I'm in the highest percentiles of income in Sweden (public data is available) and it doesn't matter. It's basically impossible for me to afford a house / apartment for my family in the best neighborhoods.
What's the point? What is the point of trying to be a high performer if wealth can't be acquired by income? Why would I want to work for anyone in this country? Only way out is equity and that game is even harder to play in Sweden than in the US.
Sweden is full of old money, or at least it looks like that from a Finnish perspective. The problem with old money is that if you simply invest the money passively and don't do anything stupid, the next generation is going to be even richer. Both in relative and absolute terms.
Being able to live in the most desirable areas is based on relative wealth. If there is a lot of old money, it's harder to make it to the top in a single generation.
The usual tools for leveling the playing field are wealth tax and inheritance tax. I'm under the impression that Sweden abolished both a couple of decades ago.
A better solution is land value taxation because it hits those with old wealth the hardest whilst not distorting markets. Wealth tax and inheritance taxes can be gamed and avoided. Land cannot be moved or hidden. Now that a minority of people own land in many locales, this will soon be a politically acceptable policy.
Georgism made sense in the 1800s and it makes even more sense now.
Whenever I bring up the topic of Georgism or land value tax, people look at me like I am mentally ill. The idea of taxing the right to exclusive use over a piece of land - something that no human has ever put effort into existing - is so utterly foreign to most people. Unfortunate.
There was a reform of the German property tax system, since the federal constitutional court ruled that the old system was unfair. The current model allows the 16 states to set up their own system, if they wish so, and interestingly enough, Baden-Württemberg turned the property tax into an actual land value tax, taxing only the land value itself, not the real estate on it. Of course there was a documentary the other day about a land owner crying that he is forced to build more houses to rent out and cover the cost of the LVT. That was the point all along!
I disagree with it not being easy to understand, on the contrary it makes perfect sense to me. We have the vast earth we live on as humanity and all the land was here long before us and will be here long after we are gone. Now we divide some of this land up and give people exclusive rights to it. How is it not absolutely intuitive to pay everyone else, who is not allowed to use this land, a fee, rent or tax or however you might want to call it, as compensation? In turn, if you use less land to reach the same goal, i.e. you make better, more efficient use, you pay less, just like with any other resource.
The more common "rebuttal" I hear is "well the land lords will just slap it onto the rent, so no use", to which I ask "then why don't they ask for more rent already if the rentors would be willing to pay?"
Then again, people I talk with are against a wealth tax as well, claiming that property would be impossible to account for and value, meanwhile France and Switzerland, two neighbours, have no issues in that regard. At the same time, both Germany and Austria had a wealth tax until very recently.
I like your rebuttal, that is a very simple way to explain it. I’m not very good at explaining concepts so maybe my difficulties are with my method of explanation and not the subject.
I'm in Vancouver working remotely for an EU/US company because I couldn't get anything here. At $100k CAD, my partner and I wouldn't be able to afford a modest upgrade to a 1 bedroom condo... anywhere in the city (from a tiny basement studio) without significantly increasing our take home. The place I just visited would require $4000/m after a 20% down payment (which I don't have). If I double my savings in the next year, assuming I don't get laid off next week and go broke again, I'd have enough for a 5-10% down payment and hypothetically require mortgage insurance, plus still not be able to afford the mortgage.
But hey, at least the cops won't arrest me for openly smoking crack on the sidewalk, so that'll help me deal with the stress of trying to be a high performer.
Let me ask you, you live in one of the most beautiful regions on the planet, you work remote, why don't you get a place 2 hours away from the city or something like that? Nice quiet life, the beauty of the pacific northwest not even a bike ride away, cheaper to live, and you don't have to deal with the crackheads. What keeps you in the city?
It's an incredibly beautiful region, and that's definitely one of the options I'd consider if I was genuinely forced out, which I didn't mean to suggest I am, it's just that renting is the only viable option. 2 hours away though doesn't really solve that problem if I was trying to unfortunately; things don't get as more affordable as you'd hope.
But costs aside, the answer is that the people and things I do in the city are what bring my life substance, and being from the suburbs, it's a deeply isolating sort of existence that relies pretty heavily on having a car. I've personally never aligned with the idea of working remotely and isolating myself further; it would seem to me a recipe for depression.
I love being in nature, isolated and away from the city, at times, but not most of the time. I like leaving my place to walk to the grocery store, the cafe, and along the way being able to bump into people I know by name and ask them how things are going. I like walking to the gym, especially when it's raining (a lot), and having my small community of people there. Incredible food is nearby as well, concert venues, easy access to the airport, none if which I'm indulging in all the time but enough that it really brings flavour into my life.
I also like biking around, and for that there's actually quite a lot better infrastructure for in the city vs out, and it's easier to just get on a bus and go into the wilderness.
