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> random property owners must provide the safety net ... Whenever someone says 'it's unfair that I must provide these social benefits', let's recall the enormo

> random property owners must provide the safety net ... Whenever someone says 'it's unfair that I must provide these social benefits', let's recall the enormous amount of social benefits that each of us receives, especially in developed countries: Security, safety, a system of laws, roads, education, food supply, healthcare, sanitation, infrastructure built by generations, rights, research on everything from health to history to gas fracking to something once called APRAnet, etc etc. And then there are the benefits each industry and many private companies obtain from government, licitly and otherwise. We all benefit more than we ever can repay. So yes, optimally the costs should be distributed in a very systematic, fair way. But at the same time my general response is: stop whining when asked to pull your weight a little.

crooked-v 8y ago
Presumably the point is that the government should be providing the safety net and leveraging economies of scale to do so, and have commensurate taxes, rather than requiring individual landlords to handle the details themselves.
darawk 8y ago
> We all benefit more than we ever can repay. So yes, optimally the costs should be distributed in a very systematic, fair way. But at the same time my general response is: stop whining when asked to pull your weight a little. That's not really how this works. You don't arbitrarily force property owners to bear the full cost of supporting these people. If society deems them worthy of support, then society should support them. If we collectively think these people shouldn't be forced from their homes, then great. Let's pay the delta between what we think their rent ought to be and what the market price for that rent is. Let's all pay it together. Randomly and capriciously forcing whoever happens to own that property at the time to foot the bill is short sighted and silly.
- chii 8y ago
  And what if majority of society believes that those who own property are more capable of the burden of the poor, and thus, they should shoulder it instead of the entirety of society?
  - darawk 8y ago
    There are plenty of people who can shoulder that burden. Why not doctors and lawyers? A-list actors? What possible justification is there for putting that burden on property owners? And not, mind you, all property owners. Just the ones who happen to have been housing low-income people at the wrong time.
    - chii 8y ago
      > Why not doctors and lawyers? A-list actors? they already do - presumably they aren't dodging taxes, and is in a progressive tax system. This is about housing, and property owners might not reach an income level where the progressive system taxed them enough to produce a surplus to cater for the poor, and if so, making property specific taxes is one such way to force the burden on to them.
      - darawk 8y ago
        > they already do - presumably they aren't dodging taxes, and is in a progressive tax system. You mean the same progressive tax system inhabited by those property owners? > This is about housing, and property owners might not reach an income level where the progressive system taxed them enough to produce a surplus to cater for the poor and if so, making property specific taxes is one such way to force the burden on to them. ...seriously? My point is that it's arbitrary and unfair, and you respond by saying, well, it might be that by chance some of these people escaped paying their fair share? How is that a response?
    - forapurpose 8y ago
      > Why not doctors and lawyers? A-list actors? They do, in their own fields. Lawyers provide pro bono representation to the indigent, help charities and others who couldn't afford them, develop law to address problems, etc. Doctors do similar things, helping the ill regardless of their ability to pay. A-list actors use their status to draw attention to issues. Etc.
      - taysic 8y ago
lr4444lr 8y ago
> We all benefit more than we ever can repay. Clearly, that is not possible.
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  Only if you beleive the exchange to somehow be zero or negative sum, which is of course absurd because there would be no point in civlization existing in the first place if that was the case.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  Why not? It's accumulated benefits of millennia. Consider only the capital accumulated by prior taxpayers. Or consider all the science and technology that was developed - how much would it cost to rediscover Newton, Galileo, the space program, the Manhattan Project, written language, plumbing, all of mathematics, information theory, transistors, the wheel ...? You can't afford it.
oh_sigh 8y ago
Why do a seemingly random 2% of people in NYC get cheap apartments for life? Greatly subsidizing 2% of people's rents with payments from the other 98% seems a little arbitrary. Why not mildly subsidize 50% of peoples rents instead?
- nicwolff 8y ago
  You'll be happy to hear that almost half of the rental units in NYC are rent-regulated, and that the stabilized rents are not that much lower than the market rents. http://furmancenter.org/files/publications/HVS_Rent_Stabilization_fact_sheet_FINAL_4.pdf http://furmancenter.org/files/publications/HVS_Rent_Stabiliz...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - oh_sigh 8y ago
    I was referring specifically to rent controlled units, not rent stabilized units.

