You need sound logic against the evils of neo-liberalism, there's nothing logic about housing being as expensive as it now is.

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tirant 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The logic is defined by demand. Currently Berlin is under high demand, and that’s why drives prices up. On top of that many rents, around 12% are paid by the job center, which also drives prices up. That’s around 250.000 housing units paid by someone else’s money. That’s the scandal.

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paganel an hour ago | parent [-]

> Currently Berlin is under high demand, and that’s why drives prices up

Yeah, I know the written logic of all this, but as things stand right now we didn't have homelessness East of the Wall back in the day, while the West had. That should have been reason enough to throw all this capitalist and pervert logic under the bus, but I understand how come the highly paid programmers in here are happy with the current economic system, homelessness be damned. Which is to say, you're telling me nothing new.

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tirant an hour ago | parent [-]

Do you know why there was not homelessness in the DDR?

Because it was forbidden by law. You were forced to be put in an institution or directly went to prison. Check Section 249 of the DDR Criminal Code.

And by the way, the DDR suffered from chronic housing shortage. People were cramped in barracks with not bathroom and no heating. Technically housed but in actually povert level of housing. It was an absolute disaster.

	▲	paganel an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> Because it was forbidden by law. You were forced to be put in an institution or directly went to prison Seems like a very good law, don't you think? And this reminded me of how come one of my favorite childhood books from when I was 3 or 4 here in Romania was about DDR constructors building apartment flats, loved that book and loved the spirit behind it. > People were cramped in barracks with not bathroom and no heating There were? Back in the '70s and '80s? You sure? I don't remember it that way here in Romania back in the '80s, and I know that the DDR had a much better economic condition than us, Socialist Republic of Romania.

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giacomoforte 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a reflection of the demand from people who want to live in Berlin.

	▲	698969 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Correction: It's a reflection of demand from people who already live in Berlin. That's who were allowed to vote in the referendum. They don't care about the elasticity of the market, or the demand from people who would want to live in Berlin in the future. They already have an apartment, and at pretty low prices because nearly everything built before 2014 is subject to rent control, I'd guess most people just voted for it because in their eyes "government promised to take apartment from my landlord and lower my rent even more".