this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 241 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Fucking do it you cowards.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think you're forgetting about Republicans.

[–] [email protected] 84 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Or more than half of the democrats that do Wall Street's bidding too.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Or the courts that would throw the law out as soon as it gets challenged the first time

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[–] [email protected] 204 points 11 months ago (51 children)

They should never have been allowed to buy them to begin with.

The second best time is now.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 11 months ago (5 children)

People require housing. Corporations are people. /s

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[–] [email protected] 155 points 11 months ago (10 children)

And this is the sort of legislation that should be passed by direct referendum, will of the people, and not by representatives who have been bought out by special interest groups. Desperately needed but unlikely to happen.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 11 months ago (7 children)

the country would function so much better if we just sent out ballots to everyone to vote on every bill if they want to

[–] [email protected] 82 points 11 months ago (13 children)

That's how Brexit happened in the UK.

I agree about not trusting the politicians, but not sure I trust the general public much more unfortunately.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I non-sarcastically love your optimism. But part of me really believes that 50% of the country votes however their church tells them to. So I'm not sure it'd be better.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

I would be very careful with that. US should try having a more representative government first.

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[–] [email protected] 149 points 11 months ago (39 children)

This will pass at the same time as the healthcare, world peace, and word hunger bills.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 11 months ago (7 children)

From the article:

With a divided Congress, the bills are unlikely to pass into law this session. But Mr. Smith said legislators needed to start a conversation.

Solid odds this will be a campaign issue, which is a great thing.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (4 children)

It will be a campaign issue and then nothing will be done about it. Fingers will be pointed.

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[–] [email protected] 88 points 11 months ago (20 children)

Looking at companies like Blackstone, who buy up houses at auction, lightly flip them and put them back on the market as high-priced rentals. THEY'RE the big reason for the lack of affordable housing.

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 11 months ago (14 children)

Capitalism and its endless profit motive should never be near the things that have direct effect on people's well-being and livelihood. All the human basic necessities should be capitalism free, housing, healthcare, education.... etc... If you want to built a better and healthier nation of course, but no one cares about the nation, money is above everything to these sick fucks.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 11 months ago (1 children)

How does this limit a corporation from doing the same thing?

So a hedge fund doesn't do it, but a specific company does the same thing and that's fine. What am I missing?

[–] [email protected] 45 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The bill would require hedge funds, defined as corporations, partnerships or real estate investment trusts that manage funds pooled from investors, to sell off all the single-family homes they own over a 10-year period, and eventually prohibit such companies from owning any single-family homes at all.

It does include corporations. For instance the Bezos thing we've been hearing about the past couple days would be covered:

Arrived, a young real estate company backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, has just announced its entry into the single-family rental fund space. Arrived currently operates a fractional real estate investing platform that has attracted nearly half a million retail investors since its launch in 2021. The platform allows these investors to purchase shares of single-family rental properties with as little as $100.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jeff-bezos-backed-real-estate-151102586.html

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

Just so it's clear, they want to turn our homes into a mini stock market.

This bill won't pass.

We already live in a completely fucked up dystopia, most people just haven't realized it.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If we actually had a democracy, there would be a total of 0 people against this. It's so incredibly unfavorable to want corporations to buy houses for profit.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Inb4 the Republicans vote it down

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago

Please do. I'd love to see more supply.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago

Home Ownership and protecting the middle class used to be phrases so often uttered by the Republicans 40 years ago that I yawned.

I'm glad to see someone pick up the gauntlet. Boggles the mind that this hasn't become a huge political issue yet.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago

it’s cool they had the idea. hopefully they act on it

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Now what’s the chance of this actually passing?

[–] [email protected] 43 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Via referendum? I say 80% chance of a majority.

Congress? 5% is generous

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (7 children)

With a divided Congress, the bills are unlikely to pass into law this session. But Mr. Smith said legislators needed to start a conversation.

:|

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago

Please make it happen, it's an important first step

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (1 children)

why were they ever allowed to do this? why should the system allow you to gamble on houses?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Because they saw an opportunity to fuck America again after imploding Wall St in 2007-08.

Rampant unfettered capitalism only cares about the money they can make, never about the people's lives they destroy.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago

Who ever tabeled this needs to run for your president. Seriously

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Step in the right direction, hope some version of it gets passed.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What about private equity?

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (11 children)

Wall Street is not the problem, a lack of new housing is, according to David Howard, the chief executive of the National Rental Home Council, a trade association. The country needs anywhere from 2 million to 6.5 million units of new housing, according to various estimates.

“Policies really need to be shaped and crafted so that they support the production, investment and development of new housing,” Mr. Howard said. “I think bills that work against that ultimately are just going to perpetuate the challenges we’re already facing.”

While I certainly disagree with this person on some of their specifics, and don't necessarily agree with the "teeth" of this bill (10k per home owned isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, and can just be priced in to an already out-of-control market), seeing a trade organization argue for the actual long-term solution bodes really well for the future of solving the housing crisis.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (15 children)

That's crazy that they say we need more housing when there are so many empty houses sitting on the market from corporate real estate investing and other house flippers. "Wall Street is not the problem, a lack of new housing is" really sounds like the guy with gasoline and matches in hand saying "it wasn't me" at the scene of an arson fire.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

I do like this.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

DNC really driving it home what their platform is with actions instead of words, lately.

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