They keep raising prices, stating that it’s due to inflation, but then they keep having record profits.

Meanwhile, the average American can barely afford rent or food nowadays.

What are we to do? Vote? I have been but that doesn’t seem to do much since I’m just voting for a representative that makes the actual decisions.

    • phillaholic@lemm.ee
      428·
      1 year ago

      Giving everyone more money will not fix the price of housing, It’ll do the opposite.

      • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        20·
        1 year ago

        It will partially fix it because part of the problem is wealth inequality; housing is a form of wealth and becomes more out of reach as wealth concentrates away from people. Giving everyone money serves as redistribution.

        • phillaholic@lemm.ee
          16·
          1 year ago

          Think about it. If everyone has more money that means so do the other people bidding against you. It’s like the college tuition problem. Everyone can get student loans, so colleges have no incentive to keep costs reasonable. Giving college students more money doesn’t fix the problem of college being too expensive.

          • Pat_Riot@lemmy.today
            11·
            1 year ago

            You still think you’re bidding against other people for housing. That’s not the case, often, these days. Corporate land grabbing is the largest proponent of the housing crisis. That has to be ended before anything will get better on that front. Education for profit is another absolute crime against the citizenry. College should only cost what education costs, not what it costs to hire the fucking football coach and build a goddamn stadium.

            • phillaholic@lemm.ee
              12·
              1 year ago

              You’re bidding against both, and increasing the amount of money people have also gives people who already own a home the opportunity to buy another one and get in on the investment those corporation are. All you’ll get is inflation and probably a crash leaving you owing more than the homes worth when it all comes tumbling down. Throwing money isn’t the solution. Building more multi-family buildings and legislating multi-home ownership including corporations is.

          • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            1·
            1 year ago

            If everyone has more money that means so do the other people bidding against you

            This would make sense if what was being proposed was increasing everyone’s wealth proportionally to how much wealth they already have, but I don’t think anyone is really suggesting that. Think about it this way; say you have 300k and are bidding on a house against someone who has 50 million dollars. They have a strong advantage. Now say you both were gifted 10 million dollars before bidding on the house. Your adversary still has the advantage, but much less of one.

            As an aside I think what you’re saying elsewhere about adjusting laws for more housing is right, but that can’t be the whole solution when the market value of labor is being eroded away. Even if there is a large supply of housing, a share of wealth is needed to buy it, that share has to be somewhat evenly distributed or there are unavoidable problems.

            • phillaholic@lemm.ee
              1·
              1 year ago

              You’re ignoring the hundred other people with 300k that will getting money and now bidding against me. It’s Supply and Demand.

              • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                1·
                1 year ago

                I am not, I intended the person with 300k in this example to represent the whole class of people with less. Your assumption seems to be that the relatively accumulating mass of wealth held by the few is just not in competition for houses, but that begs the question, why wouldn’t it be? You can extract rent from housing to profit on it over time. It serves as a safe investment very likely to increase in value. You can convert it into other forms of real estate. You can have multiple homes for convenient travel. There is a lot of incentive there.

                An important feature of supply and demand is that the weight of demand doesn’t depend on a quantity of people, but a quantity of money chasing the same supply. If no one ever had a reason to want more than one house for themselves, maybe it would have more to do with the quantity of individuals, but I think that’s just not the case, they do want more, and it scales.

                • phillaholic@lemm.ee
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  I’m not following your point at all here. I’d you give just me extra money, I can probably buy a house. I’d you give everyone more money then I’m back to bidding against everyone else and the cost of housing just rises. We don’t have enough housing in many areas of the country.

                  • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                    1·
                    1 year ago

                    My point is that if you are currently bidding against wealthy financial interests as well as individuals just looking for a place to live, then giving everyone money will raise the buying power of those individuals relative to those interests (because their wealth increases more as a percentage), thereby making all of them more able to afford housing. I don’t know how to put it simpler than that.

                    Of course it’s also true that there is not enough housing, again I acknowledge that as the other part of the problem to be addressed separately.

        • phillaholic@lemm.ee
          25·
          1 year ago

          You’re kidding yourself if you think everyone having more money is going to do anything but increase bidding on housing right now though. I’m not blaming housing prices on people having money, I’m saying it’s not going to fix those underlying issues.