The crackhead comment was a bit flippant. I don't have a problem with anyone experiencing addiction, it's just a deep irony I find a little sad, akin to "instead of making it easier to build a life here, we'll just make it easier to fall out the bottom", though I know things are wildly more complex than that.
Lastly, aside from all those reasons, there are theoretically more job opportunities in the city, and that's good for my partner who doesn't work remotely and for me during the periods where there is no programming work.
To me, a good city is the culmination of social systems including capitalism that benefit from having more people around. A greater social circle of people available, more market, more jobs, more culture, better transit systems, art, etc..
Edit: I'd add the the only aspect of living in a city that's busy or particularly loud are automobiles, and to an extent the train. Very little of any generalized chaos is the result of many people ambiently being around, depending I guess on your individual tolerance for that and where specifically you might be. It's never once occurred to me that there are too many people around.
Back in the mid/late 90s Vancouver was affordable and a lot of flats being built. It was still more expensive that the suburbs, etc. but still cheaper than metros across the border. Sometime in the 2000s money started flowing in and those flats I was seeing in place like Kits for $150-$200k were suddenly going up a lot. Rents were also escalating. A lot seemed to be fueled by foreign money.
I was looking at relocating at the time and wish I had followed through.
This is wrong. Vancouver was never “affordable”. My family
moved to Vancouver in the mid-80s and it was by far the most expensive place in Canada. Prices had already climbed rapidly by the time we got there and prices never crashed for 40 years. At worst, it was flat for a few years.
Our 1000 sqft house in the West End was almost 300k in the mid-80s and our family was struggling financially but we were in the best school district so my parents made the sacrifice. It was almost double the price of a much larger house in suburbs of Toronto.
East Van was cheaper but still expensive relative to other cities. Vancouver house prices has always been a mystery because there is no inherent industry to pay for it. Locals blamed Asians but Germans were larger demographic in terms of immigrants but you couldn’t identify them as easily.
That's more or less true, it just wasn't so severe I think at a point. It was out of reach for my poor prairie single parent family, but that was for a giant single family house. If the circumstances prevailed in 2015 when I moved here, I definitely could have afforded even a pretty nice 1 bedroom condo outside of downtown.
Regarding east van where I live now, I went to an open house yesterday on commercial drive that was 1 bedroom for $750k facing west and looking at buildings that have been there at 1 story since maybe the 50s.
The gap is just so enormous, considering we rent a studio basement down the street for $1500 total.
For Vancouver's geography to be a legitimate concern, we would have needed to maximize what we could do with the existing land, and it's very, very far from that.
I would argue the latter 2 arguments have some bearing, but imo it's more about cheap capital coming in from many directions including locally for so long in combination with artificially choked and inflated development processes for decades. For example, there's a parking lot with an old grocery store sitting there at the busiest transit hub in the U.S and Canada. The proposal to redevelop the site has been repeatedly stalled every year for what is now 6-7 years, meanwhile only the most meager development projects have gone forward in the same neighborhood. That said, because of the other reasons, as soon as it hypothetically went up, all of the units would be purchased by speculators because they'd be wildly out of reach for any regular person anyway, due to decades of the other crap.
I went to an open house yesterday for a modest one bedroom with no interesting view or extravagant features, listed at $750k. When I remarked that the cost of the mortgage alone would be a multiple of 2.5 - 3x our current all-in expenses, he simply suggested that in 5 years I can just move out and hang on to it, renting it out to someone and keeping another unit off the market.
The geography wouldn't be a problem if maximizing use of the land was done. You point out the choked development processes, but other open geography locales would still have those bureaucratic problems in cases and yet just sprawl out elsewhere, reducing prices. Take a look at Houston, Dallas Fort-Worth, Calgary, Edmonton metros. There is a reason those metros have retained low housing prices while they have grown so much. They are able to grow out. Vancouver and SF are much more limited in their ability to grow out Single Family Homes when high-rise development is choked. That's why the geography issue does have bearing.
Meh, the greater Vancouver area including the adjacent cities have sprawled as far as they can and continue to do so; there's actually quite a lot of development happening in some of those suburbs, and they can be just lovely. The other cities you mention—if they've kept prices low—they're embracing an obviously horrible development pattern that only works because they have oil money and it hasn't collapsed yet. Smaller, less-resource-rich cities like Winnipeg have tried the same thing and literally couldn't afford to maintain their own infrastructure if all they had to pay for was road maintenance. Yes, you can buy a $400k condo there, but as they come to terms with the rate they're reaching insolvency, they'll need to find a way to very quickly turn what are already near the highest property taxes in the country, into 2-3x that number.
The geography is a constraint, the problem is failure to embrace the constraint in any sensible way. Prairie cities would be more economically productive and less horrible in my opinion if they halted outward expansion decades ago and just figured out how to adapt correctly.
