Hah i was only referring to south park when they changed the name of the black kid ‘Token’ to ‘Tolkien’ in order to claim they weren’t making a racist joke.
Need to stop corporations buying houses next, and tamper foreigners buying up houses too (almost every country I’ve traveled to won’t let me buy so why not do the same?)
Strong disagree. Can you imagine what red states will do with the power to demand proof of citizenship to own property? Or all the hell couples where one is a Permanent Resident the other a Citizen will go through?
You should be terrified of someone like Jeff Session or Kris Kobach able to just veto any random person from owning land. You can see it now in your head
Them drafting letters on government stationary to real estate agents demanding paperwork from anyone with a Latino or Chinese name. Effectively making agents terrified of dealing with minorities.
Random spot checks, having deputies show up to open houses asking for papers or waiting until after closing then interrogation of the family
Activists courts arguing that all members of the household must be citizens based on vague feelings
New rules that state that the entire inheritance path must all be citizens
Non-citizens being forced to sell at a 1/10th the value
The lawsuits from groups like the ACLU pointing out that it is a obvious violation of the civil rights act, which goes to the Supreme Court who then declares the Bill of Rights only applies to citizens
If you are interested the experiment has been run already. Go read up what Kris Kobach did when he got a town to pass a law requiring citizenship tests to rent. He not only near bankrupted the town due to lawsuits he personally sent threatening letters to Latinos who lived there.
ve traveled to won’t let me buy so why not do the same?
Have you traveled much? More countries do this than don’t. The trump nazis will abuse everything yes. But people not being able to afford a place to live is also giving us trump nazis in the first place
And yet you want to give them more? You don’t hand a gun to a person who went to jail repeatedly for using a gun.
But people not being able to afford a place to live is also giving us trump nazis in the first place
Assertion, please demonstrate it. Also demonstrate that your method of handing Nazis more power will make them less powerful. Lastly compare the US grabbling with fascists to other nations who have rules like you are advocating for and how they are also grappling with fascists.
It’s a little thing but I kinda want you to acknowledge that the one time this idea was tried in diet form in the US it not only didn’t work it also legalized racism. You are suggesting an idea that we tried and it not only failed in the task it was meant to perform it also created a host of new problems.
I really didn’t mention a word about anything you are saying to me now. I am pro-development anti-nimby and admit I haven’t studied the issues of corporate housing enough to weight in on it.
My apologies if that came across as challenging your point with the nimby stuff. It’s like a fuselight, it wasn’t for you but just directed out in the open. Retracting the comment. Housing is something that’s sensitive to me because we just lost a family member to suicide, and while not solely that person’s rationale, among many factors housing was a significant one.
Housing and healthcare on the trajectory it’s pointed at today, robs our youth of their hope, and signifies quite loudly that we as a society do not love or value the futures of our children, however people may feel internally.
My only message for NIMBY people is that of hate and revulsion.
Right but I am on your side about this. I want everyone to have housing that is awesome and within their price range. I just don’t agree that finding ways to punish immigrants and minorities is the best way to go about it. There is a difference between me saying “I want X and don’t think Y is the best way to get X” and me saying “fuck your family, I hate Y and lets do X to hurt them”. Me discussing how to solve a problem is not me denying the problem exists or should not be solved.
Also you and me are good. I am sorry for your loss. I imagine I would be very sensitive to this subject in your situation.
Typically it’s the NIMBY crowd who’s been most fiercely opposed to things like immigration and avoid conversations like “where should they live?”. They get so centered around traffic or noise concerns near their SFU houses. When I talk NIMBY, I’m talking about the old boomers that stack city council meetings to help overturn zoning decisions.
I think what you’re saying is in solidarity with what I am. White, straight, liberal NIMBY’s are wolves in sheep’s clothing, extoling DEI and social justice virtues while they reject notions of change as soon as it makes any impact whatsoever on streets near their own neighborhoods.
I feel like banning corporations from owning housing isn’t the panacea people expect it to be. It’s pretty impractical when you start talking about larger buildings and mixed use housing, and I’m not convinced it’s really a big driver of the problem.
I think a steep land value tax is a more workable solution. It incentivizes anyone who holds non-productive property (vacant homes in this case) to either make better use of the land or sell it. This also has the benefit of impacting individuals who own second homes or have mostly empty airbnbs.
Property taxes are insufficient for this purpose because they are generally based on the value of the home rather than just the land, so not only are they easier to game, but it disincentivizes improving the property.
