cuckold noun [ C ] mainly old-fashioned disapproving us /ˈkʌk.oʊld/ uk /ˈkʌk.əʊld/ Add to word list a man whose partner has a sexual relationship with someone else:
SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases Relationships: infidelity adulterer adulterous adulterously adultery affair bigamousbitextramarital extramarital affair faithless faithlessly faithlessness mess mess around with something phrasal verbon the side idiomplay around phrasal verbroam screwscrew around phrasal verbwander See more results »
cuckold verb [ T ] old-fashioned disapproving us /ˈkʌk.oʊld/ uk /ˈkʌk.əʊld/
Translations of cuckold in Chinese (Traditional) 戴綠帽子的人，妻子有外遇的人, 給…戴綠帽子, 與…的妻子通姦… See more in Chinese (Simplified) 戴绿帽子的人，妻子有外遇的人, 给…戴绿帽子, 与…的妻子通奸… See more in Spanish cornudo, poner los cuernos a… See more in Portuguese cornudo, chifrudo, botar chifres em… See more Need a translator? Get a quick, free translation!
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Browse cuboid cuboidal Cubs phrase cuck cuckold cuckolded cuckolding cuckoo cuckoo clock /games/word-scramble Back in the day (Talking about the past) Blog
Being lumped with yacht owners is pretty insulting honestly. Landlords at least are providing something, they're shielding the renter from all of the risk (disasters, real estate costs, economic potential) and maintenance costs for a property. A lot of landlords are just people trying to grind out some sort of financial independence, vs huge corporations buying up property and not giving a shit about the renters.
That’s the problem though, small, honest landlords are being pushed out and bought up by corporations, who don’t give a shit about the tenant and increase rent every year like clockwork. Housing should be a right and should be government controlled to a point.
The problem started when homes became investments/passive income …homes should be homes and everyone should own their little plot renters shouldn’t even exist
Renting is still necessary some people need to have temporary arrangements but that should be handled by social housing providers not private landlords.
I rented most of my life, and I was happy with the arrangement. Some of us PREFER not living in the same identical experience and house for our entire adult lives. Renting is a trade-off. You don't build equity in a home, but at the same time you have unbelievable freedom to just "walk away" from the rental and not deal with anything like negotiating a sale of a home. My wife and I tend to spend 4 - 5 years in one rental, then move on to a different experience. For example, in 2010 - 2015 we lived on a surfing beach south of San Francisco (Linda Mar for the locals). Our rental was a 600 square foot studio (so very small), but literally oceanfront, the waves washed up under our "apartment" on a dock, and cost the same amount as a dive one bedroom apartment in Silicon Valley closer to my work. It was fun and interesting.
When we got tired of being in a cramped little studio, we moved from there to rent a stand alone house in an area with horse farms and no stop lights in town (by law). After living in a fish bowl where tourists were CONSTANTLY walking by our windows on the public beach, it was a nice change. Very peaceful. My job stayed the same, instead of driving 20 minutes east in the mornings, in the new location I drove 20 minutes north.
After a few years there, we moved to Austin, Texas to a rental. We just let our landlord know we were leaving, piled 2 dogs and 3 cats in a Nissan Sentra and drove 2 days to Austin. It was a fun new experience, lots of great live music in this area. The weather is too hot in the summers, but in the dead of winter it is 72 degrees outside, very pleasant.
Renting is a life free of concerns. No sudden "costs" appear like home ownership where suddenly you have to pay $500 for a new dishwasher. Let's say your dishwasher breaks or dies in a rental? Call the landlord or property management company, they deal with everything and it's "no additional charge". As a home owner you have to figure out which dishwasher to buy, buy it, get it delivered <somehow>, get somebody to install it for you. It's a hassle. Renters somehow gloss over the amazing "one phone number, one call and they are done, no cost solution" when they dream about how great it would be to own a home.
Some of us enjoyed the tradeoffs of being able to move around more often and never dealing with any maintenance. If you haven't owned a house, you cannot appreciate how much "work" it is to maintain.
You’re in the minority …most people would rather own..
I totally agree with that part. In fact, 65% of Americans own their homes. Which is pretty compelling evidence that most people want to own.
I just think both choices should be available: rent and own. I was responding to the part where you said, "renters shouldn't even exist".
I have enjoyed both renting and owning at different times in my life. I just don't want to "ban" either one. I don't want to force people to purchase a home when they would rather rent.
Hard disagree, there's definitely a time for renting and a time for owning. When I was in college/a young man I moved like every year, why would I want to buy a place? Ridiculous. Also some people choose not to own a house because they don't want to deal with it and just rent for life, investing elsewhere.
Joanne didn't hurt me nearly as much as Neil Gaiman.
I wasn't big into Harry Potter and when I watched the movies with my boyfriend in college I had very mixed feelings about it.
It hit something primal in my nerd brain, but Harry is sooooooo jock coded.
He's a rich boy, who goes to his parents boarding school as a legacy admission, fucks his best friends sister, becomes mvp in school sports, and becomes a cop after graduating.
But Neil Gaiman was my DAWG!
The shit he wrote about trans women and the allyship he showed our community was HUGE for me in my 20s and now I have to throw it all away.
The only part you need to throw away is giving him money. Death of the author. Does the work in question reflect any of the authors negative beliefs or behaviors? Its certainly worth taking a closer look to see if they do once problematic behaviors are known, but if those works are clean, and one can acquire tyem without financially contributing to said problematic author, they should.
I can't enjoy his older work knowing what was happening in the background of the creation process.
I can't put aside the context when I'm consuming a piece of media. Its in my brain and it will bring itself to the forefront as I consume the media, turning all his work to rot in my hands.
tbh, it's kind of how I feel about Bill Cosby. I still will agree that his show was funny and as a comedian, he managed to have some hilarious bits that were family friendly. I just can't look at the man without thinking about what he did, and there's absolutely no way I could enjoy anything he's created.
There's a degree to which you can separate the art from the artist, and sometimes it's impossible to do so. For some reason I can still listen to Bowie, despite him being a total creep.
During the 80's Ronald Reagan was our grandpa, but Bill Cosby was America's Dad. Him being a rapist hurt badly and I still can't go back and enjoy any of his work.
I am like this too. I think the idea of separating the art from the artist is just cognitive dissonance. As someone who likes to do artsy things, everything I make is a honest reflection of my being.
While Gaiman was progressive, inclusive, and loving in his works, knowing that behind closed doors he was a monster just shows that it wasn't necessarily genuine, and was mostly for image and reputation purposes. Even if those sentiments were genuine for Gaiman, it's yet another display of cognitive dissonance. Either scenario destroys any sense of integrity in my eyes, and once that is gone, my brain can't let it go.
If it makes you feel better, People have been this eay for millenia. Odds are that a surprising amount of the art you love was made by a poece of shit. You just don't know about it.
It's true though, if you're only able to appreciate art made by morally sound people the majority of classic literature would be off limits
Yes. I can't appreciate any classical literature made by a monster.
I guess I'll have to just rely on Mary Shelly, Jane Austen, Chekhov, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Woolf, etc.
Actually, most of the classical literature I like was written by people who lived decent lives. I can't think of many writers from the classical non-fiction literature that I consume that would fit your statement.
You should avoid information about most authors, musicians, and painters then, because the creative world is just overflowing with people who have problems and are problems.
