cocaclub · HackerTrans

12 tháng trướcdiscuss

"Uber" was not the mic drop; "[Company] can use 'losing money today on one venture' as a business tactic, in search of higher future profits, if it has another source of cash to cover its losses," was, at least in the sense that it directly answered your question as to how a business losing money on one front could continue to operate. The company doesn't matter; loss-leading is not rare or unknown.

cocaclub

12 tháng trướcdiscuss

These are my feelings too, but in the interests of compassion, I would suggest a return of some proportion of equity to (human, non-LLC, non-corporate, primary resident) buyers in cash, up to bank failure. Hopefully they can then buy another house at the presumably much lower prevailing market rate. Someone has to lose, let it be in order of "he who should have known what he was doing in making this catastrophe possible."

cocaclub

12 tháng trướcdiscuss

Recognizing your frustration with reality's failure to adhere to the academic: the fact is that rent rates for corporate-owned units generally don't go down. At least, not in recent history. In the rare cases where cartel behavior doesn't work to cement rates, and owners have to respond somehow to market conditions in order to avoid cash-flow disruption, they will offer "specials" that lower the out-of-pocket cost, but not the on-paper rental rate, for a unit. Your oft-found "1 month free"-type deals (that are actually a monthly bill credit for the initial lease term). Upon renewal, your increase is based on that paper rate, not what you were actually paying.

cocaclub

12 tháng trướcdiscuss

How did Uber et al. offer services below cost until they'd driven out all competition? The property holdings are not these landlords' only source of income. Why would milk producers deliberately dump millions of gallons of milk (representing a commensurate amount of labor to both produce and then dispose of)? Because they've created an oversupply that threatens to destabilize the price.

The math works, it's just heinous.

cocaclub

12 tháng trướcdiscuss

Supply destruction to put a floor on prices is not an unknown phenomenon.

The effort to make it seem silly to think that there aren't enough houses because the industry whose job it is to build houses did not build enough houses is itself a little silly. Circumstantial as the evidence may be, it's logical to assume that they didn't because it was more profitable not to.

cocaclub

12 tháng trướcdiscuss

My guess is that the "leftist critique" isn't one of not wanting new houses built, but of not wanting extensive government subsidies and political energy to go to builders and other groups who will not solve the problem, a la our storied history with broadband subsidies.

This pitched debate may very well simply represent an attempt to forestall action by bogging efforts down in debate over what's effective or correct, of course. It's worked for any number of groups looking to forestall what seems like an obvious and inevitable solution: reducing lead exposure by banning its use in consumer products, reducing tobacco-related illness by making it difficult and more uncomfortable to partake, and, in our case, making housing affordable by letting prices fall.

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