3 ms·

> If we enact rent controls and mandate the construction of below-market rate housing units, it'll help people afford housing. To be fair, this does in fact he

by duaneb 11y ago

> If we enact rent controls and mandate the construction of below-market rate housing units, it'll help people afford housing. To be fair, this does in fact help many people afford housing. It just doesn't fix the endemic issue.

sslayer 11y ago
You support his point. It is a systemic issue, political patches do not work.
- duaneb 11y ago
  I don't really see many people claiming that rent control is going to solve rent for everyone. Seems like a blatant straw-man fallacy.
ThrustVectoring 11y ago
These are political favors to local interest groups. It actively hurts the ability to find housing for everyone not blessed by the powers that be. Dense housing is affordable housing. When there's an empty apartment that you're moving into, where do you think the old resident moved to? There's only a few options - a new place got built that they moved into, the old resident died, the old resident moved out of the housing area, or the recursive option that cashes out into one of the previous ones. If you stop building units ("affordable housing" mandates) or arbitrarily keep low-income residents from making housing bids (rent-control), the only bids for housing are going to be from tech workers and market-rate housing gets ridiculous. Fundamentally, the problem is that there's X people who want to live in the area, and only Y housing units. The price is going to go up until the market clears. Handing out political favors so that the people who vote for you don't feel this reality isn't solving the problem: only building more housing will.
- duaneb 11y ago
  > the problem is that there's X people who want to live in the area, and only Y housing units I don't think this is the same problem you would address by rent control. > Handing out political favors so that the people who vote for you don't feel this reality isn't solving the problem: only building more housing will. And yet, there are many people living in rent-controlled housing who would disagree with you. The person and problems you're painting do not exist outside your head.
  - ThrustVectoring 11y ago
    >I don't think this is the same problem you would address by rent control. Of course not. Rent control is fundamentally a tool for getting political benefits at the expense of economic ones. It explicitly creates winners in the voting district that implements it at the cost of losers everywhere else. It's in the same moral class as dumping toxic waste into a river. >And yet, there are many people living in rent-controlled housing who would disagree with you. I'm not at all surprised that the beneficiaries of political favors support handing out those favors.
    - duaneb 11y ago
      > Rent control is fundamentally a tool for getting political benefits at the expense of economic ones. It explicitly creates winners in the voting district that implements it at the cost of losers everywhere else. It's in the same moral class as dumping toxic waste into a river. I'd love to hear the argument for this. Again, many people living in rent-controlled houses would disagree. Just because people are poor you cannot write them off as votes.
      - ThrustVectoring 11y ago
        http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html >Economists are virtually unanimous in concluding that rent controls are destructive. In a 1990 poll of 464 economists published in the May 1992 issue of the American Economic Review, 93 percent of U.S. respondents agreed, either completely or with provisos, that “a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.”
        duaneb 11y ago
        Ok, so economists agree that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available". Thankfully, economists don't run our country. How does this support the statement "Rent control is fundamentally a tool for getting political benefits at the expense of economic ones."? Quantity and quality of housing are arguably much less important than ensuring there is a viable working class—just see how terrible a place SF or Manhattan is to live.

by duaneb 11y ago

sslayer 11y ago

You support his point. It is a systemic issue, political patches do not work.

duaneb 11y ago
I don't really see many people claiming that rent control is going to solve rent for everyone. Seems like a blatant straw-man fallacy.

ThrustVectoring 11y ago

These are political favors to local interest groups. It actively hurts the ability to find housing for everyone not blessed by the powers that be. Dense housing is affordable housing. When there's an empty apartment that you're moving into, where do you think the old resident moved to? There's only a few options - a new place got built that they moved into, the old resident died, the old resident moved out of the housing area, or the recursive option that cashes out into one of the previous ones. If you stop building units ("affordable housing" mandates) or arbitrarily keep low-income residents from making housing bids (rent-control), the only bids for housing are going to be from tech workers and market-rate housing gets ridiculous. Fundamentally, the problem is that there's X people who want to live in the area, and only Y housing units. The price is going to go up until the market clears. Handing out political favors so that the people who vote for you don't feel this reality isn't solving the problem: only building more housing will.

duaneb 11y ago
> the problem is that there's X people who want to live in the area, and only Y housing units I don't think this is the same problem you would address by rent control. > Handing out political favors so that the people who vote for you don't feel this reality isn't solving the problem: only building more housing will. And yet, there are many people living in rent-controlled housing who would disagree with you. The person and problems you're painting do not exist outside your head.
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago
  >I don't think this is the same problem you would address by rent control. Of course not. Rent control is fundamentally a tool for getting political benefits at the expense of economic ones. It explicitly creates winners in the voting district that implements it at the cost of losers everywhere else. It's in the same moral class as dumping toxic waste into a river. >And yet, there are many people living in rent-controlled housing who would disagree with you. I'm not at all surprised that the beneficiaries of political favors support handing out those favors.
  - duaneb 11y ago
    > Rent control is fundamentally a tool for getting political benefits at the expense of economic ones. It explicitly creates winners in the voting district that implements it at the cost of losers everywhere else. It's in the same moral class as dumping toxic waste into a river. I'd love to hear the argument for this. Again, many people living in rent-controlled houses would disagree. Just because people are poor you cannot write them off as votes.
    - ThrustVectoring 11y ago
      http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html >Economists are virtually unanimous in concluding that rent controls are destructive. In a 1990 poll of 464 economists published in the May 1992 issue of the American Economic Review, 93 percent of U.S. respondents agreed, either completely or with provisos, that “a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.”
      - duaneb 11y ago
        Ok, so economists agree that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available". Thankfully, economists don't run our country. How does this support the statement "Rent control is fundamentally a tool for getting political benefits at the expense of economic ones."? Quantity and quality of housing are arguably much less important than ensuring there is a viable working class—just see how terrible a place SF or Manhattan is to live.