The Myth of Scarcity

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Poorhouses need to be brought back

I need you to step back and reread what you read several times.

[Steve]

Poorhouses need to be brought back

I need you to step back and reread what you read several times.

This may be an issue of terminology. What he's saying seems to be to build centers where the homeless can eat and sleep and find work. If you don't link this to the criminal justice system, then you also avoid the problem of giving them a criminal record (if they don't have one already) that impinges on their prospects for getting hired.

Making this compulsory is, perhaps, what you're concerned with... but as you've pointed out already, we're already jailing the homeless for being homeless. And that way they do get criminal records.

If this is unacceptable to you, what is your solution to the problem?

[Mercury01]

Here's a story endemic of the scarcity myth: Vancouver just instituted a tax on unused housing and the owners are scrambling to sell or rent those properties before the tax goes into effect. That housing could have been used, but wasn't, because it was more profitable to leave it empty long enough to sell at a profit.

There are enough resources to go around, but some just don't want to share.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Poorhouses need to be brought back

I need you to step back and reread what you read several times.

This may be an issue of terminology. What he's saying seems to be to build centers where the homeless can eat and sleep and find work. If you don't link this to the criminal justice system, then you also avoid the problem of giving them a criminal record (if they don't have one already) that impinges on their prospects for getting hired.

Making this compulsory is, perhaps, what you're concerned with... but as you've pointed out already, we're already jailing the homeless for being homeless. And that way they do get criminal records.

If this is unacceptable to you, what is your solution to the problem?

I propose giving homes to anyone who wants them, as long as we have liveable buildings lying vacant.

"Opportunity for work" is a fancy way of saying "means to exploit an already vulnerable population for cheap labor." Poorhouses were created because of the mindset that poverty is inherently criminal, and that homelessness is the ultimate crime. This is a mindset which persists today.

[Madner Kami]

I propose giving homes to anyone who wants them, as long as we have liveable buildings lying vacant.

So as long as someone isn't using a thing, it's fine to disappropriate that item and give it to somebody else. You're not using your car today? Great, it's mine now. That food in your fridge you're not eating today? I just sent to some child in Africa. Those clothes you haven't worn in a week? I just sent them to an unwashed homeless person somewhere in Banana Republic in Central Asia.

You know, talking about taking people's property and deciding what they should do with it or even giving it to someone else, because you feel like it, is a horrible thought that you should really think twice about expressing.

[Beastro]

So as long as someone isn't using a thing, it's fine to disappropriate that item and give it to somebody else. You're not using your car today? Great, it's mine now. That food in your fridge you're not eating today? I just sent to some child in Africa. Those clothes you haven't worn in a week? I just sent them to an unwashed homeless person somewhere in Banana Republic in Central Asia.

You know, talking about taking people's property and deciding what they should do with it or even giving it to someone else, because you feel like it, is a horrible thought that you should really think twice about expressing.

He'll most likely say the government can compensate them, which then falls back on the tax payer having to cover the cost, which they already would to fund such a program as I proposed.

Issue boils down to a country expecting that any help offered would get a return on their investment into the disadvantage to help them if circumstances are literally preventing them from reintegrating with society while allowing those who want nothing to do with that to continue going their own way.

"Opportunity for work" is a fancy way of saying "means to exploit an already vulnerable population for cheap labor." Poorhouses were created because of the mindset that poverty is inherently criminal, and that homelessness is the ultimate crime. This is a mindset which persists today.

And reread what I said, to repurpose the idea not as punishment but as a way of doing what I wrote above to make them productive members of society in much the same way disability and welfare are in principle, and the former certainly has been since I got on it due to the knowledge of what I owe to my country for it.

[Admiral X]

Here's a story endemic of the scarcity myth: Vancouver just instituted a tax on unused housing and the owners are scrambling to sell or rent those properties before the tax goes into effect. That housing could have been used, but wasn't, because it was more profitable to leave it empty long enough to sell at a profit.

There are enough resources to go around, but some just don't want to share.

Yet another example of how authoritarian Canada is becoming.

[LittleRaven]

Yet another example of how authoritarian Canada is becoming.

What? Using tax policy to influence social behavior is one of the least authoritarian things a government can do. Every government that has advanced beyond "do this or we shoot you" makes constant use of this tactic, including ours. Unless you think the government should never try to influence behavior at all, in which case you've no doubt become numb to disappointment.

Personally, I think these kinds of taxes are a great idea, and we should see more of them. No, the government should not just take things. But when the market is using something sub-optimally, as the market is wont to do, then tax policy is a perfect mechanism for correcting the imbalance.

[Steve]

Yet another example of how authoritarian Canada is becoming.

What? Using tax policy to influence social behavior is one of the least authoritarian things a government can do. Every government that has advanced beyond "do this or we shoot you" makes constant use of this tactic, including ours. Unless you think the government should never try to influence behavior at all, in which case you've no doubt become numb to disappointment.

Personally, I think these kinds of taxes are a great idea, and we should see more of them. No, the government should not just take things. But when the market is using something sub-optimally, as the market is wont to do, then tax policy is a perfect mechanism for correcting the imbalance.

Libertarian ideology actually is orientated around the idea that government should not influence behavior or do anything to "correct" markets or society. Depending on individual scope, they can go to the extent of believing that government should only field military forces for defense of the country, maintain law and order (that is, investigate and solve crimes and act to protect public order) and represent the country to the rest of the world, and everything other issue should be left in private hands. If the public feels strongly enough to demand something change (environmental problems, etc.), then they'll vote with their dollars and use boycotts and selective buying to compel companies and entrepreneurs to respond. For the government to do so is coercive and harmful to the liberty of the citizenry.

Me, I'm the 21st Century equivalent of a Nationalist Whig (that is, the Henry Clay and John Q. Adams views of the 1820s-1850s). I'm all for government involvement in the economy, especially in areas that are of importance to the nation, so long as it doesn't extend to control. Extra taxes on homes kept empty beyond a certain date as a means to keep landlords from trying to drive up housing prices? A bit close to the line of control, but still short of it. My take is "watch them like a hawk, but allow".

[TGLS]

The only problem is that I don't know if it's going to do anything to anything to actually fix the problem. It may reduce the demand for housing as wealth storage, but I don't think it's going to get the people who already own the housing to sell. Maybe on the longer term they might get people selling after the markets stabilize. Renting likely to rise.

Yet another example of how authoritarian Canada is becoming.

Wow. If a 1% tax is the heights of fascism, I wonder what a 10% sales tax is.