The choice is simple: housing is either shelter for citizens, or it's just another interchangeable speculative asset in the global financialization casino. It can't be both.
The third option is more likely to eventually be successful. But it would be hysterically opposed by those currently benefiting from the current system. Make housing a free market. Strip out the endless layers of local, county, state and federal regulations and red tape. The vast majority of it is simply there to protect various lobby groups. Next, make those building the homes personally liable for any cut corners, poor design or poor execution. Strip out the fiction of corporations/companies being "people". If you want to do business in a given market sector, you are directly responsible for the consequences. Make good decisions, and you benefit and your reputation grows. Make bad choices and suffer the personal consequences. That means you hire only responsible crafts people, who take pride in their work to work for you. Do this with all market sectors and watch the positive impacts spread far and wide. Real competition, pride in ones craft, and hard earned reputation would go a long way towards fixing what is currently so badly broken.
Yes, but I believe that the speaker was assuming that there would be housing of some kind for the precariat, not just unaffordable and therefore unavailable housing; the implied goal of the statement is the rentialization of means of life, and therefore the profitable exploitation of the population, not them suffering and even dying from lack.
That is an excellent posit; "that there would be housing of some kind for the precariat".
In sociology and economics, the precariat is an emerging 21st Century social class formed by people suffering from "precarity", which means existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmanteau, merging precarious with proletariat.
Unlike the Karl Marx proletariat class of industrial workers in the 19th and 20th centuries, who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labor to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labor and must undertake extensive unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings. Classic examples of such unpaid activities include continually having to search for work (including preparing for and attending job interviews), as well as being expected to be perpetually responsive to calls for "gig" work (yet without being paid an actual wage for being "on call").
The hallmark of the precariat class is the condition of lack of job security, including intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant "precarious existence". The emergence of this class has been ascribed to the entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism, heavily leveraged by the "Cantillon Effect" and the financialization of the economy.
When we build new, we must abandon the present designs that are livable with only central air conditioning/heat. Passive heating and cooling must have their place and people learn to be active with it. One only needs to look back 100 years or so to see how people lived and thrived on much less electricity.
Consider this: In the stated intent of “making housing affordable”, we have created entire government programs, departments, agencies and private institutions for years, with one result; housing is an asset class the financial sector has no qualms with milking for its own gain. What is that old adage of doing the same thing over and over….?
I am going to respond by elaborating on my 3rd point. I grew up in a farming community where your house was a part of the farm. It was where vegetables were brought when they were harvested. It was where chickens were plucked. The table scraps were taken out to the chickens or the pigs to be eaten. (The dog & cat also ate from left overs from the table) It was part of the whole farm operation.
Today, I live in the city but I have 2 small self contained Airbnb's in my basement. They generate enough income to pay my utility bills, and my property taxes. It also means that we have flexibility so when our kids visit our city we can accommodate them. My garage is a workshop, that I can use to support my other sources of income such as building store displays. I also have a freeze dry business where I take shrinkage from a vegetable market and turn it into product for sale. My wife gets income from using a spare bedroom to support a disabled man. She also has a coaching business that generates income.
In other words, our house is a home and a productive asset.
Mr. Smith, housing is of course a major component of the secondary financial economy, but the primary surplus energy economy dictates the state of the financial economy.
Since the surplus energy economy is entering a permanent state of degrowth, the financial economy MUST be entering a state of degrowth also.
Degrowth MUST show up in the daily lives of the average person in ways that are negative and hard to deal with.
It's no surprise that housing affordability is one of the big issues facing the average person as they experience the beginning years of degrowth.
There is no remedy, because of the decline of surplus energy.
Forward from here, the imminent solution for most people will be co-housing, doubling and tripling and quadrupling up to help with housing affordability.
Do you think that the declining primary surplus energy economy has no influence on this housing crisis?
Restrictions on new housing serve the self-serving interests profiting from locking down the status quo. Anything that might negatively affect valuations is resisted. This urge to pull the ladder up behind us is natural, but is it fair to the generations behind us?
Unquote
Prime Minister or governor Trudeau said he will not allow house prices to drop in Canada
I asked my nephew a builder about my buying an empty lot and having him home build me a house there
He said the paperwork could take years
People don’t want to build custom from scratch as it’s very expensive
Exactly. Its just stupid to enable buyers whether they be residents of foreigners to accrue a capital gain from something that has to be a given if society is to function effectively and one is to avoid the enslavement of an underclass. The effect is to create a caste system with the 'untouchables' at the bottom of the heap. What sort of dream is that? Is that going to be conducive to social harmony? Add in ethnicity as an ingredient. You are asking for trouble.