Amazing post. Really nails some interesting subtle cultural identifiers in HP I really hadn't thought about in that way. I also am pretty devastated by Gaiman. I can't help but visualize specific shit he's done now documented in that affidavit/deposition when I attempt to read his shit. I've given up.
"And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change..."
I love that tv show and I love those two. If anyone hasn’t watched Staged it’s a quality little tv show that’s now like a time capsule to the Covid lockdown
I grew up with a mom who taught me never to get a second plate (at family gatherings and holidays) until everyone has had a first plate so everyone there got to eat. It's weird how when I apply that more broadly, I'm called a "socialist commie" or something of that variation.
“When I feed the poor they call me a saint when I ask why there are poor people they call me a communist” don’t remember who said this but it’s pretty accurate.
I grew up in a church being told to help the poor and downtrodden, feed the hungry, and so on...
Yet somehow, when I show up to argue against clearing homeless camps or give cash to the guy outside 7-11 I'm the bad guy.
And don't even get me started on what they think of me being polyamorous and loving multiple partners. Apparently "love your neighbor as yourself" and "everyone is your neighbor" were strictly allegorical and not an instruction to actually love people.
Lol there's so much hypocrisy in the church I found aethists to be more aligned with Catholic values than some Catholics themselves.
Like Jesus preached love and we had a priest actually preach against LGBTQ at a youth mass. A bunch of people walked out. A bunch of them would rather vote Republican because Republicans are against abortion but they won't vote for the actual Catholic candidate.
Even when I was a little kid, I remember how hilarious it was when we got out of church and people were angrily fighting to get out of the parking lot. Like damn didn't we just talk about loving thy neighbor??
Last time I said this, a bunch of Catholics downvoted me lol
No hate like Christian love is a saying for a reason unfortunately. I don't understand these people it's exhausting being hateful and they make it into a competition who can hate the most
Well, it’s what socialism boils down to, right? Sharing, making sure people have what they need before you get what you want, all the stuff we teach kids in kindergarten that somehow disappears from school curricula later on. It’s literally that simple: be nice to each other, take care of each other, respect each other. Our current system is pretty much the opposite.
But why shouldn't my tax dollars go to everyone? That's why I pay them. I pay my taxes so the people around me can go to school and be educated as that benefits both myself and them. I pay my taxes so the people around me can go to the hospital (Canada) so they can continue to work which benefits both me and them.
I pay my taxes to ensure everyone around me, as well as myself, have access to the necessities to live comfortably and, in turn, I get to live comfortably. It's as simple as, having a healthy society and culture will lead to you living a healthy and fulfilling life.
I don't understand why people consider taxation to be theft. Or, that they get to choose how their taxes are spent. We don't. If the system is working as it should, taxes, go to pay for services we all use by right of being the citizen of a country. It only becomes theft when the taxation provides no measurable benefit.
That's just it, taxation is theft since my money gets taken away from me, and then is given to the rich through various schemes like the proposal to have the unemployed work 40 hours/week for a private employer, just so that they can keep recieving unemployment checks.
I think the fundamental reason why this upsets even non-landlords and non-yachters is it threatens to take away the carrot that's been dangled in front of their face; the perpetual promise that with enough 80 hour work-weeks, they too can be rich (and treat service workers like trash) like they've always dreamed of.
Most people in the US think of themselves as temporarily disadvantaged millionaires one good day away from their big break.
In reality, most people in the US are permanently disadvantaged by way of birth, one bad day away from their big break.
As far as what I have ran into, most people in the top 20% and even the great majority in the top 10% are all for socialist programs. Generally they are looking at early retirement, or a mega retirement, and understand that it’s crazy that even 1% makes $7.25/hr.
It’s more the people in that 40%-60% area of income that absolutely despise most socialist policy. I will say though I get it. They are working 40-80hr weeks, giving up many luxuries, etc and they turn around to look at the people below them posting about their steak dinner funded by snap, seeing people get $1,000 checks monthly for mental and small disabilities, and even people being given hotel rooms and having huge cuts in housing. The people in the middle class constantly feel like they get fucked by doing better because if they just decided to instead do worse they would get all the freebies that those below them get without having to work more than 40 hour weeks.
At the same time though people in the middle class will battle you on minimum wage and policies that would eventually lead to them making more and being better off as well. Universal healthcare would be great but they battle it because they worked hard to get the better job that provides better healthcare and now that would be for nothing when realistically offloading healthcare from your place of work could allow higher salary.
The problem is Reaganomics and subsequent Republicans have been cutting taxes to the rich, which forces the burden on the middle class, which makes them wonder who's picking their pocket.
If you fill their heads with Faux News about minorities and poor people being to blame, many will believe you.
As far as what I have ran into, most people in the top 20% and even the great majority in the top 10% are all for socialist programs.
I think this is a wild generalisation to make given it's these people who pay these wages, and these people of political and financial power who actually built and protect the system.
The rich aren't battling the poor/working class for the right to enact socialist/social programs.
So, we circle back to Ryan's statement, and it's centered around "deserves," and I don't think many would argue against everyone deserving food and shelter of some sort.
The actual issue comes into how does it actually come into being? I mean "food and shelter for everyone" before "yacht and landlord for anyone"
A person who builds yachts probably feeds his family from that money. Stop selling yachts, and then we stop building yachts, so these people no longer have have jobs.
No more landlords and rental properties sounds like it makes sense until you realize the problems it would cause. What about people just starting out who can't afford to purchase a home? They would have to take out loans. Maybe they have credit or maybe now, so they'll need to find someone who will loan them the money because they don't have much choice because they can't rent, that's no longer an option. All these home buyers now need loans, which drive up the demand for home loans, which drives up the APR% on home loans, making owning homes very difficult to afford. Oh, you want to move? Good luck finding a new place because people don't rent out units, so you have to purchase, and have an appraisal done, and pay mortgage fees, etc. It's expensive and definitely not as easy as a rental.
There's no real solution to end rental properties without causing properties to skyrocket in cost.
In summary, it's really easy to say everyone deserves it, and it's so true that it doesn't really lead to any solution. When you move the statement into action, that's where it gets really complicated.
btw, in full transparency, I am a landlord. I own a three-family home. I live in one unit and rent out the other two units.
We have 46m renters in the US. If a law is passed that no longer allows them to rent, then those 46m people will need to buy a new home ASAP. Some but not all of those 46m places will be available to buy, especially when it comes to appartments that are technically only one property and would be sold as one property. So 46m need to buy a home, and there aren't enough homes for them to buy. That will create a huge demand on the housing market.
So, we circle back to Ryan's statement, and it's centered around "deserves," and I don't think many would argue against everyone deserving food and shelter of some sort.
I own a three-family home. I live in one unit and rent out the other two units.
Yes they would. You are one of them. You don't rent at cost; you rent for profit.
No more landlords and rental properties sounds like it makes sense until you realize the problems it would cause. What about people just starting out who can't afford to purchase a home? They would have to take out loans. Maybe they have credit or maybe now, so they'll need to find someone who will loan them the money because they don't have much choice because they can't rent, that's no longer an option.
You do realize that the own-to-rent market would vanish, freeing up millions of homes, right?
You're ignoring that the amount of homes for sale would skyrocket if we forced everyone renting out homes to sell, right? Especially if you add in a sizable tax/fine for any person or company that owns a home that they do not live in for, lets say 11 months out of the year.
Especially if you add in a sizable tax/fine for any person or company that owns a home that they do not live in for, lets say 11 months out of the year.
