Comment by throw123123123 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throw123123123 | Hacker News Reader

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> When housing becomes an investment, the goal is to get that sweet ROI which generally means working to restrict the supply of housing to make prices rise. Lobbying is a high-ROI activity.

There are many ways to lobby that increase both the value of real estate and make the system better. For example, you could lobby for a visa for immigrant construction workers, which will reduce the cost to build.

> And housing doesn’t need to be expensive.

Definitions matter, but that's my original point. Construction companies in JApan also have a sweet ROI or they wouldn't build at all, you can achieve multiple goals. The current market structure is in good part a result of regulatory capture, but housing will remain profitable in multiple other structures. If it stopped being profitable, it would be impossible to build, and you wouldnt be able to improve or create new supply which is definitely the worst result long term.

> dystopian outcomes (see also healthcare

Healthcare is the **show it is precisely because it is NOT a free market by any practical or theoretical definition.

I want to mention one more thing about the narrative that Nimbyism is an investment topic. It really isn't: it is in the landlords interest to get more construction going, because more people increase the value of land, it doesn't decrease it. That is why land in a city is worth more than in a rural town. A SFH owner turned into the low owner of an 8 appt complex is way richer, as in 10X. At the tokyo example, it is close to 10k per square meter of land! https://www.statista.com/statistics/875736/japan-average-lan...

> Healthcare is the *show it is precisely because it is NOT a free market by any practical or theoretical definition.

100% agree with you. Which is why we should nationalize it to drive down the cost since there is currently no downward pressure on pricing. It’s not some “radical experiment” — in all honesty our current system is the experiment and it’s going poorly. Nationalized healthcare works, and from what I’ve seen, is usually of higher quality and service than we have here in the US. Turns out you can adequately staff your hospitals when you’re not trying to turn a profit.

And on the subject of nimbyism, you may be right about commercial landlords, but homeowners are very concerned with quality of life — which also raises home values (maybe not as much as increased density would, but enough that most nimbys see it as a worthwhile trade off). Things like schools not being overcrowded, available street parking, well-maintained parks, etc.

> Which is why we should nationalize it to drive down the cost since there is currently no downward pressure on pricing.

Strongly disagree. The state is already in the market with Medicare and it is not significantly cheaper. It has shown that as a player it doesn't not know how to deliver care cost-effectively.

The reasons why health is expensive is reg capture on many layers: too few doctors because of licensing and immigration restrictions, pharma restrictions on importation, tax incentives to bundle insurance with employer, the high cost of medical malpractice lawsuits and insurance, hospital incumbent regulation like fed funding or CONS, etc.

None of those things are solved with a government program that maintains those restrictions. The only thing necessary is to literally do less. Cap malpractice, remove immigration and licensing restrictions for physicians, remove FDA limitations on imports, remove federal funding from colleges and hospitals, etc. That will drive price enormously in a short span of 5 years, while also reducing the amount of admin and funding cost in government.

At the current market structure the only way I see a revolution in healthcare is with the Uberification of health: something that really spits in the eye of all regulation and gets things done anyway at cheap rates. Think telemedicine from 3rd world countries, generic drug imports through retail contraband, etc.

I worked in the industry, i'm 100% sure that dereg is the way to go.

> but homeowners are very concerned with quality of life —

That's my original point. When an argument is made that nimby are doing this for money, I think its off-target.

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