• blitzen@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    2 days ago

    Facts that concern me:

    1. they are on Twitter
    2. they use a combined username (gross)
    3. they list vacations as number one
  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    5 days ago

    Mooching off of others to fund your life style and giving nothing back in return

    opens envelope

    What’s something considered classy if you’re rich, but trashy if you’re poor?

  • JesterAUDHD@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    5 days ago

    I remember looking up just the air b&b’s in the Portland metro and there were over 4,000……

    A large majority of the rest were being rented.

    The wealthy are buying it all with no regulation.

    There should be one home per family in the suburbs. One vacation place and your house. No one needs 10 properties, get rich another way you greedy terrible fucks.

    • stopdropandprole@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      5 days ago

      Rich people outbid regular folks for real resources (homes), taking away any chance at intergenerational wealth building. the only (legal) answer at the moment is taxation of the rich.

      Gary Stevenson has some worthwhile insights on what we can do and how to convince working class people that the rich must be stopped or else your kids and grandkids will all be homeless renters.

      inequality is sharply risinh all around the world. and it’s getting worse. this is arguably the most important issue of our time.

    • Karjalan@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      5 days ago

      I realise they don’t care, and are disingenuous about their suggestions… But these people think the solution for people not being able to afford shit is “get a, better job” or in this case specifically, “become landlord”…

      How do you expect society to function if every, single, person, is a landlord? Who’s building the houses, cleaning after tenants stay, growing, harvesting, preparing food… Electricity?

      Like, it just blows my mind that people espouse dumb shit like this and get a pass from most people

      • Tattorack@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 days ago

        Someone that used to hang out on the Discord server I’m part of justified it because “the world is divided between winners and losers. For there to be winners there have to be losers.”

        He was a real privileged asshole who worked in accounting for the US military. Loved how his paycheck was bigger than most soldiers, even some officers. Bitched for nearly a whole month about how the Obama administration was giving “free handouts” when the US pulled out of Afghanistan and gave all the veterans a care package.

        I argued with him a lot. Nobody liked him. This is the kind of person the people from OP’s meme are.

  • DistressedDad@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    5 days ago

    I know people like this. They truly believe like they are doing society a favor by buying up houses and renting them out. The disconnect from reality is wild.

    • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 days ago

      It’s a little better than corporate real estate vultures though. If you think about it, these small landlords and renters are more alike than the people at Blackrock buying up all this shit.

      • voldage@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        Just because they aren’t faceless doesn’t mean they aren’t as bad. In case of corporations, at the very least, anyone up to CEO could claim they were doing what their boss/investors told them/expected them to do, they have the mirage of fabricated innocence. The guilt is also spread more thinly, with many, often low paid employees contributing a small portion towards the greater legal crime.

        Small landlords have none of those delusions available, though from my personal, anecdotal experience, higher management in large corporations also often personally own real estate and rent it. I’m working in IT, but I have no reason to think it would be in any different elsewhere. I was led to understand it was “normal” and “smart”. So I’d say it’s the same kind of people that make decisions on top of the real estate corporations, and the petite landlords. And yeah, I’m excluding from that, obviously, renting a flat you’ve gotten as inheritance from your grandma or something, though I have more fundamental issues with the inheritance thing itself.

      • spoopy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        Nah, corporate landlords at least tend to have minimum standards and contractors on call.

        These type of small time landlords are the ones that tell you that a working refrigerator is a luxury, and water damage due to a cracked pipe in the wall is the tenant’s responsibility.

    • phindex@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 days ago

      This is like saying that if everyone had a small business it would destroy the economy. If you think a rental damages the economy, you have no idea what the economy is, or how it works.

      • flyingSock@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        Businesses buy and sell off each other and also create value. But sticking with the “if everyone did this” every one would run a one person business. Not efficient but would work. On the other hand if everyone is renting out houses, they can at most be renting out one (ignoring foe now second houses/holiday apts). Then everyone would be housed and paying each other in a circle. So, no, everyone doing what the post suggests can not work. All but the first house would be empty.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 days ago

        It’s kind of a false dilemma to say everyone should do it or nobody should do it. There are a lot of things that would destroy the economy or even the world if everyone did it. I think there is a healthy amount of small family owned rental properties like the one in the meme.

    • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      6 days ago

      What? Your comment doesn’t make sense. If everyone did any profession solely we would destroy the economy. If everyone became doctors, there would be no engineers or pilots. We would still be doomed. A diversity of vocations are necessary regardless of which vocation.

      *Edit. I was thinking maybe you mean investments. But the same holds true there. AND because of hedgefunds and private equity it’s becoming more and more of all the money funneling into a handful of companies. All the economists are sounding alarm bells on this. But considering the direction our leaders are taking us, I think this is all part of the plan.

      • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        6 days ago

        Landlording is not a profession.

        Handyman is a profession. Real estate management is a profession. Landlording is simply siphoning money through the act of owning something.

        The economy can tolerate a finite number of leaches before dying. We currently have too many. The ideal number is zero.

        • grue@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          6 days ago

          The fact that landlording is bad and not a profession isn’t the point.

          The point is that @MithranArkanere@lemmy.world’s argument failed to convincingly argue that because it was logically fallacious:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division

          In other words, the fact that thing A would “destroy of the economy if everyone did it” is an emergent property of everyone doing it, which doesn’t apply to any single entity doing thing A.

            • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              6 days ago

              That guy said what I was pointing out. Also, it’s not a hyperbole, it would absolutely destroy the economy if everyone did the same thing regardless of what that thing is. Even if everyone decided eating chicken would be the only protein that we eat would destroy the economy. Which is why I added my edit. It’s not just about a profession, but anything, literally anything done in unison by every other human would wreck an economy.

              • oo1@lemmings.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                5 days ago

                Are you’re saying that if an economy has an increse the concentration of farming activity then economic ouput will deteriorate as fast as if it were to have instead had the same increase the concentration of parasitic activity? Very interesting idea.

                Maybe I’m dense but the only way I can see that working is if the parasites become super-effective livestock and can be turned into food that is either more nutrious or has a longer shelflife than the feedstock.

                • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  ·
                  5 days ago

                  Huh? I’m saying if everyone dropped whatever it is they normally do and instead all do the same exact thing, it would ruin an economy. We need diversity regardless of whatever else is happening. We couldn’t survive if everyone became farmers and no one become engineers. So ultimately, it’s a pointless statement to say if everyone did anything, such as landlording, the economy would be ruined.

        • peregrin5@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          6 days ago

          Landlording is simply siphoning money through the act of owning something.

          This actually applies to most all investments.

          • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            6 days ago

            Getting a paycheck automatically means that someone has more money before a product, or service is delivered. So I’m gonna stretch this a little… If we like jobs that pay money then we gotta live with rich assholes. But if we want no rich assholes and truly everyone’s time is worth exactly the same amount, then we need something other than capitalism. We need socialism. But how do we prevent kings or rich politicians in either scenario? Tax them in capitalism for one. In socialism we just downright make that illegal.

            • Samskara@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              6 days ago

              Instead of a rich asshole, you can have worker owned cooperatives and such.

              everyone’s time is worth exactly the same amount

              That’s just objectively not the case. Some people are able to provide more essential or better quality services and labor than others. There are also more and less enjoyable activities.

              Everyone’s time can be worth the same amount for the same activity at the same quality level.

              how do we prevent kings or rich politicians in either scenario? Tax them in capitalism for one. In socialism we just downright make that illegal.

              You will always have people in more powerful positions and some will take advantage of it. What you can do is rotate people with term limits and such. However that can also have downsides in effectiveness and efficiency.

              You can also impose limits on how much stuff a person can own. There are ways to circumvent this with non profit NGOs and such.

              Socialist economies also need taxes to pay for infrastructure and the operations of the state.

              • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                6 days ago

                This is basically where not even I believe in myself.

