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Comment by dt3ft | Hacker News Reader

This is the only right way to deal with greed. Enough is enough.

Greed is innate to humans and you can't even take it away with communism, people will still find a way to collect and hoard. The problem is the low interest rates from central banks flooding the economy with money.

Some greed might be innate, but what we're seeing today with billionaires is not normal greed, it's extreme greed, something me (and many others) don't think is innate.

And where does "communism" come from? No one mentioned it here on HN nor in the article. People are so quick to label things, even if they are not even related.

In this case, Dutch people seems to had enough of expensive prices so now they are on the lookout for a solution. Just because this solution involves the government stepping in to adjust the market, doesn't mean that the Dutch government is suddenly "communist".

> what we're seeing today with billionaires is not normal greed, it's extreme greed

No, it's normal greed and, if anything, inequality is lower now than it has been in the past. What we have today is fat, comfortable people looking at billionaires and screaming greed because the billionaire has a yacht while they only have 3 cars and one massive house. Who's the greedy one here?

I was looking for data for inequality per country (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_...).

What location and timeline are you thinking of for now being less inequal? Do you have a data source I could look into? Cheers

Edit: grammar

Data of current inequality isn't very useful. I don't have any data, but I wasn't the one claiming things were more extreme now than they have been in the past. If I look at the UK I see even the poorest people have shelter, food and free access to healthcare. In the past the poorest people were literally starving and in very poor health while the richest lived in huge manor houses that would make even a billionaire blush today.

> if anything, inequality is lower now than it has been in the past

So, sorry for rephrasing it, your claim is that the poorest have better conditions than before (I don‘t know if that is the case), not that inequality has decreased. It is an interesting point.

There are plenty of people starving in the UK. Food banks can't keep up with demand. There are also the "new homeless" who once had stable jobs but are now part of the gig economy. Some are out on the street but most are couch surfing somewhere.

> What we have today is fat, comfortable people looking at billionaires and screaming greed because the billionaire has a yacht while they only have 3 cars and one massive house. Who's the greedy one here?

This is the weirdest straw man, isn't the entire point of the issue that no one can afford housing? What are you even talking about?

Sadly, it is inculcated in modern capitalism that anything is permissible as long as "it is just business"

I don't think it is greed. Rather, money and real estate has become a status symbol. It's just as dumb as trucks and SUVs being a status symbol among the middle class.

That's not an excuse. Lots of undesirable traits are also innate like violence, tribalism, etc. Does that mean we give those a free pass?

Exactly. We've got laws to mitigate or redirect any harmful innate traits that we've got. Greed, like violence, is definitely among them.

>Exactly. We've got laws to mitigate or redirect any harmful innate traits that we've got. Greed, like violence, is definitely among them.

And what about envy? That's clearly a big problem among commenters in this thread.

It's not. You're mistaking the will to live and prosper with envy. People are correctly identifying all across the world that centers of power and capital are objectively worsening their lives, and they are taking action against them in their own, perfectly justified self-interest. The difference between that desire and greed is that greed cannibalizes the existence of others to sustain its own existence. No one is confused. We're seeing a revolutionary period approaching that will be comparable to "The Enlightenment." Let's hope it happens because I think the unavoidable alternative is 1000 years of darkness, another longer, world dark-age.

I didn't claim it was an exhaustive list. I suppose you could include all of the classic "mortal sins", though I don't see the others as having quite as devastating social impact as greed and violence. Maybe envy or pride might relate to society's obsession with social media and celebrity worship? I don't think those are quite as easy to legislate without infringing on personal freedom of expression, though.

If you raise interest rates then people hoard money. How does that solve anything?

> This is the only right way to deal with greed. Enough is enough.

How about dealing with envy? Seems you've sure got plenty of that.

Greedy? Not me. Always the other guy that is greedy.

The irony is there is such high probability with posting on this board you are part of the top 1% of the globe when it comes to wealth.

> you are part of the top 1% of the globe when it comes to wealth.

So what, what do you want the person to do, go live in a hut?

How is that person greedy compared to people with multiple houses?

>How is that person greedy compared to people with multiple houses?

They're greedy because they think the world owes them cheap housing just by virtue of being born. The person who owns multiple houses actually did some work to earn the money to pay for them, they're not the one eyeing other people's property with envy.

The problem here is that, in general, you don’t get to own multiple houses by being a hard worker. You could be an extremely hard worker, but not make very much money. You could be very lazy and make loads of money. The reality is that the housing market is on a trajectory where most people cannot and will not be able to afford ownership, even for white collar jobs. Wages do not go up quickly for most folks either, so the cost of acquiring a house relative to your income continues to rise.

More specifically, say you enter society making $80k in a major city. You’re young, so this is normal. At this point in time, a house is not an option, because a mortgage would require $100k in savings. And if the housing market continues increasing like it has the past few years, that amount keeps going up. For most people, the rate that house prices go up is quicker than the rate they can save towards a down payment.

It’s important to note that a quickly accelerating housing market is EXTREMELY beneficial for investors. It creates a feedback loop which makes investments more common, which makes the prices go up further. Spending $400k this year and selling for $500k next year is an excellent investment opportunity.

Is it greedy to think that one deserves a home? Likely not. Is it greedy to make some extra money via property investment? Maybe sometimes, maybe not. The point isn’t that property investment is inherently bad, but that property investment is pricing most people out of the housing market.

As a hypothetical, would you like to live in a society where homes are not accessible for 90% of people? I personally do not want to live in a society where housing is extremely scarce. That’s a recipe for societal upheaval. If property investment is making the market spiral out of control, which it likely is, it benefits most people to curtail that problem.

> They're greedy because they think the world owes them cheap housing

People want affordable housing not cheap housing.

> The person who owns multiple houses actually did some work to earn the money to pay for them

So if I hide my income in tax havens and evade taxes or if someone uses their wealth from a foreign country which they got using shady methods and then use that money to buy multiple properties, is that ok in your books?

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