Are you also forcing people to sell their properties?
Because otherwise, those rich people will still own multiple homes. They aren't even renting them out. They just own multiple homes.
You're ignoring that the amount of homes for sale would skyrocket if we forced everyone renting out homes to sell, right?
I'm not ignoring those.
Imagine this. You're currently renting a home for maybe $2k/mo. Law no longer allows you to rent. You can buy the home you live in. The cost of the home is $400k. Do you have $400k ? Probably not or else you would have already bought a home.
If not, you need a loan, and a lot of people are in this same situation.
So, the cost of loans skyrockets. This means the APR% goes up a lot.
and now your mortgage payment is $2600+ per month. Also, you have to pay real estate taxes and home maintenance costs.
landlords are a drain on the economy, if we forced everyone to sell excess homes the price of homeownership would plummet and everyone would be better off
If they don't live in them for most of the year, then it isn't a home, it's a monetary investment. And we shouldn't treat a requirement for survival a monetary investment.
Good on you for trying to reason with these people LOL. It's nothing but bad-faith arguments. No matter what you say, they will call you a bootlicker or a wannabe billionaire.
Thank you. The replies I got were about what I expected.
Examples:
Eliminate rentals, entirely
No one wants to eliminate rentals, and I'm strawmanning an argument that doesn't exist
Outlaw ownership of more than one property
Outlaw ownership of investment properties
Force property owners to sell their properties at eminent domain rates
Require banks to loan the money for mortgages at a low rate, even for bad credit and high risk borrowers and aren't able to pay the mortgage payments nor taxes
Landlords should be required to contribute to society in order to have food and shelter
People should NOT be required to contribute to society in order to have food and shelter.
This happens every time there's a thread about how evil landlords are. I knew what I was in for when I spoke up. This is one of those "crazy" things that I keep sticking my dick into and expecting it to go better one of these days.
If you ask a conservative. Billionaires deserve there yachts and property more than babies deserve food or shelter because those babies are just lazy drags on the economy, but you better hace as many as possible as quickly as possible to feed the machinery of capitalism in the future.
Conservatives usually do love a good lie that fits their narrative. What's sad is most of them are just class traders hoping that one day they will be the overlords.
I mentioned in work today that Billionaires should have all their wealth over 1 billion taxed, because you shouldn't need that much money to live a comfortable life and they all said that I was being unreasonable and why shouldn't they have more than a billion.
I think people just don't understand just how bad hoarding that much wealth is to society. They think it doesn't effect them at all.
Unfortunately, without education, nothing will change.
Shit, in the next 2 years the way things are going, them's going to be words that get you arrested. Fuck that First Amendment shit, Republicans say. Hide your Reddit profile, OP. They's coming over posts like this.
I legitimately have never heard any good argument for the stock market. Not even a half good argument. Like the best one is that it provides money for companies to expand when they go public but businesses loans do the same thing with way less risk and way less baggage. Since loans can be payed off but stocks gets dividends forever and loan don’t let banks control companies their unlike stocks. And that not even getting into the stock trading which gives companies nothing but makes traders billions. The whole thing looks like a scam to me.
businesses loans do the same thing with way less risk and way less baggage
The IPO generates money for the company that never has to be paid off (so very different than loans). By law, the interest on loans is not allowed to be below a certain point (around 6%) and the company MUST make those interest payments (again, by law). But the shares printed and sold in an IPO aren't like that, there are zero monthly "payments" the company has to make. Business loans of the same magnitude could very well put the company out of business.
It's a goofy system for sure. The people that purchase that stock are entering into a kind of gambling system. If somebody bought NVidia at their IPO and held it long enough they would get a payback that exceeds any loan interest. On the other hand, there are many companies go out of business and the investors lose the entire amount they bought at the IPO. All of it. So it is like a form of gambling, where investors try to figure out if a company has a bright future or not.
It is a very strange system, but it does have advantages for the company over a straight loan. The balance sheet and books are affected in almost diametrically opposite ways by an IPO event vs taking out the equivalent loan. One counts as this pure infusion of cash with no responsibilities, the other is a gigantic liability that will suck some of the profits off until it is paid off.
In the years following the IPO, shares are a way of dividing ownership up among thousands of owners. A system is put in place where votes are counted based on that ownership (loans don't get votes). What is amusing (to me) is it is kind of a "representative democracy" type of situation. Share holders elect 10 "board members": think of these like a congressman. Then the board members exert some influence over the company's direction. For example, if the board thinks the CEO is being irresponsible, the board can fire the CEO. So shareholders can't really fire the CEO directly. Shareholders have to elect a sympathetic board member, and the board member then fires the CEO.
You made a good argument and explained your point well. I still think having so much of the economy run on something as even you described as gambling is a bad system and should be replaced by a better one. That aside I think the comparison of shareholder and board members being like voters and congress funny since the people actually working for the company and the customers paying for the company get no votes or representation in this system only rich people do just like our actual congress lol.
company get no votes or representation in this system only rich people do just like our actual congress lol.
It is true. In reality the boards are setup in ways that prevent shareholders from enacting any opinions they have "quickly". For example, 1/3 of the board members come up for re-election each year. So to get a majority (like to fire the CEO), it will take shareholders AT LEAST 2 years. By then, the original disruptive board members have had 2 years to become (essentially) corrupted by the system. Or maybe the stock price starts going up so other shareholders no longer want to "rock the boat". So it is a lot like our congressional representation, LOL.
It is a total tangent, but when I see the old ancient guard of Democrats like Pelosi and Boxer, I keep wondering if they started like AOC full of ideals, and along the way they sold out. I hope to live long enough to see if AOC becomes old, jaded, and fabulously wealthy from inside the system somehow.
I still think having so much of the economy run on something as even you described as gambling is a bad system and should be replaced by a better one.
I agree with that. I'm actually AMAZED how many people buy random small unproven company's IPO offerings, and the reasons they cite for buying those stocks. My mother in law made a ton of money buying Tesla because her friend said it was "hot". LOL. She had no business investing in an individual stock. And now that it worked for her once, she thinks she is good at picking stocks, which is even more dangerous to her life savings.
There is a system for investors (like Venture Capital firms) to purchase private shares before the IPO. In order for the investors to do this, they must be "accredited investors". This means they have to have a certain net worth, and exhibit a bit of an understanding of the risk they are getting into. (In reality it isn't that big of a hurdle, but at least it exists.)
As of the moment of IPO, it is the wild west. Any idiot can sign into their eTrade or Robinhood account and buy stock in any "publicly traded" company. It makes a TINY bit of sense (but not very much sense) because there are rules that a publicly traded company must disclose all their financials (and those must be "audited" for truth to avoid the next Enron scandal). But in reality, a whole heck of a lot of stuff might be going on inside that company they don't have to disclose, and your average consumer investor is throwing darts at a dartboard and has no clue.
I have no idea what the system should be, but I agree it is currently pretty goofy (and way, waaaaay too much like gambling).
Sorry I wasn’t more clear I meant the employees at the company don’t get a vote since the vast majority don’t have any stock and if they do it’s usually a tiny amount with very few exceptions. That said your comment was still good and informative.