                Cooperatives… A few billion of us get together to build a rocket…never gonna happen. A few of us build a power plant…yeah right! Never gonna happen.

                What about life? My life, how much is my life worth? Is it worth more than yours or less? Divided into life/second, if I’m worth the same as you are, then I should get paid the same as you no matter what I do… I could be a painter or a seamstress or a cook or a bricklayer. I should be worth the same. Even a bum who wants nothing to do with anyone should be worth the same as the most smartest person to ever live. Its a life. You don’t get to be worth more by being smarter or making more stuff.

                I would definitely not want to live in a society where my kids will be homeless even though I am the hardest working worker. If my kids are lazy I still want to ensure they live better than I did. So although I don’t like this consumerism centric capitalistic society, that socialistic society sucks.

                I much rather be in a society where you can own things and give them to your kids, and have those things hold some value. I don’t want the government limiting what I can and cannot do. To some extent I think this sort of capitalism is possible, but the billionaires have got to go puff. I would love living a grand life with a big house in a sunny part of California. That’s impossible now no matter what I say or do. Meanwhile some billionaire could just buy California if he wanted to. That sort of money accumulation I’m totally against.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            6 days ago

            ALL forms of making money from having money need to be abolished completely.

            If you’re not creating/selling a product or providing a service, you’re not EARNING money. Furthermore, rich people getting richer through passive income is the #1 thing diminishing the returns from actually worthwhile endeavors.

            • Sebeck0401@feddit.nl
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              6 days ago

              I somewhat agree with you. And I 150% agree that “rent seeking behavior” doesn’t add to society.

              But what if you want to sell a product you designed but can’t afford to create it or to setup a factory for it, so you want funding, so you try to get investments, maybe by selling equity in your company. Is that not valuable to society? The people that take the risk that your product may not sell?

              • Xhead@lemmings.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                6 days ago

                How did anyone do anything before currency was invented?

                Your comment implies that what you describe is a requirement for a functioning society

                It isn’t.

                • crimsonpoodle@pawb.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  ·
                  6 days ago

                  Before currency was invented might be a stretch— back then, which was a long long long, time ago we likely didn’t even have professions in the same sense. Albeit Dave might have had a knack for fishing, Kendra for making canoes etc.

                  There was plenty of space in the wilderness you could just go live for free. Now we have a lot of people, we need agriculture to support that population; there isn’t enough land for hunter gatherer societies to exist without a large population collapse first.

                  Now to your point I suppose we could have a society without money; yet I think there is some freedom in currency even if everyone gets a UBI. It allows two random strangers to come together and have one person buy something without having to trade an item that the other person wants, then the seller can go buy something they want.

                  Without currency we would have to have a somewhat complex trading system, which inevitably would see certain items of rarity never traded, or traded for so much surplus goods that a new ironically materialistic moneyed class would develop. It would make for an interesting book, but I think so long as people have varied interests and desires, and create creative works, money is a useful thing.

    • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      5 days ago

      How is it legal that people buy property and rent to those who want to rent instead of buy? My question to you is why wouldn’t it be legal?

      • rocket_dragon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        5 days ago

        those who want to rent instead of buy?

        Who actually wants to spend 1/3 of their paycheck on something every month and not own it?

        • TheLoneMinon@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          5 days ago

          It dawned on my that my wife and I pay 30k a year to live in our house. I made 65k last year, the most I’ve ever made and the amount I told myself in Highschool that if I could get a job making that I’d be set. Feels like I’m still bussing tables at fucking Texas Roadhouse.

          For context, im in tech and she’s in the arts. Combined we’re at about 110k a year. Wild that that feels like just scraping by.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      5 days ago

      In a word, corruption.

      In two words, legal corruption.

      In three words, blatant legal corruption.

      In four words, United States political system.

      • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        Meh.