Affordable from a west coast US salary. Vancouver has always made me shake my head re: tech salaries. It has capable engineers but pays a fraction from across the border. Back in the 90s/early 2000s, there was a lot of tech but it seemed more like a media center.
Ya that seems to be part of consensus, and consistent with what I'm seeing in terms of when some places were built.
The suburbs around Vancouver gradually decrease in price a bit, but for obvious reasons and not enough to make much of a difference. It's like going from $750k for a 1 bedroom to $550k for a 1 bedroom and that's sort of the spread within reason; an absurd gap to be sure I don't mind them, but I'm just thinking about it terms of being able to stay in my community for once.
I felt your pain. I live in Victoria and also make $100k but can't afford much more than a 1 bed without destroying our savings goals. Unfortunately my current job is hybrid and they won't let me go full remote. We plan to leave as soon as I find a new opportunity - despite loving living here by every other metric.
Victoria has an even more scarce rental market from what I understand too. It's one of those things that I hope will make it harder to keep people around if salaries don't go higher at an average company. $100k is great for a huge portion of everyday niceties and even some larger things—I didn't need to worry to much that a decent coffee grinder would damage me too much, or a trip—but not that one thing.
I'd also not necessarily describe it as pain, as much as like some hypothetical existential crisis. I'm not looking to buy a place at this moment, but when I consider the prospect of what happens if our landlords sell (giant house in east van), there aren't too mamy viable options.
> It's basically impossible for me to afford a house / apartment for my family in the best neighborhoods.
Why would you expect to be able to buy a family house/apartment in the best neighberhoods just because you are in the top income percentile? Wealth percentile matters.
I'm also in the top income percentile in Sweden, and I can basically buy 99.9% of all houses/apartments in Sweden, which I think should be enough for most people..
Can you explain me how the math works on this? Because I certainly can't afford 99.9% of the houses/apartments in Sweden.
Let's forget anything crazy. Let's just talk about a 70sqm apartment in Kungsholmen
and of course wealth percentile matters. In fact, I understand that way too well. How do you raise your wealth percentile then? The whole point people are raising is that it's hard to become wealthy in Sweden from income. Actually much harder than in other countries. It might have worked for you in the last 20 or 30 years. Not sure that means it will work for others the same way in the next 30 years.
>> I'm in the highest percentiles of income in Sweden (public data is available) and it doesn't matter. It's basically impossible for me to afford a house / apartment for my family in the best neighborhoods.
How is that possible? I am an immigrant who moved to Sweden at age 22, and I bought an apartment in Malmo after 2 years of savings in the center of Malmo. I wasn't in the top percentile, didn't get help from anyone else. It was entirely my own savings within that 2 years.
Maybe you shouldn't aim for center of Stockholm for your first home purchase...
Can't recommend this more. I moved out of Sweden and worked in UK tech for 7 years, earned a filthy amount of money, and are now moving back to Sweden to settle down.
So instead of contributing back to the Swedish welfare state that raised and educated you, you decide to move to a petrodollar country so you spend less on taxes. I get it. Sounds sustainable and not the least egocentric.
Unless he was an orphan and raised in a state orphanage, his parents already paid a lot of taxes, which presumably covered the education of their children?
This is the thing I'm always fascinated by in these stories - the complete lack of understanding for why not everyone can have everything in a particular place with finite resources.
> I'm in the highest percentiles of income in Sweden
Which one is it then? 80th? 90th? 99th? 99.5th?
> It's basically impossible for me to afford a house / apartment for my family in the best neighborhoods.
Which are the "best neighborhoods" in your mind? How many houses/apartments are there in those "best" neighborhoods?
Do you see why these numbers matter if you're trying to learn from this situation rather than just complain and pretend nothing is finite?
This looks like a common pattern at other places too: you won't get "best-neighborhood" wealth from being first- (or sometimes even second-)generation high achiever. The root cause seems to be that there are usually more high achievers than properties in good neighborhoods, and old wealth erodes slowly (may take a generation or two), so there is very little pressure for old occupiers to sell their properties.
Why would anyone sell a property that continues to rise in value? Rent it out and vote against all construction, so it gets more valuable all the time.
Not even Covid and 100% Remote seems to have stopped the trend.
Same is true for me in germany. I know a really wealthy guy inherited his money. I will never reach his level. I know people who have successful start-ups. They earn well, but they will not reach “old money” levels of wealth.
Why waste the money and effort to buy something in the "best" neighborhood?
Status symbol? Who cares. For the investment? It doesn't seem like you can afford it, nor need it. Just buy someplace you can afford and make a nice home for your family.
If there is a genuine reason why that neighborhood is the best for you and yours, then ofcourse that is a different matter.