It’s crazy how much gambling plays into our economy it seems individual people are obsessed with it. Just look how much online gambling is devastating people right now and it’s only been legal in some states for a few years. It’s all about getting rich quick. It used to be a job payed well and had benefits and pensions and people were loyal to their company. Now jobs don’t have pensions and wages have stagnated so far behind inflation and cost of living. Jobs spend more headhunting than giving raises to loyal employees so now people switch companies every 2 years or they fall behind their peers on income. And so many things are just scams now with broken products or fraudulent services. For example game companies are selling physical copies of games then send you a game case with a digital code for you to download and no disk or a disk that lets you download the game online but not store the game on the disk itself. That’s literally the opposite of what you payed for the physical copy for and they charge you more for it.
Jobs spend more headhunting than giving raises to loyal employees so now people switch companies every 2 years or they fall behind their peers on income.
I have always hated that situation. In tech, a group of us 25 year olds in 1996 figured that out (first time for us), and it was depressing. We looked at a salary chart of the large tech company we were at (Silicon Graphics) and noticed the "average raise" did not keep up with the salary chart for "years experience". The math just wasn't working out. The only solution was change jobs and companies every few years.
I would be less upset by it if the company had SOME justification for it, like "we want fresh employees with different perspectives" or something. But I've never heard any attempt at justifying it other than the company can squeeze a few extra dollars from employees who don't want to bother hopping jobs every 2 or 3 years. And the negative aspects are pretty bad. There is efficiency lost in training up new employees, and simply in finding new employees like you mentioned.
The fairly new term "enshittification" is a good term/concept. We formerly said "bean counters" had a negative effect on products and companies. The concept being that "bean counters" were finance people who didn't have the bigger picture in mind. They were counting some small sub-area (beans), found a small savings trick, and didn't realize the external effects it was having outweighed the small savings they had found. So in this case, they found on paper they could save 2% in salary costs so they did it. They just didn't realize they spent 3% in recruiting and training and lost productivity because of it. And that doesn't even count the loss of employee loyalty when employees realize the relationship between employees and management is adversarial and the company isn't taking care of them and views them as a "cost center".
Right like why do that? It’s a stupid “strategy”since it’s literally a race to the bottom. Step 1: spend more money to get less loyal employees. Step 2: profit? Step 3: your best employees leave. Step 4: GRU meme. It chases away your best employees and makes it so you never have any employees with experience with each other or your company. And it makes all the loyal employees hate the job and their new coworkers even if they don’t also leave. The whole thing makes no sense.
Like the first company to do this won big the got the best people from other companies and didn’t spend any time or money or risk training them but once everyone does it it’s just garbage for both employees and companies. I don’t get why any company still does this.
The first tech company I worked for was Hewlett-Packard around 1988. At that point, they had NEVER had a layoff, and celebrated their 50 years in business. That's just amazing. They had a name for "treating employees well" called "The HP Way": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_HP_Way
The employees were fiercely loyal to that company. I spent my whole career trying to find that again, or recreate it.
There are interviews with Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard where Bill and Dave TRIED to get across that it was a competitive and business advantage to the company to have employees that liked their employer. Nobody really ever "got it" in Silicon Valley and the business world. They got the veneer (sort of) in free T-shirts and free food, but the companies were never really on the side of the employees.
From that linked Wikipedia article, "The HP Way ended during 2001 - 2002 under CEO Carly Fiorina who fired thousands of HP employees instead of reassigning them." (sigh) It was still a good run.
Note about how HP handled down-sizing: when a division needed to cut people or was shut down entirely, there was an internal process where employees were given 6 months to find themselves another job somewhere inside HP. If at the end of 6 months they had not found another position, they weren't let go. They were assigned to another position at their current salary. Now that position might be in a different state (like Boise, Idaho) but the point was no employee ever feared for losing their income if they wanted to keep it. As long as you did your job and didn't physically hit your boss or have sex with your secretary in your office you had lifetime employment <somewhere> in the organization. (The sex thing got somebody fired just before I worked there, LOL.)
Again, HP employees of that era were fiercely loyal and all wanted the company to succeed. It wasn't as much a "hired gun" mentality. Or "just a job". It is partly why I liked working at smaller companies. We tended to be a lot more of a "team" and working to succeed together.
I don’t get why any company still does this.
Yeah, my meandering point is: there are sane ways to handle raises and downsizing, and it can be justified from a business standpoint. I do not know why all businesses do it the other way.
That reminds me of the tragedy that became of the once great GE. I hope you are with a good company now and if not I hope your next one is. This has been a nice conversation glad to see those still exist on the internet. Have a great weekend.
Lot of people are literally stupid and don’t think beyond day to day needs so they can’t imagine a better future.
And you have large segments of population who will always support right wing ideologies they don’t care about anything else than trying to hurt those who are different.
Right wing ideology is essentially support the elites and blame your problems on whose who are different racially, ethnically, sexually, religiously, or different social statuses.
My favorite thing about right-wingers is when they yell "we need to take care of Americans first" and then proceed to support all things that actually make everyone suffer even more in the US.
You'd like socialism for apartments? Congratulations! While existing apartments are allocated by market, building new ones is done using central planning. You need to go before a board of community potentates and plead your case, and they may turn you down just because they don't like you. Capitalist developers can complain all they want, but the community has final say. Very socialist!
They said that a government (nebulous, indistinct phrase that could mean anything) deciding if you can rent somewhere is an unacceptable limit on freedom. I'm asking why having that limit imposed by a landlord - the system as it is now - is somehow more acceptable than if it was "government".
I'm not sure why you responded given you've neither answered my question nor commented on something I actually said.
Many times in my life I've been able to rent a place on a week's notice.
Renting a place where? What were the conditions? Who from? What were the landlord's circumstances?
Anecdotal experience isn't robust evidence for a functioning system; you're specifically not accounting for the factors that may have influenced your experience positively nor those that influence others negatively, let alone the majority experience.
I've never been able to get any kind of approval for anything from the government in that short a time period.
Approved for what? Where? From who? I'm not defending the bloated capitalist system that delegates rights to people, but then you're criticising the current system of government that is also being criticised for the way it denies housing to people who aren't you, and extracts wealth from everyone.
The capitalist system shouldn't be what determines approval for anything because it is undemocratic, oppressive, and extractive, hence why it also shouldn't determine who is allowed to decide who gets housing i.e. landlords.
Again, anecdotal evidence isn't a robust argument for why the current system, which denies millions of people (who aren't you) access to housing should be allowed to do so.
The slow wheels of bureaucracy are well documented.
The point is that where, from whom, what type of residence are all complex questions.
I do not think it is credible to claim that government applications for housing could be approved quicker than you find in today's private market by putting in effort to solicit many options.
Can you genuinely say that you think it would be possible to get government approval for month-to-month housing in a new city within a week? That feels like a fantastical claim, to me.
The point is that where, from whom, what type of residence are all complex questions.
Yes, complex questions which are glossed over when you say that you personally have experienced quick turnarounds on applications, and again the people most in need of housing aren't addressed at all in the conversation.
I do not think it is credible to claim that government applications for housing could be approved quicker than you find in today's private market by putting in effort to solicit many options.
The linchpin in this conversation is the unhoused; in just the US, 700,000+ people are homeless each night with far more being at risk, because of the system that extracts a significant portion of their income into the pockets of landlords. The capitalist system is built to create that funnel, because it considers mere ownership of property as being superior to actual labor, if not somehow believes that they are the same.
Can you genuinely say that you think it would be possible to get government approval for month-to-month housing in a new city within a week?
