Tis a rotten system.
Even a married woman might be stressed and depressed enough to strangle 3 of her little kids with exercise bands and kill them. See: Marshfield, MA (USA).
Nobody is talking about this so I’ll address it:
They also FORCE you through their processes.
Want to rent an apartment? Got to go through their systems and pay their application fee that’s only for them. Didn’t get approved? Non-refundable.
Applied and renting now? Oh yeah we don’t actually offer these amenities without an extra fee that we didn’t tell you until your first rent bill.
Oh, you can ONLY pay online through our renter’s portal, with a convenience fee of $50.
By the end of a single year, you’ve paid $2500 for literally nothing.
The entire system is setup to amplify the power of Money and the single biggest form of Discrimination out there as measured by the Hurt and Harm it causes is Wealth Discrimination.
This shit is not an unexpected flaw of this system, it’s a desired feature by those who have been shaping it over the years.
Blackstone laughing all the way to the bank again because BlackRock is taking the heat for their activities lol
Blackstone specifically buys up residential property, BlackRock has a commercial real estate portfolio and it’s smalmer
Smalmer than what?
Blackstone’s REIT. I’m keeping the typo so your comment would continue to make sense
Quote Friedrich Merz: “This isn’t a “locust” it isn’t uh private equity: it’s an asset manager. Uhm, yes, the largest in the world, but asset managers are fiduciaries for their clients funds. And in that respect, I feel extremely comfortable with it.”
Banning large corporations from owning residential rental property would fix a great number of problems simultaneously. Give them X amount of time to divest and watch affordable housing flood the market.
In the Netherlands they raised tax on owning houses that you don’t live in yourself, a lot of affordable houses flooded the market. Which was great for everyone wanting to buy a house, but meant there were less homes available to rent. So while some people had it easier to find a house, others had it harder. The lessen basically everyone knows already: if there are not enough houses to live in, you need to build more houses. I totally agree with you, but if after that change there still aren’t enough homes the problem will remain.
They could add a governmental loan program similar to Singapore. Basically, the state would buy the houses and rent them out.
Of course this would be too expensive.
I’ve lived in a couple of countries in Europe, including The Netherlands.
The Netherlands is extremely Neoliberal and has been for decades now - politicians there would NEVER have the government own more stuff, no matter how much good that could do for the population in general.
Basically, the state would buy the houses and rent them out.
We used to have this (local governments building houses and renting them out), privatisation forced these organizations to only cater to the lowest incomes. Which honestsly is really great for them, the problem i described before is mainly one of the younger middle-class (finished education but not yet in a position to buy a home). Iirc Denmark and Austria have social housing for a much larger group. But it does seem to come down to money: is the upperclass willing to subsidise housing of the classes below them.
Didn’t the US literally do exactly that last week? Maybe I read the bill wrong.
There’s a lot of loopholes. I think I read that it doesn’t affect Blackrock at all. It will affect Blackstone, but there are enough loopholes for them too.
My favorite part of that bill was allowing mobile homes to be built without the “mobile” part (the permanent chassis). So you can buy a shitty manufactured home and then be completely under the power of the trailer park that rents you your parking spot.
So, iMobile homes, basically.
Yeah, but if you work there someday you might become the chancellor of germany, go figure
Don’t forget about blackstone.
Or blackwater.
Man, could we have one black superhero without “Black” in their name?
A Train? Frozone?
Hey gotta let the free market do its thing /s
The current German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, worked for them.
“worked” = did nothing half the day then 2h of corruption
It shows, but only a little…
just be homeless for a few days, it must trickle down any moment by now trust
I purchased some ETFs but I think they have some BlackRock associated stuff in there, does anyone have any insight on non AI and non BlackRock ETFs ?
If you’re into ETF’s first thing that matters is who manages that fund, BlackRock’s ETFs are branded as iShares - avoid those of you do not want to give BlackRock any money. European alternatives are among others Amundi (French) Xtrackers / DWS (German), L&G (UK). My suggestion is look up the ETFs you have on https://www.justetf.com/ and look at what companies/countries/sectors are in that fund.
ETFs are best as a long-term investment, so I’d argue it’s fair to not only look at how much cash you might get out of them but also what kind of companies you ‘support’ through them.
