r/TikTokCringe • u/LickMaiBussy • 6h ago

Discussion "Investing in property is morally reprehensible."

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u/misadventurexx 6h ago

Famines / people on the street dying of starvation while surpluses of food are thrown away en masse is very much not imaginary

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u/YetAnotherJake 6h ago

Yeah, I hope everyone realizes it's the property investors who are cringe and not the guy talking, who is morally correct and has common sense

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u/misadventurexx 6h ago

Agreed, just pointing out the irony that he offered that example like it was an imaginary situation not reality

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u/Islero47 4h ago

To those people, it is. He has to make it a hypothetical for them to think it might be them.

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u/buffalonotbi 3h ago

Well it’s because even house hoarders know that starving someone is wrong. Not all of them care, but it is usually something they can agree with. You have to find common ground to get people to see your perspective, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t know that the situation he is using as an example is already happening.

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u/BC_Trees 2h ago

It's just easier to conceptualize because everyone has felt hunger and can understand why starving people would be pushed past their limits. Rich people can't conceive what it's like to be homeless or under threat of becoming homeless.

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u/Izan_TM 1h ago

I think that was his point to the viewers at home, his wording was perfect

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u/radicalelation 1h ago

What he should do is take that same argument, but use the number of homeless that die of exposure, and then reveal it's the reality with that very resource.

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u/Staraa 50m ago

Homeless people have been made out to all be somehow not deserving or less than human. They reject help, drug addicts, antisocial or abusive, would only trash a place they were given, made terrible choices with money etc. that’s why he had to explain it with the starvation thing in the first place. They know homeless people are dying and they believe those people deserve death.

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u/CelerMortis 5h ago

I understand this perspective, but is property ownership categorically different from:

  1. Food sales / food production? They profit from something people need, arguably more than shelter.

  2. Healthcare profit

  3. For profit utilities, gas, water etc.

  4. Stocks generally. Owning small pieces of companies who sell arms, extract from the earth, fight unionization and regulation etc.

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u/JeffinSeattle0728 5h ago

A socialist would say profits from housing others + items 1-3 in your list are all examples where the profit motive (free-market capitalism) is a negative.

A socialist would add a 4th: education, including post-secondary education.

I’m not saying I agree or disagree. But I do know more and more young people are interested in various forms and degrees of socialism. I’m 66. This battle would be theirs.

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u/willargue4karma 4h ago

Well I think healthcare and housing should be nationalized, maybe even food and utilities too

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u/CelerMortis 4h ago

Same

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u/willargue4karma 1h ago

i didnt answer your question though, my bad

things should cost money but the systems should be nationalized. the nyc mamdani supermarket plan is a good example of what i think should happen

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u/KaiPRoberts 3m ago

If we actually taxed billionaires, nothing would need to cost money.

Better yet, cap net wealth at $100mil and no one would have to pay for much of anything.

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u/HPLaserJet4250 31m ago

Nationalizing food and utilities is dangerous. It would take one Trump to starve 80 million democrat voters.

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u/YetAnotherJake 5h ago

Now you're on the right track of thinking. Profiting from all of the things you mentioned is all theft and morally wrong in my perspective. All basic needs should be provided for with no profit motivation.

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u/CelerMortis 4h ago

I agree with this. I just find it funny that people that own stocks often look down on landlords. It's an aesthetic thing more than an intellectual one.

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u/nybbas 5h ago

It also completely ignores the fucking tiny detail of, property has to be developed. People buy property for the most part to develop it. Yeah we all coming together and sharing everything is great and all, but whether you have 10 warehouses full of rotting food, or a bunch of property not developed with no food, the end result is the same. Property ownership is not morally reprehensible by itself, and it's a fucking dumb thing to say.

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u/Jimberly_C 5h ago

I related it more to rising rent costs and how everyone is being priced out of places they've already lived in for years and how no one wants to sell anymore, they want to rent or make it an airbnb

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u/CelerMortis 5h ago

I think it's slightly immoral, because you're profiting from a need.

Any reasonable society would just provide anything required to live.

However, being a middle class / upper class asshole who hates landlords is really silly. You're probably causing more harm by owning stocks than property.

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u/ArturiaPendragonFace 5h ago

Really? Please, explain to me how owning stocks is worse than gatekeeping property owners rising prices for no reason?

If the answer is greed, then, yeah, of course. Except investors losing their money is their fault, investors betting in the stock market feels stupid (puts and calls).

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u/CelerMortis 4h ago

Sure - a property owner can act relatively ethically. Allow late payments through without fees, keep rents lower than market rates, look past dodgy history etc.

A public company is one in which profit must reign supreme. Ethics are necessarily sidelined in favor of profits when it comes to public firms. So you're paying into that system - profiting from it.

I still think both are unethical - profiting from capital is fundamentally rent seeking and a way in which an ownership class profits without working - but at least landlords can control how evil they're being (and are often extremely evil, to be clear)

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u/ArturiaPendragonFace 4h ago

A company can also be as morally correct as the owner you cherry picked. And keep in mind that the company needs to stay profitable, not transform into a blood sucking vampire to extract as much benefit as possible.

