• HailSeitan@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    24 hours ago

    My brother in christ, do you think landlords make rent proportional to people’s income right now?

    • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Yes, that is literally why the housing crisis exists. Landlords (think Blackrock and other mega corporations, not local landlords). Are trying to prevent the building of housing and bribing government officials to do so in order to create an artificial shortage.

      This is because housing is a primary human need and a very small shortage will drive up the price immensely. Combine this with borowing and usury and you have yourself the perfect extortion combination.

      Everyone knows since the sixties that government housing is the solution to all of this and there is a reason capitalists are making up every excuse under the moon to prevent the government from doing that again.

      • HailSeitan@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        8 hours ago

        You literally just explained how it is a function of supply (through an artificial shortage), not income. It’s lack of competition between landlords (whether through corporate landlords buying up millions of units or lots of little landlords using RealPage to engage in collusion via algorithm), and not discretionary.

        On average, people don’t pay more than a third of their income for groceries because there’s still competition in the grocery space (which is also why it was so important that Lina Khan blocked the Kroger-Albertson’s merger).

        We can hate landlords and capitalism without saying nonsense about UBI.