Ew, how uncleverly dystopian. I can’t imagine annoying living in top of each other. I’ve seen those thousands of people packed into sardine buildings in China and just looking at it gives me claustrophobic shortness of breath.
I hope your dance teacher and her boyfriend find a good housing situation.
Agreed on the claustrophobia. Later in this thread I quoted to Mary another article about a 7-story building that will rent for the same as across the street: $3100/ mo. for a 325 sq ft studio. But they don't need parking because it's across from the Greyhound station. Really? People paying $3100/ mo are going to take the Greyhound to get around?
And if SC brings in people willing to pay $6K for an apt, do those who live in SC think it won't affect the cost of a real rental? I just can't imagine anyone in the US who would do this. Can you?
It's exploiting a population that's being priced out and is desperate. They hear 'affordable housing' and imagine houses.
For as long as I've lived in Santa Cruz (47 yrs) all we've heard about is the immanence of earthquakes. Did that suddenly go away? So I'm not worrying, other than doing what I can to draw attention to it. As I said in the last chapter I read, nature bats last.
Same here in Japan. Despite the scenic tourist areas, the majority of working class Japanese still live in "danchi" rabbit hutches ... ironically called "mansions". A google search through pics for "Japanese danchi" will give the reader an idea of what the ruling class in California have in mind for those they deem beneath them.
Despite this bad news - absolutely unacceptably awful! - I agree it won't unfold as they plan. Of course they are making life intolerable in the process. I hope your dance teacher finds a new place soon.
Their efforts to push this insanity will fail in the end and your caret system will have a natural audience. You are exactly where you should be, no doubt.
Thanks for this, Tereza, and for the optimism you maintain in the face of it. Would easy enough to despair - part of their MO.
It's an inhuman plan and humans win in the end. So it simply can't happen. I'll listen to the Corbett you linked. Best.
I love that phrase, Kathleen: "your caret system will have a natural audience." There's something too fitting that life would land me in the two extremes of the spectrum. I'm here in Cumberland listening to people talk about the homes they've restored or are in the process of restoring. They're doing beautiful work on real houses with wood floors that, like your house, go back to the 1800's. And there are no buyers or renters except very sketchy people who trash the place.
So I think I'm exactly where I should be, both here and there. I can see through the lie that it has to be that way. I can see why one solution doesn't work for everyone and each has to design the system for what they need. That just can't be an accident, that I'm in one of the most impoverished towns and also the least affordable in the country, right?
Love that phrase too: "It's an inhuman plan and humans win in the end."
I tuned in to that report, but something more troubling came to mind ... something that Corbett should be aware of because he lives in Japan, although somewhere in the less densely populated western part of the country.
I live in Kawasaki, just across the Tama river from Tokyo in Noborito Township, considered somewhat of a bed town for the somewhat more densely packed offices and factories of Tokyo. For all intents and purposes, it is continuous with Tokyo city proper.
When I read Tereza's grim summary of 800 square foot prisons, I thought that this would be large compared to typical Japanese living conditions, so I ran a prompt through Perplexity Pro and came up with the following (mixed with some additional information from myself) ...
—————————
The average apartment size in Tokyo is approximately 65.9 square meters (about 700 square feet), according to a 2019 study by Japan's House and Land Survey. However, of this total area, only about 41 square meters (440 square feet) is typically dedicated to actual living space, such as sleeping areas, kitchen, and dining/leisure areas.
Regarding average monthly rent, it varies significantly depending on the apartment size and location within Tokyo. For a typical 1LDK (one bedroom plus living/dining/kitchen) apartment, which is around 30-50 square meters (320 to 540 square feet), the average monthly rent ranges from: ¥150,000 to ¥230,000 in central Tokyo (from about $1,000.00 to $1,500) and from ¥90,000 to ¥130,000 in outer Tokyo areas ($600.00 to $860.0).
(I live alone in a 700 square foot apartment and pay a bit over $1,000.00 a month, not including utilities and a separate parking place a couple of hundred meters away. Living on a fixed retirement, this is not sustainable, but for now I am a bit luckier than most of the people in my community circle — younger families living in smaller quarters.
The median income for those working in the Tokyo area is about $3,160.00 a month, so with utilities and parking, they are paying roughly between ⅓ to ½ of their salary on rent and utilities ... and that doesn't include basic food costs and taxes, both of which are rising faster than salaries. It is easy to see the economics as a major contributing factor in the rapid plunge in demographics.)
It's important to note that as of December 2023, the average rent for family-oriented apartments (typically 2DK or larger) in Tokyo's 23 special wards had reached ¥192,662 (about $1,280) per month, representing a 16.6% increase from the previous year.
For single-oriented apartments (1R, 1K, 1DK, or 1LDK), the average rent in central Tokyo was ¥94,694 (about $630) per month as of December 2023.
These figures demonstrate the significant variation in apartment sizes and rents across different areas of Tokyo, with central locations commanding higher prices for smaller living spaces."
(My mom was born and grew up in a middle class family in Frankfurt Germany. The housing situation was, and I suspect largely still is, roughly comparable to Japan's.)
—————————
I just wanted to share the above information because it took me some time to realize that until the 1970's or so, the average American lifestyle was affordable because of trickle-down wealth from America's sociopathic ruling class. Until the 70's, the developing world was more vulnerable to covert and overt exploitation by that sociopathic class through predatory zero-sum games. William Blum's "Killing Hope" was my wake-up call regarding covert U.S. foreign policy;
But increasingly, those sociopaths are finding America's own working / managing class to be an easier target. Even though I am much more academically credentialed than my parents, and I had the luxury of a fairly long career and tenure, I will never enjoy the freedoms and lifestyle my parents enjoyed back in the 60's and 70's. My fate would have been the same had I stayed in the U.S. Through simply stating facts, communicating with a digital community, I am trying to avoid despair.
Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and America — all of the 5 Eyes nations are on a data-proven trajectory of a decreasing quality of life for the majority. I hope a Caret system, any kind of emergent resistance against obscene concentrations of power and wealth can emerge from local communities. But I am not yet seeing it happen here in Japan or in the West. On the contrary, the wealth gap is coming closer to what I saw in Cambodia. J. Tainter's book "The Collapse of Complex Societies" reaffirms by belief, and hope, that like all Towers of Babel in the past, this too shall pass.
ps. ... I found a great site to download books for free, and avoid Amazon's new unilateral terms limiting kindle readers' right to own a digital book ... https://annas-archive.org/. Use the "slow download" links for the free downloads.
Hi, Steve, and thanks for stopping by to read and comment! And to add data about Japan.
What living in both Santa Cruz and Cumberland has made me realize is that there is no 'absolute' cost of housing that's affordable or not. It's relative to what the average person who lives there makes, particularly if they work in and for the community. Without interference from the Usurpers, housing would be overwhelmingly owner-occupied and its improvement would be one of the two major activities, the other being caring for the people.
I'm confused by "until the 1970's or so, the average American lifestyle was affordable because of trickle-down wealth from America's sociopathic ruling class." Since 1913 and the Federal Reserve Act, the sociopathic ruling class has usurped the labor of everyone with a roof over their heads. If our labor had served families and communities, would our quality of life have been worse? Fewer gadgets but overall, I don't think so.
Here in Cumberland I have a neighbor I grew up with, who I imagine as how you would've been in a human economy. His property has two houses on it. He took care of his dad, who had Lou Gerig's, during his life. Then his mom, who had Alzheimer's, and his aunt who lived in the other side of his house. He watched out for my parents, mowing their lawn, along with my elderly aunt who lived between us. He never wanted thanks for this, although my parents gave him an occasional pie.
He and his wife showed me their house yesterday and I was stunned. They've been working on it and restoring it, and it's beautiful. There's no trickle down from psychopaths, they've done all the work with the help of her dad. They have ample space, having now joined the houses. He listed off 7 houses around us sitting empty. Space isn't at a premium--only people like them who take care of it.
I don't know that congested cities can ever be made human-sized. But I wouldn't accept that the quality of life needs to decline. I think we're already at the low point.
Total wealth of the bottom half of households excluding pensions, is $3 trillion vs. $22 trillion for the top 0.1%.
So for a housing developer or any major investor, the bottom 50% have no disposable wealth and are therefore "non-existent".
Wealth of the 50 to 90% tranche, excluding pensions, is $33 trillion vs. $92 trillion for the top 10%
So "real" money is effectively concentrated with the top 10% which is the target of housing developers and of all other products with a high price tag.
Thus "affordable" housing doesn't make sense for private sector companies. This is the responsibility and can only be provided by the government in lieu of war department expenses or hundreds of billions "invested" in the next generation Total Surveillance platforms:
Thank you Fadi, and I love that you pick out quotes that you appreciate ;-)
Wow, those are some powerful statistics. And, yes, the problem is always in the system.
I will continue to propose how my system of local sovereignty could solve the problem, as opposed to large government. All housing is priced competitively, based on how much debt anyone who wants the house can qualify for based on their income. So if the local residents have a 2:1 advantage in buying a house because carets are worth double the value of dollars, and all housing is priced in carets, it will be priced at whatever local residents can afford. So if money is tight, it will be lower. If money flows freely it will be higher.
But the real advantage is that all of the money collected in mortgages will be issued preemptively in carets as targeted dividends. Those who provide local goods and services will be able to earn carets up to a monthly maximum. The reason for the maximum is to keep the competition for housing debt down, otherwise the more some make, the higher the cost for housing, so they can never make enough.
With a monthly maximum, people know when they've made enough so there's no point in working more hours. An hourly maximum also keeps the cost of local services low, so that healthcare and education are affordable. And it enables an amount above the monthly maximum to be contributed to long-term savings at a 4% return, so retirement becomes possible when combined with Social Security, which is given a 7% return.
Here in my Appalachian hometown, where I am now, houses are all falling into disrepair but there are plenty of people with energy to fix them up. The carets in circulation, with 20% targeted to home improvements, would enable that. And in the meantime, it would defund the military because carets aren't subject to income tax. And I would discourage the economic draft by not allowing those who made money in the military to transfer it into carets when they return.
Thank you, Fadi. I think asking good questions like these is the best way to understand it.
My system starts by using the Social Security Trust Fund to capitalize commonwealth banks. By many accounts, including Trump and Bush the Shrub, the SS trust fund doesn't exist. It's been used as an unaccountable slush fund for military spending, since approval doesn't have to go through Congress. But taxpayers have contributed around $3T to this fund, which is owed to them. That puts the gov't in a dilemma.
The last ability left for the Fed Gov't to issue debt-free money is the right of seigniorage, to stamp coins and assign them any value it wants. The Fed gov't can create three platinum coins and give them a nominal value of $1T each.
Against this value, they can issue hamlets (a few thousand people) a credit of $9K per resident, which would become the capital reserves of their bank, never to be spent. Banks are allowed to issue mortgages at 10X their capital reserves. I would lend no more than 80% of the current value of a home, so it could never be 'underwater' even if the value of homes declines--which I hope it does in SC.
If the whole potential of the Trust Fund is loaned out at 10X its value, that would be $90K per person. Oddly, the national average cost of a home is $225K with 2.5 people per house--exactly the same. Even if loaned out at 3%, which would be my starting interest rate for residents, it would give the Trust Fund a 30% return. I would have Social Security retain 7% of that to keep it solvent forever.
As for administration, I'd have each hamlet distribute Social Security payments and collect Social Security taxes--the only tax on carets, which is really a pension contribution and not a tax. Since they know all residents personally, it would make fraud extremely difficult to pull off. And a network can manage how they want to handle people who move, which would be at the discretion of the hamlet they're moving to.
- Say for a 1000 person hamlet, the Trust Fund would get $9 million.
- The Trust Fund which acts as a bank, would provide mortgages for $90 million at 3%
First year:
- Gross revenue of Trust/Bank = $2.7 million (30% of $9M)
- To Social Security: 7% of the $2.7M = $189,000
- Net for Trust/Bank = $2.7M - $189K = $2,511,000
1. If my understanding is correct, then too much is going to the bank and too little to society. Why not have the Trust Fund itself handle the mortgages, sure its expenses would be much less than $2.5m and so much more will go back to society.
