7 ms·

Rent control solves some problems. Creates other problems. Similar to almost any intervention in free markets. Sometimes the cost of intervention outweigh ben

• dmix 9y ago
  > Sometimes the cost of intervention outweigh benefits, sometimes they don't. + Sometimes it works for a short period, as the policy reflected the economy at the time of creation, then becomes irrelevant via technology/market reaction to policy/general progress... but yet stays a policy for decades. The important point is that we rarely ever measures whether it does work or not, and policy tends to have an extremely long shelf-life. My ideal state would have: 1) a well-staffed multi-partisan agency entirely dedicated to reviewing policy, with a mandate of removing any policy having a net-detrimental effect on society. By launching scientific studies of the effects with subpoena power over other agencies, making policy recommendations, and potentially the power to temporarily suspend regulations until reviewed by congress. 2) require timeframes attached to most policies, forcing future reviews which must factor in measured results (likely from agency mentioned in 1) or face expiry
  • cortesoft 9y ago
    You would also need to define the metrics you are going to be using to measure success at the time you pass the legislation. You would also need some sort of control to measure against, and some way to discourage gaming the metric.
  • tomohawk 9y ago
    Heinlen in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" introduces the idea of a legislature with 2 chambers. One for creating laws and the other for getting rid of them. The threshold for creating them being higher. The way it is now, everything is geared towards "doing" things, and credit is received for "accomplishments". Its usually much harder to undo things. It would be refreshing to have specialists in undoing things.
    • snissn 9y ago
      Has that ever been tried in practice?
      • thaumasiotes 9y ago
        Under Icelandic Viking law, every year one man had to recite the law. (I believe this was given one day.) Anything he forgot to include was no longer the law. Different system, but some thematic similarities.
      • derekp7 9y ago
        Wasn't that one of Trump's promises, that for every new regulation, two old ones had to go?
      • bzbarsky 9y ago
        Not sure about with laws, but similar things have been tried with regulations. See http://redtapereduction.com/BC_Reg_Reform_Model.aspx http://redtapereduction.com/BC_Reg_Reform_Model.aspx but in brief: * Around 2001, voters in British Columbia elected a government with a specific campaign promise to reduce "regulation" by 1/3. * Initially this was accomplished by among other things setting a rule that for every new regulation introduced two existing ones had to be eliminated. * Then the status quo was maintained by mandating a 1-for-1 rule (each new regulation requires elimination of a existing one). * In 2015, the government of Canada introduced its own 1-for-1 rule. There are obviously complications around what constitutes "one regulation", which neither my summary nor the linked article completely capture.
      • kemiller 9y ago
        You could argue that the Supreme Court has the ability to strike laws down but not create them, though in a very limited way.
    • dragonwriter 9y ago
      > The way it is now, everything is geared towards "doing" things, and credit is received for "accomplishments" Repealing a law is doing something, and people frequently point to it as an accomplishment (or goal, if not yet done) if they think the law is unpopular with their constituency.
  • oldsklgdfth 9y ago
    Personally I think that 1) is not attainable in a practical sense. It would require resources that are not available and would just add to the ridiculous overhead of running a government. I used to believe in an ideal state as the one you describe. More recently, I think about what a system - i.e economic, political, social - that is stable (in some sense) looks like. For example, liberatarians believe that markets sort things out on their own. I usually conclude that small societies are optimal for quality of living.
    • dmix 9y ago
      > I usually conclude that small societies are optimal for quality of living. I came to the same conclusion. Sadly many 'libertarians' often gets dismissed as disliking all forms of government and regulation, which is not the case, rather preferring a limited one. But I guess intentional/unintentional misrepresentation is a savvy and common political tactic because it's effective. My question to you is how do you achieve a limited/small government (without a revolution)? I believe controls like this are one way to achieve it. Much like how the strict policies of the Constitution (or Bill of Rights) have limited/stopped potentially hundreds of thousands of overreaching policies in the US alone over the last two centuries. The constitution, aka strict pre-emptive limitations, are good. But I believe post-defacto limitations and reviews are also a necessity. Because as I said, some policy does seem rational at the time - which then becomes out-of-date or a bad idea with retrospect. We currently have no good tools to deal with those outcomes...
      • oldsklgdfth 9y ago
        I think that you can't, PERIOD. Catalonia was attempting to have a small local government and got shut down. Also, revolutions don't benefit the masses, only a different small group of people. The american revolution displaced the english royalty with new american power. The rebels become the new establishment. I think the only way to guarantee that you don't government overreach is not have a sociaety where all member are active and responsible. Not in that they all vote. In that they all deal with issues in their community, rather than pawning it off to the government and also giving them the power they need. I think that society that takes care of itself - instead of inventing institutions to do so - is feasable, but a real pain in the ass to maintain. And it's just easier to not. Sorry if i ranted a bit.
  • Spooky23 9y ago
    All of those things happen in different contexts. Usually these bodies discover that things are complicated.
  • lern_too_spel 9y ago
    These studies already are commissioned by the state. The problem is when they are ignored, like with ballot initiatives that implement rent control and tax control over the objections of nearly every working economist.
