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Yes, he pays a house rent to the landlord and collects room rents. At the end of the day (or month if you prefer) he has more money in his pocket than he started with, i.e. he lives in the house for free and makes a profit on top of enjoying free rent.
Yes, he pays a house rent to the landlord and collects room rents. At the end of the day (or month if you prefer) he has more money in his pocket than he started with, i.e. he lives in the house for free and makes a profit on top of enjoying free rent.
Ah but he doesn't live in the house for free, He must spend time managing his tenants, collecting there rent money, paying for the utility's, paying the owner, etc.
Time is money, spend yours wisely, and you'll have more of both.
In fact such places do endure and often become the most desirable places to live anywhere in the country.
I am reminded of Huxley’s “A Brave New World”, where biology and technology overall have so advanced, that human intelligence can be enhanced, if that is desired, or grossly stunted, if that too is desired, but suitable interference in the fetal gestation process (that being done in the book exclusively by artificial means). Products of the enhancement are called “Alphas”, and so on down the Greek alphabet, towards the lowest and most benighted members of society. A character in the book, acting as outsider observer, enquires from the architects of this society, as to why they don’t positively interfere in all cases, to produce nothing but alphas. The reply is that indeed this was tried, but the outcome was strife and chaos, where in a village of nothing but intelligent and ambitious people, everyone strove to become the leader, none was inclined to obey, none would acquiesce to performing menial roles. Who would milk the cows or clean the toilets?
There are of course pretty and prosperous university-towns and other bastions of cheery affluence in America, where presumably all of the children are above -average etc. But are these towns self-supporting, or do they rely on a passel of surrounding towns, of smokestacks and slaughter-houses?
The great problem of history and government is how to bamboozle the peasants into thinking that they’re actually the gentry. America’s success, I think, is that our peasants are largely content – productive in their respective roles, but not rebellious. The price paid for this stability is America’s anti-intellectual mainstream culture.
Returning to this thread’s topic, another of America’s great successes is the relative utility and good order of the parasites, free-loaders and middlemen. Outright corruption, of the sort found in the Soviet Union or in the prototypical banana-republics, is rare. Health insurance companies may do nothing for doctors or patients, but they provide jobs for accountants and clerks. They generate a profit-stream for corporations, supporting dividends and capital gains for investors, which include pension-funds and university endowments. Parasitism and rentier behavior is not merely wasteful and pernicious, but it also provides spinoff benefits. Contrast that with some authoritarian society where resources are diverted not to middleman-corporations, but to a religious cult, or to the despot running the place. Resources go to building tombs and monuments, garish rituals and parades, ostentatious displays of power, thus diverting attention from harvests or schools or hospitals.
I do indeed bristle with indignation at the garnering of profit without the providing of value, but it seems to me that in American society this profiteering is relatively benign; plaintive examples in this thread notwithstanding, it could be so vastly worse.
Now tell me again, where can I find this cheerful intellectual town – oh, in a good climate, with low taxes, and moderately priced real estate? I’m itching to move.
Yes, he pays a house rent to the landlord and collects room rents. At the end of the day (or month if you prefer) he has more money in his pocket than he started with, i.e. he lives in the house for free and makes a profit on top of enjoying free rent.
In theory, anyone could do the same thing. He just got himself organized enough to get up and do it.
Yes, he pays a house rent to the landlord and collects room rents. At the end of the day (or month if you prefer) he has more money in his pocket than he started with, i.e. he lives in the house for free and makes a profit on top of enjoying free rent.
Then he's smart. I mean, that is a crappy way to live, with that many people, but he's smart to survive that way.
That's a relief, I didn't use any of those things when i lived in my car.
I spent a few months living with homeless people in Santa Cruz. The only public support I witnessed anyone getting was foodstamps (back when they actually were). Think it was ~$100/mo. They usually got fed at church charities, so the foodstamps were sold for about half face value, and they'd buy their favorite drug with the cash. At least they had something to look forward to once a month. That food stamp cost was pretty much it for their "burden to the tax payer", unless you start putting price tags on the frequent harassment and occasional beatings from bored cops.
The "expensive homeless" stories are just fake news.
Now tell me again, where can I find this cheerful intellectual town – oh, in a good climate, with low taxes, and moderately priced real estate? I’m itching to move.
They would perhaps be easier to locate were so many phobias, fictions, and fairy tales not clouding your view.
in a village of nothing but intelligent and ambitious people, everyone strove to become the leader, none was inclined to obey, none would acquiesce to performing menial roles. Who would milk the cows or clean the toilets?
They could have simply removed the "ambitious" part and left the intelligence.
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America’s success, I think, is that our peasants are largely content – productive in their respective roles, but not rebellious. The price paid for this stability is America’s anti-intellectual mainstream culture.
The peasants aren't content, but it is easy to steer their ire in every direction but where it belongs.
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Health insurance companies may do nothing for doctors or patients, but they provide jobs for accountants and clerks. They generate a profit-stream for corporations, supporting dividends and capital gains for investors, which include pension-funds and university endowments. Parasitism and rentier behavior is not merely wasteful and pernicious, but it also provides spinoff benefits.
Those "spinoffs" occur in nearly every form of corruption. They are not benefits at all, but hallmarks of waste, inefficiency, and poverty (relative). It is most certainly not "benign". In every industry there is an end result, and the man-hrs (cost) to deliver that result. Prosperity (productivity) is maximized as the cost is minimized.
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...it could be so vastly worse.
For a developed country we've been sliding for decades. Sure it could be worse. But any society with a future should not be content with remaining off the bottom.
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Now tell me again, where can I find this cheerful intellectual town – oh, in a good climate, with low taxes, and moderately priced real estate? I’m itching to move.
Obviously anything in scarce supply and high demand is not going to have *all* of these attributes.
Money Changers(bankers), people in "finance", and liberal poly-tricktions are much bigger "free-loaders" than any homeless person. They cause more problems than they pretend to fix and produce practically nothing.
Money Changers(bankers), people in "finance", and liberal poly-tricktions are much bigger "free-loaders" than any homeless person. They cause more problems than they pretend to fix and produce practically nothing.
What do you think would happen if all financial institutions were eliminated. You know, because they're just freeloaders and cause problems.
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