something is worth whatever somebody is willing to pay for it
That’s a naive short-term approach to valuation.
Real value has to be measured in some kind of revenue generation, or - at least - cost mitigation. Otherwise what you’re describing isn’t value but expense.
the willing buyer is the key to the whole valuation equation
The willing buyer is the key to perceived value. But suckering someone doesn’t increase the utility of what you sold them.
someone is willing to pay is the sum total of what a business gets income from
Except credit changes the math on that significantly. You aren’t constrained by your income, but by your risk of default (and even then… glances 2008-ward) Then you can afford to buy more by paying a higher interest rate.
the capitalist marketplace, is 100% correlated to income willingly given vs cost of obtaining that income
“Willingly” is doing a lot of lifting, given the degree to which fraud, extortion, and price gouging play a roll in the national economy.
What shocks me about much of the U.S. economy is how much is spent on marketing, promotion, advertising, and sales. 0% value derived from such activity, but frequently over half the cost of things that are purchased in the U.S. is sunk in promotion.
Promotion (and deception and intimidation) drives sales. They create the illusion of scarcity and transform luxury into necessity.
They add perceived value among the unwitting and create implicit value through absence of harm.
That has nothing to do with what someone is willing to pay
It has to do with what one is capable of paying, which plays into willingness.
Extortion isn’t involved in free market transactions.
Extortion is an extension of monopoly pricing. If you can threaten someone’s access to a necessary good/service, then you are functionally extorting them.
That’s before you get into cartelization, vexatious litigation, and other hostile business practices
Plenty of people are willing to mortgage their future for something they want now but have no current liquid assets to purchase it with.
As an alternative to renting in a hostile rental environment sure.
But offer them a real supply of public at-cost housing, and I think you’ll discover quite a few people don’t want that mortgage after all.
Even price gouging, particularly in the field of end stage medical care, is a sort of willing payment.
If you need to threaten someone’s health or safety to extract payment, it isn’t willing.
I’m not so familiar with promotion that creates the illusion of scarcity
Where do the materials come from to build the housing?
Via natural deposits of resources.
Where does the labor come from to build the housing?
Via expertise accumulated by individuals through education and practice.
And the land for this housing, is that obtained from the free market?
No. Primary accumulation happens when individuals occupy vacant real estate or through violent expulsion of existing residents.
Once this housing is built, it transforms from “cost” to whatever the market is willing to pay.
Again, no. That’s not how public housing is allocated or valued.
And, the opposite situation, when the public housing isn’t in a desirable area, and the residents don’t maintain the housing, who pays for the maintenance?
Areas become desireable through their improvement. Public housing transforms vacant real estate into a desirable place to live.
On the flip side, residents do a poor job of maintaining housing when they lack the time, the expertise, the resources, and the energy to keep it up. This is not unique to public property by any stretch. Private homes also fall into disrepair when the owners lack upkeep skills or the money and time to provide proper maintenance. State and municipal governments pay enormous sums to affect “Slum Clearance” in order to evict and renovate low-income housing into property desirable for high-income investment. And federal governments subsidize the financial wing of real estate even more heavily.
We’re happy to spend absurd GDP-buckling sums to financialize real estate to the benefit of a handful of magnets. Surely you can see the virtue in paying a fraction of these sums to mobilize a professional workforce capable of maintaining property at-cost.
Easy to hand-wave a solution, harder to make it fit in the real world.
It is exactly the opposite. Given the political authority and the financial resources of a major metropolitan city, providing at-cost housing and maintenance is downright trivial. But acquiring that political capital is the challenge, as you are fighting the economic propaganda of a thousand fiscal parasites who have all grown fat off privatization.
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That’s a naive short-term approach to valuation.
Real value has to be measured in some kind of revenue generation, or - at least - cost mitigation. Otherwise what you’re describing isn’t value but expense.
The willing buyer is the key to perceived value. But suckering someone doesn’t increase the utility of what you sold them.
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Except credit changes the math on that significantly. You aren’t constrained by your income, but by your risk of default (and even then… glances 2008-ward) Then you can afford to buy more by paying a higher interest rate.
“Willingly” is doing a lot of lifting, given the degree to which fraud, extortion, and price gouging play a roll in the national economy.
Promotion (and deception and intimidation) drives sales. They create the illusion of scarcity and transform luxury into necessity.
They add perceived value among the unwitting and create implicit value through absence of harm.
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It has to do with what one is capable of paying, which plays into willingness.
Extortion is an extension of monopoly pricing. If you can threaten someone’s access to a necessary good/service, then you are functionally extorting them.
That’s before you get into cartelization, vexatious litigation, and other hostile business practices
As an alternative to renting in a hostile rental environment sure.
But offer them a real supply of public at-cost housing, and I think you’ll discover quite a few people don’t want that mortgage after all.
If you need to threaten someone’s health or safety to extract payment, it isn’t willing.
:-/
Okay, sure.
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Land, labor, and materials.
Via natural deposits of resources.
Via expertise accumulated by individuals through education and practice.
No. Primary accumulation happens when individuals occupy vacant real estate or through violent expulsion of existing residents.
Again, no. That’s not how public housing is allocated or valued.
Areas become desireable through their improvement. Public housing transforms vacant real estate into a desirable place to live.
On the flip side, residents do a poor job of maintaining housing when they lack the time, the expertise, the resources, and the energy to keep it up. This is not unique to public property by any stretch. Private homes also fall into disrepair when the owners lack upkeep skills or the money and time to provide proper maintenance. State and municipal governments pay enormous sums to affect “Slum Clearance” in order to evict and renovate low-income housing into property desirable for high-income investment. And federal governments subsidize the financial wing of real estate even more heavily.
We’re happy to spend absurd GDP-buckling sums to financialize real estate to the benefit of a handful of magnets. Surely you can see the virtue in paying a fraction of these sums to mobilize a professional workforce capable of maintaining property at-cost.
It is exactly the opposite. Given the political authority and the financial resources of a major metropolitan city, providing at-cost housing and maintenance is downright trivial. But acquiring that political capital is the challenge, as you are fighting the economic propaganda of a thousand fiscal parasites who have all grown fat off privatization.
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