LWDT IX: Discussing the Left From All Engels

[Carvio Saikesenassia]

What do you think costs more per month? Rent, or paying back a mortgage over 30 years?

that's actually a funny question since it's not that straightforward: not only are mortgages subsidized by the US govt (interest deduction on tax filings) as well as the landlord is generally responsible for maintenance of the housing unit. that said, you have to include *at least* some 2-3% of the unit's value into yearly costs given that the landlord covers capital depreciation -- and that also reminds me that there are extra implications on your finances by thinking of rent v buy, eg. property tax payments, having collateral in home equity by choosing the latter etc

Rent is, by definition, not just paying for the cost of housing, but also a large percentage on top of that for the profits of the landlord.

so why won't everyone switch to re- ah wait, should it have something to do with opportunity cost of capital?

The price of rent is decided by land value and supply and demand, not simply by offsetting the costs. Of course, mortgages are also drags on the economy, housing should not cost as much as it does.

microecon 101 should tell you that under competitive market premises, ie. when there are enough buyers and sellers, people act as price-takers and not as price-makers. so unless if you live in an area where there's an oligopoly in the housing stock, or in an area where building codes are severely regulated, restricting the building of more units (that's important), then 'excess profits' should be arbitraged given just how regional the housing market is.

And don’t use that asinine ancap language.

i appreciate your tongue in cheek response but i'm a neoliberal, "why dont we have free rent" is nowhere as universal of a proposition as you might think it is

[Shanghai industrial complex]

It's a nonsense question based on nonsense premises. Directly answering it would imply that I consider your premises valid, which they are clearly not.

It really isn't.

So far no one in this thread has been able to answer why leftists continue to ignore the rampant homophobia and transphobia in black communities. Pretty much the only people who care about LGBT rights are white people.

Only right-wing neoliberals will hype LGBT as a meaningless thing.What does this have to do with politics?The Engels left will focus on what really matters.Fake LGBT and feminists.This kind of thing is completely personal.LGBT and its opposite religious morality are rubbish.I suggest we lock up two groups of people and let them have a life and death contest

[Cisairse]

It really isn't.

So far no one in this thread has been able to answer why leftists continue to ignore the rampant homophobia and transphobia in black communities. Pretty much the only people who care about LGBT rights are white people.

Only right-wing neoliberals will hype LGBT as a meaningless thing.What does this have to do with politics?The Engels left will focus on what really matters.Fake LGBT and feminists.This kind of thing is completely personal.LGBT and its opposite religious morality are rubbish.I suggest we lock up two groups of people and let them have a life and death contest

let's lock up 90% of the population woo

[Rojava Free State]

It really isn't.

So far no one in this thread has been able to answer why leftists continue to ignore the rampant homophobia and transphobia in black communities. Pretty much the only people who care about LGBT rights are white people.

Only right-wing neoliberals will hype LGBT as a meaningless thing.What does this have to do with politics?The Engels left will focus on what really matters.Fake LGBT and feminists.This kind of thing is completely personal.LGBT and its opposite religious morality are rubbish.I suggest we lock up two groups of people and let them have a life and death contest

Why should we lock people up for being gay?

[Carvio Saikesenassia]

Only right-wing neoliberals will hype LGBT as a meaningless thing.

nice try but [citation needed]

[Shanghai industrial complex]

Only right-wing neoliberals will hype LGBT as a meaningless thing.What does this have to do with politics?The Engels left will focus on what really matters.Fake LGBT and feminists.This kind of thing is completely personal.LGBT and its opposite religious morality are rubbish.I suggest we lock up two groups of people and let them have a life and death contest

Why should we lock people up for being gay?

Because they yell every day for fear that others won't know.

[Rojava Free State]

Why should we lock people up for being gay?

Because they yell every day for fear that others won't know.

Let them yell.

[Fahran]

There is something extremely hypocritical about defending income accruing from rents and mere property ownership and then turning around to criticize welfare provisions. I would also argue there's a qualitative difference between the social safety net and, well, exploiting people's need for housing to accrue personal income.

Any exchange is only exploitative in so far as it is unjust, unfair, or exceedingly taxing. A reasonable rate of rent no more offends the sensibilities than a reasonable price for a carton of milk. It is when the price becomes unjust, unfair, or exceedingly taxing to the majority of the community and to the class of renters that it becomes exploitative and predatory. And wellfare is not, when prudently, allocated any more offensive. Again, these positions only become intuitive to a person when they adopt a particular ideological framework rooted in the abolition of private property or important sectors of the economy that has been present in one form or another for centuries.

[Fahran]

What do you think costs more per month? Rent, or paying back a mortgage over 30 years? Rent is, by definition, not just paying for the cost of housing, but also a large percentage on top of that for the profits of the landlord. The price of rent is decided by land value and supply and demand, not simply by offsetting the costs. Of course, mortgages are also drags on the economy, housing should not cost as much as it does.

And don’t use that asinine ancap language.