2. This is just the first year, a more thorough analysis over several years would be more accurate, but it will not change the fact that the bank is getting too much for processing mortgage payments of 1000 accounts.
A minor technicality:
I needed house price in my analysis for part 8, the value I got was $426K for median house price. Update from the Fed, Q4 2024: 419,200
"The average home price in the United States was $495,100 in the second quarter of 2023, according to the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development. By comparison, the median U.S. home price in June 2023 was $426,056, according to Redfin. Both calculations are based on sale prices, not listing prices."
Quote: "Even if loaned out at 3%, which would be my starting interest rate for residents, it would give the Trust Fund a 30% return. I would have Social Security retain 7% of that to keep it solvent forever."
I appreciate you engaging on this, Fadi. It's important to figure out the numbers and most people don't have the patience to go through them.
So on your first statement, yes, a 1000 person hamlet would have their commonwealth bank capitalized with $9M, giving them a maximum of $90M in mortgage loans without further capitalization. There's another technicality, which is that they need $9M in deposits to issue this rate of loans, which is why you want to encourage long-term savings.
The Trust Fund isn't the bank, it's just the capital that enables the bank. The bank is owned by the people of the commonwealth, with each hamlet responsible for its own portion. A commonwealth is a few 100,000 people.
Since the pooled pensions of the residents is what enables the bank to operate, protecting those pensions is its first priority. What I would give the trust fund is a 7% annual return on its fund that's in use. So it would make $630K/ yr on $9M. If the community can support more loans than $90M, like Santa Cruz, I'd roll that $630K into the capital so more loans can be made. In the meantime, I'm collecting 15% on every exchange for the pension contribution, so that Soc Sec should be self-funding.
Wow housing prices shot up fast! It was likely a decade ago when I did my calculation. I have my source in there somewhere. But in reality, it doesn't matter because you can double the capital pretty quickly. I would also have 3% be the fixed rate for the first six months of the commonwealth banks--so that people have an incentive to refinance, buy or sell quickly. Then it would go up by .1 for every quarter until it reaches 5%, where it would stay. There are no variable rate loans, only fixed. So within five years, the stable rate of return on the capital would be 50%.
At 5%, the price of the house will go down because someone can't borrow as much as they could at 3%. And that's good! We want the price of houses to go down. So anyone planning to sell will want to sell sooner, but those qualified to buy can wait until they're ready without worrying.
Remember that the caret distribution is an equal share of the collective mortgages IN ADVANCE as targeted dividends. So really, 100% of the revenues is going to society. Some of this will be in carets, some in dollars that have been given a 1:1 exchange rate for long term residents. Social Security will also be paid in carets. ONLY carets that get 'cashed out' for dollars, at a 2:1 rate (so half as many dollars as carets) need to be backed by dollars. So there should be enough dollars coming in for the return to the Soc Sec trust fund.
What Mark is designing is an app for the end-user, so it would be a simulation of that. What I really want is a simulation game for commonwealth designers, so that values could be plugged in and see how it would run. I also think it would be fun. If you know any computer game designers looking for a hobby, send them my way!
Someone else told me that what was happening reminded them of Toronto, which had gone through the same thing. And yes, my plan is how to 'gentrify in place.' I think we should all be landed gentry, who take responsibility for the homes, neighborhoods, and communities where we live. It requires economic sovereignty, not hedge funds building highrises. Thank you for reading and commenting, Ryuzake.
Was it you who said it reminded you of Toronto? Yes, one of my (many) deluded liberal friends does the favor of forwarding articles from the local paper, so the rest of us don't need to subscribe. In one he sent this morning, a developer is 'floating' a plan for a 7-story highrise across from the 'transit center,' aka Greyhound bus station. They state:
"The preliminary plan shows an approximately 90-foot-tall structure, which would hold a parking garage and about 3,100 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor. The structure would include parking spaces in a lift structure on the ground floor for residents and a few spots outside of the lift for residential units and commercial uses.
"The current design of the building contains 91 housing units, with 71 one-bedroom units ranging in size from about 350 to 450 square feet. The building would also contain 15 “1-plus” bedroom apartments, which would range from about 450 to 650 square feet, and five two-bedroom units, which would be about 970 square feet.
"Hochhauser mentioned that the project will take advantage of density bonus laws, which means that it will include some below market rate units, but the exact amount and mix of low and very-low-income units are yet to be determined. With use of the density bonus law, the developers could choose to opt out of including any parking because of its proximity to the transit station, but Hochhauser said they wanted to include about 35 parking spots, which would come at a premium to renters.
"Another participant asked if there was an estimate for how much the units would be rented for. Hochhauser said that the amounts are also yet to be determined, but prices will likely be similar to the nearby Anton Pacific, where studio apartments start at around $3,100 per month. “I can’t speak to that at this time because I don’t know the exact time frames when this will go through a complete process, drawings will be executed and it will come online,” said Hochhauser. “But I can assure that it will try to meet the market expectation similar to what’s happening across the street at the Anton project just to be able to be viable as a project.”
"Following the discussion of the estimated unit cost, a community member asked what specific clientele Hochhauser is expecting to live in the proposed project. “Our discussions have centered around students and young professionals, college professors,
technology workers,” said Hochhauser. “And programmers that can live in Santa Cruz and work remotely and on occasion go over to San Jose, and nurses, local doctors and fire employees.”
No matter what the 'affordable' housing cost is, I want to see the projects across the street filled with people who live in Santa Cruz who pay $3100 for a studio before this project gets approved. I don't believe those people exist.
"Santa Cruz" and "affordable" -- hah! It's a little less crazy up in the hills, like around Boulder Creek. There you can get a run-down shack for $450K if you're lucky.
Yes, my daughter's husband, who's from Boulder Creek, found one for around that, which needs a bunch of work including the foundation. Fortunately, she talked him out of it. Nothing like paying a mortgage AND owning a money pit that you can't live in because it isn't where you work.
