th level of denial, or something like that? Whatâs that âbargainingâ, or just âwhiningâ. I know it must be quite disorientating to you now that, as we chat, that the Landlordism part of capitalism has objectively failed, and has been suspended for (at least) the duration of the pandemic. But thatâs where we are at.
The relevant Qs arenât your kinda half-assed âmoralityâ and such nonsense. As a pro-capitalist, you are already morally bankrupt, flat out. Why would anyone care about that shiz anyways. Thatâs just childish nonsense, anyways.
Whatâs happening here, now, in what is a once in a lifetime opportunity, the owning class has taken their foot off the neck of renting folks. No violent evictions.
What you are âtryingâ to argue, or better yet, just spewing crap and calling it an âargumentâ. But what are you really trying to claim⌠Isnât it something along the lines of
(a) Even though renting folks donât have to let the owning class place their foot upon their necks again⌠they should. Because it would be âimmoralâ in your stupid sense of the word, to not do so. This âmoralityâ requires violent evictions, and gratuitous reduction of families to homelessness⌠thatâs just how âmoralâ it is!
Or (b) Even though renting folks donât have to let the owning class place their foot upon their necks again⌠they should. Because itâs in their best interest. Without these violent evictions, and without this gratuitous reduction of families to homelessness, things would be significantly worse for renting folks.
Of course, Iâve already taunted you for your inability to make any kind of positive or coherent argument regarding this. You failed. But, letâs try againâŚ
Care to make a positive and coherent argument in favor of (a) or (b) above?
Are the people who oppose landlords opposed to all forms of property rental? Like is it ok to rent out tuxedos or ski equipment? What about heavy machinery?
Sigh.
Itâs not the ârenting outâ thatâs the issue. FYI: this is pretty much the same silliness as above regarding doctors, healthcare and insurance companies.
The issue is this: situations where the necessities of life can be withheld are fundamentally different.
What doesnât matter is how the mundane details of any such institution is implemented. And by âimplementedâ in the context I mean violently enforced.
Letâs try a couple of examplesâŚ
Letâs say a renter named Joe was a skilled handyman, Also he and his pregnant wife had previously been violently evicted for non-payment, and had been institutionally reduced to homelessness by the landlord class. Joe and his wife notice a vacant and unkempt home, with the front door ajar. They ask around the neighborhood. As far as anyone knows, that house has been abandoned. Joe & his wife move on in, and Joe, using his wages earned as a handyman, fixes the home up.
Then one foul day, Joe & his wife are visited by two terrible goons. Goon #1 threatens to violently throw Joe & his wife & and all their belongings out in the street, and lock the doors of their home against them⌠unless they pay his monthly ransom. Goon #2 threatens to burn the home down, forcing Joe & his wife out into street, and destroy all their belongings⌠unless they pay his monthly ransom.
With me so farâŚ
Those of us who are against Landlordism are against both of these kinds of goons, and against their violent greedy unearned absentee profit extraction behaviors.
Got it?
Letâs extend your hypothetical situation.
The abandoned home joe and his wife have taken up residence in, and fixed up, was abandoned because the âOwning classâ was awaiting permit for demolition. They plan to build a Planned Parenthood office.
Joe and his wife refuse to leave. Then what?
You have quite an imagination.
What gives this imaginary guy the right to live in a home that doesnât belong to him?
More importantly, why would he be dumb enough to use his wages earned as a handyman to fix this house that didnât belong to him rather than pay to live somewhere under the accepted rules of society?
What I find most entertaining about your story here is that you seem to be advocating for peoplesâ right to assume ownership of otherwise âabandonedâ property, but you lack the foresight to understand that if those were the rules, youâd likely never find another piece of âabandonedâ property, DUCY?
Joe would have no hope competing against a well run home salvage operation, so heâd still be stuck on the street.
As an aside, would you explain and clarify why you added this particular, and particularly odd, detail to your hypothetical? I canât make head-or-tail here what you might be getting at.
Because you seem to imagine a world where everyone who owns any property is evil making it ok for Joe to simply take ownership of said property knowing nothing about its owner.
NGOs, churches, homeless shelters, schools, planned parenthood clinics, food banks, poverty advocate organizations all own offices and other property.
Is it ok for Joe to, for example, take up residence in a classroom under construction at the local elementary school?
Never thought I would see the day when I agree with Inso on anything, yet here we are.
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