Personally my experience is that generative chat bots with web search are quite good at giving answers to your questions though. Not saying you should take their advice, but if you ask for example ‘what are good ETFs without BlackRock and without AI?’ you might get results that are worth checking out.
then again would it make any difference of somebody else owned these homes and charged high rents? the problem is not the owner but the high rents
The main problem is that investment funds need the constant growth in order to pay for people’s pension. If you don’t have index funds that return above a given yield, year on year, then there’s no way for pensions to work because there aren’t enough young people being born to work and pay taxes to support the older people’s pensions. That’s why every financial services company is pushed, hard, to return more and more profits. That’s why governments don’t regulate them harder: because they NEED the financial sector to be greedy on an epic scale, or else the economy doesn’t work.
SETH: “Shit, this is really gonna affect people.”
WILL: “Yeah, it’s gonna affect people like me!”
SETH: “No, no, real… real people.”
WILL: “Jesus, Seth; listen, if you really wanna do this with your life, you have to believe you’re necessary. And you are. People wanna live like this, in their cars, and their big fuckin’ houses that they can’t even pay for? Then you’re necessary. The only reason that they all get to continue living like kings is ‘cause we’ve got our fingers on the scales in their favor. I take my hand off? Well then the whole world gets really fuckin’ fair, really fuckin’ quickly, and nobody actually wants that. They say they do, but they don’t. They want what we have to give them, but they also wanna, you know… play innocent, and pretend that they have no idea where it came from. Well, that’s more hypocrisy than I’m willing to swallow, so fuck 'em. Fuck normal people. You know, the funny thing is, tomorrow, if all of this goes tits-up? They’re gonna crucify us for being too reckless. But if we’re wrong? And everything gets back on track? Well then the same people are gonna laugh 'til they piss their pants, 'cause we’re gonna look like the biggest pussies God ever let through the door.”
SETH: “You think we’re gonna be wrong?”
WILL: “Nah, they’re all fucked.”
The whole world economy is based on a system whereby the global regions and demographics that Have, extract wealth and value from the regions and demographics that Have Not. And everybody here commenting on this post are Haves. Maybe not on the scale that some others are, but I know I certainly didn’t have to walk several hours today just to get clean drinkable water. Given what some people are forced to do without despite how hard they work, I really shouldn’t be able to afford the lifestyle I have for the amount of work I do. But I can, and that’s because my government tilts the scales in my favor. And even I’m financially screwed compared to some other people! The only way to fix it is a complete overhaul, and nobody has the stomach for that.
And everybody here commenting on this post are Haves. Maybe not on the scale that some others are, but I know I certainly didn’t have to walk several hours today just to get clean drinkable water.
The system of haves extracting wealth from have nots is not one where you are either 100% one or 100% the other. If you rent a house from BlackRock, you likely get access to clean water. You are a have not, since you do not have a house, and money is extracted from you by BlackRock because they do have a house (many of them). But the homeless man around the corner is not in the same position as you, because he has no income. In that sense you are both a have not (a house) and a have (a job). It is more a linear scale between the have everything and the have nothing. Corruption is a different example of the same system: the have (power) extracts money from the have not (power). Sometimes it looks as if the richest is always the leech, but it can also be the corrupt employee instigating the extraction.
But I can, and that’s because my government tilts the scales in my favor.
It’s not only individual haves extracting from individual have nots, but also groups of the one making profit of the group of the other. I am not a fan of this system, but large part of it is our (flawed) human nature. If you look at animals they tend to share among a group (a herd, a family etc) but not share among others of the same species. It’s a free-for-all and we are in dire need of a system that protects the weakest instead of rewarding the strongest.
the point with the Have’s and Have Not’s is an interesting argument. yet, you lack vision. the system you describe is (obviously) not sustainable, because ultimately you’re gonna run out of Have Not’s resources to spend. You need to develop your vision for a better world, one that can actually feed us all without slowly ruining it.
And sustainable housing is surely a part in this.
Oh, I wasn’t arguing in favor of the system. I was just pointing out that if one was to look for the mustache-twirling villains behind everything, they wouldn’t find them at Blackrock. The people working at Blackrock are simply deluded enough to think that they can stave off the pension bomb forever if they just keep the numbers going up forever. As you rightly point out, the system isn’t sustainable. But as long as the overall economic system doesn’t get the drastic general overhaul that it needs (but that nobody has the stomach for), it’ll remain a Nash Equilibrium whereby nobody can move to end it unless everyone does.