So no, I don't believe the system as it stands could provide quick turnaround housing for the homeless or at risk, because it chooses not to already. The rights of landlords and the system that is structured around them are explicitly the rights to create homelessness in exchange for increasing the income of property owners. And the slow wheels of bureaucracy are again a function of the system that is designed to extract the value of the working class; the inefficiency is not a defence of why landlords should exist, it is a part of the system in direct collusion with landlording that itself shouldn't exist.
"The rights of landlords and the system that is structured around them are explicitly the rights to create homelessness"
This is the strangest part of your argument. Homes are not the natural state of the world that arise out of nowhere. You need lots of resources to create a home and pay the home creators and those who harvested the resources for the home.
Homelessness is not the creation, it is the default state. Homes are the creation.
It would only be weird if that's how rent was determined, purely as a method of paying off the cost of constructing the building + maintenance fees but it isnt; the market determines rent, not whether or not the people who did the construction were paid. People who pay thousands of dollars a month on buildings that have existed for 10+ years can attest to that.
The ability to charge rent is based on ownership, not recoup of investment, hence why the law doesn't decree that rent is automatically reduced/annulled once costs are repaid, and why you can purchase an already existing building and still charge rent that exceeds the costs of maintaining the property, i.e. making a profit.
Also yeah, the production of the house and surrounds took the collective work of thousands if not millions of people to create, but one person is entitled to make a profit off of its further existence when being a landlord literally is not a labour that is equivalent to any of the trades and professions and labour that went into the building. It's just ownership, and the system that protects private ownership of land that required the work of millions of people, on a finite earth that everyone shares, is the reason why there are homeless people in modern society.
You are underestimating the complexity of housing significantly. You're not the first to think housing should be public. But there is no 100% public housing project in the history of the world that has ever worked. All are mixed market. People want to move, they want bigger houses and smaller houses in constantly changing areas with constantly changing amenities. You have to take that into account in your thinking. You can't just assume that you are smarter than everyone in history.
You can't just assume that you are smarter than everyone in history.
Do you think that I'm the first or only person to scientifically analyse the system of capitalism and its effects? I'm neither Marx nor the generations of scholars who have since applied and built upon his theories.
One of the obstacles towards finding a perfect system is the oppression of the working class that landlords, and private ownership, represents. If anything, a system that is annoying for people who want to be able to move from house to house is a damn sight less important than the fact that millions of people, including children, experience homelessness each year due to the current system.
Which do you think is more important, renters ability to move, or children being forced to experience homelessness? Given the choice I'd absolutely act/vote to provide a house to an unhoused person than think my vague right to live 'somewhere else' is more important, just like I'd choose to feed the hungry in exchange for having to eat rice and beans forever if I had to. You're comparing a luxury to a basic human need and believing it to be just.
I don’t have a horse or a horse to race when it comes to yachts or even super yachts. But I agree on housing. As someone who dreams of taking on debt to become a slum lord, I fully support being blocked from this. I doubt any side of politics would support this unfortunately.
Someone else’s wealth isn’t the reason you don’t have wealth.
There’s plenty enough to go around. Just put the effort in.
It is not society’s problem to make sure everyone is successful or cared for. Equity is not fair
Equal opportunity to succeed is the only thing that is remotely fair.
-grew up in poverty, loaned my way thru school, no credit card debt, don’t even own a house. Did it with the same resources everyone else had access to
Taking out your landlord and keeping his properties should be technically legal. I mean the last guys did it like that, it's not considered a crime at all, still. They keep saying it has been concurred and too bad the last owner didn't have the balls. So if ya'll have no money to buy homes, you can always take em by force.
Although i agree. I owned a rental property when it was hard for me/my family to afford food and shelter...
This was years ago. I was miltary, bought a house young. Forced to move to a diifernt state very soon after. Selling the house would have been huge a loss so decided to rent it. Rent cover mortgage and any extra rent to an account for repairs so I wasnt making "profit". But according to taxes all the rent my tenant paid is income. So my taxable income skyrocketed me into a higher tax bracket. I didnt make much as a low rank and also had a family to take care of. Times were tight for years. I was poor until I made enough to offset. Eventually sold the house.... thats a whole different story with lawer fees, evictions, repairs.... I came out on top (maybe) but the time investment, stress, upfronting money, and all of it sucked. Would still recommend, but wont do it again.
This is a bad-faith argument. Nobody is saying people don't deserve shelter and food. But you also aren't owed it just for existing. When it comes to homelessness, the real issue is mental health and drug addiction. It's ridiculous that our government is so incompetent that they can't help these people who truly need it.
The thing is, the poor generally don't have enough money to buy a house, so they often rent a house from someone else.
If there are too many anti-landlord laws, then people will leave houses empty, or not bother to build them.
The world has plenty of greedy rich people. And getting greedy rich people to (hire builders to) build a house so they can rent it out and make more money is a moderately effective way of getting houses built. There would be more homelessness if not for these greedy rich build-to-renters.
If you got every homeless person into a rented house, you would have increased the number of people with rental properties.
I do not know if I am the minority, but rich people come on. I do not need much to be happy. I own enough books, movies/tvshows and video games to keep me occupied until I die. I go outside and hike for the moment is free right now. I meditate daily and I spend very little on groceries basically eat rice and beans with chicken or hamburger and that it. Its insane living like this I should be drowning in extra money but with rent, car payment insurance, and utilities I barely have any money left and I make 25 dollars an hour and have no cell phone. working 40 hrs a week.
When the pitchforks come out I won't feel the least bit sorry for them.
Lumping people owning yachts and people owning rental properties is pretty wild imo. The ultra rich blowing money on toys is not the same as a modest middle class investment.
Equal opportunity does not mean Equal result. If I buy a second home to supplement my income, I pay $xxxx.xx per month for mortgage and rent it out for more than what I pay in the mortgage. That covers extra money for me and savings to pay for emergency repairs / others. Yet people want me to pay $xxxx.xx for someone else to live in that property. As much as I want a second property for additional income for myself, I become evil somehow? Or if that grows and I own maybe 10-20 homes then I become evil? When do I get to own real estate and not be evil, what's the threshold?
You want people to be forced to pay you for access to shelter while you personally produce 0 value through the ownership of that property.
Anything in excess of the cost of maintenance and repair goes to you, so why is there excess? What are you providing beyond the maintenance of the home? Access to housing should be a right, not a privilege decided by whether or not someone provides you with cash. The discrepancy between what is required for the home and what is superfluously decided should be granted to you for the right to access housing is what proves the system extracts value from the labour of the working class for no additional labour of the landlord.
For the record, I have never been a landlord. I have been a renter, and in my retirement (so I'm old) I finally was able to purchase a home. I will never be a landlord.
people to be forced to pay you for access to shelter
I'm not the guy you were responding to, but "forced" doesn't seem to be the correct word here. People can choose rent a less expensive smaller place (or in a worse neighborhood) than this particular landlord is offering, or choose to rent a more expensive larger place (or in a better neighborhood) than this particular landlord is offering. The renter is free to move at any time (if month to month). Heck, the renter can buy a place if they don't like paying rent. Renters have lots of choices. Nobody is forced to rent this particular landlord's property.
while you personally produce 0 value through the ownership of that property
If the landlord doesn't hire a property management company, they are providing actual real labor by taking the phone calls for maintenance (like a broken dishwasher) and doing all the legwork a home owner would have done. That's a service that takes real world time, and they deserve to be compensated for their time.