But if outsiders had to pay twice as much in dollars as insiders did in carets, every place would be affordable by definition. The competition for what rents or mortgages could be would be set by how much anyone could and would pay for them, who already lived in Santa Cruz. Outsiders--especially students--would pay twice as much, with the landlord getting half of that and only a quarter of that if the landlord wasn't local.
I don't think eminent domain would even be needed--foreign owners would bail.
one of the most violent human passions, if not the most violent, is laziness. Books were written claiming the right to be lazy or the art of laziness. I have the feeling that much of the war the rich and priviledges lead upon the commons is, more than driven by greed, about protecting the worriless careless nonchalant lifestyle they live. Humans can kill to be left alone. And I think the unifamiliar dwelling has, as a sort of dreamt Arcadia, a lot to do with it. Having grown up in baby boom Spain, I lived my early years in a flat block of 24 units, in the city centre downtown. That was most people normal. If fact, the concept of suburb or downtown didnt even.exist in Spain those days. We have been driven in the inverse direction. From compact blocked cities, to extense suburban outskirts build in the last 20 years only. While I can understand the shock and awe seeing those building erect can provoke, we lived that in Europe long ago, due to postwar reconstruction. I lived in one of those and was relatively happy. Years later, when I first travelled to England, I lived in a London outskirt terraced house like there are millions in the UK and realized how that could be another hapiness mirage for the people, when in fact they where formated at a massive scale. Everyone was the same, as in the Truman show. The US has been living a silent war against the population. It is probably not ideal solution, but it is a way to provide thousands with basic amenities such as hot water bathrooms or cooking kitchens. If done like in Venezuela, where the government donate the flats for free.
Why, in God’s holy name, would the Chinese, Russians, or any other people want this country? It has been stripped bare of anything useful by the rapists and pillagers going back at least 100 years. Their countries are a blooming paradise compared to our rotted out cities, our crumbling infrastructure, and our corrupt politicians, let alone our soulless population. Methinks thee protesteth too much. More important tasks await us and it is NOT about worrying about the Chinese!
Give me an alternative explanation, John, for who's going to live in those 16-story highrises with no parking? I don't know a single person who wants to live there, of those who already live in Santa Cruz.
I'm not worried about the Chinese (and certainly never mentioned the Russians), I'm worried about the WEF that's used its Young Global Leader, Gavin Newsom, to dictate the takeover of California. Are you okay with them overriding your own city council and telling you what you MUST build, and that your lack of cooperation will result in them having total control? Have you accepted that your community should have no sovereignty and that's just the way things are?
Talk about a soulless population, if you're so ready to give up my town to fit your dystopian predictions. I do NOT live in a rotted out city with a crumbling infrastructure. My Appalachian hometown, where I am now, fits that description better, which is why my plan shows how to remedy it. In both cases, restoring our economic sovereignty is the most important task that I see awaiting us. If you think something else is more important, go for it.
I understand they are building concentration camps in Canada. With hi-rises you don’t need barbed wire. Maybe they are “re-education centers.” Unlax, everything is unfolding as it should.
Tereza.. A minor help to end the evil and a simple swift transition. It will impact the current GDP calculation but, we dont need CBDC, digital ID or a central bank.
Inflation is primarily driven by credit expansion. Most economic and financial education today focuses on taxation, finance, and hedging, leaving people unaware of the real mechanisms of inflation and the economy. Governments continue to borrow without public understanding, and the rising debt serves as a means to increase taxes. If taxes and fees were abolished and governments funded their operations by expanding the money supply, inflation would effectively become the new tax. Business productivity would soar as tax-related bureaucracy disappeared, and citizens would focus more on public waste. This model could eliminate the system's flaws, but it’s not implemented because governments control central banks, money supply, credit, and taxation, thus keeping the system under control.
Your experiment was tried, Svartberg, in the American colonies before the Revolutionary War and before the British Currency Act that abolished their sovereign currencies.
If you read Ben Franklin's argument for an increase in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's currency, he cites other scrips like New Jersey, that simply issued more currency without collecting it back in fees and taxes. It quickly became devalued so that sellers stopped honoring it and insisted on specie backed by precious metals or barter.
Under your system, would banks still issue the currency? Why do they control all of our labor for free, by usurping ownership of all property and the exclusive right to issue debt against them? And why do governments borrow from them or rely on the crumbs that drop from the banker's table, in the form of taxes after we've toiled to serve the corporate profits of the bankers?
Money is a means of organizing labor in the interests of whoever issues it. If we want our labor to serve the interests of families and communities, we need to issue our own credits against the properties within our community borders. Governments do NOT control "central banks, money supply, or credit". They work for the bankers and even taxation serves the banker's interest--which is why the interest that goes to them is tax-free for us. Why wouldn't they want us to give them as much as possible and feel good about it because 'at least it's a tax write-off'? Every dollar to them is one that doesn't serve our communities.
Sad but also hopeful, I think. We're reaching the limits of our tolerance. I think we'll look back and wonder how we ever put up with the levels of stress we're under. So let them mess away, it just brings the breaking point closer!
Ew, how uncleverly dystopian. I can’t imagine annoying living in top of each other. I’ve seen those thousands of people packed into sardine buildings in China and just looking at it gives me claustrophobic shortness of breath.
I hope your dance teacher and her boyfriend find a good housing situation.
Agreed on the claustrophobia. Later in this thread I quoted to Mary another article about a 7-story building that will rent for the same as across the street: $3100/ mo. for a 325 sq ft studio. But they don't need parking because it's across from the Greyhound station. Really? People paying $3100/ mo are going to take the Greyhound to get around?
And if SC brings in people willing to pay $6K for an apt, do those who live in SC think it won't affect the cost of a real rental? I just can't imagine anyone in the US who would do this. Can you?
It's exploiting a population that's being priced out and is desperate. They hear 'affordable housing' and imagine houses.
For as long as I've lived in Santa Cruz (47 yrs) all we've heard about is the immanence of earthquakes. Did that suddenly go away? So I'm not worrying, other than doing what I can to draw attention to it. As I said in the last chapter I read, nature bats last.
I missed this comment, but those feel like very accurate observations. And of course, nature does indeed bat last!