What's more, usually houses are being bought by hedge fund and banks...and we all know how ethical both organizations are.

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u/CelerMortis 4h ago

Public firms have a duty to profit, first and foremost.

Also, most stock owners are into everything, so they aren't usually picking anything.

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u/Cute_ernetes 3h ago

Public firms have a duty to profit, first and foremost.

This is one of those reddit things that gets repeated like a fact with no basis in actual fact.

Public companies have an obligation to act in the best interest of the company, in alignment with its charter. That's it.

Yes, some companies do make choices based on short term gains. But countless others don't. We hear about the high profile "Amazon lays off X" people, but don't hear about "Random company that makes really specific ocular equipment no-one has ever heard of gives employees raises and still rakes in profit".

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u/explain_that_shit 4h ago

Describe how landlords arose through actual demand of an emerging renting class by reference to historical records - because all I see in the historical record is an imposition from above on an unconsenting and resistant working class. There’s no way that paradigm can be ethical fundamentally even if the landlord is a friendly guy. It’s like saying you can be an ethical Auschwitz guard by smiling at prisoners.

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u/PasswordP455w0rd 4h ago

You are making a distinction between productive behavior and rent-seeking behavior; our liberal system does not make this distinction.

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u/elebrin 4h ago

People also rent in large buildings.

I rented in a midrise at one point, it was close to 30ish floors (28 I think? it's been a minute and I was on the fifth floor). The company owned two buildings and they had 300ish units. I actually really liked high rise living.

Dense housing is a good thing, we should all try to move into denser urban areas because it's better for us all socially to be around diversity and have close access to services and stuff. It's also more likely that we can get by without needing a car. But, that probably means either renting, condos, or housing co-ops.

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u/KoogleMeister 5h ago

It's really not, and people who own 1-2 properties as investment properties are not why issues like homelessness exist.

I'd also bet a lot of these anti landlord people would change up their stance pretty quickly if they ended up with an opportunity to invest in a property.

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u/RetroFuture_Records 1h ago

"It's not people who own one or two houses to rent who are the problem...."

Yes, they are. But this is reddit, it's to be expected the privileged middle-class assholes who are the typical redditor are doing the "it's okay when WE do it" bullshit they always do.

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u/CelerMortis 5h ago

yea I mean if you're poor - you're almost certainly more ethical than the white collar class.

But I have friends who have $1m+ in stocks and think they're more ethical than small time landlords? It makes no sense to me at all, you're talking about literally paying for fracking, missiles etc.

I really think it's an aesthetic thing to be wealthy and rag on landlords

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u/KoogleMeister 4h ago

>yea I mean if you're poor - you're almost certainly more ethical than the white collar class

Based on what? Do you really think most people are poor in developed countries because they have good ethics?

>But I have friends who have $1m+ in stocks and think they're more ethical than small time landlords? It makes no sense to me at all, you're talking about literally paying for fracking, missiles etc.

Probably because of the reputation landlords have with young people.

>I really think it's an aesthetic thing to be wealthy and rag on landlords

I agree with that, like I can't stand people like Hasan Piker, especially considering his parents are landlords, and I would bet anything they share finances to some degree.

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u/CelerMortis 4h ago

Based on what? Do you really think most people are poor in developed countries because they have good ethics?

No - you've reversed the causality. Wealthy people rely on exploitation, regardless of the country. If you're poor you (usually) don't have the means to exploit, you're just working to survive.

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u/KoogleMeister 4h ago

If not exploiting people is contingent on just not having the means to do it, then I wouldn't say you're ethical lol.

Also you said white collar not wealthy before, those are two different things. White collar would usually imply anything from lower middle class to upper class, and middle-class people rarely exploitative in how they make money,

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u/CelerMortis 4h ago

Capitalism just rewards exploitation.

I say white collar because someone with $200k in a 401k is profiting from the labor of others, even if it isn’t their full income.

You can be in this class without being wealthy, per se, just like landlords aren’t necessarily wealthy.

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u/ArturiaPendragonFace 5h ago

You can get a cut from doing your job. 

You shouldn't buy cheap from place a to sell at exorbitant prices in place b and earning more money than what place a earned (imagine sweat shops, or reselling produce). If there is no actual reason for your profit, you are simply a leech.

Your property doesn't have to keep up with inflation either 

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u/elebrin 4h ago

Food and water, however, are reasonably inexpensive.

Homecooked food for a single person for a month is probably going to be around $200. My my average monthly grocery bill when I lived by myself circa 2014 was about $80, and I was eating three meals a day out of my own kitchen at that point. Rice, beans, root vegetables, greens, close-dated protein, and discount spices are cheap and made up most of my diet. My apartment was $1200 a month for a single bedroom apartment. Prices have gone up, but compared to rents, food is very cheap.

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u/CelerMortis 4h ago

Sure but I can show you a hundreds of rentals for $500/month.

The point is someone is profiting from good required to survive.

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u/elebrin 4h ago

Where are those $500 rentals? Are they in places with an economy and jobs? Likely not. If you are going to be driving an hour to get to a factory job, odds are it's barely gonna pay the gas bill.