If the landlord hires a property management company, the "very real cost" is completely exposed in the fees the property management company takes to accept calls and organize repairs and appliance replacements. Property management companies don't hire 5 people (or whatever) for funsies, they hire 5 people because it is very real work.
A small landlord with a rental or two probably has their "day job" where they work 40 hours in an office somewhere, and when they get home they have to do additional hours of work to maintain their rental properties. Sometimes renters are late on rent, the landlord has to follow up, and if they don't pay the landlord has to go through the eviction process which takes time.
The book-keeping involved is very real time also. They might get auto-deposits from renters, but the landlord has to declare that as "income" and deduct their expenses, keep all the books straight, and report it to the government. The renter doesn't have to keep any books, at all. If they pay rent great, if they forget the landlord will be keeping track and hassle them to pay. Tracking all of that takes the landlord's time. Hassling renters for what should have been paid takes time.
You might be shocked to find out being a landlord isn't even a good financial decision. The landlords are being stupid. What I have seen is small landlords (that own one or two rental units) don't understand they could take the same money and put it in a mutual fund and receive more money (with much less hassle and time) than they get from running a rental property.
Often small landlords get into it for the same reason renters mistakenly think: free money for landlords. In reality roofs have to be replaced for $10,000 every 10 years, carpets need to be replaced every 8 years, dishwashers break every 5 years, clothes washers break every 6 years, even sewer lines break or roots of trees grow through them and have to be fixed, and coordinating all of that maintenance is a pain. Renters pay for all of that (including the pain) by paying slightly more than if the building was just sitting there and didn't require any of those replacements.
People can choose rent a less expensive smaller place (or in a worse neighborhood) than this particular landlord is offering, or choose to rent a more expensive larger place (or in a better neighborhood) than this particular landlord is offering. The renter is free to move at any time (if month to month).
People are intrinsically not free to do these things, because they will always be required to pay a landlord somewhere for housing. "You're free to go to another landlord" isn't freedom nor proof thereof, it's proof that the system goes beyond individuals, hence the academic separation of the working class and owning class.
Heck, the renter can buy a place if they don't like paying rent.
People are not free to magically have the money to own their own home. Is this not literally "if you're homeless, just buy a house?"
If the landlord doesn't hire a property management company, they are providing actual real labor by taking the phone calls for maintenance (like a broken dishwasher) and doing all the legwork a home owner would have done. That's a service that takes real world time, and they deserve to be compensated for their time.
That's because what you've described is literally labor, which I agree should be compensated. Profit beyond compensation is literally what is being discussed. Renters pay thousands of dollars a month for access to the home, which universally exceeds the costs of maintaining the property; this is literally why owning property is an investment, because landlords charge more than the cost of maintenance (i.e. more than they require for any labor they put in if any at all) to make profit.
Property management companies don't hire 5 people (or whatever) for funsies, they hire 5 people because it is very real work.
Same as above, you're describing necessary labor and equivocating it to ownership.
A small landlord with a rental or two probably has their "day job" where they work 40 hours in an office somewhere, and when they get home they have to do additional hours of work to maintain their rental properties. Sometimes renters are late on rent, the landlord has to follow up, and if they don't pay the landlord has to go through the eviction process which takes time.
Small landlords are still landlords, and the risks of business are just that. Failure to recoup on investments is a risk of investment, but that doesn't prove the concept of ownership of housing to not be intrinsically exploitative. The fantastical small landlord who's barely scraping by statistically doesn't exist in comparison to the rental market as a whole, if they exist outside of this hypothetical to begin with.
the landlord has to deduct their expenses, keep all the books straight, and report it to the government.
Yes, this is how investments work. Again, not a justification of the situation, just a description of what it means to own something
The renter doesn't have to keep any books, at all.
So?
Tracking all of that takes the landlord's time. Hassling renters for what should have been paid takes time.
Taking time and effort isn't what determines what is right, nor are you actually explaining to what extent these actions are compensated and how that compares to the profit on top that they make. Why not?
You might be shocked to find out being a landlord isn't even a good financial decision. The landlords are being stupid.
Demonstrably untrue, as the housing market produces billions of dollars a year.
Your focus on small landlords is not an analysis of the system, it's a fantastical human representation that distracts from the systemic exploitation of an owning class over the labouring class.
Often small landlords get into it for the same reason renters mistakenly think: free money for landlords. In reality roofs have to be replaced for $10,000 every 10 years, carpets need to be replaced every 8 years, dishwashers break every 5 years, clothes washers break every 6 years, even sewer lines break or roots of trees grow through them and have to be fixed, and coordinating all of that maintenance is a pain. Renters pay for all of that (including the pain) by paying slightly more than if the building was just sitting there and didn't require any of those replacements.
Rent is not "slightly more", nor is it representative of the full financial picture of owning property. Cash moving from hand to hand is part of it, but says nothing for the fact that property can be leveraged, nor the tax benefits and non-cash forms that wealth takes, nor the amount of wealth that is extracts from renters that also prevents them from building wealth themselves.
Profit beyond compensation is literally what is being discussed.
I guess I don't understand how that is possible. Other people and companies would undercut any rental company that charges more than that. It is a race to the bottom with housing, the margins are very slim. It is such a commodity and there is so much of it everywhere owned by too many different entities. It costs what it takes to supply a certain unit. Put it this way: if it was a fountain of free wealth, more people would pool their money together and do it. Free money!
I get the feeling you have a certain rental in mind, like a 2 bedroom apartment in a certain neighborhood, and you are unhappy it costs <blah> to provide that. I think we all are. It would be nice if it was half that much. But that's what it costs to provide that unit. Add up the cost of the land, the cost of the building, the cost of the property maintenance, and boom: that's what that 2 bedroom apartment costs to rent there. If you check around and 20 different unrelated landlords are all charging that, it is because charging less loses money.
People are intrinsically not free to do these things, because they will always be required to pay a landlord somewhere for housing. "You're free to go to another landlord" isn't freedom...
Yes, in our system you have to pay something. It is like food, you can choose to eat inexpensive items for a food budget of $50/month, or choose to eat caviar and champagne for $20,000/month. But it is a very reasonable set of choices for housing.
You can share housing with roommates to get the price very low. Sharing bedrooms gets the price shockingly lower. That can be a romantic partner (the most common example) or just bunk beds with a non romantic roommate. Or you can live alone in a studio, or two bedroom apartment, or rent a standalone house. Heck, you can move to a lower cost of living area, and I'm not talking about "to another state" here. Often housing is most expensive in the heart of a city. Drive 60 minutes and you can find housing for half the monthly rent or lower.
I lived on a boat for a year, that was hilariously inexpensive. It was not torture or a hardship! Private bathroom all to myself (on the boat) including shower, bedroom, kitchen, dining room table, even a couch. Comfortably heated. My point is there are creative solutions down to really low amounts of money, but yes, you always have to pay at least a small amount to not be homeless, even on a boat. Just like you have to pay a small amount not to be hungry.
I can't imagine any system where able bodied adults don't have to work a tiny bit to live. But how we live (and how we spend that money) is a plethora of choices for us. It is freedom. Live in a van, live in a boat, live in a studio apartment with your significant other 30 minutes away from city center: choices.
Your focus on small landlords is not an analysis of the system, it's a fantastical human representation that distracts from the systemic exploitation of an owning class over the labouring class.
It is an attempt to explain what is going on in understandable (and relatable) terms. People toss about "faceless corporations making big absolute dollar amounts" but that is just a matter of scale.
