- cross-posted to:
- brainworms@lemm.ee
- cross-posted to:
- brainworms@lemm.ee
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Can we expand this to multi-family houses? I don’t think we need it for apartment buildings too, but triple-deckers, for example, are not that different.
DNC really driving it home what their platform is with actions instead of words, lately.
Capitalism and its endless profit motive should never be near the things that have direct effect on people’s well-being and livelihood. All the human basic necessities should be capitalism free, housing, healthcare, education… etc… If you want to built a better and healthier nation of course, but no one cares about the nation, money is above everything to these sick fucks.
In case you want to learn about the bill:
NYT article (archive link):
Press releases:
https://adamsmith.house.gov/press-releases?ID=637A8E58-8F0D-4CB0-AECC-1D4690A00725
Text of the bill:
https://www.merkley.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/MCG23660.pdf
Home Ownership and protecting the middle class used to be phrases so often uttered by the Republicans 40 years ago that I yawned.
I’m glad to see someone pick up the gauntlet. Boggles the mind that this hasn’t become a huge political issue yet.
How does this limit a corporation from doing the same thing?
So a hedge fund doesn’t do it, but a specific company does the same thing and that’s fine. What am I missing?
The bill would require hedge funds, defined as corporations, partnerships or real estate investment trusts that manage funds pooled from investors, to sell off all the single-family homes they own over a 10-year period, and eventually prohibit such companies from owning any single-family homes at all.
It does include corporations. For instance the Bezos thing we’ve been hearing about the past couple days would be covered:
Arrived, a young real estate company backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, has just announced its entry into the single-family rental fund space. Arrived currently operates a fractional real estate investing platform that has attracted nearly half a million retail investors since its launch in 2021. The platform allows these investors to purchase shares of single-family rental properties with as little as $100.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jeff-bezos-backed-real-estate-151102586.html
Just so it’s clear, they want to turn our homes into a mini stock market.
This bill won’t pass.
We already live in a completely fucked up dystopia, most people just haven’t realized it.
It’ll never pass, unfortunately.
If it gets through the house then I think it’ll fly through the senate. Correct me if I’m wrong but a simple majority can pass this bill, and even a few Republicans would sign a bill like this.
This will pass at the same time as the healthcare, world peace, and word hunger bills.
don’t forget gun regulation
Gun regs have better odds, as high real estate prices don’t put Congresscritters in the hospital.
Do your part and vote 3rd party. If we want change we have to vote for it.
Our current electoral system is inherently biased against 3rd parties. We need to switch to approval/STAR voting to make 3rd parties viable.
Our current electoral system is inherently biased against 3rd parties.
That’s true until it isn’t. Year-over-year, the nation can only support two parties nationally and one dominant party state-by-state. But which party (and which coalition of leaders) hold power can change in wave years, particularly when strong third party campaigns force rival parties to cater to the independent vote to get over the 50% hump.
There’s a podcast called Hell of Presidents that does a great job of documenting the rise and fall of state party organs and their impact on the national scene. The rapid collapse of the Federalists, the rise of the Jacksonian Democrats, the collapse of the Whigs and emergence of the Republicans, the rise and fall of democratic socialists, and the emergence of liberal progressives, movement conservatives, libertarians, and neoliberal democrats all begin with third party bids in small states.
While we don’t have more than two distinct parties in the US, we absolutely do have factions within the main two parties that have regionalized and polarized constituencies that are fighting for control of the national party apparatuses. Even setting aside guys like Trump and Sanders, just check out Nebraska’s Indie dark horse contender Dan Osborn, whose union organizing is putting him ahead of both party candidates.
That’s true until it isn’t.
The way you change that is election reform. Not thoughts and prayers and spoiler votes when one of the 2 big parties is running a wannabe-dictator.
Think, if fools in Florida didn’t vote 3rd party in 2000 you’d never have bush or the war in iraq, and we might have given a shit about global warming.
The way you change that is election reform.
Can’t even get DC statehood with a Dem majority and Presidency. Couldn’t do it when we had a 60 vote supermajority in 2008. We’re certainly not going to get it through the courts, given how the SCOTUS is stacked.
Think, if fools in Florida didn’t vote 3rd party in 2000 you’d never have bush or the war in iraq
The majority of green party votes came from registered Republicans. 2000 was decided by mass deregistering, disenfranchisement, and intimidation of the state’s black voter population, combined with the Brooks Brothers Riot that halted the ballot counting long enough for the conservative SCOTUS majority to certify the election in Bush’s favor.
when strong third party campaigns force rival parties to cater to the independent vote to get over the 50% hump.
