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What is an average person living in the US supposed to do about corporations raising prices?
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this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Voting is necessary but not sufficient.
The big other thing is to build external power. That’s not like militias per se (though with the rising fascism it’s not a bad idea), but rather stuff like gardening, learning to do repairs, and practicing mutual aid. Reduce your and your community’s dependence on the corporations. And make it an issue people around you care about.
Learning to do repairs yourself has never been easier thanks to YouTube. There's also a ton of sources for replacement parts online these days, many of which provide repair videos for the more common parts. My dishwasher broke a few months ago; $60 for a new intake pump and a few hours of my time and it's working as if it's brand new. My TV died out a little over a year ago; $35 for a new power supply (probably could've repaired it for a few bucks if I had just replaced a capacitor or two) and less than an hour of my time and it's right as rain. Most repair jobs are a lot less daunting than people assume they are.
Unions! Rising prices are irrelevant when workers are paid fairly.
Giving everyone more money will not fix the price of housing, It’ll do the opposite.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Here’s a source: https://www.housingwire.com/articles/no-wall-street-investors-havent-bought-44-of-homes-this-year/
You’re being against people with under 10 homes, which I agree is still a problem, but you’re not bidding against large corporations.
What's it like being so passionate about something you're so totally wrong about?
This is basic supply and demand. Please explain how I’m wrong and giving people more money would solve the problem.
Other people already explained why you're wrong. Since you continue to insist on your wrong opinion now I just mock you for being the idiot you are.
They say “you’re wrong” and mention something entirely unrelated.
You can mock me all you like. It isn’t going to allow you to buy a house.
Here’s a source btw https://www.housingwire.com/articles/no-wall-street-investors-havent-bought-44-of-homes-this-year/
No idea what all of you seem to think is going on.
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.
You're ignoring the hundred other people with 300k that will getting money and now bidding against me. It's Supply and Demand.
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.
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.
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.
But it’s not going to increase supply, and somewhere around 70% of homes purchased last year were by individuals. Home prices will rise as individuals can bid higher than before.
The only solution is to build more housing.
What if you remove individuals who already have a home from that number?
Again, consider relative buying power. Even if you aren't more wealthy relative to the average person and that stays the same, being more wealthy relative to the wealthiest still gives you greater ability to buy a home. This can be true even if demand and prices rise, and would be true even if it was only 30% of buyers that you're becoming more competitive against.
That really should be part of it, but ultimately it is not enough. If wealth inequality gets high enough, if the market regards labor as worthless enough, it isn't going to matter how much housing there is, it will get repurposed as golf courses or something.
I believe it only goes down from 70 to 55. A better shot for sure, but you’d still be overpaying and having to buy without an inspection etc.
I don’t see being more wealthy relative to the wealthiest as that beneficial in this scenario. They still have the ability to outbid if they want to.
Building more housing, particularly apartment building or condos that people can own is the simplest solution to the problem. Solving income equality is a massive task with no perfect solutions. Building more houses is straight forward.
Are you familiar with price elasticity of demand? If they have to pay a larger share of their wealth, they will buy fewer. If houses cost $100, couldn't you think of reasons to buy more than one, where you wouldn't if houses were priced within what you could afford but much more expensive than that?
IMO the distinction between income and wealth inequality is very important here. Income inequality is about jobs, wealth is about accumulated capital.
Yes, but again, there isn’t enough supply for everything you are saying to be the problem. It’s Supply supply supply.
Saying "supply" three times in a row isn't an argument that other factors are not also relevant.
Supply is the singles biggest factor is all
Well I don't disagree with that really
No the price of housing is caused by low interest rates and the money printer. This makes companies take out cheap loans and buy all the houses, thus driving up the pricing even more.
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.
No they don't have money. The money is created out of thin air.
Has anybody learned anything from 2008? The entire reason that Bitcoin was even created?
To scam stupid people out of money? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, and I’m not sure you do either.
No I do very much know what I'm talking about. It's just you.
But big daddy government says guns are really bad and only they should have them!!! (jk)
Learning skills like sewing, planting/storing extra food, first aid and knowing how to use a gun isn't something for crazy bunker dwellers or the Amish. It's skills that my grandparents knew.
It makes you more resilient and capable, especially in an emergency when supply chains/govt are strained (that's why the preppers do it). You don't have to go all Stardew Valley but I think it's good stuff to know at a basic level.
Yeah I have mixed feelings about guns because on one hand an armed proletariat is more able to resist, but on the other hand sure seems like easy access to weapons is helping fascists more than anyone else and fuck am I just exhausted by the constant and unyielding gun violence in my country as well as the fact that any weapons that are effective against a larger force on shared turf are illegal for anyone but cops and troops. But antifascists and workers demonstrating our capacity to organize as a militia may make fascists rethink action.
But yeah aside from my rambling as a tired American, these skills aren’t even just for emergencies. Gardening is a hobby that gives food and sometimes drugs as a reward. And it’s healthier stuff, with the added benefit of being in season. Repair skills not only save money, they save the planet and they make you feel more comfortable and capable.
My girlfriend is an Appalachian leftist who does a lot of the prepper stuff because growing up impoverished in a place where that was normal and it’s just useful even now that she’s middle class and out of all that. When you get comfortable with repairs and making stuff you can just turn other people’s stuff they want to get rid of into things you want. You can just make furniture if you have the tools. And yeah it may not look as polished, but it’s often sturdier because you’re not going to use particleboard to build your bed, but companies sure will
As a non American the gun argument for being able to rebel seems like such an empty argument. Assuming you mod your rifle to full automatic fire you are going up against tanks, jets, drones, artillery, the entire armed forces of one of the strongest military forces on this planet. Ak47s didn't work out so well for Iraq why do you think you will be different?
There is an interesting podcast from a few years ago called (if I remember right) "It Could Happen Here: The Second American Civil War". A war correspondant with experience covering the Syrian civil war takes what he observed there as a thought experiment on what modern civil war might be like on American soil. This was released around 2019 I think.
Basically what you see there is riflemen with drones and improvised explosives make a very effective fighting force when paired with smart gurilla tactics.
Vietnam and Afghanistan were not won by the US. The Soviets didn't win the Afghan war in the 80s.
In America rural citizens have weapons and experience using them (war, hunting etc) and can easily disrupt logistics to make life hell for an enemy force. Military vehicles are notorious gas hogs and expensive aircraft can be easily destroyed if caught on the ground. Advanced weaponry can be scrounged. And the factories that make them are built here.
I love my country and also see the flaws of it including our polarization. I hate the very idea of any war here under any circumstances. I see it as an incredibly foolish idea, right alongside "just nuke em". But as the journalist put it, if it came to that we would make "one ass kicker of an insurgency"
But for the record what I was meaning in my initual statement is more for home defense, hunting and so on. Not going against the government but having the capablity to be okay if they can't get help to you in time. Even the best trained police officer is of little use when they are 10 minutes away from you, which is typical in the US. In that regard it's logical to us, just like first aid kits and fire extinguishers. And it's okay if it doesn't make sense to you.