Gregory's ServerIf anyone’s wondering what the dude who sang “chocolate rain” is up to these days, he’s dropping absolute bangers about housing and he’s fucking right
 234 comments
 @ErickaSimone @Daojoan It even contains references to certain racist studies in The Bell Curve.  @ErickaSimone @Daojoan Wait, that wasn't common knowledge? Did anybody listen to the words? Yeah, it was performed in a funny way but the lyrics were pretty clear.  @missed_sla @Daojoan I mean, *we* knew. But people didn’t believe it until he confirmed it in an interview later.  @ErickaSimone @Daojoan He's released a number of bangers on economics since! Like Mamma Economy and Fiat Fire!!!  @Daojoan this is a crisis created by private equity firms who’ve spent hundreds of billions hoovering up every kind of housing stock across the country, as well as trailer parks and apartment complexes Then, they’ll do what they always do: squeeze every last dollar out of the asset — then they’ll leave hollowed out towns/neighborhoods with destroyed housing stock when they’re done and then demand huge tax breaks for their ill-gotten gains. Unregulated capitalism is social darnwinism writ large @Daojoan yer we have the same issues in NZ as well. I woud also limit short term rental (airBNB) to only permit if the freehold title owners live on sight and are onsite during the stay. (Eg a farm can have an airBnB cabin but a townhouse or apartment in a city can’t be an AirBNB, a room within a home can be though)  Interesting idea! Would you allow the situation where someone AirBnBs their _own_ house while they're away? @unchartedworlds @hishnash That’s potentially open to abuse. “I live there, I just travel 364 days out of the year.” Some occupancy ratio based on the national minimum paid time off could be interesting. If federal standards say full-time workers get two weeks of PTO per year, you can rent out your house while traveling for up to two weeks per six months.  @bob_zim @unchartedworlds @hishnash In London, people would buy a flat on a mortgage to let it out for Airbnb. The SME model for an Airbnb landlord. There was one Airbnb locally that a couple of friends used, that had one person renting a room permanently on a cheaper rent, to avoid being hit by the local legislation. They were not the flat owner, and told my friends this, but when dealing with any bureaucracy, acted as the owner's agent. Loopholes will exist and will have to be patched. @BillySmith I would say the title owner must be resident and that the title owner can not own any other property. Most of the AirBNB investment owners aim to own many properties limiting it to only being permitted to own a single one would cut things down a lot. Which was the original pitch made when Airbnb got started. Use your spare room to generate extra income. What it became afterwards is a different question, but that's always the case when VC funding demands the ridiculous ROI that VC funds have promised their investors. Yes, some kind of ratio cap would make sense. I was thinking of people who really _do_ live there most of the time :-) @unchartedworlds @hishnash Yeah, it’s just that when proposing policy, you have to think like an evil djinn. That’s basically what billionaires are, after all: amoral, insatiable hunger for *more* (djinni are the people of the fire, after all), and entertained by tricking people. @unchartedworlds The simpler one is to ensure the tall the freehold owners only own this property. Eg you cant have short term rental on a title if any of the title owners own any other property. This would shutdown 99% of the AirBnB property investors. @bob_zim @unchartedworlds The solution for this is constrain this to people that only own a single property and do not rent any other. (gov in NZ knows were you rent and what you own) @bob_zim @unchartedworlds @hishnash In Montana, you're required to occupy your house for >50% of the year if you want to air BNB it. That prevents it from getting too out of hand (in Montana, anyway). @unchartedworlds I don't consider that AirBnB but rather house sitting (typically you do not pay to do this... you are commonly intact paid to house sit, water plants, feed pets, etc). @desertgoalie @Daojoan yer the good AirBnB I have used have been this, were its a cabin or guest house on a vineyard etc were the owners live there... they meat you when you turn up, they pop over with a local cheese board and even pre-fire the wood fired hot tub so its all ready for you to do some midnight stare gazing.  Housing as an investment, with the expectation that its value rises over time is *inflation* by any other name. It defies logic and is unsustainable, distorting cost of living generationally. Some how prices need to drop and all the investment goals people use houses for (retirement nest egg) need to be replaced with other mechanisms. oh and people with so much money they can buy entire blocks w cash need to have their wealth networks dismantled. Anti Trust will help with that.   @BassRck5000 um sorry to burst your bubble (no pun intended) but this is happening under Dems too. They're all beholden to corporations.  @Daojoan @Daojoan All these years I've just been seeing him in random YouTube comments sections being unrelentingly based.  @Daojoan Limit money immigration! Limit the movement of rich people. Seize uninhabited buildings! @Daojoan This isn't "truth," this is NIMBY bullshit masquerading as social policy. He's proposing taxes on rentals, but not on home ownership, so renters will end up paying more than homeowners. Then he repeats the canard about vacant housing, when American housing vacancy rates are low; New York has a regular housing survey with a line item for units that are vacant because they're held for occasional or recreational use, and they're 1% of the supply. Less NIMBYism, more housing construction. @Alon  @sidereal @Daojoan King County has 16,000 homeless people. Are there 640,000 empty apartments there? https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/king-county-reports-largest-number-of-homeless-people-ever/  The idea of “limited government” has this problem in all kinds of ways: pollution, monopolization, discrimination, misconduct by local police, and so on.     @Daojoan Alt Text 1/2 "@tayzonday: There is no American "housing crisis" -- there's a supply-hoarding crisis to rig local market prices above the liquidity of local buyer capital. The policy solution is simple: poison-pill tax all non-occupant-owned housing to force the immediate sale to local buyers at actual market rates. Allowing unlimited non-local capital to supply-hoard vacant housing is simply anti-resident eugenics." @Daojoan Alt Text 2/2 "Current residents are too poor, so replace them with richer ones -- even if it causes widespread homelessness, forced migration and absurd energy costs for the displaced to commute. It's as discriminatory as Federal Housing Administration relining of black neighborhoods in the 1940s."  @argv_minus_one @Daojoan Everyone? I sure hope not! I didn't look at the details, but it sounded to me like he wanted to recreate the subprime mortgage crisis. @Daojoan I agree with one exception. Could you please let the "poison pill" exempt people who are housing relatives. I bought my SIL a house in the midwest when she couldn't afford to live on her retirement. I am not rich enough to buy her a house in California, but she is living in a lovely bungalow in Indiana. @jeanthejust In a properly equitable housing environment, your SIL would be able to afford that lovely bungalow. @Daojoan alt text: Post from Tay Zonday There is no American “housing crisis"— there's a supply-hoarding crisis to rig local market prices above the liquidity of local buyer capital. The policy solution is simple: poison-pill tax all non-occupant-owned housing to force immediate sale to local buyers at actual market rates. Continued alt text: Allowing unlimited non-local capital to supply-hoard vacant housing is simply anti-resident eugenics. Current residents are too poor, so replace them with richer ones— even if it causes widespread homelessness, forced migration and absurd energy costs for the displaced to commute. It's as discriminatory as Federal Housing Administration redlining of black neighborhoods in the 1940s.  @Daojoan (not surprising, Chocolate Rain was an absolutely based song about systemic racism; very satisfying, still) @Daojoan yep tax warehousing, Airbnb and create piede-a-terre tax. And stop tax abatements for luxury housing.  @Daojoan No one should be allowed to own a residence where they do not actually reside. That alone would change all KINDS of things. Furthermore, no one should be allowed to own a business where they do not bizz!
@Daojoan@mastodon.social @Daojoan @PacificNic same image about the underlying, purposeful cause of the lack of affordable housing with #AltText  @Daojoan  @mizblueprint @Daojoan Mmm. I'm not entirely sure this problem can be solved by just passing laws, at least not unless you're willing to pass a lot of them. Like, the underlying problem here is that a small number of people has such a concentration of wealth and power that their minor conveniences and luxuries (Vacation Homes and short term rentals) are valued above other peoples basic necessities (Having a house to live in). @mizblueprint @Daojoan And whatever laws you pass, you can expect them to run up against this basic reality. The wealthy and powerful want what they want, they don't give a damn about anyone else, and their desires will distort everything they can reach. The law, the market, the media, you name it. So, pass a law banning short term rentals, and I expect you'll start seeing loopholes, exceptions, workarounds, and just flat out lack of enforcement immediately, as long as the money demands it. :/ @mizblueprint @Daojoan As a friend points out though, we don't have a lot of other options. It's either try and pass laws, give up, or resort to extra-legal action - which probably means a breakdown in law and order that the rich will be most able to take advantage of... :/ @mizblueprint @Daojoan I suppose there's always the option of 'venture out into the wilderness to build a new society from scratch'? But that kinda requires resources and organization, and if we had that, we probably wouldn't need to do it... XD The ultimate goal (I believe) is to create a prison slave-labor class to replace the lower working class. What better way to accomplish this than outlawing homelessness and making housing totally out of reach economically. @pamleo65 @mizblueprint @Daojoan I don't think they've thought it through that much. Just a million instances of people being selfish and stupid. @pamleo65 @mizblueprint @Daojoan It doesn't really make a difference - that system isn't going to scale well. It's just a question of how miserable things get, and when. :/ @Angle @pamleo65 @Daojoan @Angle @Daojoan @Angle @mizblueprint @Daojoan Oh huh, neat! Has there been a study on the effects? Of the cities that have done this, how effectively have they actually managed to prevent the practice, and how much has it reduced housing prices? @Angle @Daojoan  Hm. Colorado is currently trying to figure out how to fix the property tax & housing market crises. 🤔 😈    @Daojoan Reminds me of whole neighbourhoods getting demolished after the GFC. In a desperate attempt to reinflate the housing bubble, and keep prices artificially high, by reducing supply. Like the house hoarding the “chocolate rain” dude talks about, this is absurd. It's no way to run an economy, and the only people who benefit are the financialist aristocracy and their running dogs. @Daojoan Tay Zonday was always on some real stuff, the meme categorisation really made people gloss over it though:/  @Daojoan I want a pied a terre tax but this post overstates things a lot. There is no significant supply hoarding. And there is no reason to think that owner occupied housing is inherently better (edit: especially if people have to spend a huge part of their income to buy it). Many people don't have the capital to maintain a building. The basic issue is a lack of supply, especially supply of very inexpensive, durable homes for low income people. We should be building them and giving them out. @Daojoan  |
@Daojoan never forget - years later we found out Chocolate Rain was about racism against Black people.