Comment by taopai | Hacker News Reader

Comment by taopai | Hacker News Reader

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- Have you worked there with the average salary?

- Have you met the reality of working class people there?

- Have you stayed on a touristic city or on industrial areas?

- The real criminals are people from Spain, speculative funds and tourists from all over the world buying property here and not using it. They steal to everybody.

Then we can't hire people for our business because people can't find rent. We aren't paying low, the problem is the crazy rent market.

Banks own 80% of not used living places in Spain. Tell me who is the burglar. Real okupas only squat in this places, I know a lot, and surprise! Banks will get you out faster than anyone else but keep their property unused and rotting. Because they don't care about houses, they only care about land.

Spanish constitution states that housing is a human right. That's the difference. If someone enters to your home, people will bust them, if someone enters to your speculative bargain or summer whim, good luck, people want to live.

> - The real criminals are people from Spain, speculative funds and tourists from all over the world buying property here and not using it. They steal to everybody.

So create a tax for leaving property empty and use that to fund programs to address homelessness.

There are plenty of solutions which aren’t permitting theft.

Banning short term rentals for instance would be pretty effective. There could be other side effects but it’d certainly lead to many second homes being sold.

> We aren't paying low, the problem is the crazy rent market.

I sympathise with this. My assumption would be that imposing punitive taxes on unoccupied properties is the most realistic solution.

If that forces people to sell, supply goes up. If people continue as they were, there’s more money available to do something with.

> There are plenty of solutions which aren’t permitting theft.

There are 'plenty of solutions' which arent permitting theft, and NONE of them work ANYWHERE. The only solution is, well, 'theft', apparently.

> My assumption would be that imposing punitive taxes on unoccupied properties is the most realistic solution.

Another case of just shooting from the hip without knowing anything. There is already a tax on unoccupied properties. It didn't fix anything.

> If that forces people to sell, supply goes up. If people continue as they were, there’s more money available to do something with.

Another example of economic 'theorization' based on the reality of... nothing. The tax is there, it doesn't work. The economic theory has little connection with the actual reality in Spain too, just like elsewhere in the world. Its just a modern religion to justify capitalist profiteering based on 'how things should be'. Except things just don't work the way they 'should'...

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