If you pay 1% for one house, someone with 2 houses should pay 2%, and a company with 2000 homes should pay 2000%

That would make it increasingly difficult for mega companies to buy up everything and torture the housing market

    • Iconoclast@feddit.uk
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      2 months ago

      That works well as a thought terminating slogan online. Less so as a practice in the real life.

      • Hugucinogens@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 months ago

        I’d hope it was a thought commencing slogan, maybe giving people curiosity as to think:

        “How could another sapient person believe something so different from my own beliefs? That person is even making it a joke, therefore they must have had it bouncing around in their brain a bunch, so they must believe it and think about it a lot. Huh, maybe there is something more to know, and think about.”

        I even made a comment with a small answer, to the other person, who asked like a human.

        Clearly didn’t work on you though.

        • Iconoclast@feddit.uk
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          2 months ago

          When people drop these one-liners that perfectly align with the popular view of the platform, my first assumption is that they in fact have not thought about it and instead are just saying the popular thing for applause.

          Perhaps that’s a cynical view but in my experience it seems true more often than not. You too walked back on your original statement after being questioned on it. I can’t learn from people who don’t say what they mean or mean what they say.

          • Hugucinogens@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 months ago

            Hm, I see your point about clarity.

            My original comment “landlords shouldn’t be allowed to own houses” was a joke, in the sense that it is an impossible paradox, with the implied statement being “landlords shouldn’t exist”.

            That is indeed the prevailing view on this platform, because it’s a leftist/marxist/anarchist platform, mostly.

            I might not be the right person to give you a pointer directly into the theory of those, but I have a number of YouTubers I really like, that talk about these issues, and make incredibly good explanations.

            Two I’m really into, lately, are NonCompete, and Unlearning Economics, that have some great video essays, the first one about communist perspectives, the second going in depth against things that are considered “common sense” in capitalist economics, and their real results when actually looked at.

            I’d say you can click on their channels and click whatever interests you most (NonCompete has a video on thought terminating clichés lol), but I can also recommend a couple specific videos:

            On NonCompete, there’s a video that contains a pretty good explanation of what is called the class war, that is, what tools the rich use, to keep the poor working. Housing costing so much, is one of those tools.

            On Unlearning Economics, there is a personal favorite of mine, Free stuff is good actually. It’s more about the adjacent philosophies, but you can easily extrapolate from it, to housing, if you like spending an hour listening to a guy talking about economics lol.

            Internet comments are so bad at conveying rich ideas, and so easy to not notice the humanity behind people, that it’s refreshing to have people like you answer, with the honest intent behind what they wrote. I hope what I sent interests you!

      • Hugucinogens@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 months ago

        That was a kind of aggressive way for me to express that, but, in all seriousness, the reason is that:

        Being a “landlord”, that is, very specifically, an “owner of houses you don’t live in, but rent to people for profit”, is a way to live that is inherently abusive to the people you rent to.

        You have ownership of a basic good people need to survive (housing), which is effectively scarce (because it’s not allowed for just anyone to build a house without incredible amounts of money, even homelessness is fairly illegal in many places), and you say to people:

        “Either give me a monthly fee for me to allow you to have a roof over your head, or I’m calling the police (the only people allowed to be violent in the country) to kick you out”

        It’s a way of making money, where the owner doesn’t do anything helpful to society, except find people who are desperate to survive, and milk them of what they make.

        • MyVeryRealName@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          How is it not helpful to society to allow others to live in your house? And it’s not landlords who are looking for tenants, it’s the other way round.

          • Hugucinogens@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 months ago

            The problem is being a landlord as a job. The problem is rich people buying up housing (or land and building on it) they don’t use, in order to rent for profit.

            It’s about everyone who has no house. All the people who have no alternative, apart from renting from some rich people.

            If someone “allowed” others to live in his house, without demanding half their salary, you wouldn’t see me complaining.

            And the reason that buying or building a house is so expensive, is explicitly because rich people clamber over each other, to make the best investment of their lives: Housing.

          • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            That’s like saying people with major medical issues “are looking for” insurance salespeople to fix their medical issues. They “need” insurance because the system is fucked, not because insurance will make them better. Likewise, no one “looks for” a landlord, they look for housing they can afford.

              • kestrel7_7@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                No, what the government actually can’t afford is to have homeless people overutilizing public services (ambulances, police, hospitals, and jails) because they don’t have stable housing. It’s way, wayyy cheaper to provide people free housing than let them be homeless, Finland has proved this with basic arithmetic, our culture is just really into performative cruelty for some reason.

              • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                You mean the taxpayers can’t afford it, and you’re wrong. Trillionaires exist, we could afford anything we want to if we had people in charge willing to tax them fairly.

                Regardless, the potential cost difference doesn’t negate my previous point, no one has ever “looked for a landlord”.

                • MyVeryRealName@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  That’s not an individual country’s decision to take. People look for housing and landlords provide a valuable service to society.

                  • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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                    2 months ago

                    That’s not an individual country’s decision to take.

                    What isn’t? How to tax it’s citizens? Pretty sure individual countries are the only ones making that decision.

                    People look for housing and landlords provide a valuable service to society

                    Almost, people need housing and landlords can exploit that need. Renters provide a valuable service to landlords. How about this analogy: people need food, but that doesn’t mean every single company that sells food is good for society, or even good for the individual people they sell to. Many are the opposite, at least in the US. Look I’m not arguing for banning buying more than one property, though I’m not against it, all I’m saying is that your claim that people “look for” landlords is absurd.