In March, a small #nonprofit in #BritishColumbia cut 10 cheques worth approximately $5,500 each & hand delivered them to as many #FirstNations on southern #VancouverIsland. The money, collected in the second half of 2023, is the first annual installment of #voluntary#rents paid by residents & business owners who live & work on the First Nations’ homelands.
#rents are (again) at record levels (according to Rightmove, at least) but interestingly around a quarter of all rental contracts are then concluded at a discount to the advertised rate....
This might be 'realism' by #landlords or suggest in some cases the rents advertised are not achievable - there are no renters prepared to pay these astronomical rents.
Given discounted rents have grown fro 16% - 23% in a year, may suggest #Landlord driven rent #inflation is peaking?
Think of everything that makes you miserable as being caught between two opposing, irresistible, irrefutable truths:
"Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops" (#SteinsLaw)
"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" (Keynes)
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That end seems to have come, but what followed capitalism wasn't socialism, it was the return of #feudalism, an economic system where elites derive their wealth from #rents, not profits:
Profit is the income you get from investing in capital - machinery, systems, plant - and then harvesting the surplus value created by workers who mobilize this capital.
Several thousands of people took to the streets in Lisbon and other major cities across Portugal on Saturday to protest for the constitutional basic right to housing.
Many Portuguese, including the middle class, are being priced out of Portugal’s property market by rising rents, surging home prices and climbing mortgage rates.
The second decade of the 21st century is truly a bounteous time. My backyard has produced a bumper crop of an invasive species of mosquito that is genuinely innovative: rather than confining itself to biting in the dusk and dawn golden hours, these stinging clouds of flying vampires bite at every hour that God sends:
What's the difference between feudalism and capitalism? According to #YanisVaroufakis, it comes down to whether we value #rents (income you get from owning things) over #profits (income you get from doing things):
#RentControl laws on the national level? Biden administration offers a not-so-subtle push
by Medora Lee, September 6, 2023
"Rent control would prevent #corporate#landlords from profiting by using low-interest, government-backed financing while raising #rents and evicting #tenants, Hoang said.
"Though that may be true, critics say, rent control could hurt millions of people, including some who supplement their retirement with rental income.
"Among 49.5 million rental units, nearly 46% are small rental properties of one to four units, the National Association of Realtors said. More than 70% of those are owned by individuals, or mom-and-pop landlords. About 70% are also managed by them.
"'Cost of rental housing is expensive,' Geno said. 'If they can’t pass on expenses they don’t control, many owners will be upside down.'"
"Many mom-and-pop landlords were forced into forbearance during the 1½-year pandemic-related rent moratorium that allowed tenants to forgo rent payments without fear of eviction. Some even had to sell their properties and defer maintenance on their rentals."
And then corporations bought them up, tore down or gutted the places, then created condos or high-rent housing out of the reach of most people! Creating affordable housing would be great, but it takes time. And judging by the number of homeless and those seeking climate change and political asylum, this problem needs to be solved sooner than later!
This is #technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek #rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:
Forget F1: the only car race that matters now is the race to turn your car into a digital extraction machine, a high-speed inkjet printer on wheels, stealing your private data as it picks your pocket. Your car's digital infrastructure is a costly, dangerous nightmare - but for automakers in pursuit of postcapitalist utopia, it's a dream they can't give up on.
But it wasn't always this way: for hundreds of years, European civilization was dominated by #rents, not #markets.
"Rents" are income you get from owning something other people need to produce value. Think of renting out a house: not only do you get paid when someone lives there, you also get the benefit of rising property values, which are the result of the work that all the other homeowners, business owners, and residents do to make the neighborhood more valuable.
Heartbreaking rendition (by @pluralistic ) of a new study of homelessness in California. "America treats housing as an asset rather than a human right, creating a world of haves and have-nots." And so does Europe.
Housing as asset aligns the economic interests of homeowners with those of landlords: restricting tenant rights and the supply of affordable housing increases home prices. It is yet another way that capitalism eats people's lives.
12% of Americans live in California - but 30% of homeless Americans, and 50% of unsheltered Americans, call California "home." This prompts endless schadenfreude from "red state" partisans, and is waved as proof of the failure of liberal policies. But the real story is both more complicated - and simpler.
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the circus that currently performs in finnish government is getting so out of hands that im just waiting for the day it just implodes in on it self like couple billionaires in a submarine.
Cost-of-living and rents rising, together with the governments plans to slash housing benefits about to force especially families and low income households to move out of cities, especially Helsinki.