Same here in Japan. Despite the scenic tourist areas, the majority of working class Japanese still live in "danchi" rabbit hutches ... ironically called "mansions". A google search through pics for "Japanese danchi" will give the reader an idea of what the ruling class in California have in mind for those they deem beneath them.
Inversion of language!
The land wants her villages back, with free people living in them
What a lovely way of putting it, Tiedye Tiger.
Despite this bad news - absolutely unacceptably awful! - I agree it won't unfold as they plan. Of course they are making life intolerable in the process. I hope your dance teacher finds a new place soon.
Their efforts to push this insanity will fail in the end and your caret system will have a natural audience. You are exactly where you should be, no doubt.
Thanks for this, Tereza, and for the optimism you maintain in the face of it. Would easy enough to despair - part of their MO.
It's an inhuman plan and humans win in the end. So it simply can't happen. I'll listen to the Corbett you linked. Best.
I love that phrase, Kathleen: "your caret system will have a natural audience." There's something too fitting that life would land me in the two extremes of the spectrum. I'm here in Cumberland listening to people talk about the homes they've restored or are in the process of restoring. They're doing beautiful work on real houses with wood floors that, like your house, go back to the 1800's. And there are no buyers or renters except very sketchy people who trash the place.
So I think I'm exactly where I should be, both here and there. I can see through the lie that it has to be that way. I can see why one solution doesn't work for everyone and each has to design the system for what they need. That just can't be an accident, that I'm in one of the most impoverished towns and also the least affordable in the country, right?
Love that phrase too: "It's an inhuman plan and humans win in the end."
That's really remarkable - that you know those extremes so intimately. Agree, no accident. Universe is a marvel. :-)
Hi Kathleen and Tereza.
I tuned in to that report, but something more troubling came to mind ... something that Corbett should be aware of because he lives in Japan, although somewhere in the less densely populated western part of the country.
I live in Kawasaki, just across the Tama river from Tokyo in Noborito Township, considered somewhat of a bed town for the somewhat more densely packed offices and factories of Tokyo. For all intents and purposes, it is continuous with Tokyo city proper.
When I read Tereza's grim summary of 800 square foot prisons, I thought that this would be large compared to typical Japanese living conditions, so I ran a prompt through Perplexity Pro and came up with the following (mixed with some additional information from myself) ...
—————————
The average apartment size in Tokyo is approximately 65.9 square meters (about 700 square feet), according to a 2019 study by Japan's House and Land Survey. However, of this total area, only about 41 square meters (440 square feet) is typically dedicated to actual living space, such as sleeping areas, kitchen, and dining/leisure areas.
Regarding average monthly rent, it varies significantly depending on the apartment size and location within Tokyo. For a typical 1LDK (one bedroom plus living/dining/kitchen) apartment, which is around 30-50 square meters (320 to 540 square feet), the average monthly rent ranges from: ¥150,000 to ¥230,000 in central Tokyo (from about $1,000.00 to $1,500) and from ¥90,000 to ¥130,000 in outer Tokyo areas ($600.00 to $860.0).
(I live alone in a 700 square foot apartment and pay a bit over $1,000.00 a month, not including utilities and a separate parking place a couple of hundred meters away. Living on a fixed retirement, this is not sustainable, but for now I am a bit luckier than most of the people in my community circle — younger families living in smaller quarters.
The median income for those working in the Tokyo area is about $3,160.00 a month, so with utilities and parking, they are paying roughly between ⅓ to ½ of their salary on rent and utilities ... and that doesn't include basic food costs and taxes, both of which are rising faster than salaries. It is easy to see the economics as a major contributing factor in the rapid plunge in demographics.)
It's important to note that as of December 2023, the average rent for family-oriented apartments (typically 2DK or larger) in Tokyo's 23 special wards had reached ¥192,662 (about $1,280) per month, representing a 16.6% increase from the previous year.
For single-oriented apartments (1R, 1K, 1DK, or 1LDK), the average rent in central Tokyo was ¥94,694 (about $630) per month as of December 2023.
These figures demonstrate the significant variation in apartment sizes and rents across different areas of Tokyo, with central locations commanding higher prices for smaller living spaces."
(My mom was born and grew up in a middle class family in Frankfurt Germany. The housing situation was, and I suspect largely still is, roughly comparable to Japan's.)
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I just wanted to share the above information because it took me some time to realize that until the 1970's or so, the average American lifestyle was affordable because of trickle-down wealth from America's sociopathic ruling class. Until the 70's, the developing world was more vulnerable to covert and overt exploitation by that sociopathic class through predatory zero-sum games. William Blum's "Killing Hope" was my wake-up call regarding covert U.S. foreign policy;
But increasingly, those sociopaths are finding America's own working / managing class to be an easier target. Even though I am much more academically credentialed than my parents, and I had the luxury of a fairly long career and tenure, I will never enjoy the freedoms and lifestyle my parents enjoyed back in the 60's and 70's. My fate would have been the same had I stayed in the U.S. Through simply stating facts, communicating with a digital community, I am trying to avoid despair.
Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and America — all of the 5 Eyes nations are on a data-proven trajectory of a decreasing quality of life for the majority. I hope a Caret system, any kind of emergent resistance against obscene concentrations of power and wealth can emerge from local communities. But I am not yet seeing it happen here in Japan or in the West. On the contrary, the wealth gap is coming closer to what I saw in Cambodia. J. Tainter's book "The Collapse of Complex Societies" reaffirms by belief, and hope, that like all Towers of Babel in the past, this too shall pass.
ps. ... I found a great site to download books for free, and avoid Amazon's new unilateral terms limiting kindle readers' right to own a digital book ... https://annas-archive.org/. Use the "slow download" links for the free downloads.
Cheers Kathleen and Tereza.
Hi, Steve, and thanks for stopping by to read and comment! And to add data about Japan.
What living in both Santa Cruz and Cumberland has made me realize is that there is no 'absolute' cost of housing that's affordable or not. It's relative to what the average person who lives there makes, particularly if they work in and for the community. Without interference from the Usurpers, housing would be overwhelmingly owner-occupied and its improvement would be one of the two major activities, the other being caring for the people.
