Many people have problems related to income inequality. We went to college, got good jobs, and we still don’t have enough money to maintain the lifestyle we were promised. We don’t live in a socialist country, we live in a capitalist country.
What were you promised? Like, owning a home? Home ownership rates in the US have been in the 63-70% range during all of 1966-2023, almost completely stable. Local purchasing power is #5 in the world for americans. What exactly is the problem over there?
We in Europe are having it much worse if you look at the data, especially now when Russia is being fucking Russia.
So 30% of people can’t afford their own house and that doesn’t seem like inequality to you?
Income inequality is a completely different thing from home ownership. Also, some of those 30% choose to not own a house. Also further, the average home ownership rate in EU is almost exactly the same as in the US, but our local purchasing power tends to be quite a lot worse.
Perhaps things are different where you live, but where I live, there’s always a significant additional bureaucratic cost when selling a house and buying another one. Because of that, renting has at least a single clear benefit beyond just being able to afford it: greater flexibility. Also, the financial risk is almost zero when you rent.
there’s always a significant additional bureaucratic cost when selling a house and buying another one.
This really only affects landlords and estate agents. Most people looking for a home are looking for a place to stay for life, and any “bureaucratic cost”, if you’re purely talking about red tape, form-filling, phone calls etc, is more than worth it for a lifetime home. Again, citation needed. If you’re talking about a literal monetary cost… whoa, look at that - capitalism!
renting has at least a single clear benefit beyond just being able to afford it: greater flexibility
“Flexibility” is a daft measure, only useful for people who plan to move often, which, again, is not common, except in the case of people needing to move often for work, which - hey, it’s capitalism again!
Also, the financial risk is almost zero when you rent.
“Almost” is doing a lot of work in this sentence. The risk of being made homeless by your landlord for petty reasons is a pretty clear risk. Having your rent hiked is a financial risk. Having to bite the bullet and choose an expensive place to rent because it’s the only one reasonably close to work is a financial risk. Being under someone’s thumb to provide them income is itself an inherent financial risk.
And by the way - what do you think causes the financial risk of home ownership, since you’re so intent on proving my point for me?
Now do the home ownership rate in socialist countries
I assume it fluctuates between 0% and almost 100% by country, and by depending on how things are decreeded and defined.
Which countries are socialist? I’m being told that China isn’t, so I guess North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos? Vietnam and Laos seem to be in the >90% sector. Does home ownership mean the same thing in those countries as it does in a free market economy?
It’s also clear that people who deny the extent to which capitalism actually makes the world worse either a) don’t know what capitalism is, or b) are rent seekers
You weren’t replying to the meme, you were replying to someone else in the origin of this fork of the comment chain. I’m implying that you in particular have no nuance.
Fair enough, but again, you somehow had even less nuance and pulled the classic bit of feigning superiority.
Edit: oof, you unironically suggest Sowell in another comment as a good resource. Looks like I’m correct, the superiority was indeed completely unfounded.
Instead of berating him for not leaving a robust enough comment for your taste, why don’t you ask for more information? Calling capitalists uninformed or rent seekers is way more unfair than alluding to historical or economic evidence to the contrary. The latter clearly leaves itself more open to good faith discourse, getting nothing out of it has simply been a failure on your part
No. Of course not. But my point was that we understood rent-seeking as a negative in Capitalism FROM THE OUTSET. You can’t criticise people today who point out that flaw in Capitalism on the basis of not “know[ing] history and economics”
The problem with this argument (when it’s used against capitalism) is that rent-seeking is fixed by more capitalism, at least when we don’t mean capitalism that’s made out of straws. It’s fixed by competition, transparency and fewer opportunities for lobbying. In other words, a smaller, more pro-markets governments.
Whatever. I don’t agree with you but that’s not the point. My point was that you can’t dismiss people making criticism about rent seeking as if they’re naive, as you did
Yep, it’s obvious that that’s how many people here see all their problems.
Many people have problems related to income inequality. We went to college, got good jobs, and we still don’t have enough money to maintain the lifestyle we were promised. We don’t live in a socialist country, we live in a capitalist country.
What were you promised? Like, owning a home? Home ownership rates in the US have been in the 63-70% range during all of 1966-2023, almost completely stable. Local purchasing power is #5 in the world for americans. What exactly is the problem over there?
