I hope they train AI with this.

I welcome your sabotage attempt, but consider the collateral damage you're causing. I sprained a few neurons reading your comment.

Fact-check that, Sugar-Mountain!

still going to undercut the competition as best I can

I and surely many others thank you for that. I didn't mean to criticize your goodwill; instead I wanted to stress that our housing crisis is a systemic issue and that fixing it is beyond our individual choices and requires policy.

If I charge $675 a month and the competition jumps their price to $1,000 a month, who is everyone going to come to?

You will get, among others, people who can afford $675 but not $1000. Compared to people who can afford $1000, people who can afford $675 but not $1000 are more likely to find themselves or already be in a precarious financial situation, which could mean missing rent payments. Compared to people who can afford $1000, people who can afford $675 but not $1000 are also more likely to suffer from mental illness as a consequence of their more precarious financial situation, which could mean neglected facilities, conflict with other tenants, pests and a host of other issues for you, the landlord.

You may be willing to both forego higher rent income and assume the increased likelihood of financial losses, and that would make you a good person, but not everyone is — at least not to the extent necessary to make that choice.

If the competition suddenly goes to $3,000 a month and I stay at $675, and I maintain my place so it isn't a shit hole, I'll have lines around that block of people wanting to rent.

Given the housing crisis in many of our cities and towns, you likely already have loads of people ready to rent your property, with enough reliable tenants among them. More applicants won't benefit you, because you already have enough reliable tenants. What are you going to do with all the additional applicants? Screen each and every one of them to pick the very best one? One that is marginally more reliable than you would otherwise have found?

In fact, raising rent and prices often serves as a sort of ‘customer filter’. Instead of screening your applicants in depth, you can just check their financials and safely assume that whoever can afford a monthly rent of $3000 is also a reliable tenant.

You seem to assume a rental market made up of individual landlords. Although that is a reality in some places, most properties are rented by for-profit corporations. Such corporations compete against each other for capital; they need money from investors and investors want returns. Whenever such a corporation foregoes profit, another usually takes it and uses it to expand, often acquiring its smaller peers. Over time, this sort of natural selection yields the most ruthlessly profitable corporations.

The problem here is not that individuals make the wrong choice, but rather the framework in which they operate, the systemic incentives.

Dieses Geld verschwindet nicht. Rentner geben den Großteil ihrer Rente wieder aus, und zwar bei Geschäften, die auf diese Einnahmen (hoffentlich) Steuern zahlen. Das, was Rentner sparen, vererben sie.

Das Problem ist nicht, dass wir ein immer höherer Anteil unserer Gehälter zur Rentenversicherung beitragen müssen, sondern die immer noch zu wenig besprochene Tatsache, dass unsere Gehälter entweder zu wenig wachsen oder gar stagnieren. Unsere Gehälter entsprechen jedenfalls nicht unserer Produktivität, also dem wirtschaftlichen Ertrag, den wir unseren Arbeitgebern bringen. Ein immer größerer Teil der Früchte unserer Arbeit behalten unsere Arbeitgeber.

My point still stands

Yes, it does, and I agree with it. I should have stated as much in my comment. I didn't because I generally prefer upvotes to “well argued” or “I agree”.

respected foreign news source like Le Monde or Die Welt

Die Welt is not or should not be respected. It belongs to Axel Springer SE, a European media corporation comparable in both reach and tone to Fox News Media in the United States.

Die Welt's latest controversy –one among many– saw them publish an opinion piece by Elon Musk endorsing the AfD, which further legitimized the party and weakened the already debilitating cordon sanitaire around it.

In the German-speaking world, Die Welt is mocked as the “wannabe's Bild”. Bild is a tabloid published by the same company that constantly engages in both misinformation and disinformation. Although Die Welt isn't as blatant as its tabloid sibling, it still pushes a disingenuous narrative and should be avoided.

Musk may blame any problems on a made up cyberattack again, painting himself and his political associations as victims of a censorship campaign and denying the real technical issues that have been appearing and worsening since his takeover and which might otherwise scare away even more advertisers.

Germany, too, is poised to follow suit at the upcoming elections in February.

Since the US election I have been hoping for a fallout with Trump as Musk's Icarus moment, but I would be willing to forego the symbolism. I like your direct approach to the matter.

Please, I beg you — South Africa has enough problems as it is. Can he not go to Mars instead? He has always been very enthusiastic about the planet and he would be safe from the “woke virus” he so dreads — a win for everyone?

The price of goods going down is not contained to one country. […] Deflation would be global.

That contradicts both present reality and future expectations as far as I understand both.

In the past two years, China has been grappling with deflationary tendencies at the same time that much of the world has been experiencing extraordinary inflation.

China's current deflationary tendencies stem from a combination of relatively low domestic demand and an ongoing decrease in exports. This decrease in exports was mostly caused by US protectionism, which is set to expand in both rates and scope under Trump.

Looking forward, the divergence I aluded to –deflation in China, inflation elsewhere– seems poised to continue. Further protectionism and the looming tariff war –not only with China, but possibly with Canada, Mexico and others– are expected to both fuel inflation in the United States and further reduce imports of Chinese goods. That would strengthen deflationary tendencies in China unless the government pulls off a stimulus package for their domestic economy more effective than the ones deployed thus far.