Rent is usually a bit cheaper than a mortgage. You also don't have to pay a large down payment to a general contractor or to a previous owner. Depending on the location, rates can be quite reasonable even. I'm open to the argument that housing prices are excessive and a good portion of that has to do with how we structure our families, the amenities we demand, the impositions of HOAs, and the present economic order. I'm not open to the argument that having to pay for things is inherently oppressive though or to the argument that we should live in identical and ugly brutalist high rises.

[Rojava Free State]

I still don't understand why people think fascism is right wing

I can see both sides of the argument as to whether it is right wing or not. Fascism is often racist as hell, and in America supports white supremacy, which is right wing, but economically it is to the left of Capitalism. While I don't like fascism, I will say at least fascists don't let their own people starve and die on the street like say Jeff Bezos. Not that they aren't evil.

[Cekoviu]

It's a nonsense question based on nonsense premises. Directly answering it would imply that I consider your premises valid, which they are clearly not.

It really isn't.

So far no one in this thread has been able to answer why leftists continue to ignore the rampant homophobia and transphobia in black communities. Pretty much the only people who care about LGBT rights are white people.

You haven't actually shown us that those are present in black communities or that leftists ignore it, so

[Cekoviu]

Why should we lock people up for being gay?

Because they yell every day for fear that others won't know.

There's a ton of LGBT people who are very quiet about their sexuality/gender, what universe do you live in?

[Rojava Free State]

It really isn't.

So far no one in this thread has been able to answer why leftists continue to ignore the rampant homophobia and transphobia in black communities. Pretty much the only people who care about LGBT rights are white people.

You haven't actually shown us that those are present in black communities or that leftists ignore it, so

https://web.archive.org/web/20140122112 ... hobic.html

There does tend to be a massive amount of homophobia in minority communities at least in America...and by minority I mean black and Latino. I don't know about native Americans and I'm pretty sure Asians are cool with being gay.

[Fahran]

You have to see that the concept of investment is a flawed one if you want to achieve an egalitarian society.

I don't view the concept of investment as flawed. In fact, I believe any attempt to restrict investment would necessarily lead to reduced prosperity since we're quite accustomed to acquiring capital through equity and debt to make the economy run. I mean, technically, mortgages are an investment rooted in debt - because most people don't have the capital to pay for large and important goods like that in one go. I also don't care too much about inequality on principle except in so far as inequality leads to injustice.

Investment leads to a snowballing effect, where people with money can make money simply by investing the money they already have. This is literally the rich becoming richer, and not really doing anything for it except having money. This is already cause for concern, but it becomes ghastly when you look at the housing market. The demand for housing is inflexible: people are by necessity forced to have shelter. So, you are not providing a free service. Providing housing, in that sense, is much like healthcare, because everyone needs it.

Most people have shelter of one kind or another. As I pointed out earlier though, any issue in housing must by necessity result from broader trends and phenomenas. We can address these through a combination of personal choice and sound public policy without kicking over the entire castle. With healthcare, we have decent evidence that the German model works well. I'm not certain we have any approximal equivalent for housing. Renters' strikes provide one option.

Rent, then, is proportional to land value. The higher the land value, the higher the price. However, land value attracts the most blood-thirsty vultures of society, whose are literally only a drain on people: land speculators. These 'individuals' buy up land and hope it increases in value so they can sell at a profit. Now, having tennants decreases the value of a property, and it causes a lot of overhead, so these land speculators do not open up their properties to tennants. This has three big effects:

1. The housing supply is limited;
2. Demand is increased simply by having speculators;
3. The land value is driven through the roof, leading to higher rents.

We can always levy taxes on unused rental and commercial properties or not sell public land to folks with no intention of employing it to increase public utility. As for land-lords and land-ladies though, they do provide an essential service, often at a reasonable price, to people who couldn't afford to invest in a mortgage otherwise. Land speculation is quite a bit different from running rental properties in both what it produces and how it functions. Speculation has its uses as well but they're a different subject.

This leads to this graph:

(Image)

This shows that rents as a percentage of income are on the rise. More and more money goes up to rent. This means that, since people cannot choose to pay rent, the disposable income of people is deminished. Another result of this is that it is a hyper-powered way of increasing income inequality. Those with enough money to buy a home can invest, paying far less for their mortgage than poorer people pay in rent. All the time, landlords are taking up a large percentage of people's income without really providing a valuable service in return.

This is the biggest shortcoming, in my opinion. Landlords don't do much to earn an enormous share of income. The services they provide, like repairs and cleaning, can be achieved at a fraction of the cost if an appartment building was held communally. The only thing they really do is have ownership of a building. Under law, they happen to own a property that is necessary for people's survival. And why do they own that building? Because they had money to invest into that building to begin with. It's the simple result of some people being so rich that they can afford to invest in one. This, together with land speculation, is the reason for high rents that excede the cost of maintenance.