In cities like Stockholm the inner city is usually very expensive. I personally love European inner city life. I was raised like that. I like the commerce, the shops, the noise, the casual cycling, subway transportation. Essentially everything.
It's a very specific lifestyle that only exists in an area of 10 to 15 sqkm.
Outside the city center neighborhoods are essentially dorms.
Being European I have traveled to plenty of it's cities. I don't think I would want to live in the city centers of any of them. And there is really no need for it. Walkability and public transport is usually exceptionally good.
My observation of Stockholm as a tourist is that it is really easy to get around there on a bike, so I don't see the need to live smack in downtown where the price is going to be the highest (especially when you can't afford it).
I could. I have zero attachment to places. But it would be though on my wife and daughter (who both are Swedes, I'm the only immigrant)
And not everyone is equally poor. Sweden has one of the highest number of Billionaires per capita in Europe.
In fact wealth inequality (not income inequality) is almost as high as russia.
> You can't claim "wait times" as a positive of letting a bunch of people die or go bankrupt
i already covered that under 'access' . If you have access then USA has much lower wait times. Its postive to the people who have access. Your implication that wait times are just natural consequence of more access is also not right.
"Commonwealth Fund ranked Canada last among 11 countries surveyed on wait times for specialist care. the Commonwealth Fund’s survey results show that other universal health care systems (eg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and France) have much shorter wait times than Canada does."
"Canada has 35% fewer acute care beds and per capita than the United States ... "
> Quality is just not true
If you want the most cutting edge medical care then USA is the no 1 destination for people all over the world.
"The United States ranks 4th in the World Index of Healthcare Innovation, with an overall score of 54.96, behind only Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. Americans are usually the first to gain access to major new medical advances, advances often discovered at American universities and developed by American companies. As a result, the U.S. ranked first for both Choice (57.65) and Science & Technology (75.14)."
> If you want the most cutting edge medical care then USA is the no 1 destination for people all over the world.
That's a bit like saying "you can find the cleanest air in the world in California". In remote locations in the desert or wilderness that's plausibly possible, but the vast majority of people live in cities with substantial air pollution. Likewise, most Americans do not have access to cutting edge medical treatments and endure what I would generously call apathetic care from their medical providers. What is available to a celebrity or Saudi prince will never be available to you or any other American you ever meet.
> Most Americans ... endure what I would generously call apathetic care from their medical providers.
I call BS with "most Americans" or "apathetic care". Feel free if you want to share your anecdote. My personal experience and those I know though, is that the care is top notch. Cutting edge treatment? well I don't know, I was lucky not needing any of that. It's also probably more expensive compared to other countries. However our of pocket pay is very reasonable, and the level of care is excellent.
> What is available to a celebrity or Saudi prince will never be available to you or any other American you ever meet.
Generic Comments like these are really tiresome. One of my extended family member on medicare got BAT therapy [1] after all other options were exhausted. This is cutting edge therapy thats not available in other parts of the world where you are out of luck when all SOC options are exhausted.
If you get advanced prostate cancer in USA you get something called 'triplet therapy' [2] which most parts of world like NHS, canada don't get this despite improved outcomes.
Killing people is bad is not a feeling. I'm sure you can find some rational logic to justify it, but that doesn't make it ok, it just makes you feel less bad about it.
All your philosophy and shallow responses like "not true" will go out the window in a second . You will understand what quality means when your family cannot have that life saving drug that's been available in USA for years or has to die early from cancer because they couldn't get radiation in time.
Ofcourse any troll can pretend on the internet that they will sacrifice their child to cancer wait times because their healthcare system is objectively better .
Stop strawmanning. I already acknowledged Canada's system needs to be better.
Waitlists can be solved. A system that is fundamentally discriminatory can't.
I'm glad you got the care you needed, but in order for you to get that care several others were discriminated against and denied care. That's a failure of the system. No matter how good the care you got was, the system failed.
i mentioned characteristics of each system that are superior to other. A perfect system would be the best of both. I have family in UK that travels to india to get lutetium 177 ( a prostate cancer drug) privately because it has not been approved in NHS. A FDA approved drug that's been SOC for PC in USA for past 3+ years( even to medicare, not just saudi princes like someone else suggested). USA subsidies rest of the world by paying for drug research and getting first dibs in return.
You are responding with childish troll responses like "not true" "can be solved" and feel no need to justify with any logic or stats. I regret engaging with you in good faith (shouldve checked your post history).
I don't even know what you're trying to say. The US system is to let poor people die and medium class people go bankrupt. There is no argument you can make that will redeem that. Yes, Canada's healthcare system has problems, but it's not fundamentally flawed.
What's the point? What is the point of trying to be a high performer if wealth can't be acquired by income? Why would I want to work for anyone in this country? Only way out is equity and that game is even harder to play in Sweden than in the US.