        1. This isn’t an America problem. People do this in every country

        2. This is capitalism not corruption

        For everyone here’s a fun thought experience. You have a room with 100 people. In that room is 100$. 1 person (Elon Musk let’s say) holds 95$. 4 people (let’s say various CEO class people) hold $1 each. The remaining 95 people share the remaining 1$.

        And yet here we are all fighting because some of our deluded asses think we are going to be one of those 5 people one day.

  • golden_zealot@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    6 days ago

    In the case of the screenshot, absolutely.

    I have a question though, and I am curious about the perception here so please be honest as to what you think about my situation. (EDIT: I have received a few responses, and they are terribly informative of all of your perceptions. I want to thank you all for contributing your knowledge to my understanding, as I think by ingesting it, it has made me a better person. Thank you!)

    In my case, I own a condo. I worked my ass off doing technical shift work and my parents were fortunate enough in their lives to give me a gift of $20,000 dollars in my local currency to try to buy a home. I am floored. I never thought I would afford the opportunity to potentially own a home of any kind.

    I buy a small condo. Two bedrooms. One living room with an attached kitchen. The floors of the building are thin. I can hear my upstairs neighbors walking around and opening and closing doors and drawers at all hours. The insulation is bad, it is cold in winter and hot in summer. I am happy. I have a roof over my head, and I answer to no one for the walls, the fixtures, the plumbing.

    I lose my job because the business I worked for fucked up and lost some clients. Because of the lack of cash flow, I and many others are laid off.

    I hold on for as long as I can but eventually the cost of mortgage, insurance, groceries add up. I go on unemployment insurance. The economy is fucked because of covid, no one hires me for a year and 6 months.

    My unemployment insurance runs out after having submitted 4 resumes daily this entire time, maintaining a log of them for the government EI program.

    When I only have a couple thousand dollars left in my bank account, if I want to keep the ownership of my home, I have to move in with my parents again and rent my condo out to keep it at all. My dream of being able to just exist in a home I own is at stake.

    The government EI program calls me in for questioning to insure I am a legitimate case. I feel some of the most stress and fear I have ever felt. Logically I know that I have been doing everything I can, but somehow I still feel guilty for having to take advantage of it. I perform the interview, I bring a document detailing the URLs, Descriptions, Dates, everything of every job I have been applying to. The interviewer shows shock on her face. I get the impression that the level of detail I have been maintaining is uncommon. They let me leave without incident.

    For rent I charge the exact amount that I have to charge to cover mortgage and insurance, legally required, to maintain my the ownership of my home and nothing more, no profits. I have lived under abusive land lords before and the way they operate disgusts me. I will never be that, I would die before I let myself become that.

    A Ukrainian family, Husband and Wife with their 3 year old Daughter are the first to apply. I discuss the property and their lives with them and they are some of the strongest, most responsible, wonderful people I have met in my life who came to my country to escape the situation in theirs. I accept them as my tenants immediately because I recognize how absurdly lucky I am to have these people living in my home, given how smart, how responsible, how kind they are. I promise to myself that at the first opportunity, I will show them the same kindness.

    I finally find a job, even though it doesn’t pay much, and begin reducing the cost of their rent because I can finally afford it. I begin paying rent to my parents because they are owed that. My bank account begins saving about $100 a month in case I have an emergency I need to cover.

    The interest rates lower and condos begin to become cheaper. I intend to lower the cost of the rent based on this when my tenants renew the lease.

    This is the last 5 years of my life.

    Am I a leech?

  • mohammed_alibi@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    5 days ago

    Housing prices are pretty high in cities. But you can buy your own piece of land in a more rural setting and build a small cottage yourself, maybe a 2 bdrm, 1 bath home. I believe this is possible for less than $100k at the right location. Start with a used cheap RV or mobile home if you have to.

  • AeonFelis@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    5 days ago

    How does the second tenant pay their mortgage? One apartment’s rent should not be enough to cover the mortgage of four (or five - including the one they live in). My guess is that they only payed all the mortgages for these four properties and this is about the mortgage of the apartment they live in.

    The cheat code to a stress-free life is to own lots of real estate to being with.