It’s an intersting contradiction trying to square what seems to be two completely different approches to housing. You seem to be mainly concerned with having stable housing on your own terms as your priority. This article seems to be targeted toward those whose priority is capital gains. While you and I see a house as a place to live, the market sees housing as a financial asset and the main financial asset available to the average person. Through that lens, this article demonstrates that one could actually lose money on their investment instead of gaining it implying it would be better to invest elsewhere.

The own nothing and like it model works very well for plutocrats since what they “own” are valuable financial assets which can be leveraged to borrow as much tax-free cash as they want for as long as they live, using their unlimited credit to borrow more cash to pay back the loans until they die. A step below that are people who understand that it’s always better to risk the bank’s money than one’s own and live their lives on credit as well. That’s all the capitalists who can basically live through arbitrage. The model breaks down a bit for us workers who are expected to behave like capitalists but without access to the credit that comes from the social classes described above. There are some people who luck out doing this, but this system was not made for regular people. I personally would rather live like a person with a house.

I’m generally opposed to the majority activity of the finance industry over at least the last century which is responsible for significantly more damage to society and individuals than all serial killers combined. Fund management, while not necessarily directly involved in those particular arrangements, directly represent and support the institutions responsible for those arrangements. Responsibility is of course very vague since the goal of those participating in the finance industry is to profit rather than to cause harm; it’s just the nature of large investment which incentivizes a kind of ruthlessness in business which has caused a number of discrete tragedies as well as many ongoing issues which could possibly wipe out the majority of humans.

Edit: Got my wires crossed. I was thinking of Brokers rather than Fund Managers. I have much less of an issue with small scale finance and those kinds of funds for small and moderately sized businesses. Still room for bad behavior but I wouldn’t now make a blanket denunciation as I made above.

The industry is going to remain apathetic until public pressure makes it financially necessary for them to invest in better PR and maybe hire a few more women. However, I feel like if more people were aware enough of the fund management industry to notice and care about a gender imbalance in hiring, they would probably put pressure on the industry for more fundamental reasons. My first thought was that women remain a minority of serial killers as well.

I linked their site in my post. It’s a foss game engine which has been used in a few charming indie games I really liked.

I’ve been thinking about making a text based game with Yarn Spinner as a total beginner myself. Chatgpt giving me immediate code on request has bolstered my confidence to branch out as well.

It’s always important to take a step back and consider that the mega-rich exist in a totally separate reality than the rest of us do. They were raised in a way that they were never forced out of infancy into adulthood like the rest of us were. I hope that eventually we realize that it’s not responsible to allow major institutions to be under the control of adults whose worldview has never progressed since the time they were toddlers.