I’m not saying 3rd parties have zero influence, but they just don’t succeed frequently enough for it to be called fair. The spoiler effect is far too strong for that to happen.
we absolutely do have factions within the main two parties that have regionalized and polarized constituencies that are fighting for control of the national party apparatuses.
Absolutely. But because of the spoiler effect, the two parties are held together with glue. Reforming our electoral system would weaken that glue, and hopefully fracture them enough to make a difference.
they just don’t succeed frequently enough for it to be called fair
Statistically speaking, the majority of campaigns are going to fail. There’s one seat and, unless it is uncontested, a minimum of one losing candidate. But politics isn’t a one-and-done game. Its a game of coalition building and expanding name recognition. Starting off as a third party candidate, establishing a message and a political brand, and then canvasing your neighborhood to build up your appeal is fundamental to most successful politicians.
But because of the spoiler effect
The spoiler effect only matters to losers. If you’re the guy with the plurality of support, you’re in the best position to win.
Sometimes, the winning move is simply to carry the banner of the dominant political party (which is why you’ll have a dozen people compete for the Texas GOP gubernatorial nomination while only two or three bother trying to run as Dems). But other times, it really is about issues-based politics and name recognition.
Schwarzenegger was able to win in California by being a famous popular guy. Sanders won in Vermont by being a high profile well-respected mayor of the state’s biggest city. Joe Lieberman lost his primary but held onto his Senatorial seat back in 2006 by rallying the Democratic Party leadership around him even after he’d lost the state party nomination.
Bush beat Gore in 2000 not because of a Green Party spoiler effect (Nader actually pulled more Republicans than Democrats in the state) but because he had die-hard conservative activists willing to risk jail to shut down the recount with the Brooks Brothers’ Riot, while Al Gore’s party just kinda shrugged and gave up as soon as the Republican-leaning SCOTUS sided with the Republican candidate. Hell, the 2000s were awash with caging, disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and outright election stealing from the top of the ballot to the bottom. Third parties didn’t have anything to do with that.
Yeah, people keep saying things like this, and then just completely ignore that their view is led us down a 40-year path where our liberty and economic power has dwindled progressively with each passing election.
So no.
Your viable parties are shit. I’ll vote better.
our liberty and economic power has dwindled progressively with each passing election
That’s as much a consequence of legalisms - Bush v Gore invalidating votes in swing states, Tom DeLay kicking off a big wave of legislative gerrymandering, candidates party-flipping starting in the White Flight of the 80s/90s (WV’s governor flipped the day after the '17 election), the banning of earmarks in legislatures and the legalizing of unlimited campaign donations following Citizens United - as voting patterns.
So much power has been consolidated within the hands of party leadership and so much money has flown to affiliated party-loyal business interests that voting no longer shapes political behaviors. When Republicans can’t win an HISD board seat, they turn to the governor to simply take over the entire board by fiat. When someone in the Democratic Primary attempts to unseat an incumbent, the party spends tens of millions to defend them. When a third party bid emerges, they’re cut out of debates and excluded from news coverage save for the yellow journalism designed to dismiss you as a crank. (And, in fairness, there are tons of cranks in the 3rd party scene already).
I don’t think you can strictly attribute this to “not enough 3rd party bids”. We have consolidated political power in the same way we’re consolidating economic power.
From the article:
With a divided Congress, the bills are unlikely to pass into law this session. But Mr. Smith said legislators needed to start a conversation.
Solid odds this will be a campaign issue, which is a great thing.
Everyone will talk about it, nobody will do anything to improve the situation.
Once you reach the ranks of the Senate, you have more financial interest in the future of your REIT-heavy investment portfolio than the price any of your constituents are paying for housing. Hell, more than a few Senators come straight from the halls of Wall Street themselves. That’s how they have the kind of surplus cash to run for office to begin with.
Or they could all be vampires, if we’re just making shit up.
Even vampires don’t suck this hard.
I agree your comment here was just bad lol
Like, volunteer on any campaign whatsoever and see how wrong it is
I’ve seen the inside of the Beto O’Rourke campaign three times over and it got worse every time.
Inb4 the Republicans vote it down
Had me at “out”
🧱 🔫
And this is the sort of legislation that should be passed by direct referendum, will of the people, and not by representatives who have been bought out by special interest groups. Desperately needed but unlikely to happen.
