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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

> It has side effects, but is also addressing a specific problem people want to handle that isn't necessarily fixed by "just build a bunch of new market-rate housing."

It is a sad fact of life that the best outcome for everybody is to let the economically productive take first pick of any available resources; because they will by definition take them and turn them into more resources.

This idea that someone has a right to live somewhere because they were there first is not unreasonable, but the path of least suffering is that people pay the market price for rent.

There needs to be pretty overwhelming evidence that the problem is with what consenting adults agree to rather than the government being unreasonable with the rules on constructing new building. I'd bet that the US hasn't reached that threshold yet.

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It is very much not a "by definition" truth that the people who, say, happened to snag nice tech industry salaries for their coding abilities (or their visionary decision to process credit card transactions online, or whatever their particular thing is...) will be more "productive" and make more "resources" out of having a house than people who happen to have lower salaries.

This is just self-aggrandizing "The folks life has already financially favored deserve every continued advantage over everyone else because they are so smart and talented and God's chosen ones" market-over-everything nonsense.

> It is a sad fact of life that the best outcome for everybody is to let the economically productive take first pick of any available resources;

Which is to say that the people who create money (what's more economically productive than willing money into existence?) via issuing credit (banks) or borrowing on the US's account (the Fed) will have first pick of available resources.

Why does the market price in one city need to be several times higher than in another? Why do so many of the high-paying tech jobs need to be concentrated on the west coast instead of more distributed? Are the benefits of that concentration truly higher, and truly purely rational "path of least suffering," in order to justify all the costs of it?

You also make an distinction between what consenting adults agree to in contracts and what those same consenting adults do in local governance and regulation. But why wouldn't they have the right to say "we don't want buildings over three stories here," say? Why is that necessarily "unreasonable" yet a landlord deciding to raise someone's rent 40% wouldn't be?

“They” don’t own the buildings, but the landlord owns his. If no one wants to pay an additional 40%, he gets to pound sand.

> It is a sad fact of life that the best outcome for everybody is to let the economically productive take first pick of any available resources

That is not a fact of life, it is simply a hypocritical way of legitimizing monopolistic advantage. What one defines as economically productive will unequivocally align with the groups one favors over others.

Power is not natural, it is created and reproduced, and naturalized beyond the realm of critical thought by false claims to the facts of Life.

Does life really as facts? Which life?

“Economically productive” isn’t a subjective interpretation. It’s what produces the most money. In a society we tax productivity and use the revenue collected to run services that lift up those at the bottom. More money is available for redistribution when we are collectively more productive. Suppressing productivity in the name of fairness is highly satisfying to a large contingent of politically active folks who are passionate about it, but better outcomes can usually be purchased with the tax revenue it brings.

Case in point: neighborhoods that are proud of themselves for thwarting evil developers in the name of affordability end up with fewer affordable units, because we fund affordable units as a percentage of total construction.

Don't forget to price in, account for, factor in, and otherwise adjust the numbers to match externalities, other market irrationalities, sesonalities, etc.

For example, if SF wants to solve housing (providing shelter) by municipally mandated equality between purchasing power of people, this has a certain cost, and this has a certain appeal for some residents. Would they pay more taxes to get council erected units for the less fortunate? Maybe. So these preferences have to be calculated and priced.

Sure, the market would get the most new units online in a given time, which would result in prices falling. But it seems like SF wants an apmost centrally planned solution.

Which these days means mostly ephemeral resources.

They save the tax cut and buy back stocks.

They are not starting farms to create more food or building new kinds of companies — not doing economic net new things. They’re growing their own ephemeral wealth pile

The old ways, best ideas, they have all died out in human society. No longer do we worship Roman Gods and build pyramids for Pharaohs

It’s hubris and and vanity to think we have the iron clad solution today in our time

We’re just carrying water for dead and selfish

Consenting adults who have been told this is exactly right their entire lives by government backed research into propaganda models gifted to university and media and advertising will I’m sure magically come to their senses

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