Cool, my rent is still 70% of what I make in a month. It’s almost like it’s already too late, but I’m too poor and uneducated to be an expert. Got any other ideas?
Man this entire thread is just a perfect encapsulation of the perfect being the enemy of the good. What a bunch of useless chuds.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that phrase. Do you mind explaining what you mean? (Just to be clear, I’m not trying to be combative. I just have no idea how to read that)
“Don’t make perfect the enemy of good” essentially says that it’s better to do what you can in the short term to reduce harm or make positive change than to wait for the perfect solution and do nothing in the meantime. The idea is that the good is still going to help some people while we wait for the perfect solution to the problem- which, crucially, may never come, or come too late for a whole bunch of people.
One example would be letting a parent having their kid eat fast food instead of a perfectly healthy diet because their parents live in a food desert; not ideal, but it’ll keep the kid fed and alive.
In simple terms, the failure to do something absolutely perfectly shouldn’t stop you from doing something that will still be better than the status quo.
What if the act of doing something carries a cost with a negative expected return on investment?
…then the original saying doesn’t apply, does it? Is this some kind of “gotcha” I’m not understanding?
…then the original saying doesn’t apply, does it?
And that’s the million dollar question. I’m not arguing the perfect should be the enemy of the good. I’m questioning how much “good” I get by aligning myself with a fundamentally bad dude. Biden’s played this bait-and-switch game before, and there’s a real reason to believe 2025 Joe Biden won’t be willing or able to deliver on his 5% rent cap promise. In exchange, what is he asking you to give up?
An hour of your life in line to vote on election day? A small recurring donation to his campaign? A week block-walking your neighborhood to canvas for him? Three months volunteering to work for his reelection campaign?
Presidential elections aren’t cheap. I have to wonder what would happen if all the money and manpower pouring into Biden’s coffers was simply directed towards Habitat For Humanity instead. Would we get more bang for our bucks?
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That’s still way higher than anyone’s raises each year…
what the fuck? you get less than 5% raise in a year in the US?
edit: in light of responses, I’d like to reiterate, what the fuck… this is the most obscenely wealthy country in the world.
People are lucky to get a raise at all. Much less 5%, usually it’s 1 or 2. For at least a decade the only way to significantly increase your pay has been to move jobs.
Most people are lucky to get 2%… my company set the max at 2.5 last year and you only got that if you were IT Jesus
Raises have nothing to do with inflation or cost of living. Companies that pin raises to those things are severely underpaying employees and hoping they don’t seek greener pastures.
Market rates set compensation. The best way to know your market rate is to find a new job.
If the company is doing COLAs right then their employees wouldn’t need to seek greener pastures.
COLA is almost always lower than what you’ll get by job hopping
I didn’t say they were doing it right.
I thought it was $55?
Timely.
Let’s build a million new homes and sell them to people that don’t currently own any homes.
Let’s
buildseize a million new homes and sell them to people that don’t currently own any homes.FTFY
Fuck these ogres hoarding real estate.
we have several lifetimes worth of policies to change to fix the mess we are in. this is exactly what Biden should be doing, passing policy after policy in the next few months that have obvious positive results for the common voter. he’s not gonna run out of stuff to do if he’s re-elected, so he needs to stop holding onto this shit like it’s his last wild card of all time.
He’s not a dictator. Most of those would never pass in the Senate.
If only someone had given him the power to be a dictator!
Guess he just fuckin loses and the next guy does it anyways.
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5% is crazy talk when workers wages are going up 2.5% per year. Landlords need at least 20% more every year.
Is 5% really that crazy when the current rate is 20% as you describe?
I suppose he has to do something to signal to voters that he’s going to try to fix the housing affordability crisis, but this is pretty meaningless. But, what can he say? The truth? That the housing crisis is an extremely complex problem that will take decades to fix? Probably not going to go over very well.
How is this meaningless?
