this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
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This is a solved problem though. Britain in the pre-Thatcher years bought up a ton of properties, rented them out at pretty reasonable rates, and thus punctured the bubble and made it so that private landlords were free to do literally whatever they wanted to do (no trying to artificially hit control levers in the economy or legislate people into economically unviable situations), but you couldn't really do a bangin' business just buying up properties and renting them out anymore. People who wanted investment income would find businesses to invest in instead, rent was cheap, and the government got a steady stream of income to do whatever they wanted with. Literally everyone wins.
Of course, because it interfered with already-rich people being able to get richer without doing any work, Thatcher hated it and got rid of it. The US probably can't make this happen for the same reason. But there is a simple answer to this problem that's proven and works.
Sure it's proven to be a good thing, but it's socialism and therefore communist and evil.
Clearly. Even though it actually frees up money for investment into free enterprises, and preserves everyone's property rights and freedoms. Oops, I mean, communism, boo hiss.
She got rid of it by opening up public housing to private ownership, depleting the public stock and turning a generation of richer than average residents into a landlord class for the subsequent generations.
So now you're stuck with a privatized stock of homes and properties through which enormous wealth is channeled. And politicians don't dare challenge that pile of cash.
Boston is in a similar state. Enormous amounts of property owned by vanishingly few people. Elected Reps have a big financial incentive to keep the landlords happy.