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It might help short term, but I don't think its obvious it would work long term. The idea is that it wouldn't solve the structural problem. The structural pro
by methehack 7y ago
It might help short term, but I don't think its obvious it would work long term. The idea is that it wouldn't solve the structural problem.
The structural problem is that nothing prevents landowners from charging whatever the market will tolerate and so sucking all plausible value out of the people paying the rents -- even to the degree that renters are forced to work so much they do nothing else and should expect a shorter life. Since there's no structural impediment to doing so, if you pay the renters more, the landowners will take the value...at least eventually.
- agent008t 7y agoBut it's supply and demand at work. Limit rents, and people will have to queue for housing.
- methehack 7y agoMarkets are a brilliant tool. We have to decide on the society we want, and use markets to shape it. Very few scenarios that make any sense would allow markets to function w/o purposeful shape. I think managing a queue might be a better way to preserve everyone's dignity than letting raw market forces work it out. Either that or I think you'll end up paying engineers to make $50 sandwiches, which doesn't seem like it would generate maximal economic value for the parties involved.
- eli_gottlieb 7y agoIt's "supply and demand" where the suppliers lobby city government to increase demand (by allowing new office space) while decreasing supply (by banning new housing development). Any idiot can make money if the government will literally let him walk into a town meeting and say, "Yes I'd like you to increase the value of my particular asset portfolio by force of law kthanxbye."