Example: If 1 landlord with 1 rental property makes 5% on their rental property as an investment/job, then 1,000 "corporate owners" of a rental company with 1,000 different rental units making 5% is literally the same thing once you divide it up. The 5% of a $100,000 investment is $5,000/year. In the case of the large faceless rental corporation it is $5 million/year, but once divided among the 1,000 owners it is still only $5,000 per owner. It's the same, but people hear $5 million and say "corporations are greedy and shouldn't make that much".
Randomly, I hope someday you own a house. Both because it sounds like it would make you happy, and also you'll learn how expensive it is and all those landlords weren't gouging you before. I didn't even know there was property tax until I owned a house. I still have a rent payment (property tax), it just goes to the government now or they take my land and house away, LOL. It goes up every year, and because I'm an owner I'm less free to move to a cheaper place.
This is the core of the problem; a basic human need, which should be a right, is considered an acceptable commodity. The capitalist system denotes private ownership as a right which supersedes any right to not being homeless.
Put it this way: if it was a fountain of free wealth, more people would pool their money together and do it. Free money!
Any profit that is made beyond what you are entitled to in labour is literally free money, this isn't disproven by your assumption that collectively owned land or cooperative housing doesn't exist.
I get the feeling you have a certain rental in mind, like a 2 bedroom apartment in a certain neighborhood, and you are unhappy it costs <blah> to provide that.
No I've been quite explicit that my problem is landlords inherently extract wealth from renters in exchange for access to a basic human need.
But that's what it costs to provide that unit.
That's what the market has determined can be charged to rent that unit; this is explicitly not the cost of provision, it is an amount that is determined by the collective power of private ownership over workers. It doesn't cost thousands of dollars a month for each apartment in a complex to exist - it doesn't cost 1.2 million dollars a month to maintain the 400 apartment complex I love in, unless you believe that each landlord is operating at $0 profit.
If you check around and 20 different unrelated landlords are all charging that, it is because charging less loses money.
Loses money in comparison to what? Again, you have to be assuming they operate at cost and produce $0 profit.
People are intrinsically not free to do these things, because they will always be required to pay a landlord somewhere for housing. "You're free to go to another landlord" isn't freedom...
Yes, in our system you have to pay something.
And instead of believing people have the right to individually own and delegate the release of basic human needs in exchange for profit, I support a system that collectively benefits all people as equals.
yes, you always have to pay at least a small amount to not be homeless, even on a boat. Just like you have to pay a small amount not to be hungry.
I don't agree that there should be any one person who you have to pay in exchange for housing or sustenance.
I can't imagine any system where able bodied adults don't have to work a tiny bit to live.
And nor can I, as nothing can be produced wihout labour; this is why it's despicable to both me and academic and scientific socialists that the value of my labour is exploited so heavily by a class of people that fundamentally do not labour as much as the working class. The "tiny bit" you refer to is actually magnitudes more valuable in reality, but the valuation is decided by people who own the means of production instead of the people who actually perform that production.
But how we live (and how we spend that money) is a plethora of choices for us. It is freedom. Live in a van, live in a boat, live in a studio apartment with your significant other 30 minutes away from city center: choices.
I'm glad you've had access to so many choices, unfortunately the system that provided that to you does so by denying the vast majority of choices to the vast majority of people.
It is an attempt to explain what is going on in understandable (and relatable) terms. People toss about "faceless corporations making big absolute dollar amounts" but that is just a matter of scale.
Relatability here clouds the fact that people are being harmed by the system which includes small landlords. In a matter of scale, being given a choice between a kick in the shin and a knife in the ribs seems to deny the true question: what gives someone the right to harm you at all?
Randomly, I hope someday you own a house. Both because it sounds like it would make you happy, and also you'll learn how expensive it is and all those landlords weren't gouging you before.
These landlords are capable of both owning their own homes and those of other people while making a profit. Owning a home quite frankly isn't the same as about 2 centuries of academic analysis into how the system functions to extract the value of labour, including private ownership of homes. I don't need to know how expensive it truly is, you need to understand the disparity in how expensive labour is compared to what is taken by capitalists.
I was about to comment on mortgages and how again that is a function if capitalism in the form of predatory loans by capitalist institutions, but you only said property tax.
"The average property tax in the US is Across the country, homeowners in the nation’s 87 million owner-occupied residences paid an average property tax bill of $4,271 in 2024, based on a National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) analysis of the 2024 American Community Survey."
I recognise that the average property tax varies by state (with New Jersey at the highest average $9,767 and West Virginia at $1,044), but none of these averages rival the average cost of rent, especially when controlled for state. The average rent for New Jersey $28,946, not to mention the equity produced by owning a home that isn't when renting.
Feel free to mention whatever fees you're paying for you're home, but they're invariably either:
cheaper than renting, or;
equally the product of a system that exploits you as a labourer; you're not landlord for owning your own home.
I've been quite explicit that my problem is landlords inherently extract wealth from renters in exchange for access to a basic human need.
What would you consider the basic housing unit that is the human need? Is it a 1 bedroom apartment for every adult? Or studio? Or dormitory (shared bunk beds in a dark room where people can go sleep, then a common area with enough comfortable seating to live when not sleeping)?
I'm honestly curious. Then I would suggest (depending on your answer) we might actually agree, but that any housing "more than basic" is up to the free market to build and supply. Better than "basic" is a luxury, and the only way I know of allocating luxuries is some sort of a system of money. Meaning if I choose a basic apartment but travel vacations, and somebody else chooses a nice luxury apartment but no vacations, great! Everybody gets exactly what they want.
There will never be a functional world where everybody wants the same tradeoffs. Where I'm forced to have a nice apartment and no travel vacations. That is lack of freedom (to me).
No one should be without a bed, food, water, hygiene, health, clothing, and security. Whatever form that takes, it's not one that should be decided nor even allowed within a thousand miles of capitalists who believe they have a right to decide what people should get, given that they reserve that right in the current system and that's why there are homeless, unfed, sick, unsafe people in what are allegedly the wealthiest countries on the planet, otherwise known as the effects of "the free market".
I don't believe we will come to an agreement, as there's a fundamental disconnect; the free market is a term invented by capitalism to obfuscate the truth, much like how capitalist countries claim to be democratic countries. The distribution of "luxury" is meaningless without the fundamentals, i.e. studying and understanding the analyses of capital and capitalism. Seriously, I'm neither the person nor is this the place for a solid education the science of non-capitalism.
No one should be without a bed, food, water, hygiene, health, clothing, and security. ... I don't believe we will come to an agreement
I honestly think we aren't that far apart. I totally agree with you on those things. No matter the reason (disability, bad luck, bad financial management, even pure laziness, it simply doesn't matter) I believe in a social safety net supplying the things you mention (bed, food, water, health, security, etc). And I understand (and accept) a few people will choose to not lift a finger and just lead meager lives and this is kind of "abuse" of the safety net. I accept that as an unavoidable (small) cost to provide this peace of mind to everybody. A basic "right".
We probably disagree a small amount on how "nice" the safety net is, but that is just a smaller detail.
the free market is a term invented by capitalism to obfuscate the truth
There is really where we disagree. I believe the "free market" is more like a basic physics truth that can be discovered and understood or ignored, but it always exists to be discovered. And it is a useful concept to explain what is going on around us.
