So as long as someone somewhere is making money off it, it wouldnt bother you if 50% of houses were empty? 60% 80%?

it's difficult to imagine a system more complex, bureaucratic, and inane than the one we have now. Who would build houses if they were "arbitrarily seized" by those in need? I have a few answers to this but I see your question as mere deflection, whats important now is filling the tens of thousands of houses that sit empty. Wayne county had 12000 houses up for tax auction last month. 12000! and thats only a fraction of empty houses there.

Obviously, if a house is vacant, no one is making money off it. It's still an asset - an asset that costs a significant amount to maintain, I might add, including property taxes and maintenance. Are your random people off the street going to pay those property taxes, or would you rather have the bank on the hook for them? If your solution is "no taxes", then where is school funding coming from?

That - IMO - is the problem with a lot of what you suggest, Sic. It's not that you don't necessarily think long term, it's that you absolutely refuse to look at any possible negative consequences for the ideas you put forth. How does that make you any different than a Global Warming Skeptic that refuses to accept the preponderance of the evidence that, gee, yup, something is going on.

"Who would build houses if they were "arbitrarily seized" by those in need? I have a few answers to this but I see your question as mere deflection"

And I see your lack of an answer as admitting what you propose is unfeasible. But it sure sounds nice to the press in your documentary, I bet.

All the people we've helped move in to vacant houses pay the property taxes, and all utilities. they also have community gardens in their yards to feed themselves and neighbors. We're working on building vertical access windmills for the houses as well.

"who would build the houses"

thats not even close to a relevant question when we have so many houses. In toledo there is 7 empty homes for every 1 homeless person. and you're worried about who will build more? are you playing devils advocate or are you just bent on solbing problems that dont need solutions?

see your problem is your looking for a solution within the framework of a system thats fundamentally broken. You dont worry about how many buckets you have when your milk cow just died.

lol I can see you standing on the side of the road with your flaming car, crying about how you dont know how you're gonna drive to the gas station now.

"hats not even close to a relevant question when we have so many houses"

It will be in ten years. Or do you think both the financial system and the homelessness problem will be vastly different in ten years?

@Sicarius - Who pays for the damage done to these homes by the squatters? Yes, damage is done. It's unavaoidable and called "wear and tear" and somebody hass to do the repairs. And what if the property owner managed to sell the house and the new owners decided to live in it? Are you going to give it up willingly to the *rightful* owner? Or will they have to spend additional time, energy, and money to evict the squatters and, in turn, risk the squatters lives when law enforcement gets involved. I know if I were the new owner, I'd just come in with a couple friends, all of us armed with shotguns, and clean house as it were.

Right, give those dirty poor people what they deserve!

I think I understand where you're coming from alot better now draug

The shotguns would be a scare tactic and deterrent. Nothing more, Sic. I'm not a murderer. But I believe the ranchers of the old west had it right when they defended the property and their herds.

Then why are you defending the banks? The ranchers of the old west most certainly would have defended their home from theft by bank.

"Through this world I've traveled, I've seen lots of funny men. Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen"

Sic, why don't you go to some place where there's nothing and start your utopia there. Why do you need the rest of the world to change, give you their houses and so on...

All these houses you want to take and share - they were build in this rotten capitalist regime - they are evil, smell of money and property rights. The roads, utilities, everything that has to be paid for should be left behind.

Let's all live like the nomadic tribes of the past, they were the peak of human civilization...

The ranchers of the old west paid their bank notes so they didn't worry about losing their ranches. Pay your bills and the bank won't take your home. It's real fucking simple. And squatters have no right to a home they neither purchased no rented at any point in their history. If they really want a place to stay, there are homeless shelters or they can go to jail/prison for trespassing. They'll be kept warm and fed there.

Sic, do you feel banks offer a useful function in society, or are they - by definition - evil?

Its amusing to watch people try to actually entertain discussions with poor Sicarius's marshmallow mind.

@Jack - I disagree with many of the positions Sic holds, but he is at least consistent. I don't ask him questions with the expectation I will persuade him, but because I have a hard time grokking him.I'd give him points for sincerity, but I thought the same way about Bush prior to 9-11, which only goes to prove 'sincerity' and 'logical' or 'in society's best interest' don't necessarily correspond

I might not be in complete agreement with Sic on a lot of things, but we're certainly on the same page with this: there's something very wrong with a society that kicks productive people out of their homes and into the street and leaves the house vacant for months or years. I think it's very sad that aside from Sic, the main reaction to this seems to be a lot of shoulder-shrugging and a collective "oh well, I guess that's just the way things work".

Is NO ONE pissed off that Angelo Mozilo is sailing his private yacht in the Bahamas right now laughing his ass off while your neighbors are losing their home because they were dumb enough to believe Mozilo's underlings who told them real estate never depreciates, and that teaser rate could be continued indefinitely with a simple refinance in a few years? Lots of people obviously made bad decisions when it comes to housing. But most of those bad decisions were the result of being fed bad AND FALSE information from people who profited from those mistakes. There's something really sick about a society that wants to place all the blame on the people who are losing everything and none of it on the people who seduced them to ruin in order to make a fast buck.

A john catches an STD... Whose to blame? The hooker who "seduced" him? Or the john who went looking for it in the first place?

That depends... did the hooker disclose that she (or he - don't want to discriminate!) was an STD carrier?

Lets say she had them sign a waiver but downplayed the possibility she/he might have one. Maybe she/he didn't know she/he did at that moment. But she/he still provided the disclaimer and the john refused to head it. He/she saw explosive "fun" in his/her future and it didn't matter that there were risks.

If you enter into a business deal and don't careful research what you are getting into, it's your own fucking fault.

"If you enter into a business deal and don't careful research what you are getting into, it's your own fucking fault."

A lot of people did carefully research what they were getting into. And you know what? All the research said one thing - BUY! All the TV talking heads were saying it. So were the newspapers. The real estate industry, of course, was on board. The punditocracy said that prices were going to go up forever, and if you didn't buy now, you'd never be able to afford a house. Where I lived, everyone had a friend during the Oughts who told everyone they knew that their house had doubled in value and were using the additional equity to buy new cars and take expensive vacations. And everyone had another friend who was suddenly making six figures with no education as an agent and/or broker. How many times did you hear someone say that "Real Estate never loses value!" - a baldfaced lie (which most in California who remember the great recession of the early '90s likely remember), but how many products of the government school system do you think really have the skills and self-confidence to personally research and debunk it? The only people who knew, understood, and were willing to say that there was a massive real estate bubble were denounced as kooks, nutjobs, and party poopers. Who would want to listen to them?

It's like picking up a prostitute after your doctor, priest, and sainted grandmother all tell you it's the best thing for you, the seductress tells you she's a virgin, and the only discouraging voice is the wino who sleeps on the bus bench. I'm a pretty smart guy, and as a longtime lewrockwell.com reader I knew the bubble was going to burst sooner or later in a big way. But I was still tempted by the slick real estate salesmen ("sure, you can afford a house worth ten times your annual income!") and the cute bank tellers constantly telling me I was pre-approved for a loan that could get me out of the shitty 400 square foot unheated/un air-conditioned roach-infested apartment I was stuck in for 12 years.

It sounds an awful lot like you're in favor of a world where getting ahead is a function of one's ability to bend the truth, manipulate others, and generally be unscrupulous. And those who aren't paranoid or smart enough to divine all the ways they're about to get screwed by those 43 pages of 8-point legalese wind up in the gutter. Is that really the world you want to live in?