Pretty sure the people who own flats and houses around here and rent them out at ridiculous prices had no part in actually devloping the buildings. You know, since buy-to-let is a thing with it's own specific mortgages.
Well they do something. Management is still a thing, and the people who
did develop the housing had to be paid.
What makes a rent price ridiculous in your mind? To me, if people are willing to pay a price for a house to be able to live there then that's not a ridiculous price. If people aren't willing to pay the price, then the renter will have to choose between lowering the price or losing out on rent money altogether. It works itself out in the end.
A rental price may not be to your specific liking, but the economy doesn't work like that. You can't just say "this is how much I think is fair" and have everybody bend over backwards to bow to your specific whim. Otherwise you would have to have a completely separate system for micromanaging who deserves to have what thing based upon what merit or credit they have, and it would end up looking an awful lot like money anyway.
Capitalism is the natural way of things. The only other way is to limit human expression and freedom. Suppose we live in some world where everybody has the same exact amount of property, but different skill sets. And suppose my skill set is building nice houses. Well everybody has the same house, but I start building my house to be way nicer than everyone else'. Some of my friends look on in wonder and jealousy, because they want the nicer thing. Because humans always want the nicer thing. There's never a point where you just say "this is enough." So I tell them I'd love to help, but if I start helping then I'd have to sacrifice time I was going to use for other things. They say that's okay, we'll barter for your time! You give us house building and we'll give you something in return. Ta-da! Commerce and capitalism is born. The only way to stop that is to say no, Lili, you can't build nice houses for yourself or anyone else. It's not "fair".
Society has only gotten to where it is today because of ambition. If you can't be better than you used to be, then there's no ambition. We see this even today in communist countries where their artists are floundering. Everything is owned by the government so the people say why bother? I'm not just making this up! I've talked to a couple artists from North Korea about this and that was their exact sentiment.
I'm the big spoon, you have to be dumb equal spoons!
I can't figure out panning
and it's cool that she wants to understand you better, but as you say I don't think that's sufficient motivation to really progress in it.. I only got anywhere because I was working towrads a result *I* wanted to achieve
I guess there are lots of things besides pans that you nest in each other. Measuring spoons and cups, matryoshka dolls, baking tins. But the point I was making is that there doesn't necessarily have to be a bigger spoon.