crooked-v 8y ago

Presumably the point is that the government should be providing the safety net and leveraging economies of scale to do so, and have commensurate taxes, rather than requiring individual landlords to handle the details themselves.

darawk 8y ago

> We all benefit more than we ever can repay. So yes, optimally the costs should be distributed in a very systematic, fair way. But at the same time my general response is: stop whining when asked to pull your weight a little. That's not really how this works. You don't arbitrarily force property owners to bear the full cost of supporting these people. If society deems them worthy of support, then society should support them. If we collectively think these people shouldn't be forced from their homes, then great. Let's pay the delta between what we think their rent ought to be and what the market price for that rent is. Let's all pay it together. Randomly and capriciously forcing whoever happens to own that property at the time to foot the bill is short sighted and silly.

chii 8y ago
And what if majority of society believes that those who own property are more capable of the burden of the poor, and thus, they should shoulder it instead of the entirety of society?
- darawk 8y ago
  There are plenty of people who can shoulder that burden. Why not doctors and lawyers? A-list actors? What possible justification is there for putting that burden on property owners? And not, mind you, all property owners. Just the ones who happen to have been housing low-income people at the wrong time.
  - chii 8y ago
    > Why not doctors and lawyers? A-list actors? they already do - presumably they aren't dodging taxes, and is in a progressive tax system. This is about housing, and property owners might not reach an income level where the progressive system taxed them enough to produce a surplus to cater for the poor, and if so, making property specific taxes is one such way to force the burden on to them.
    - darawk 8y ago
      > they already do - presumably they aren't dodging taxes, and is in a progressive tax system. You mean the same progressive tax system inhabited by those property owners? > This is about housing, and property owners might not reach an income level where the progressive system taxed them enough to produce a surplus to cater for the poor and if so, making property specific taxes is one such way to force the burden on to them. ...seriously? My point is that it's arbitrary and unfair, and you respond by saying, well, it might be that by chance some of these people escaped paying their fair share? How is that a response?
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    > Why not doctors and lawyers? A-list actors? They do, in their own fields. Lawyers provide pro bono representation to the indigent, help charities and others who couldn't afford them, develop law to address problems, etc. Doctors do similar things, helping the ill regardless of their ability to pay. A-list actors use their status to draw attention to issues. Etc.
    - taysic 8y ago

lr4444lr 8y ago

> We all benefit more than we ever can repay. Clearly, that is not possible.

throwaway2048 8y ago
Only if you beleive the exchange to somehow be zero or negative sum, which is of course absurd because there would be no point in civlization existing in the first place if that was the case.
forapurpose 8y ago
Why not? It's accumulated benefits of millennia. Consider only the capital accumulated by prior taxpayers. Or consider all the science and technology that was developed - how much would it cost to rediscover Newton, Galileo, the space program, the Manhattan Project, written language, plumbing, all of mathematics, information theory, transistors, the wheel ...? You can't afford it.

oh_sigh 8y ago

Why do a seemingly random 2% of people in NYC get cheap apartments for life? Greatly subsidizing 2% of people's rents with payments from the other 98% seems a little arbitrary. Why not mildly subsidize 50% of peoples rents instead?

nicwolff 8y ago
You'll be happy to hear that almost half of the rental units in NYC are rent-regulated, and that the stabilized rents are not that much lower than the market rents. http://furmancenter.org/files/publications/HVS_Rent_Stabilization_fact_sheet_FINAL_4.pdf http://furmancenter.org/files/publications/HVS_Rent_Stabiliz...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  I was referring specifically to rent controlled units, not rent stabilized units.