I'm confused by "until the 1970's or so, the average American lifestyle was affordable because of trickle-down wealth from America's sociopathic ruling class." Since 1913 and the Federal Reserve Act, the sociopathic ruling class has usurped the labor of everyone with a roof over their heads. If our labor had served families and communities, would our quality of life have been worse? Fewer gadgets but overall, I don't think so.
Here in Cumberland I have a neighbor I grew up with, who I imagine as how you would've been in a human economy. His property has two houses on it. He took care of his dad, who had Lou Gerig's, during his life. Then his mom, who had Alzheimer's, and his aunt who lived in the other side of his house. He watched out for my parents, mowing their lawn, along with my elderly aunt who lived between us. He never wanted thanks for this, although my parents gave him an occasional pie.
He and his wife showed me their house yesterday and I was stunned. They've been working on it and restoring it, and it's beautiful. There's no trickle down from psychopaths, they've done all the work with the help of her dad. They have ample space, having now joined the houses. He listed off 7 houses around us sitting empty. Space isn't at a premium--only people like them who take care of it.
I don't know that congested cities can ever be made human-sized. But I wouldn't accept that the quality of life needs to decline. I think we're already at the low point.
A very important and revealing topic you address. The problem is in the system.
Financialization of the economy leads to continuously increasing wealth concentration, the latest data from the Fed for Q3 2024:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#quarter:140;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:all;units:levels
Total wealth of the bottom half of households excluding pensions, is $3 trillion vs. $22 trillion for the top 0.1%.
So for a housing developer or any major investor, the bottom 50% have no disposable wealth and are therefore "non-existent".
Wealth of the 50 to 90% tranche, excluding pensions, is $33 trillion vs. $92 trillion for the top 10%
So "real" money is effectively concentrated with the top 10% which is the target of housing developers and of all other products with a high price tag.
Thus "affordable" housing doesn't make sense for private sector companies. This is the responsibility and can only be provided by the government in lieu of war department expenses or hundreds of billions "invested" in the next generation Total Surveillance platforms:
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/21/trump-announces-billions-in-private-sector-ai-investment
But... the system does not allow this :-(
Some lovely quotes:
"This is a conjurer’s trick that dangles an affordable home in front of voters and pulls a 16-story luxury prison out of a hat"
"The real estate mogul in the Oval Office will turn Palestinians into golf caddies for Gaza and Californians into baristas for Shanghai West"
Thank you Fadi, and I love that you pick out quotes that you appreciate ;-)
Wow, those are some powerful statistics. And, yes, the problem is always in the system.
I will continue to propose how my system of local sovereignty could solve the problem, as opposed to large government. All housing is priced competitively, based on how much debt anyone who wants the house can qualify for based on their income. So if the local residents have a 2:1 advantage in buying a house because carets are worth double the value of dollars, and all housing is priced in carets, it will be priced at whatever local residents can afford. So if money is tight, it will be lower. If money flows freely it will be higher.
But the real advantage is that all of the money collected in mortgages will be issued preemptively in carets as targeted dividends. Those who provide local goods and services will be able to earn carets up to a monthly maximum. The reason for the maximum is to keep the competition for housing debt down, otherwise the more some make, the higher the cost for housing, so they can never make enough.
With a monthly maximum, people know when they've made enough so there's no point in working more hours. An hourly maximum also keeps the cost of local services low, so that healthcare and education are affordable. And it enables an amount above the monthly maximum to be contributed to long-term savings at a 4% return, so retirement becomes possible when combined with Social Security, which is given a 7% return.
Here in my Appalachian hometown, where I am now, houses are all falling into disrepair but there are plenty of people with energy to fix them up. The carets in circulation, with 20% targeted to home improvements, would enable that. And in the meantime, it would defund the military because carets aren't subject to income tax. And I would discourage the economic draft by not allowing those who made money in the military to transfer it into carets when they return.
Those are my thoughts.
Fascinating how well you have developed the carets system.
Looking forward to the simulator, so I can understand it better.
- Which administration provides Social Security?
- What are the Social Security investments that provide 7% or higher return?
Thank you, Fadi. I think asking good questions like these is the best way to understand it.
My system starts by using the Social Security Trust Fund to capitalize commonwealth banks. By many accounts, including Trump and Bush the Shrub, the SS trust fund doesn't exist. It's been used as an unaccountable slush fund for military spending, since approval doesn't have to go through Congress. But taxpayers have contributed around $3T to this fund, which is owed to them. That puts the gov't in a dilemma.
The last ability left for the Fed Gov't to issue debt-free money is the right of seigniorage, to stamp coins and assign them any value it wants. The Fed gov't can create three platinum coins and give them a nominal value of $1T each.
Against this value, they can issue hamlets (a few thousand people) a credit of $9K per resident, which would become the capital reserves of their bank, never to be spent. Banks are allowed to issue mortgages at 10X their capital reserves. I would lend no more than 80% of the current value of a home, so it could never be 'underwater' even if the value of homes declines--which I hope it does in SC.
If the whole potential of the Trust Fund is loaned out at 10X its value, that would be $90K per person. Oddly, the national average cost of a home is $225K with 2.5 people per house--exactly the same. Even if loaned out at 3%, which would be my starting interest rate for residents, it would give the Trust Fund a 30% return. I would have Social Security retain 7% of that to keep it solvent forever.
As for administration, I'd have each hamlet distribute Social Security payments and collect Social Security taxes--the only tax on carets, which is really a pension contribution and not a tax. Since they know all residents personally, it would make fraud extremely difficult to pull off. And a network can manage how they want to handle people who move, which would be at the discretion of the hamlet they're moving to.
Those are some preliminary thoughts.
:-) interesting
- Say for a 1000 person hamlet, the Trust Fund would get $9 million.
- The Trust Fund which acts as a bank, would provide mortgages for $90 million at 3%
First year:
- Gross revenue of Trust/Bank = $2.7 million (30% of $9M)
- To Social Security: 7% of the $2.7M = $189,000
- Net for Trust/Bank = $2.7M - $189K = $2,511,000
1. If my understanding is correct, then too much is going to the bank and too little to society. Why not have the Trust Fund itself handle the mortgages, sure its expenses would be much less than $2.5m and so much more will go back to society.
