[quote=CA renter]Not sure what you mean by your last two paragraphs???

Anyway, my personal belief is that basic necessities should not be controlled by a handful of people — whether it’s real estate, water rights, medicine, food, clean air, etc. Private property is fine, but control of finite resources leads to problems with monopolies and manipulative speculation which can cause great injury to many people who are powerless to do anything about it.

I personally prefer finite basic resources that constitute basic necessities either be owned/controlled by a democratic government or heavily regulated by the government. Yes, this includes real estate — a nation’s most precious finite resource, IMHO.[/quote]

I sort of see what you are saying that you believe. I think you are treating real estate investor speculators as less valid without any reasonable dis-qualifiers compared to other speculators when there really is no argument for moral or social value distinctions, given current realities.

Nationhood is about controlling finite resources for the few more than any other institution in the world. Let’s get rid of that. I think about the world back when there were real cultural differences and geography meant something more than what military or economic strategies could be imposed. Those days are gone. Why pretend we people of the world are different from each other anymore?