Homelessness was on the rise even before the pandemic

Thanks for this, a good historical perspective.

Perhaps a reasonable terminology for what I have termed China's dual public-private system (which the CPC call "socialism with Chinese characteristics"). I would like to know if PBofC operations mimic MMT; while perhaps the CPC are your beloved geoists...

True, but I don't equate the CPC with a privileged elite, indeed that's why the Chinese civil war was fought, to free the nation from privileged property holders.

However, as you know, I don't give a s*** about free markets, my interest in fair markets, hence why I think China appears to be on the right development track.

But you are right - Western free markets with their low-wage slavery and entrenched unemployment are certainly a problem in the West.

Yes, but HK conceals low-wage people paying exorbitant rents for coffin-sized accommodation.

 

No, they have largely drunk the debt-money Kool-Aid.

No; if they were geoists, they would make some effort to recover the full publicly created rent of land from leaseholders, and to make just compensation for the removal of people's rights to liberty by the exclusive landholding system. AFAICT they are nominally socialist political pragmatists who lucked into the Hong Kong model by sheer historical accident. Deep down, they have no idea why their system has been so successful, and consequently don't know how to keep it successful.

The CPC is definitely a de facto privileged elite, and many of the top brass have become wealthy through landholding (most of the rest through corruption). China is different in that the law says one thing, and practical reality says something entirely different.

No, China is transferring increasing quantities of wealth to landholders in return for nothing, and even making HK do likewise. That didn't take long, did it?

They are not free markets. That is very much the point.

True: they lucked into the geoist model by historical accident, have no idea why it works so well, and are not even attempting to implement it consistently.

 

That's easy: stop forcing producers and consumers to subsidize the privileged, especially landowners.

 

I see. So you are justifying the CCP's totalitarian actions.

How is that not like Fascism, again?

Yes, those pesky citizens, with political and economic ideas of their own...

 

Could you explain to us what you mean by Hong Kong having a "geoist" model?

 

Public ownership of land, private ownership of products of labor.

 

But the public doesn't own the land - Govt does.

 

How else could public ownership be implemented in law? Who can act for the public more legitimately than the government that represents it (granted HK is not very democratic any more)?

 

What do you mean by 'act for'? Because people are perfectly capable of deciding their own level of engagement with property ownership. There is no need for any agency to 'act for' the people in this area. In fact, any 'acting for' would probably be more like 'controlling and limiting', which is antithetical to democracy.

 

Which is the better basis for governance: individual self-interest to maximize personal gains without regard for the well-being of others ...as in the US; or development with community cohesion and universal well-being as the goal?

 

Specifically? Detroit and Baltimore at their peak in late '60's. Cars and steel (respectively) suddenly unable to compete with Asian products. What type of secure middle-class-wage creation could have prevented the catastrophic loss of population from the 70's on, in both cities?

 

Tax privilege instead of production, and restore workers' rights to liberty.

Because producers were forced to subsidize the privileged, especially landowners.

There's your blind spot: you think high wages are necessary because you refuse to see the alternative to our high-production-tax, high-land-rent, high-living-cost institutional arrangements.

 

Secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of.

Except that their liberty to do so has been forcibly stripped from them and converted into the private property of the privileged, especially landowners. See, you talk a big "socialist" game, but you are really just another disingenuous apologist for private capitalist landowner privilege.

You think everyone can secure their own rights?? BWAHAHAHAAAAA!!!

No, that's nothing but your usual puerile, "Meeza hatesa gubmint!" nonsense.