I disagree. No need to force development to destroy natural landscapes just to avoid a tax. Simply tax multiple residential properties somewhat exponemtially.
Owning one or two residential properties is fine, more is problematic.
I say “two” to handle the very common case of children putting their parents’ homes in their own name because Medicare clawback rules will take the home after they die if you don’t do it early enough.
The Medicare clawback crap is why we can’t expect to fix one issue with capitalism without addressing all the issues simultaneously. Can’t just raise minimum wage because landleeches will raise rents. Can’t just have universal healthcare because a lot of people would become unemployed when the insurance industry dies its overdue painful death.
Universal healthcare, student loan cancellation (and free state university), UBI, and the elimination of for-profit housing. All within one president’s term to have a chance of sticking past four years.
Generally it’s not destroying undeveloped land, but fixing up dilapidated houses so that they are livable.
Having a progressive tax based on number of homes owned may work, but you would need to rewrite quite a bit of real estate law to make it actually effective. Obviously corporations would not be allowed to own houses to avoid people owning through shell companies, but you would also have to draw a line so corporations could own larger apartment complexes and mixed use buildings. You also do want builders to be able to temporarily own houses for the purpose of building and selling them as well as corporate flippers.
Frankly, I think it’s too complicated to expect on a national level.
I agree about taxes. Tax the ever loving bejesus out of vacant rentals or speculative residential real estate. That will keep them from buying in the first place or deeply incentivize them to keep them rented out.
Owning part of a larger building is actually much more complicated than simply owning a house. I’m not sure everyone would actually want that even if they could buy the unit they live in at a low price.
I almost bought a condo in a multi-story building a couple of years ago and I’m glad as hell I didn’t. It was a one-bedroom unit for $125K, which is fine except that the monthly condo fees are $1000 (which includes utilities, at least), property taxes plus insurance are another $400, and the last three consecutive years residents have been hit with a special assessment of about $10K - which means I would have been paying around $2500 a month to live in a one-bedroom apartment that I’d already paid $125K for.
The biggest issue with corporations owning low income multifamily housing is that they act like slumlords. When you have nowhere else to go and the landlord won’t fix major issues then it takes a toll on you. When a kid sees this growing up, then it leads to antisocial behavior. Investors think that “passive investment” means no input at all when it requires a great deal of active management if contracts are being followed. They just know that the residents have no reasonable way to enforce the contract.
Are corporations more likely to be slumlords? Pretty much everyone I’ve ever known who owns a rental property has been a complete asshole, but I’ve only known a few.
Some countries have a large yearly tax if you leave a house vacant for longer than 6 months or a year without a valid reason. More countries need to do this.
Not sure about the USA, but it’s a big problem in Australia. Foreign investors (that don’t live in Australia nor have any intent of moving to Australia) buy properties then just hold them as speculative assets. They don’t want tenants, because they don’t want to go through all that effort. All they want to do is hold them and watch the value go up, in the same way you’d hold stock or Bitcoin.
Yeah, that does feel like it could help reduce housing prices. There is no such tax in most parts of the US, but San Francisco passed a vacancy tax that just went into effect this year. If that works out hopefully other municipalities look into a similar scheme.
All those cases are clear. Is a person (not a corporation) buying a residence to live in, that is be physically present in for a minimum of 70% of the year? If so, they can buy. If not, they can’t buy. I’d rather a million unauthorized immigrants buying houses they live in than one overseas corporate entity buying a house to rent out.
It’d amazing how these billionaires can push for this, when the example of Putin’s Russia or Xi’s China are right there, showing what happens when you have a government headed by an thin-skinned autocrat who might decide to take your money and your life, not necessarily in that order.
Being successfully greedy makes people pretty stupid in that they believe they’re untouchable.
We as a country right now are going through a “it can’t happen here” with Hitler Trump and it’s no different for billionaires except their version is “it can’t happen to me, I’m special because I’m a billionaire.”
