America should become a nation of renters | Hacker News Reader

America should become a nation of renters

bloomberg.com

7 pointsdpeck8 comments

Seems like BS to me because:

- Purchasing prices have gone up but so have rental prices. Purchasing may no longer be a good investment for the avg american but renting was NEVER an investment and is now more costly on top of that to boot.

- Isn't this called feudalism? Why would anyone justify feudalism as a preferable model for any society, esp compared to what America was for previous generations? It's almost like this was written by a landlord

Yep. Make everyone into tenant farmers again. The US is almost there: no healthcare unless you work, no job unless you take on piles of debt, income inequality, suppressed wages, and increasing costs of living.

So many conspiracy theories have been citing this as an eventual end game for along time...

It's particularly creepy to read articles telling us why 'actually it's a good thing'

So many things are being pushed to non-ownership. You used to own books which was effectively the only form of media, but now you no longer own books or any media. We are all happy for it. Self-driving cars are not about freedom to allow people to own a conveyance that will take them where they want to go it's really about setting up for the non-ownership of conveyances. How many people actually own their cell phone? Planned obsolescence is just another form of non-ownership. The funny thing is property already has its non-ownership mechanic built in through the form of property taxes. If you think that property taxes are how we need to pay for city or county services then my question would be why are there so many other taxes and ways of taxing people. Property taxes are method of taking away land ownership for people who are not desirable or using the land in a productive manner. It's really just the next step to say why did you buy land in the first place just rent.

We are absolutely pushing the society to those of the haves and the renters. Then we're also putting in the massive barriers to shifting between those two classes of people. The real problem is the middle class does not see what's coming because about 20% of the middle class will be elevated into the position of owners the rest of the 80% will be relegated down to the forever renters. Until the middle class can wake up and realize the long game that's being played against them it won't change.

"Conspiracy theory" is increasingly a misnomer. Whether it's tiny houses, beef bans and insects as a major protein source, or "climate lockdowns," a severe ratcheting down of living standards (just for the hoi polloi of course, not the Davos set) is being discussed quite in the open.

? Red herring.

- Tiny houses are personal choices of minimalism.

- Is someone forcing "insects" down your throat?

- Beef bans? No such thing. Animal meat agriculture does need to be banned because of the pandemic, antibiotic resistance, and climate change existential risks.. risks to our continued survival. It will never happen because most people are too dumb, ignorant, and/or lack the self-control to do what's necessary for the long-term survival of the species.

- What the hell is a "climate lockdown?"

A conspiracy theory is a wild, unfounded, imaginary claim. It looks to me you appear to be espousing such nonsense and want it normalized, which is why you don't like the term "conspiracy theory."

Housing should have never been considered an investment. It is a basic need. If that basic need becomes an investment, it is by definition going to become less affordable to those who do not hold it in the future.

If you consider it an investment, homeowners are going to protect its value like one, and prevent supply competition via regulations, voting power, etc.

It is a strange world we live in where we collectively believe that a basic need should appreciate in value over time.

America should become a nation of even more indebted, landless, propertyless, penniless serfs ruled by rent-seeking conglomerates with piles of money.

There, I fixed it for you, Bloomberg.com.

Yes, us simple folk should transactionalize everything in life to be on-demand, at the behest and control of corporations, including love, parenting, small talk, lawnmowers, brooms, staplers, air conditioning, housing, transportation, water, and smiling. And why not oxygen? ("There is absolutely no air shortage whatsoever." Discretely opens a can of Perriair.) Let's just let the corporations own our bodies, lives, and thoughts too, while we're at it. It will all be so magically-convenient with no vulnerabilities or Kafkaesque traps at all!

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