4 ms·

>vast portfolios of housing whose tenants had been evicted Apparently not that many rights.

by TomMckenny 8y ago

cycrutchfield 8y ago
I mean, the properties were foreclosed on. Not sure what else you would expect.
- TomMckenny 8y ago
  If the leasor finds the business too difficult to do within the law then they should change businesses. That's how a healthy market works. In a normal, healthy industry, they would simply go bankrupt selling to those who can. But in this case, it's possible to sit on land with out utilizing it and actually gain wealth solely because of flaws in that market were land price raises due to other forces than their productive worth. Speculation, persons hiding money from their dubious governments, political influence etc. Sitting on under utilized land is as unproductive as paying people to not grow crops. Even more so since at least in agriculture this, very occasionally, makes sense. In addition in a growth area, much of the wealth created by those who developed it goes to those that impeded the development. This is exactly the wrong incentives, moving reward from the productive to the counter productive. So since the market is so seriously broken, producing a dangerous drag on the economy by making labor less and less mobile, there is no choice but to fix it with financial incentives and disincentives.
  - cycrutchfield 8y ago
    If the law is written in such a way that it disincentivizes people from conducting business (to the point where they would prefer instead to cease conducting business and lose money), then perhaps the law should be reconsidered because it's a bad law? Tenants rights laws in a lot of Europe are just plain ridiculous, and I can fully sympathize with property owners that would prefer to leave their property vacant instead of leasing it to a tenant-squatter.
    - TomMckenny 8y ago
      There are many thousands who make a considerable profit with the law as is. The vast majority of units in fact. Those who knowingly loose money by closing a profitable business out of resentment for their customers should not be in that business anyway. At any rate, there are people that could enter say, the medical field or restaurant business if regulations are relaxed. The difference is there are not thousands of restaurants siting empty because the owner can't profit under the current regulations or refuses to on principle or out of petulance. And just as they would quite properly go bankrupt, so too must the owners of un-rented units, presumably selling to those that know how to run them. No one is forced to be in a particular industry and if one person can't profit in the same circumstances that thousands other do, then rather than blaming the government or voters or the tenants the don't have, they need to take responsibility for the own inability. Barring that, the best policy is taxation and fines on those who refuse to rent going to subsidize those who do. Likewise those who consider every tenant to be an imminent tenant-squatter are neither temperamentally nor clear minded enough to run a rental business. And, far from getting sympathy, are likely to be resented. Which is probably not going to help. I imagine Barcelona's policy is going to become pretty wide spread.

>vast portfolios of housing whose tenants had been evicted Apparently not that many rights.

cycrutchfield 8y ago

I mean, the properties were foreclosed on. Not sure what else you would expect.

TomMckenny 8y ago
If the leasor finds the business too difficult to do within the law then they should change businesses. That's how a healthy market works. In a normal, healthy industry, they would simply go bankrupt selling to those who can. But in this case, it's possible to sit on land with out utilizing it and actually gain wealth solely because of flaws in that market were land price raises due to other forces than their productive worth. Speculation, persons hiding money from their dubious governments, political influence etc. Sitting on under utilized land is as unproductive as paying people to not grow crops. Even more so since at least in agriculture this, very occasionally, makes sense. In addition in a growth area, much of the wealth created by those who developed it goes to those that impeded the development. This is exactly the wrong incentives, moving reward from the productive to the counter productive. So since the market is so seriously broken, producing a dangerous drag on the economy by making labor less and less mobile, there is no choice but to fix it with financial incentives and disincentives.
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  If the law is written in such a way that it disincentivizes people from conducting business (to the point where they would prefer instead to cease conducting business and lose money), then perhaps the law should be reconsidered because it's a bad law? Tenants rights laws in a lot of Europe are just plain ridiculous, and I can fully sympathize with property owners that would prefer to leave their property vacant instead of leasing it to a tenant-squatter.
  - TomMckenny 8y ago
    There are many thousands who make a considerable profit with the law as is. The vast majority of units in fact. Those who knowingly loose money by closing a profitable business out of resentment for their customers should not be in that business anyway. At any rate, there are people that could enter say, the medical field or restaurant business if regulations are relaxed. The difference is there are not thousands of restaurants siting empty because the owner can't profit under the current regulations or refuses to on principle or out of petulance. And just as they would quite properly go bankrupt, so too must the owners of un-rented units, presumably selling to those that know how to run them. No one is forced to be in a particular industry and if one person can't profit in the same circumstances that thousands other do, then rather than blaming the government or voters or the tenants the don't have, they need to take responsibility for the own inability. Barring that, the best policy is taxation and fines on those who refuse to rent going to subsidize those who do. Likewise those who consider every tenant to be an imminent tenant-squatter are neither temperamentally nor clear minded enough to run a rental business. And, far from getting sympathy, are likely to be resented. Which is probably not going to help. I imagine Barcelona's policy is going to become pretty wide spread.