Jack Ma is a billionaire. See how that turned out?. Do they not think for a moment that someone as jealous and vindictive as Trump wouldn’t pull a similar stunt, if not worse?
maybe the US should have one set of laws and policies for ALL fifty states including with the justice system instead of fifty different state standards
as it is now each state stands on its own authority overriding federal when each state sees fit to
with the fall of Roe v. Wade demographic rights are more of a reality than ever
want rights that align more to your values? better hope you are able to move to one of the other fifty countries here that do then otherwise you are now a dissident in a foreign land unless you go to church Wednesdays and Sundays and if you were born a man you best act like it By God! and if you are a woman you best be barefoot and pregnant adding to the white populace
Biden and Trump both represent a white, Christian, HOA kind of United States that does see past man and woman or white and anyone worth knowing is someone you see at Church and nobody worth something is disabled
Gentrified sterile environment devoid of creativity or progress or any kind of color and only Christian culture will be allowed
also Biden coming out as everybody’s savior has gotten older than the two presidential candidates - remember when he said he was a disability champion because of his stutter? where is he at now with this issue? certainly not in Tennessee giving fiery speeches and letting these people know he stands with them
If you’re too stupid to vote for Biden to save America from Fascism (talking to you, Tankies), at least vote for him to make Elon Musk waste a bunch of money.
The rich and powerful of the nation are coordinating to usher in fascism at lightning speed, and you’re worried about the 500 pinkos who won’t vote Biden because of his complicity in genocide? You’ve taken the same side as MAGA in blaming all the country’s problems on leftists. It is misdirection. You’ve been effortlessly oriented to be so wickedly invested in American electoralism, that you now have zero reservations about voting for candidates who both want genocide.
In 30 years, will you still be militantly democrat when the choice is between a dem who wants 5 genocides and a republican who wants 10?
Edit: Also, Musk could continue doing these monthly payments for the next 460 years without making another cent ever again. This notion of “wasting his money” is silly. Each month takes a mere 0.02% hit on his account.
Semi unrelated question (also only semi serious): is there a program or script that can follow a person’s trades and make similar trades? Or is she one that, by the time the public knows, it’s already too late to jump on the bandwagon?
etoro is a broker that allows you to “copy trade” popular investors and portfolios, which mimc trades according to how much capital you have invested, though Nancy ain’t gonna be on there
There’s also ETFs such as ARK which are easy to get into, are managed by the likes of Cathie Wood and if they’re doing a good job, only go up
Biggest regret in the last 15 years is not getting into it earlier tbh, if you have even a passing interest in trading, open a mock account (or a real one with some money you don’t mind “losing”) and just have a go - it’s very simple nowadays. Gone are the days where you need to pay $10 to a broker to even make a trade
There is a congressional rule that requires individual stock trades of certain amounts to be publicly disclosed within 45 days. However this is apparently not really enforced right now.
Some bipartisan congresspeople have proposed more restrictive rules and bans on stock trading, but those efforts haven’t gained traction yet.
That was an awesome piece. And like Wittes said, Lawfare really has been on top of this issue for longer than most. This part in particular drove it home for me:
it is possible to be at the same time a threat to democracy and a victim of a horrible crime. The fact that Trump has been shot emphatically does not mean that his behavior does *not *threaten American democracy—just as the fact that Huey Long, the populist governor of Louisiana in the 1930s, was assassinated did not acquit him of being a corrupt authoritarian. That Trump is also a corrupt authoritarian surely cannot justify his attempted assassination or any political violence, but just as surely, the fact that a person attempted his assassination does not nullify the threat he poses. The two facts must be allowed to coexist.
As much as I agree political violence doesn’t have a place in modern society, authoritarian governments literally make it the only option.
We aren’t there yet but there’s little doubt in my mind that if Trump wins, he will make what is essentially a rigged game right now into nothing but a formality.
100% agree with you. I posted this yesterday, but to me, I really see a parallel on what happens with violence in illegal drug trades. When you remove legal solutions to hold people accountable, violence becomes increasingly likely. A drug dealer can’t go to the police if someone robs them, infringes on their turf, or messes with their supply chain. Violence is their only form of recourse.
We saw it to some extent on January 6th. People - very wrongly - were led to believe that their votes didn’t matter and attempted to storm the capital as a result. While these people were manipulated by Trump, it still shows the point: if people think the system isn’t working, they will turn to violence as their last resort.
When you look at the attempt to shoot Trump, I don’t condone it, but I certainly understand it. We’ve had a fundamental breakdown in our system of checks and balances. Just to name a few:
Trump’s attorney general neutered the results of the Mueller investigation, allowing Trump to escape accountability.
The Republican Senate refused to hold him accountable in two separate impeachment trials: one for blackmailing Ukraine for aid in exchange for fake dirt on Biden, and the other for attempting to overthrow our government.