The third option is more likely to eventually be successful. But it would be hysterically opposed by those currently benefiting from the current system. Make housing a free market. Strip out the endless layers of local, county, state and federal regulations and red tape. The vast majority of it is simply there to protect various lobby groups. Next, make those building the homes personally liable for any cut corners, poor design or poor execution. Strip out the fiction of corporations/companies being "people". If you want to do business in a given market sector, you are directly responsible for the consequences. Make good decisions, and you benefit and your reputation grows. Make bad choices and suffer the personal consequences. That means you hire only responsible crafts people, who take pride in their work to work for you. Do this with all market sectors and watch the positive impacts spread far and wide. Real competition, pride in ones craft, and hard earned reputation would go a long way towards fixing what is currently so badly broken.
"You will own nothing and be happy."
Yes, but I believe that the speaker was assuming that there would be housing of some kind for the precariat, not just unaffordable and therefore unavailable housing; the implied goal of the statement is the rentialization of means of life, and therefore the profitable exploitation of the population, not them suffering and even dying from lack.
That is an excellent posit; "that there would be housing of some kind for the precariat".
In sociology and economics, the precariat is an emerging 21st Century social class formed by people suffering from "precarity", which means existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmanteau, merging precarious with proletariat.
Unlike the Karl Marx proletariat class of industrial workers in the 19th and 20th centuries, who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labor to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labor and must undertake extensive unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings. Classic examples of such unpaid activities include continually having to search for work (including preparing for and attending job interviews), as well as being expected to be perpetually responsive to calls for "gig" work (yet without being paid an actual wage for being "on call").
The hallmark of the precariat class is the condition of lack of job security, including intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant "precarious existence". The emergence of this class has been ascribed to the entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism, heavily leveraged by the "Cantillon Effect" and the financialization of the economy.
When we build new, we must abandon the present designs that are livable with only central air conditioning/heat. Passive heating and cooling must have their place and people learn to be active with it. One only needs to look back 100 years or so to see how people lived and thrived on much less electricity.
Gene Hackman passed this week
In the movie Unforgiven his character said “don’t shoot me I am a good person I am building a house”
eerie, what immigrants may be saying today while working on construction lots
Consider this: In the stated intent of “making housing affordable”, we have created entire government programs, departments, agencies and private institutions for years, with one result; housing is an asset class the financial sector has no qualms with milking for its own gain. What is that old adage of doing the same thing over and over….?
Yes saw an article about a person became very rich from section 8 housing in Washington DC
He said section 8 is reliable renters
Section 8 is just the tip of a very large, ugly, iceberg.
Thanks Charles.
I am going to respond by elaborating on my 3rd point. I grew up in a farming community where your house was a part of the farm. It was where vegetables were brought when they were harvested. It was where chickens were plucked. The table scraps were taken out to the chickens or the pigs to be eaten. (The dog & cat also ate from left overs from the table) It was part of the whole farm operation.
Today, I live in the city but I have 2 small self contained Airbnb's in my basement. They generate enough income to pay my utility bills, and my property taxes. It also means that we have flexibility so when our kids visit our city we can accommodate them. My garage is a workshop, that I can use to support my other sources of income such as building store displays. I also have a freeze dry business where I take shrinkage from a vegetable market and turn it into product for sale. My wife gets income from using a spare bedroom to support a disabled man. She also has a coaching business that generates income.
In other words, our house is a home and a productive asset.
Mr. Smith, housing is of course a major component of the secondary financial economy, but the primary surplus energy economy dictates the state of the financial economy.
Since the surplus energy economy is entering a permanent state of degrowth, the financial economy MUST be entering a state of degrowth also.
Degrowth MUST show up in the daily lives of the average person in ways that are negative and hard to deal with.
It's no surprise that housing affordability is one of the big issues facing the average person as they experience the beginning years of degrowth.
There is no remedy, because of the decline of surplus energy.
Forward from here, the imminent solution for most people will be co-housing, doubling and tripling and quadrupling up to help with housing affordability.
Do you think that the declining primary surplus energy economy has no influence on this housing crisis?
Quote
Restrictions on new housing serve the self-serving interests profiting from locking down the status quo. Anything that might negatively affect valuations is resisted. This urge to pull the ladder up behind us is natural, but is it fair to the generations behind us?
Unquote
Prime Minister or governor Trudeau said he will not allow house prices to drop in Canada
I asked my nephew a builder about my buying an empty lot and having him home build me a house there
He said the paperwork could take years
People don’t want to build custom from scratch as it’s very expensive
Exactly. Its just stupid to enable buyers whether they be residents of foreigners to accrue a capital gain from something that has to be a given if society is to function effectively and one is to avoid the enslavement of an underclass. The effect is to create a caste system with the 'untouchables' at the bottom of the heap. What sort of dream is that? Is that going to be conducive to social harmony? Add in ethnicity as an ingredient. You are asking for trouble.
Very insightfull study. Thanks, Charles