Unless you have vastly different taxation laws in the USA, spoilage is the equivalent to an expense and thus is worth whatever the corporate tax rate is since it will reduce taxable income by the spoilage amount.

You would still have the spoilage expense even if you donated it, however, as you noted manpower does have a cost and it costs more to donate than it does to instantly dispose of something.

and that opinion would be the strawman that i think scarcity doesnt exist on a micro scale? right? lol. u cant even let go of shit arguments once they're full of holes.

but sure, tell me more vague quotes from a dusty old textbook about the industry i work in every day lol.

Maybe if offthevoid had put all those strawmen in his fields, he wouldn't have had to grow up in scarcity.

back to the topic of housing, what do you suppose makes housing so damn expensive to begin with?

increasing population density and demand for land?
money laundering from china/iran?
speculation in the real estate market?

looking for a genuine answer here just bought a house recently (toronto) and i'd honestly still be happy with the entire market tanking (in principle that is; i'd curl up in fetal position and cry for my own loss but i think it's for the greater good) if it means my kids can afford a house down the road because things look grim right now

This post was edited by duffman316 on Aug 11 2020 05:25pm

A lot of the recent housing bubble comes from a lack of better investments. The rich have a shit load of money sitting around since wealth inequality has only gotten worse and worse the past few decades and real estate has always been a pretty good long-term investment. So wealthy people, both domestic and foreign, start to buy real estate and the price goes up, reinforcing the investment strategy. In places like California you can actually rent at a loss to the renter because they are expecting to make more money long term on the value of the property than on rent, so they may lose $300 a month, but they are expecting the value to go up by more than that by the time they sell it.

Foreign investment is part of it, in China there's a huge culture around owning homes and assets before you get married, and so when a boy wants to get married the family will pool their money to buy him a house, but since there are more men than women that's not enough and they have to buy 2 or 3 houses to really stand out, which has resulted in literal ghost towns in China where the houses only exist so men can advertise their owning of 3 houses to attract women to date. And if you're on the market and there's 100 people clamoring to date you, why wouldn't you start with the wealthiest and work your way down? That just makes sense. So now they're buying houses abroad and we're seeing a massive amount of money from China driving up housing prices in the western world.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Aug 11 2020 05:32pm

Not sure if anyone here saw the movie Dredd(2012)

but the current housing situation seems like the kind of circumstances that would lead to the system of blocks depicted in that movie

what's happening right now is how we incrementally move toward a dystopian future

I don't even work anymore, i volunteer for the lions club and am considering doing free social work.


In my country it is negative gearing and slum lords, people buying up every property that hits the market so that they can live off rental income, these people extend their debt across 40 properties and banks somehow let them.

This post was edited by Plaguefear on Aug 11 2020 08:24pm

think of it like a budget spreadsheet, costs in the 1950s were a car (which you could generally buy outright), food, clothes, and a mortgage. in the 2020s you have all of those costs, and a phone bill, electronics costs, clothes are more expensive, food is more expensive (both from importing foods and due to people scratch cooking foods less), college costs, etc.

so it's not just that housing costs more, its that a rather simple pie chart has far more categories. this is why saving up for a car to buy it outright is largely impossible. what you may previously put into a bank account you now spend on a cell phone bill, student loans, eating out, music concerts, etc.

add into that things like car loans being more expenive than just inflated costs, GPS systems, airbags, seatbelts, fuel efficient electric batteries that operate at low speed, etc. added safety features. this same effect of more complex cars affects homes/appartments, AC units, radon and smoke detectors, high efficiency appliances, etc. a home in the 1950s would be deemed unsafe and a waste of energy in 2020. also insurance is a thing, if you pay about 150$ a month in various non health related insurances like home, auto, etc this can be 5% or more of even a decent take home income.

and why does an apartment cost so much when you have no equity? because you have no liability, you dont pay for replacement appliances, you dont mow the lawn or shovel snow, if a fire or flood happens you dont replace the walls or carpets.

its easy to see why a 1950s house with lead pipes, cheap wiring, basic appliances, etc was so cheap.

One artificial bloat is price comes from short sell FHA rules. Was trying to pickup a dump house, but apparently by some FHA equation it could only sell for some percent of a value a bank calculated 10 states away. Place looked like a used and abused druggy house, yet bankers holding for top dollar. Destined for foreclosure auction now.

Another bloat in some markets is from the cost of the raw land and permitting. It causes builders to make huge houses, out of reach for many. Huge boxy cheap built hings that suburbanites love.

Another one in from mixed markets. I live in an area where out of towners will spend tons on their second property cabin. The locals are pretty poor, live in either DIY setups or run down houses from early 1900s. Covid is helping balance the mix market. No protections for second property loans freeing up inventory.

I'd like to see more municipalities open up to alternative living solutions. ADU, smaller square foot living, cheaper permit, better setbacks for smaller city lots, THOW allowed. This let's the people solve it themselves.

This post was edited by RedFromWinter on Aug 11 2020 08:50pm

Housing prices in good regions going through the roof is just the perfect storm caused by a ton of different factors coming together:

- asset price inflation caused by the central banks printing money like crazy since the Great Recession
- increased regulations make construction more expensive, which is making low-income housing unprofitable, distorting construction activity toward 'luxury apartments'
- rural flight
- general population growth
- the part of population growth that is fueled by immigration disproportionately going into the larger cities
- stagnating wages which make it hard to keep up with increasing costs of living, including housing
- real estate speculation where companies are leaving buildings empty on purpose
- living space per capita constantly going up for decades, causing demand to grow at an even higher rate than the population
- foreign investors seeking a safe investment, further overheating real estate markets in wealthy countries



And there are probably even more factors that I forgot in this list...