We in Europe are having it much worse if you look at the data, especially now when Russia is being fucking Russia.
So 30% of people can’t afford their own house and that doesn’t seem like inequality to you?
Here’s the wiki page on global income equality, to address your claim that Europe is worse than the US:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality
Income inequality is a completely different thing from home ownership. Also, some of those 30% choose to not own a house. Also further, the average home ownership rate in EU is almost exactly the same as in the US, but our local purchasing power tends to be quite a lot worse.
USA is doing pretty fine economically.
[citation needed]
And even if true, what do you think is driving that decision? Decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. I posit - it’s the financial burden.
Perhaps things are different where you live, but where I live, there’s always a significant additional bureaucratic cost when selling a house and buying another one. Because of that, renting has at least a single clear benefit beyond just being able to afford it: greater flexibility. Also, the financial risk is almost zero when you rent.
This really only affects landlords and estate agents. Most people looking for a home are looking for a place to stay for life, and any “bureaucratic cost”, if you’re purely talking about red tape, form-filling, phone calls etc, is more than worth it for a lifetime home. Again, citation needed. If you’re talking about a literal monetary cost… whoa, look at that - capitalism!
“Flexibility” is a daft measure, only useful for people who plan to move often, which, again, is not common, except in the case of people needing to move often for work, which - hey, it’s capitalism again!
“Almost” is doing a lot of work in this sentence. The risk of being made homeless by your landlord for petty reasons is a pretty clear risk. Having your rent hiked is a financial risk. Having to bite the bullet and choose an expensive place to rent because it’s the only one reasonably close to work is a financial risk. Being under someone’s thumb to provide them income is itself an inherent financial risk.
And by the way - what do you think causes the financial risk of home ownership, since you’re so intent on proving my point for me?
Accidents, subpar maintenance, market changes, divorce.
Now do the home ownership rate in socialist countries
(Hint, the “American dream” of owning a home is much easier under socialism)
I assume it fluctuates between 0% and almost 100% by country, and by depending on how things are decreeded and defined.
Which countries are socialist? I’m being told that China isn’t, so I guess North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos? Vietnam and Laos seem to be in the >90% sector. Does home ownership mean the same thing in those countries as it does in a free market economy?
It’s also clear that people who deny the extent to which capitalism actually makes the world worse either a) don’t know what capitalism is, or b) are rent seekers
Or perhaps we know history and economics.
What history? What economics? Vague gesturing and feigning superiority without actually saying anything is peak.
Edit: turns out the economics was just Sowell all along, lol. Guess we have an AnCap over here.
You’re implying that the meme “capitalism bad” has amazing amounts of nuance.
You weren’t replying to the meme, you were replying to someone else in the origin of this fork of the comment chain. I’m implying that you in particular have no nuance.
Well, you’re not wrong, but what I replied to (“don’t know what capitalism is” and “are rent seekers”) wasn’t exactly filled with nuance, either.
Fair enough, but again, you somehow had even less nuance and pulled the classic bit of feigning superiority.
Edit: oof, you unironically suggest Sowell in another comment as a good resource. Looks like I’m correct, the superiority was indeed completely unfounded.
Instead of berating him for not leaving a robust enough comment for your taste, why don’t you ask for more information? Calling capitalists uninformed or rent seekers is way more unfair than alluding to historical or economic evidence to the contrary. The latter clearly leaves itself more open to good faith discourse, getting nothing out of it has simply been a failure on your part
Or not. Adam Smith - the father of Capitalism recognised the problem of Rent Seeking behaviour.
Fine point, but he’s not exactly the last person to write about free market capitalism.
No. Of course not. But my point was that we understood rent-seeking as a negative in Capitalism FROM THE OUTSET. You can’t criticise people today who point out that flaw in Capitalism on the basis of not “know[ing] history and economics”
The problem with this argument (when it’s used against capitalism) is that rent-seeking is fixed by more capitalism, at least when we don’t mean capitalism that’s made out of straws. It’s fixed by competition, transparency and fewer opportunities for lobbying. In other words, a smaller, more pro-markets governments.
Whatever. I don’t agree with you but that’s not the point. My point was that you can’t dismiss people making criticism about rent seeking as if they’re naive, as you did