  • civilian 9y ago
    Yes! Another thing you could do is including the reasoning for a law, and have the review address that. Like-- let's take on Oregon's statute banning self-pumping. Most of the reasons are safety related: https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/480.315 https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/480.315 It'd be cool to have a system where a private citizen would be allowed to file a lawsuit if they thought the justifications didn't have evidence. So the case would look at the justifications, and if the state couldn't prove that self-pumping wasn't more dangerous, the case would immediately remove the law. One justification for banning self-pumping gas is that it's a jobs program. Except that that reason was never included in the original policy. So under my "challenge the law" framework, that couldn't be used as a defense, unless the Oregon legislature actually amended it.
    • gamblor956 9y ago
      For the better part of 2 centuries, the legislative histories at the state and federal levels have included the justifications for the law, and the discussions wherein the evaluate different provisions. They keep these in different legislative records because they're significantly more voluminous than the laws themselves.
  • mnemonicsloth 9y ago
    1) a well-staffed multi-partisan agency entirely dedicated to reviewing policy, with a mandate of removing any policy having a net-detrimental effect on society. By launching scientific studies of the effects with subpoena power over other agencies, making policy recommendations, and potentially the power to temporarily suspend regulations until reviewed by congress. I know this sounds like a good idea. It almost sounds like a good idea to me. But I don't think it will have the effects that you imagine. Bureaucracies are always understaffed. That's because reality is always more complicated than they can model, so the task of rationalizing things so they can be apportioned, assessed, allotted, regulated or taxed can never end. If you put your plan into practice the immediate effect will be a need for a lot more bureaucrats. Before they just had the real world to worry about; but now, they will have to worry about reality plus an ongoing audit of the regulatory environment. And if they make stupid, unaccountable decisions, as bureaucrats sometimes do, some of them will involve stupidly and unaccountably repealing regulation that was serving a useful purpose. I'd be willing to bet that the problems caused when good law ceases to apply are worse than when bad laws are applied for too long.
    • baddox 9y ago
      I think it is flawed at an even more fundamental level: what does “multi-partisan” mean, and how do you achieve it? It seems like the term was used simply to mean “fair and not favoring any particular political agenda,” but that is a huge hand-wave. Who decides the members of this agency? If we had a good method to establish this fair agency, we could just use that method to establish the entire government. This proposal just pushes the entire problem of governance back one step. I see this a lot in discussions about improving government: proposing some oversight committee to keep the government (which we all agree has flaws and biases) in check. Even the entire idea of checks and balances between branches of government is based on this concept, and is flawed for the same reasons (although that’s a bigger discussion). If you can make the oversight committee fair and efficient and effective, just do that for the whole government!
  • sbov 9y ago
    Prop 13 was a pretty good temporary measure. But after passing a permanent solution should have been put in place. Housing prices in California increased a crapload in the years before prop 13 was enacted. Real people with good jobs in new, modest houses they recently bought - not just granny in her 50 year old home - were in danger of being driven from their homes due to increases in property taxes.
    • dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Prop 13 was a pretty good temporary measure. No, it wasn't. > Housing prices in California increased a crapload in the years before prop 13 was enacted. Real people with good jobs in modest houses they recently bought - not just granny in her 50 year old home - were in danger of being driven from their homes due to increases in property taxes. It would be very easy to address that problem with a much smaller policy change than Prop 13. For one thing, the described problem doesn't justify any alteration to non-residential property taxes.
• khawkins 9y ago
  It's worth noting that while this is true, it has larger effects than those immediate. High cost of living is detracting from the city's ability to attract valuable workers and businesses. I think there are plenty of cities around the country which are primed to take advantage of SF's loss of competitive advantage in real estate.
• rayiner 9y ago
  > Creates other problems. Similar to almost any intervention in free markets. Sometimes the cost of intervention outweigh benefits, sometimes they don't. Unless the intervention is addressed to a market failure (and rent control is not), the cost of intervention almost by definition outweighs the benefits. I.e. the value gained by cheaper rents for early residents is more than offset by higher rents for everyone + dead weight loss from distortion of economic incentives.
• cryptonector 9y ago
  Rent control solves no problems. It only causes problems. EDIT: But I like the observation that prop 13 is to ownership as rent control is to rent.
  • taneq 9y ago
    It solves the problem of landlords waiting until you're established in the rental property (or worse yet, waiting until some misfortune befalls you that prevents you from moving) and then jacking the rent up.
    • JamesBarney 9y ago
      This is what leases are for. And I don't think this is a thing. I am a landlord, and a member of several landlord groups. Most landlords I know increases the price of rent slower than the market for good tenants(some follow market, none raise above market). This is because it costs just as much for a landlord to replace a tenant as vice versa. A landlord usually pays 1 months rent to find a new tenant. Plus any losses out on rent while it's not being rented(several weeks). Has to run through and do audit of the property. Replace locks, etc.. It can easily cost $1800 on a $1000 a month rental. And moving is usually cheaper than $1800.
• Shivetya 9y ago
  but Prop 13 wasn't enacted alone. it was part of a comprehensive tax package that limited what the state government could spend. Prop 13 is just the most well known part. However politicians got around the limitations decades after by just raising taxes in every other area of life. most of those directly impacted the poor. Prop 13 likely needs to be revised along with a comprehensive land usage policy that prevents local politicians from playing favorites, similar how to many states established boards to monitor elections.