Well, for one, it almost certainly won’t pass. So the chances of it becoming law in the first place are pretty low. But even if it were passed, I think it would be difficult to enforce. Even if it were enforced, landlords would just hike the rent 4.99% every year.
4.99% is way better than the 50% my previous landlord tried. You can always vote Republican if you want. See what they’re going to do for you.
You can always vote Republican if you want.
No thanks.
Prices are already jacked up to an insane level compared to wages, the horse is already out of the barn: This is not going to fix the problem renters face.
A soft cap works as a ratchet. Downturns in the rental market are sticky while up turns are slow and marginalized.
It’s effectively the opposite of the way things are now, with cartelized units staying artificially high through downturns and prices skyrocketing during every shortfall.
That’s great!!!
Need to stop corporations buying houses next, and tamper foreigners buying up houses too (almost every country I’ve traveled to won’t let me buy so why not do the same?)
I feel like banning corporations from owning housing isn’t the panacea people expect it to be. It’s pretty impractical when you start talking about larger buildings and mixed use housing, and I’m not convinced it’s really a big driver of the problem.
I think a steep land value tax is a more workable solution. It incentivizes anyone who holds non-productive property (vacant homes in this case) to either make better use of the land or sell it. This also has the benefit of impacting individuals who own second homes or have mostly empty airbnbs.
Property taxes are insufficient for this purpose because they are generally based on the value of the home rather than just the land, so not only are they easier to game, but it disincentivizes improving the property.
I disagree. No need to force development to destroy natural landscapes just to avoid a tax. Simply tax multiple residential properties somewhat exponemtially.
100%, 133%, 200%, 350%, 500% or something
The biggest issue with corporations owning low income multifamily housing is that they act like slumlords. When you have nowhere else to go and the landlord won’t fix major issues then it takes a toll on you. When a kid sees this growing up, then it leads to antisocial behavior. Investors think that “passive investment” means no input at all when it requires a great deal of active management if contracts are being followed. They just know that the residents have no reasonable way to enforce the contract.
I agree about taxes. Tax the ever loving bejesus out of vacant rentals or speculative residential real estate. That will keep them from buying in the first place or deeply incentivize them to keep them rented out.
Crazy idea.
How about instead of corporations owning the unit, maybe the person who lives in the unit gets to own part of it.
I know crazy.
Owning part of a larger building is actually much more complicated than simply owning a house. I’m not sure everyone would actually want that even if they could buy the unit they live in at a low price.
I almost bought a condo in a multi-story building a couple of years ago and I’m glad as hell I didn’t. It was a one-bedroom unit for $125K, which is fine except that the monthly condo fees are $1000 (which includes utilities, at least), property taxes plus insurance are another $400, and the last three consecutive years residents have been hit with a special assessment of about $10K - which means I would have been paying around $2500 a month to live in a one-bedroom apartment that I’d already paid $125K for.
Unless that also comes with a 5% raise every year, then it’s not as good
It is set at 2.5% where I live.
Realistically that’s about what it should be. 3% tops. Average worker wages haven’t gone up that much yearly in forever.
“Here old man, rattle off this list! It’ll save you! Get 'em, Joey!”
And then he screwed it up and read the teleprompter wrong as “capping rent at $55 dollars.” No joke.
I think people are focusing quite a bit too much on Biden’s speaking abilities and too little on his policies.
I’ll take Biden’s policies any day over Trump’s policies and his toxic personality.
It’s over…
Pelosi privately told Biden polls show he cannot win and will take down the House
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/17/politics/nancy-pelosi-biden-conversation/index.html
Polls say different things. This one says the opposite: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-polling-data-five-thirty-eight-1926226
If you think Biden has any chance of beating Trump at this point then I’ve got a bridge to sell you
I’m sure this comes with a guaranteed 5% increase to minimum wages at the same time right? … right? Any amount of minimum wage increase from the last increase 15 years ago?