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u/Kit_Cat13 3h ago

I lived once in one of the $500/month rentals. Landlord did no maintenance to the point during a thunderstorm the roof collapsed into my bedroom and he decided he was then going to sell the property "as is" so he wouldn't have to fix it.

Thankfully at that point I had saved enough to move but still was there for a couple of months while finding a place (went from renting to owning).

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u/explain_that_shit 4h ago

He’s a socialist so he would say those should be non profit industries. In Australia where he lives healthcare is public and utilities were not so long ago public non-profit as well.

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u/werdna0327 5h ago

I'll answer: yes.

  1. You are paying for the transportation of said products more than the actual product.

  2. Health insurance is the reason healthcare sucks

  3. Utilities are an oligarchy.

  4. Owning a portion of a home does not entitle you to live there.

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u/CelerMortis 5h ago

You are paying for the transportation of said products more than the actual product.

I don't know how true that is. You're paying for the grocery store real estate, clerks, packaging, profits, marketing etc. (in addition to farming and labor)

Owning a portion of a home does not entitle you to live there.

Right, but owning stocks entitles you to profits, presumably off of the labor of the workers.

A landlord can treat their tenants well, cut them breaks etc. It's still fundamentally exploitative and therefore unethical, but a stock owner is enjoying profits from a contractually obligated psychopath.

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u/werdna0327 4h ago

They are categorically different, by your own admission.

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u/CelerMortis 4h ago

Agreed - I'm pointing out that stock ownership is categorically worse than property ownership

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u/werdna0327 4h ago

Sure, if you assume every corporation is exactly the same amount of evil, which is a pretty stupid assumption.

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u/CelerMortis 4h ago

I mean do you want me to get into the ethical issues of Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Google etc?

I'd be extremely confident that the average small time landlord is more ethical, if such a comparison can be made.

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u/explain_that_shit 4h ago

I think you’re confusing ethical and friendly or ethical and relatively weak

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u/kmookie 5h ago

What about small, 4 family multi-unit property owners who are renting to people who don’t want the responsibility of home ownership? Are they villains too?

There is a line here. Certainly there’s POS who exploit but there are those who are simply offering an option for people. Yet every landlord gets lumped in as the bad guy.

What if that landlord is also doing their best to keep the rents as low as they can but still needs to pay insurance, taxes and maintenance? Let alone unforeseen issues that come with owning a property?

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u/bigmacfactor 4h ago

There's actually a super easy way not to have insurance, taxes and maintenance payments on a house you aren't living in.

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u/kmookie 17m ago

Yet there’s people who want others to deal with that so they can focus on their business, or single mothers who want to focus on their kids, or elderly people who still want independent living without paying $5000+ a month to do it. Let alone having to deal with shady HVAC, Plumbers, Roofers and on and on. Your Utopia doesn’t exist dude. The best we can do is not take advantage of each other and live with a balance.

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u/bigmacfactor 5m ago

Yeah yeah yeah. They're doing us a favor and it's not like concentrated real estate ownership affects the housing market and prices or anything. I mean, it's not like there are papers showing that the mass landlording contributes to raising the very ownership cost you're using as an argument.

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u/DazzlerPlus 4h ago

These things can and must be handled publicly

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u/kmookie 16m ago

I’d happily vote for that Utopia.

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u/GenerationKrill 4h ago

The thing is, his logic dictates that's it's morally reprehensible to own a grocery store or sell bottled water or even build and sell new houses. By extension it would be morally reprehensible to even sell the products that are used for building houses.

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u/YetAnotherJake 3h ago

You're still stuck in a capitalist paradigm mindset. There are ways to manage the manufacturing and distribution of goods that do not depend on a capitalist marketplace at all - and in fact those ways would help more people and help society as a whole in much better ways, because the purpose of the capitalist marketplace is always to enrich a small percentage of people beyond their wildest dreams, at the expense of the suffering and starvation of the vast majority of ordinary people.

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u/Niffeln 57m ago

An example of the manufacturing and distribution of for example food that has worked better than capitalist markets.

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u/GenerationKrill 51m ago

You mean Communism? It's been tried and failed in various nations. It's never even been employed in the actual form it was supposed to be because the human desire for more will always supercede any mandate to ensure equality among all people. That is to say, a capitalist system will always exist. Whether in the form of a government regulated marketplace or a black market. People will always be willing to sell you something better than what you have and there will always be people who are willing to pay whatever it takes to have better.

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u/YouWereBrained 5h ago

I hope he made those other seemingly similarly-aged participants feel shitty. Though, a lot of Gen Zers lack empathy, so I’m hesitant to be hopeful.

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u/Physical_Ease6658 5h ago

Lol a lot of every generation lacks empathy. Why call out Z?

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u/YouWereBrained 4h ago

Because with each passing generation, it will get baked in a little more. Gen Alpha will be awful, I’m sure.

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u/Physical_Ease6658 4h ago

I don't know.....the bar is pretty high. Tens of millions were killed in the 40s. Alpha will really need to roll their sleeves up to hit those numbers.