> leech the society for the rest of their lives

Would these houses even be built if someone is not paying for them. They are not leeching but investing. May be we could call it leeching when they form a cartel and start raising rent prices in unison (which only biggies like black rock can do).

If tax breaks are there to be availed, why wouldn't anyone avail them. Does anyone pay more tax than they are legally obligated to ? It doesn't make much sense because the house prices already account for tax breaks, low interest rates and high rents. If one is to voluntarily to reduce rent or pay more tax or take higher interest loans, they would just be making losses and won't be in business for long. Many of these are not individual choices. They are choices of the market as a whole. Of course you can certainly get lawmakers to remove these tax breaks but till then no sane person would pay more tax even if they are progressive leaning in beliefs (not to mention most tax money goes to military spending so its not like paying taxes is even good by default).

The tax breaks are popular because they're advertised as making it easier for people to buy homes; in fact as you say they get priced in and so end up pushing up prices and making it harder for people to buy homes.

"No sane person would voluntarily refrain from exploiting tax loopholes" is the same kind of argument as "no sane person would voluntarily spend money to avoid damaging the environment". In fact there are plenty of people with a decent moral compass who do exactly that.

Tax breaks are written for two major purposes: giveaways to influential donors and incentives to take certain actions.

Rarely are they exclusively the second, but landlords get to deduct the economic costs of doing business. Loan interest and property taxes cost money, buildings and fixtures wear out (but the land does not). Maintenance costs money. Landlords have the ability to deduct these costs of doing business against rental income just like every other profit-seeking business does.

Can you name a tax loophole for small-time landlords that you think is improper in the context of a tax system which taxes profits?

You're begging the question; the fact that regular people are taxed on their gross income while the rich get to be taxed only on their profits is a big injustice in the first place. But on top of that: that rental properties are usually an investment that grows in value, so that's where a lot of the expenses you mentioned actually go, but they're deductible as business expenses; unrealistically high depreciation is also often deductible.

> the fact that regular people are taxed on their gross income while the rich get to be taxed only on their profits is a big injustice in the first place.

In many countries (including the two I've lived in as an adult) regular people get to make deductions for stuff like the cost of commuting to work, work clothes or equipment (to the extent that's not supplied by their employer), etc. By "deductions" here I mean, subtracting this money[1] from their pre-tax income and have their income tax calculated on what's left. In effect, getting taxed only on "the profits from work".

Surely even the USA must have some similar thing?

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[1]: Often implemented as a default deduction anyone can make without proof; if your outlies are larger, save the receipts and deduct the actual amount. This general-deduction-amount at least used to be high enough that most people benefited from just checking the box to use it.

You can deduct costs that are narrowly specific to your job. But for most regular people the biggest costs of working are the rent/mortgage cost of having to live near a centre of employment, and perhaps the cost of a vehicle which they use for commuting, and neither of those is deductible.

This is why I make sure to turn over my portfolio every year, to avoid favorable tax treatment.

Assuming this is not sarcasm, why not make that extra buck and donate whatever savings you make to what ever cause you see fit. It's odd to trust the government to use your money more prudently than yourself.

It's not odd at all; it's what actually believing in democracy means.

The rise of passive investing and FIRE is just a natural consequence of the "infinite" bull market and resulting widening equality gap.

Whether it goes down in a gradient to common people like FIRE folks, or is strictly restricted to the higher classes, someone will position themselves to profit from the Fed policies. I don't see how they can be blamed. Blame the people that create these economic conditions, because they and their friends certainly aren't benevolently leaving profits on the table, they're grabbing everything they can.

Isn't it likely that this is happening at a larger scale by private equity firms, REITs, and other commercial organizations? I don't see how FIRE is anything more than a drop in the bucket.

People buying houses and renting them to others to live changes ownership stats but does not increase homelessness, at least not in an obvious way. If a housing unit is occupied by N people, that’s N people who aren’t homeless because of that unit.

Buying additional houses and then not renting them out would contribute to homelessness as that unit would be housing 0 people.

> If a housing unit is occupied by N people

He might be referring to the problem that the landlord has a subsidized mortgage whereas the renter is paying by earning money from the circulating economy.