The Supreme Court, which was packed by Trump judges against political norms, has said that presidents have effective immunity from all crimes.
While Trump was supposed to be sentenced for his 34 felonies on July 11, sentencing was delayed due to the Supreme Court ruling.
When you look at Trump blatantly committing crimes and not being held accountable over and over again, it’s easy to think that the system is broken. And when people think the system isn’t working, they see violence as the only remaining option.
Interesting. We all have the same feeling about you. The sad part is that you might actually know something. Maybe you could say something constructive, if only you cared to do so.
You could have made an argument about how aiming for perfection is a bad strategy here. But you didn’t, so let me show how you’re wrong. The proposed solution doesn’t address the underlying problem, and it adds complexity. Rent can only go up by 5%, sure, but what happens if you sell the property you move into it or other exceptional circumstances happen? Then you can raise the price. Or perhaps you rent it through Airbnb, so the rules don’t apply either. It doesn’t really matter what the special cases are, because finance folk love complicated solutions. They’re always going to find ways to game the system at our expense.
But let’s suppose the 5% solution is somehow good. If it’s good for rent then it should be good for other things too, right? You can’t let electricity or gas prices go up faster, or people won’t be able to heat their homes. You can’t let food prices go up faster, or people won’t be able to eat. Oh, and you certainly need minimum wage to be going up 5%, for any of that to make sense.
So if we consider all of that, and we find the aforementioned proposal slightly lacking, maybe it’s not because we’re seeking perfection. Maybe it’s because you have no idea what problems we are trying to solve.
Lol it’s like you summoned the ancient spirit of not understanding incremental improvement, who then wrote a short essay to explain to you just how much they don’t understand the concept.
I also stand corrected. I thought you might actually know something. But then you double down with a witty empty response: two sentences with zero information. What good is that? Grandstanding is boring and pointless.
And then you want to trash talk my username? Jesus. Have fun with that.
Some people are here to learn, some people are here to teach, some people are here to share, some people are here to build community. You’re not doing any of those things. Meh.
What BS. This is like arguing that “trickle down economics” is good because money eventually trickles down to us plebs. We’re in a sinking boat filled with holes and you’re trying to argue that we should be happy that 1 of 1000 holes got patched up even though there isn’t time to patch the other 999 holes before the ship sinks because the crew would rather sit on their ass and drink martinis.
No this is like y’all getting mad at someone working on patching a hole because he’s not simultaneously patching every hole in the exact same instance. All why you sit there and don’t work on anything. Get a mallet get some wood get to work or shut up.
Cheap vodka comes in plastic bottles and landlords are faceless corporate entities on the other side of the country (if they’re in the country at all). So my ability to help is limited.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that phrase. Do you mind explaining what you mean? (Just to be clear, I’m not trying to be combative. I just have no idea how to read that)
In simple terms, the failure to do something absolutely perfectly shouldn’t stop you from doing something that will still be better than the status quo.
And that’s the million dollar question. I’m not arguing the perfect should be the enemy of the good. I’m questioning how much “good” I get by aligning myself with a fundamentally bad dude. Biden’s played this bait-and-switch game before, and there’s a real reason to believe 2025 Joe Biden won’t be willing or able to deliver on his 5% rent cap promise. In exchange, what is he asking you to give up?
An hour of your life in line to vote on election day? A small recurring donation to his campaign? A week block-walking your neighborhood to canvas for him? Three months volunteering to work for his reelection campaign?
Presidential elections aren’t cheap. I have to wonder what would happen if all the money and manpower pouring into Biden’s coffers was simply directed towards Habitat For Humanity instead. Would we get more bang for our bucks?
Dawg, I’m not even the OP. I was just explaining an idiom, and you expect me to answer a humanist philosophical question as if I’m the greatest thinker of our generation 😭
I can’t help you decide what extent you’re willing to compromise to vote Biden/democrats. I can’t even vote in the US.
“Don’t make perfect the enemy of good” essentially says that it’s better to do what you can in the short term to reduce harm or make positive change than to wait for the perfect solution and do nothing in the meantime. The idea is that the good is still going to help some people while we wait for the perfect solution to the problem- which, crucially, may never come, or come too late for a whole bunch of people.
One example would be letting a parent having their kid eat fast food instead of a perfectly healthy diet because their parents live in a food desert; not ideal, but it’ll keep the kid fed and alive.
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