There are a number of reasons that rent has climbed in the past couple decades. One is that the costs of homeownership have increased due to more expensive amenities, larger lots, and stuff like that. This forces people to elect renting over buying. Secondly, millennials value their mobility and freedom a good deal more than past generations, likely due to the necessity of moving to pursue economic opportunities and superior quality of life in an increasingly globalized economy where the notion of laboring for a single business for the duration of your life is a thing of the past. In a lot of cases, we're just not paying for the same good that our parents and grandparents paid for. We're in a more urbanized, more luxury-prone, and more top-heavy society than they were, and that'll necessitate fluctuations in the cost of housing.

If we want to achieve an equal and just society, landlords need to go. There are various solutions to the problem, and leftists will literally murder each other for saying the wrong solution to the landlord issue, but right now the most feasible thing we can do is abolish land speculation, abolish private ownership of housing, and let the state take care of home construction. That would be expensive, but it would destroy high land prices in the biggest cities. In return, people would have their houses assigned, and have to take care of the maintenance for themselves. The state has to pay some more for this, but it also frees up around 25% of people's income to invest in the economy. Especially for the poor, this could make a world of difference, and a lot of that money would be spent locally rather than going into the yacht fund of some rich trust fund kid.

Letting the state take ownership might actually drive the costs of construction higher even if they sell the properties at lower price. That's a recipe for larger deficits and more public debt. It'll also probably lead to a dramatic decline in the quality of housing for a lot of people. A better alternative, in my view, would hinge on changing how we approach the concept of family. A large extended family can better afford to maintain a home, and the main reason the notion is presently objectionable is because we've grown accustomed to the nuclear family. Pooling resources saves money in both the short-term and long-term. We then get meticulous about how we sell public lands and how we treat unused lands and facilities.

[Stylan]

It really isn't.

So far no one in this thread has been able to answer why leftists continue to ignore the rampant homophobia and transphobia in black communities. Pretty much the only people who care about LGBT rights are white people.

You haven't actually shown us that those are present in black communities or that leftists ignore it, so

https://web.archive.org/web/20140122112 ... hobic.html
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... y-couples/
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch ... ws-on-gays
" Lewis found that black folks are less likely than white people to believe that homosexuality is "not wrong at all" (25 percent to 40 percent)."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/us/p ... olina.html

Black people hate gays dude.

[Fahran]

https://web.archive.org/web/20140122112820/http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2011/05/don_lemon_yes_the_black_community_is_homophobic.html

There does tend to be a massive amount of homophobia in minority communities at least in America...and by minority I mean black and Latino. I don't know about native Americans and I'm pretty sure Asians are cool with being gay.

I know that some black civil rights leaders have weighed in on the topic. That said, homophobia and transphobia are still issues in a lot of minority communities - as evidenced by rates of victimization.

[Cekoviu]

You haven't actually shown us that those are present in black communities or that leftists ignore it, so

https://web.archive.org/web/20140122112 ... hobic.html
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... y-couples/
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch ... ws-on-gays
" Lewis found that black folks are less likely than white people to believe that homosexuality is "not wrong at all" (25 percent to 40 percent)."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/us/p ... olina.html

Black people hate gays dude.

Great, now where's your evidence that "leftists" ignore it?

[Cisairse]

I still don't understand why people think fascism is right wing

I can see both sides of the argument as to whether it is right wing or not. Fascism is often racist as hell, and in America supports white supremacy, which is right wing, but economically it is to the left of Capitalism. While I don't like fascism, I will say at least fascists don't let their own people starve and die on the street like say Jeff Bezos. Not that they aren't evil.

Racism isn't a right-wing position

[Aureumterra]

What do people here think of Tucker Carlson? Considering how often he goes on long rants about class and inequality

The man will say whatever will give him an audience. He has talked way more about his racism, autocracy and xenophobia than his economic views, which are dogshit as well.

But I guess you would like these elements.

To be fair, RFSI is a classical fascist, not the racist type

Although I’d prefer a democracy any day

[Liriena]

I still don't understand why people think fascism is right wing

A long history of close collaboration between fascists and right-wingers. Plus, the fact that fascism has usually served the historical function of defending the established order from a growing left-wing.

[Salus Maior]

I still don't understand why people think fascism is right wing

...If Fascism isn't right wing, what is, exactly?

[Liriena]

I still don't understand why people think fascism is right wing

...If Fascism isn't right wing, what is, exactly?

Depending on who you ask, they might tell you it's a weird sort of totalitarian centrism that kind of exists in its own category, outside of the capitalism/socialism dichotomy.

And some people who don't know anything will tell you it's "left-wing" because do you know what nazi is short for???

[Cisairse]

I still don't understand why people think fascism is right wing

...If Fascism isn't right wing, what is, exactly?

Auth right-of-center. Some variants are truly authcenter.

[Salus Maior]

...If Fascism isn't right wing, what is, exactly?

Auth right-of-center. Some variants are truly authcenter.

I'm asking about what is right wing.

[Cisairse]

Auth right-of-center. Some variants are truly authcenter.

I'm asking about what is right wing.

Sorry, my brain inserted an "it" into your post that wasn't there. My bad.