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Comment by Rotten194 | Hacker News Reader

stop stirring the generational warfare pot. boomers didnt ruin the economy, the banking class did. the solution to fixing it isn't kicking working-class people out of their homes. why should they sell if they enjoy where they live? and even if they did sell, where would they go? if there's a housing shortage, they'll have just as much trouble as everyone else buying a house -- if not more, because of ageism.

we need to fix the perverse incentives capitalism provides that discourage building enough housing. blaming old people accomplishes nothing.

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If you read the article, it certainly isn't too sympathetic to the millenial home-seeker. It is mostly neutral to both the buying and selling side. At one point they almost paint him as a hipster by describing what he's wearing - which includes a Schlitz belt buckle. They also raise questions of gentrification.

I disagree. The tone seems very sympathetic to the home-seeker. I got a "hard-working, salt-of-the-earth carpenter white kid hustles to attain the American dream." While old, prickly, angry black people jealously hold onto their homes. And by the way, for balance, an Italian guys feels the same way. This article sucked.

Agreed. Nobody should be forced to sell their property. You bought it and you can live their your whole life.

The population keeps getting bigger, the amount of land stays the same. Something has to give or it's unfair to people who were unlucky enough to be born later. I'm all for having an absolute right to property you can carry, but land is different.

Overpopulation is a problem which needs to be taken seriously but it's mostly a problem in developing world (Africa, Asia etc). US / Europe don't have overpopulation problems.

I think "Something has to give" is a little bit dangerous thing to say as private property ownership is one of main pillars of western free market societies. Why would land be different to property?

Forcefully taking private property from individuals to later sell to other private parties for private use sounds like the nightmare version of eminent domain.

Because it's not really practical to build more land, and it's difficult for people to choose their neighbours whose land use is going to affect their own; things like utilities, transit and emergency services have to be organized geographically. If guitar prices are high, anyone can make more guitars, and if you don't agree with your band on what kind of music to play, it's easy to form a new band with a different group of people. Land and housing don't behave like that.

Which is fine. There is a limited space on this planet so obviously population can't grow forever. It's high time we start decreasing world population if we want to save the environment and keep this planet habitable.

True capitalism provides only incentives to build, it's boomer era policy that makes this either very difficult from a bureaucratic standpoint, or unprofitable, and in most cases both. It's not right to blame someone for wanting to stay in their home, I disagree with that entirely. It's also not right to restrict and regulate supply to the extent that future generations have nowhere near the same opportunity for home ownership the previous generation took for granted.

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