Biden is going to announce a national rent cap. 😂
It’s like no one in that admin ever took a basic Econ course. Either that or at this point they’re just throwing populist crap at the wall trying to win votes.
Absurd.
@Smersh Every time someone suggests doing _anything_ that will help people who are struggling with rent or health care or safety, we're told that it is naive or "against economics 101" for that to happen.
Why?
Why do you think rent control is bad? I'm not saying it's good. I'm just wondering why everyone is so well-trained to assume that anything that might _help_ someone is the province of the naive, who "don't know how the economy works."
@Smersh
I know how our economy works. It creates artificial scarcity to enforce control and slavery so an elite can benefit. Do we like that?
@AskTheDevil yes. Thus why creating even more artificial scarcity is stupid.
Rent control literally leads to higher rents, this has been shown time and again. The only solution to lower rents is to increase supply of housing.
@Smersh If rent control is what leads to higher rents, then why do people in rent-controlled apartments end up homeless or paying much higher rent if they lose them, plus everyone else's rent goes up, but without rent control, everyone's rent goes up anyway?
People need houses. We keep building houses only the wealthy can afford, and they're not.
Whatever we have done has not worked, but rent control has kept people out of the gutter.
What do you propose instead? If you could set policy?
@AskTheDevil @Smersh
Sorry to step in...
But question...
Most of the scarcity of apartments in cities like NYC are currently due to corporate holdings of apartments to sell on AirBnB? They but up available housing then three false scarcity raises everyone else's rent...
Same with housing... Blackrock and other private equity are driving the housing scarcity...
Standard economic ethos doesn't play well during such huge conglomerates of wealth and monopolies?
https://jacobin.com/2024/05/single-family-homes-rentals-wall-street
@InvaderGzim do not trust Jacobin with anything economics related. Corporate owned single family homes are less than 1% or something of all homes in the US. I agree single family homes should probably have to be titled in the name of a person, but it's not really a problem yet.
The easiest way though is to undo whatever is holding back housing. We have dollar menu food, mass market clothes and soon will have cheap cars again -- we absolutely need to do that with housing!
@Ironworker229 whoa, yours have walls!
@Smersh Pretty bad-ass /s. But when you speak of dollar menu housing, this is what came to mind.
@InvaderGzim @AskTheDevil
@Ironworker229 think more, mass made pre-manufactured ones. Either modular or double-wide style. Doesn't necessarily work in city centers but we've got lots and lots of land to use.
@Smersh I'm not insensitive to the concept that folks sometimes need to consider moving to escape high costs. But where to go? Moving costs aren't insignificant. If folks could afford to move to somewhere cheaper (maybe, for now) in a different region, they could probably make rent where they are now. Good luck finding somewhere to move that's not so far away from any job opportunities as to make the commute unsustainable. 2/3 @InvaderGzim @AskTheDevil
@Smersh I do agree that government needs to do a better job of getting out of the way- but where? Building safety codes? Environmental impact waivers? Such basic items as adequate sewage infrastructure to handle the waste? Looking for specifics. Sorry for multi, but there's a lot to this. 3/3 @InvaderGzim @AskTheDevil
@Ironworker229 @Smersh @InvaderGzim I think the point of civilization is not living like the dark ages. If our society is designed to hold everyone hostage in a rent economy from birth, maybe we should make a different one.
@Ironworker229 @Smersh @InvaderGzim We keep being told that it's our (apparently unreasonable) desire to be not poisoned, dead, or on fire that makes things expensive.
I don't think that's true.
I think it's like when we're told our plastic straws are the problem as a handful of bad actors cause orders of magnitude more than the rest of us put together.
I think we've been sold a belief system where wanting civilized things is something to be ashamed of.
@Ironworker229 @Smersh @InvaderGzim Yeah. Where would I go, for instance? Somewhere I have no access to medical services and medication, or somewhere I can't afford rent?
@Smersh I'm curious re: the pricing of these mass made units of which you speak and the costs of the land and utility (power, sewer, gas, etc) connectivity factored in. I know guys that purchased modular homes & placed them 1-2 hours one way from the bulk of our jobs and it was by no means affordable to folks who are housing insecure/low wage/fixed income. But maybe you're thinking that the Private Sector would come in to provide these units at an affordable price? 1/3 @InvaderGzim @AskTheDevil