> I have demonstrated (by the NYT calculator) to this list that
> cooperative housing - such as one in which I live - will always
> be financially better than buying a house.
You've done no such thing. What you "demonstrated" was that if you take the base assumptions of the NYT tool (which I claim are specious) and change the monthly rent to yours, the graph never converges. Holy crap, stop the presses! Wojtek spends less of his income on housing than most people! He's got a great deal, and he loves it!
What you have done is precisely (and with graphical impact!) compared an apple to an orange -- and you haven't even defined the orange!
You simply cannot compare an apartment to a house unless you conveniently ignore the very real differences. You can say: "I don't have utility for a back yard, a basement, four walls that aren't shared with neighbors and [unless you live on the top floor] a roof over my head that isn't someone else's floor -- and thus I refuse to pay for it" ... but you cannot say that, because of your choices, these two things are "the same" and compare only price.
You have demonstrated redness and smoothness. Bravo!
> I have also demonstrated that establishing a housing
> coop in the US is possible, and quite a number of folks have done so.
Quite a different point to make, and one I don't think anyone "disagrees" on (whatever that would mean).
/jordan