2. This is just the first year, a more thorough analysis over several years would be more accurate, but it will not change the fact that the bank is getting too much for processing mortgage payments of 1000 accounts.
A minor technicality:
I needed house price in my analysis for part 8, the value I got was $426K for median house price. Update from the Fed, Q4 2024: 419,200
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
Another quick check: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/median-home-prices-by-state/
"The average home price in the United States was $495,100 in the second quarter of 2023, according to the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development. By comparison, the median U.S. home price in June 2023 was $426,056, according to Redfin. Both calculations are based on sale prices, not listing prices."
Quote: "Even if loaned out at 3%, which would be my starting interest rate for residents, it would give the Trust Fund a 30% return. I would have Social Security retain 7% of that to keep it solvent forever."
I appreciate you engaging on this, Fadi. It's important to figure out the numbers and most people don't have the patience to go through them.
So on your first statement, yes, a 1000 person hamlet would have their commonwealth bank capitalized with $9M, giving them a maximum of $90M in mortgage loans without further capitalization. There's another technicality, which is that they need $9M in deposits to issue this rate of loans, which is why you want to encourage long-term savings.
The Trust Fund isn't the bank, it's just the capital that enables the bank. The bank is owned by the people of the commonwealth, with each hamlet responsible for its own portion. A commonwealth is a few 100,000 people.
Since the pooled pensions of the residents is what enables the bank to operate, protecting those pensions is its first priority. What I would give the trust fund is a 7% annual return on its fund that's in use. So it would make $630K/ yr on $9M. If the community can support more loans than $90M, like Santa Cruz, I'd roll that $630K into the capital so more loans can be made. In the meantime, I'm collecting 15% on every exchange for the pension contribution, so that Soc Sec should be self-funding.
Wow housing prices shot up fast! It was likely a decade ago when I did my calculation. I have my source in there somewhere. But in reality, it doesn't matter because you can double the capital pretty quickly. I would also have 3% be the fixed rate for the first six months of the commonwealth banks--so that people have an incentive to refinance, buy or sell quickly. Then it would go up by .1 for every quarter until it reaches 5%, where it would stay. There are no variable rate loans, only fixed. So within five years, the stable rate of return on the capital would be 50%.
At 5%, the price of the house will go down because someone can't borrow as much as they could at 3%. And that's good! We want the price of houses to go down. So anyone planning to sell will want to sell sooner, but those qualified to buy can wait until they're ready without worrying.
Remember that the caret distribution is an equal share of the collective mortgages IN ADVANCE as targeted dividends. So really, 100% of the revenues is going to society. Some of this will be in carets, some in dollars that have been given a 1:1 exchange rate for long term residents. Social Security will also be paid in carets. ONLY carets that get 'cashed out' for dollars, at a 2:1 rate (so half as many dollars as carets) need to be backed by dollars. So there should be enough dollars coming in for the return to the Soc Sec trust fund.
What Mark is designing is an app for the end-user, so it would be a simulation of that. What I really want is a simulation game for commonwealth designers, so that values could be plugged in and see how it would run. I also think it would be fun. If you know any computer game designers looking for a hobby, send them my way!
You have it all worked out :-)
I didn't understand the "collecting 15% on every exchange for the pension contribution"
I made a simulation in Excel based on following assumptions:
1000 persons
$9,000 from government per person
$90M available for mortgages
$18M remain in bank (20% advance on 90M loans)
$300,000 average home price
20% down-payment
3% mortgage interest
25 years mortgage period paid monthly
7% payment to Social Security
$500K Bank annual expenses for managing mortgages
I get:
$948.42 Average monthly mortgage payment
$3.4M Mortgage payments received annually
$630K to Social Security
$2.8M Bank profit [this should go to the community]
The samething is happening in London, all in the name of "gentrification".
Someone else told me that what was happening reminded them of Toronto, which had gone through the same thing. And yes, my plan is how to 'gentrify in place.' I think we should all be landed gentry, who take responsibility for the homes, neighborhoods, and communities where we live. It requires economic sovereignty, not hedge funds building highrises. Thank you for reading and commenting, Ryuzake.
In what world is $3,000-$6,000 a month "affordable housing"??? Am I missing something?
As Kathleen said, I admire your optimism and unwillingness to just roll over. I always admire those characteristics in you... xox
Was it you who said it reminded you of Toronto? Yes, one of my (many) deluded liberal friends does the favor of forwarding articles from the local paper, so the rest of us don't need to subscribe. In one he sent this morning, a developer is 'floating' a plan for a 7-story highrise across from the 'transit center,' aka Greyhound bus station. They state:
"The preliminary plan shows an approximately 90-foot-tall structure, which would hold a parking garage and about 3,100 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor. The structure would include parking spaces in a lift structure on the ground floor for residents and a few spots outside of the lift for residential units and commercial uses.
"The current design of the building contains 91 housing units, with 71 one-bedroom units ranging in size from about 350 to 450 square feet. The building would also contain 15 “1-plus” bedroom apartments, which would range from about 450 to 650 square feet, and five two-bedroom units, which would be about 970 square feet.
"Hochhauser mentioned that the project will take advantage of density bonus laws, which means that it will include some below market rate units, but the exact amount and mix of low and very-low-income units are yet to be determined. With use of the density bonus law, the developers could choose to opt out of including any parking because of its proximity to the transit station, but Hochhauser said they wanted to include about 35 parking spots, which would come at a premium to renters.
"Another participant asked if there was an estimate for how much the units would be rented for. Hochhauser said that the amounts are also yet to be determined, but prices will likely be similar to the nearby Anton Pacific, where studio apartments start at around $3,100 per month. “I can’t speak to that at this time because I don’t know the exact time frames when this will go through a complete process, drawings will be executed and it will come online,” said Hochhauser. “But I can assure that it will try to meet the market expectation similar to what’s happening across the street at the Anton project just to be able to be viable as a project.”