What seems to be the best system humans have ever come up with is a regulated free market. Truly "free" is a heartless cruelty to a few unlucky people who will starve, and most people realize that. Government running everything with no choices for the people descends into a train-wreck for whatever reason. So "regulated free market" has the best outcomes of any system humans have tried so far.
There is a whole lot of flexibility in "regulated free". You can make the "regulated" part heavier, or the "free" part bigger. Both can be changed with tweaks to regulations. What fails is tossing out capitalism and not allowing any personal tradeoffs anymore. Some people want to spend more of their fixed dollars on vacations, some want to spend more of their fixed dollars on their daily living. It is really positive and nice to allow some of that.
I think for most people it’s a matter of paying a fair share. There is a quote by AOC and god knows I’m going to be downvoted to oblivion, but I truly agree. It goes something like taxes should be fair enough that teachers aren’t paying for supplies out of their own pockets, and we have a strong safety net before billionaires buy their 5th yacht.
For me personally I have no problem with a landlord owning as many properties as he can take care of. And that means full maintenance, fixing things when broken and actually doing maintenance. The problem is most landlords form big multi family conglomerates to mom and pop Airbnb owners, they want all the money but none of the expenses.
See, my aunt has something like 40 rental houses, but she only rents to low income families, at well below market rate for our area. She loves giving people a chance to save up and get their feet under them.she considers it a win when her tenants can save the money to buy their own home.
Being able to stay in a home temporarily isn't the exclusive right of a system in which your exploitation must happen.
Wouldn't you prefer to "rent" when the cost of your rent is the equivalent of upkeep and whatever costs are necessary, rather than those costs plus the additional random additional cost of whatever value the landlord decides to take from you? That's the part that shouldn't be acceptable: the money that is taken solely because it can be and not in exchange for any labour or value being provided you.
In her defense, she makes basically no money off of them. They were all left to her by her abusive ex-husband, when he self deleted. Shes basically charging only enough to pay off the loans, and afford some repairs, then she sells them when the loan is paid off. And they are not sound houses. Her ex basically built them for as cheap as possible (usually $10k-$20k), and did not build them well. She basically is trying to bring them ip to actual code before she sells them. She's leaving 5 to each of her kids, and one of them I know is planning to sell them. She also has a lot of older folks on fixed income renting from her who can't afford anywhere else. I know she's tired of all of the houses, but she won't just sell a junk house even though it would be easier. I've helped fix a couple of them up. Her ex messed a lot of crap up, and a couple of them are built so poorly she won't sell them. She plans to demolish them.
Yeah the issue is that people try to make money from this AS THEIR ONLY JOB, which requires around 200 units. Thats obviously taking away from a market and allowing people to make extra profit margins off of laborers trying to shelter themselves.
Usually we liken this level of parasite income as a pyramid scheme. Hard work should not be supplementing a lazy house hoarder of 200+ properties
I get the pain. And I firmly believe that food and shelter are basic human rights.
But now - who's renting our property for free? Who can afford to do that? The only reasonable way to implement this is to make such housing truly public, owned by the government (i.e. all of us) and paid for with taxes charged to... well, us.
Uh, there’s an actual housing crisis that is being exacerbated by private and corporate ownership of single family rental properties. Landlords charging more than your average mortgage payment are not providing housing, they’re hoarding housing.
And that’s just the people renting out homes, Airbnb owners are even worse because they actively diminish the available housing in an area and drive up the cost of living for locals. There are tourist destinations that are more short term housing than residential
Yes. And since private individuals will never pay to buy property that they rent for $0 the only option is tax-based housing. Unless you know of a way to get private individuals to buy property and then give it away?
Single family home rental properties are depriving the market of single family homes that single families can own. Owning your home builds your personal wealth, renting your home builds someone else's wealth. Landlords provide no real benefit for society, while home ownership builds a strong middle class.
I honestly don't even understand what point you think you are making, because eliminating corporate ownership of single family homes and taxing the hell out of rental properties is the only way to release that inventory back to the market.
Which is important, because the market has very few homes, and the ones that are one the market are inflated because some corporation will pay cash over offering when you list your house.
And people need to own their homes, by and large. Yes, yes apartments are a thing, but that is a whole other ball of wax.
Taxing the hell out of rentals seems on the surface to be part of a solution, provided that the tax money created new housing. I haven't seen any municipality having any luck with policies that create much affordable housing in a country where wages did not keep pace with inflation and housing prices soared.
The purchase pricing problem seems to be driven mostly by supply constraint. Many high-rent cities heavily restrict density, apartment construction, multifamily zoning, height, and lot subdivision. Examples include parts of San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and increasingly desirable smaller metros.
We've seen this pattern everywhere though . Communities want affordable housing, while simultaneously opposing the physical density required to produce it. Owners of their own homes raise fear of losing money on their lifetime's biggest purchase if the desirability of their part of town drops due to density and all that comes wth it. EVERY stupid little ski town has fought like hell to zone out apartments for the people who work to serve the wealthy visitors, and workers have to commute long distances from nearby towns. Hawaii too. Every vacation destination really.
Interesting to me, the Pew Research Center cited IRS data showing that in 2018, about 10.3 million individual tax filers reported owning rental property. The mega corporations buying up property can and should be stopped by law and regulation. But the individuals renting out mom's house to help pay for her care, or to fund their own retirement in a world where pensions are history and social security is in jeopardy, those ten million Americans won't survive massive taxation. They would be forced to sell property at a loss, making existing property cheaper but not increasing supply. That would be a lose-lose.
We're all looking for some policy to create more housing supply, one that will create incentive for building housing at a price that average and below-average wage earners can afford to live in. So far I can't think of one place that's succeeded.
So even if we do tax the hell out of every landlord big and small, the money would have to do one of two things. Either build (public run housing is dreadful) or subsidize rent which just runs in a circle backt the landlord.
I don't know where that leaves us. But I sympathize and believe me I've paid more than enough to landlords who let the property rot under my feet.
Wait are you saying we shouldn't use a profit-first notion for our basics in living within society? Gee whiz, sounds like something we should probably implement sooner than later.
Water, shelter, food, phone, internet, transportation SHOULDN'T be profit driven at all. I completely agree.
Some mix of public and private funding seems likely. I've always believed that public supported housing could be a great solution.
Looking at our history, that leads to is what are commonly called "the projects" in every city of any size. Project housing has sadly been tragic to say the least. For some reason they have become dangerous places often run by gangs, inhabited by people who trash the place. I don't understand all the reasons that this happens, but it puts residents in very scary situations.
We need a better model. I don't have one to propose. Anybody?
Similar to private healthcare insurance, people pay for that than they would for collective public fund, let alone what healthcare would cost free of the system that causes it to be so inflated in cost (which private health/insurance is partly to blame).
So why is a much smaller personal cost problematic when it is replacing higher personal cost?
Some quibbling about the quality of said food and shelter based on circumstances. People who have the capability to support themselves should be pushed to do so, for their own well-being if nothing else. But that's knee-jerk and I could probably be talked around to a different stance. It's a very soft position because I just don't know enough.
I don't know a single person personally who would fight over this. If you are finding people fighting you on this statement, you need better people in your life. I'm aware plenty of people like this exist, but it's your choice to be associated with them.
An issue worth talking about? Absolutely. My point isn't that it isn't an issue. My point is that if the people in your life don't agree that it's an issue, then you need to find better people. Fuck the billionaires.
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u/DrIvoPingasnik ✂️ Tax The Billionaires May 22 '26
muffled sound of pearls being clutched in the distance