YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Yet in the US, it was developers following the Levittown model that resulted in tons and tons of single family homes, so I fail to see how the free market is terrible at "pumping out houses fast"?

Then the govt. should build new homes; I'm not sure that taking homes from people ("nationalize") creates supply.

Same story in NZ.

Hmm, I got curious and read Wikipedia:

> Levittowns are six large suburban housing developments, three of which are actually named "Levittown." They were created in the United States (including one in Puerto Rico) by William J. Levitt and his company Levitt & Sons. Built after World War II for returning white veterans and their new families, the communities offered attractive alternatives to cramped central city locations and apartments. The Veterans Administration and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) guaranteed builders that qualified veterans could buy housing for a fraction of rental costs. Under Levitt & Sons, Levittown housing would maintain racial covenants that excluded non-White would-be buyers.

Italics added. Seems the government was somewhat involved in the US too. Of course, now the reason "the free market is terrible at pumping out houses" is government regulation too....

Germany doe not have a housing shortage problem, it's another set of problems.

They will have to wail until after WW3 because Russia is openly threatening action, European governments are trying to prepare their citizens, German populists want to return to 'normal relations' with Russia, which means 'use our money to invade and kill everyone to the East of us, just not us'.

Germany and Europe is in for a very rough ride.

Were it not for the war situation, then we could say this is 'healthy political turmoil' - but this is at a time when outside parties will take advantage of European disunity.

>it's not confiscation, you're just forced to sell at a price i decide is fair

sound logic

  They do want to pay landlords, though below current (very high) rates.

In San Francisco, NIMBYs secretly support laws like this. This basically guarantees that many builders will do the math and conclude that it doesn't make sense to build housing in San Francisco.

New large condo buildings have to sell 30% of the units at below market rate. This causes many viable projects to never get built.

So laws like this are sold to renter voters as a way to lower housing costs, but NIMBYs secretly love it. Over time, renters pay more in rent because there is less supply due to builders not building. However, a lucky few renters who were here early will get below market rents.

Perfect examples of voters voting for a short term fix but pay more in long term. And voting for themselves while screwing future renters.

They are saying that this is what the want to do. They can't do that because it would be illegal.

This is not just any law, it's in the German constitution (https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_14.html).

Well, it is essentially the same-but-modernized party as that which held eastern Germany under the boot of communism for for some 45+ years. They took the route taken by so many communist parties after the dissolution of the Soviet Union by changing their name, here from SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) via PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) to Die Linke (The Left) so that certainly is something to keep in mind. This is the party which built a wall to keep people from leaving their supposed workers and farmers paradise, shooting those who tried to cross over. It may be filled with young women with odd hair colors instead of stodgy old men but the ideology hasn't changed a whit and is ready to add a few more millions to its death toll.

It is patently absurd that communism is still considered as a legitimate ideology while it should be placed right next to Nazism in the "never again" category. It is responsible for more death and suffering than the latter but those edgy students - who don't seem to learn much at all there in academia - don't seem to know or care.

> 1. 60% of the Berlin population voted for nationalising (expropriating) apartments from major landlords in a referendum - this is a bipartisan issue

There's no bi-partisan thing around it: It was the fact that the city has a spcific demographic that voted for it, but the constitutional court revoked it.

Another point: Even during the campaign the group did not explain how it would work given that most of the payments would need to be done at current market rates and the constitutional court will not pass it for obvious reasons.

And on top of that, good luck to make all other states paying it and hoping that the Länderfinanzausgleich will stand.

Entity = owner?

If I'm an entity that has 3000 or more apartments, I would have sold long ago to get to 2999. Basically as soon as I heard rumors of this law, I would have started selling.

[delayed]