"Following the discussion of the estimated unit cost, a community member asked what specific clientele Hochhauser is expecting to live in the proposed project. “Our discussions have centered around students and young professionals, college professors,
technology workers,” said Hochhauser. “And programmers that can live in Santa Cruz and work remotely and on occasion go over to San Jose, and nurses, local doctors and fire employees.”
No matter what the 'affordable' housing cost is, I want to see the projects across the street filled with people who live in Santa Cruz who pay $3100 for a studio before this project gets approved. I don't believe those people exist.
"Santa Cruz" and "affordable" -- hah! It's a little less crazy up in the hills, like around Boulder Creek. There you can get a run-down shack for $450K if you're lucky.
Yes, my daughter's husband, who's from Boulder Creek, found one for around that, which needs a bunch of work including the foundation. Fortunately, she talked him out of it. Nothing like paying a mortgage AND owning a money pit that you can't live in because it isn't where you work.
But if outsiders had to pay twice as much in dollars as insiders did in carets, every place would be affordable by definition. The competition for what rents or mortgages could be would be set by how much anyone could and would pay for them, who already lived in Santa Cruz. Outsiders--especially students--would pay twice as much, with the landlord getting half of that and only a quarter of that if the landlord wasn't local.
I don't think eminent domain would even be needed--foreign owners would bail.
one of the most violent human passions, if not the most violent, is laziness. Books were written claiming the right to be lazy or the art of laziness. I have the feeling that much of the war the rich and priviledges lead upon the commons is, more than driven by greed, about protecting the worriless careless nonchalant lifestyle they live. Humans can kill to be left alone. And I think the unifamiliar dwelling has, as a sort of dreamt Arcadia, a lot to do with it. Having grown up in baby boom Spain, I lived my early years in a flat block of 24 units, in the city centre downtown. That was most people normal. If fact, the concept of suburb or downtown didnt even.exist in Spain those days. We have been driven in the inverse direction. From compact blocked cities, to extense suburban outskirts build in the last 20 years only. While I can understand the shock and awe seeing those building erect can provoke, we lived that in Europe long ago, due to postwar reconstruction. I lived in one of those and was relatively happy. Years later, when I first travelled to England, I lived in a London outskirt terraced house like there are millions in the UK and realized how that could be another hapiness mirage for the people, when in fact they where formated at a massive scale. Everyone was the same, as in the Truman show. The US has been living a silent war against the population. It is probably not ideal solution, but it is a way to provide thousands with basic amenities such as hot water bathrooms or cooking kitchens. If done like in Venezuela, where the government donate the flats for free.
Why, in God’s holy name, would the Chinese, Russians, or any other people want this country? It has been stripped bare of anything useful by the rapists and pillagers going back at least 100 years. Their countries are a blooming paradise compared to our rotted out cities, our crumbling infrastructure, and our corrupt politicians, let alone our soulless population. Methinks thee protesteth too much. More important tasks await us and it is NOT about worrying about the Chinese!
Give me an alternative explanation, John, for who's going to live in those 16-story highrises with no parking? I don't know a single person who wants to live there, of those who already live in Santa Cruz.
I'm not worried about the Chinese (and certainly never mentioned the Russians), I'm worried about the WEF that's used its Young Global Leader, Gavin Newsom, to dictate the takeover of California. Are you okay with them overriding your own city council and telling you what you MUST build, and that your lack of cooperation will result in them having total control? Have you accepted that your community should have no sovereignty and that's just the way things are?
Talk about a soulless population, if you're so ready to give up my town to fit your dystopian predictions. I do NOT live in a rotted out city with a crumbling infrastructure. My Appalachian hometown, where I am now, fits that description better, which is why my plan shows how to remedy it. In both cases, restoring our economic sovereignty is the most important task that I see awaiting us. If you think something else is more important, go for it.
I understand they are building concentration camps in Canada. With hi-rises you don’t need barbed wire. Maybe they are “re-education centers.” Unlax, everything is unfolding as it should.
Tereza.. A minor help to end the evil and a simple swift transition. It will impact the current GDP calculation but, we dont need CBDC, digital ID or a central bank.
Inflation is primarily driven by credit expansion. Most economic and financial education today focuses on taxation, finance, and hedging, leaving people unaware of the real mechanisms of inflation and the economy. Governments continue to borrow without public understanding, and the rising debt serves as a means to increase taxes. If taxes and fees were abolished and governments funded their operations by expanding the money supply, inflation would effectively become the new tax. Business productivity would soar as tax-related bureaucracy disappeared, and citizens would focus more on public waste. This model could eliminate the system's flaws, but it’s not implemented because governments control central banks, money supply, credit, and taxation, thus keeping the system under control.
Your experiment was tried, Svartberg, in the American colonies before the Revolutionary War and before the British Currency Act that abolished their sovereign currencies.
If you read Ben Franklin's argument for an increase in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's currency, he cites other scrips like New Jersey, that simply issued more currency without collecting it back in fees and taxes. It quickly became devalued so that sellers stopped honoring it and insisted on specie backed by precious metals or barter.
My chapter talking about Franklin's system, on which mine is based, is here: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/05-the-short-eventful-life-of-sovereign money.
Under your system, would banks still issue the currency? Why do they control all of our labor for free, by usurping ownership of all property and the exclusive right to issue debt against them? And why do governments borrow from them or rely on the crumbs that drop from the banker's table, in the form of taxes after we've toiled to serve the corporate profits of the bankers?
Money is a means of organizing labor in the interests of whoever issues it. If we want our labor to serve the interests of families and communities, we need to issue our own credits against the properties within our community borders. Governments do NOT control "central banks, money supply, or credit". They work for the bankers and even taxation serves the banker's interest--which is why the interest that goes to them is tax-free for us. Why wouldn't they want us to give them as much as possible and feel good about it because 'at least it's a tax write-off'? Every dollar to them is one that doesn't serve our communities.
This episode talks about how inflation works: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/inflation-colonization.
Sad but also hopeful, I think. We're reaching the limits of our tolerance. I think we'll look back and wonder how we ever put up with the levels of stress we're under. So let them mess away, it just brings the breaking point closer!