Comment on What is an average person living in the US supposed to do about corporations raising prices?
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months agoIf everyone has more money that means so do the other people bidding against you
This would make sense if what was being proposed was increasing everyone’s wealth proportionally to how much wealth they already have, but I don’t think anyone is really suggesting that. Think about it this way; say you have 300k and are bidding on a house against someone who has 50 million dollars. They have a strong advantage. Now say you both were gifted 10 million dollars before bidding on the house. Your adversary still has the advantage, but much less of one.
phillaholic@lemm.ee 11 months ago
You’re ignoring the hundred other people with 300k that will getting money and now bidding against me. It’s Supply and Demand.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
I am not, I intended the person with 300k in this example to represent the whole class of people with less. Your assumption seems to be that the accumulating mass of wealth held by the few is just not in competition for houses, but that begs the question, why wouldn’t it be? You can extract rent from housing to profit on it over time. It serves as a safe investment very likely to increase in value. You can convert it into other forms of real estate. You can have multiple homes for convenient travel.
An important feature of supply and demand is that the weight of demand doesn’t depend on a quantity of people, but a quantity of money. If no one ever had a reason to want more than one house for themselves, maybe it would have more to do with the quantity of individuals, but I think that’s just not the case, they do want more.
phillaholic@lemm.ee 11 months ago
I’m not following your point at all here. I’d you give just me extra money, I can probably buy a house. I’d you give everyone more money then I’m back to bidding against everyone else and the cost of housing just rises. We don’t have enough housing in many areas of the country.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
My point is that if you are currently bidding against wealthy financial interests as well as individuals just looking for a place to live, then giving everyone money will raise the buying power of those individuals relative to those interests.