Fucking do it you cowards.
I think you’re forgetting about Republicans.
They should never have been allowed to buy them to begin with.
The second best time is now.
I mean it’s a free market, it’s not reasonable nor desirable to proactively prohibit all possible bad scenarios
It’s not a free market… that’s not an actual thing that can ever exist. It’s a state where the markets are in a perfect, frictionless state, where barriers of entry are non-existent and everyone has equal access to trade on the market… Ignoring petty things like needing to actually source things
It is, in fact, both reasonable and desirable for the government to proactively watch and interfere in the markets before they enter a failure scenario, that’s their job in the market.
It’s often willfully misunderstood, but what you’re describing is a half step from lasse faire capitalism. Which is the idea that a “free market” is a stable state, and we just need to let it settle long enough without interference. But that’s literally psuedoscience…
I read your comment carefully and still downvoted because its an incredibly dumb thing to say.
Tbh whenever I see someone editing their comment to put “conditions” on people downvoting their trash opinion I automatically downvote. Whine or cry or try to put conditions on people downvoting you? Believe it or not, instant downvote.
I only said that because I’m pretty sure 99% of the people here agree with me, you included but are downvoting as a kneejerk reaction.
There’s never a scenario on the internet where 99% of people agree with you…unless you’re just talking to yourself. Just let it go, not like you lose anything with downvotes.
Then you have expressed yourself poorly and have made no effort to correct that.
What the fuck do you think regulations are for? If we didn’t have them companies would skip crucial steps because they are expensive. Take Tesla for example, removing radar/lidar because of expense and they are bulky. But are nessesarry, shit they’re putting mics outside the car to listen for sirens.a
Nice username, fam! I’ve not found an Expanse community around here yet, but I see lots of fans
Wtf, I literally just re-watched the scene 5 minutes ago, and I come on lemmy and see this. Are the planets aligned or am I about to die or something?
I bet you downvote this!
Edit: shit! I meant to say “won’t!” I bet you won’t downvote this!
why is that?
If allowing ordinary people to be priced out of owning homes is your idea of a free market, then fuck the free market.
I read carefully, then un-downvoted so i could downvote you again
Fuck the free market. Fuck capitalism. Fuck you, too.
I could use a good lay
Got money?
People require housing. Corporations are people. /s
Looking at companies like Blackstone, who buy up houses at auction, lightly flip them and put them back on the market as high-priced rentals. THEY’RE the big reason for the lack of affordable housing.
I mean, would it be better if we had a thousand mid-sized car dealership style house flippers rather than one singular monolith doing the same thing?
Blackstone agents are operating at a national scale in a market that’s been flush with speculators and flippers going straight back to the colonial era. The high price of real estate is the consequence of housing as a commodity. There’s no more free land to develop on the cheap and no more suburbs for young people to push out into searching for cheap new constructions. Take everyone at Blackstone out of the market tomorrow and you’ll have a hundred smaller banks lining up to repeat their formula by the end of the month.
So long as cash is cheap, housing is in demand, and REITs are a thing, you’re going to have businesses looking to profit off the difference between sale rates and rental rates as well as the gap between the prime rate and the going mortgage rate.
Did you just scoff at the idea of competition improving a market?
One big monopoly looks no different to the consumer than a cartel of mid-sized dealerships. You’re not fixing the underlying speculative demand issue, just changing the number of participants in the speculative racket.
Monopolies are bad.
So are cartels.
So why are you advocating for one?
For the same reasons you are, i guess.
The solution is to make hoarding rental properties an unattractive investment. Put an escalating tax on owning multiple residences. If the 5th property is at 40% tax every year it’s no longer a money maker in a competitive market. Put the money towards tax rebates for single mortgage interest. Now you have buyers back in the market and landlords looking to sell.
Put the money towards tax rebates for single mortgage interest.
Or just use it to construct new multi-family units that are sold at cost of construction.
Yes it would be better. Monopolies are bad. Near monopolies are bad. The more market power a company gains the more they can charge for no reason at all except “fuck you pay me”.
Monopolies are bad.
Cartels are equally bad. Unless you change the economic incentives in home building and real estate speculation, you are - at best - changing the discrete number of people who get to participate in the profiteering. I don’t particularly care if one national guy or fifty state guys get to ratchet up my housing prices. Big Number Goes Up all the same.
Something like 6% of US Homes are owned by Chinese Investors. More than 1 in 20 homes.
