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>how do we ensure that rents don't just go up by that amount or wages don't go down by that amount? Two ways to answer this: 1) If you're printing money, then

>how do we ensure that rents don't just go up by that amount or wages don't go down by that amount? Two ways to answer this: 1) If you're printing money, then yes, prices will rise, and if price controls are implemented it will lead to shortages (e.g. Venezuela) 2) If you're not printing money, then competition will simply lower the cost. It's the same as today - outside of terrible policies like rent-control, why don't landlords just raise rents by $5000? Because the renters will leave and rent from a landlord that undercuts the crazy landlord. In the market, profits tend to 0 and if profits are too high more supply will come in to get a cut of the profits. It's not magic. >BI just ends up funneling money directly back to the wealthy (eg, landlords and business owners). Your view on reality is skewed. I mean, yes, people will buy products and services from landlords and business owners. That's not 'funnelling money' anywhere, that's just buying products and services. What do you think people will do with that money, if not to buy things they want and/or need. >I'm not convinced yet that Yang has a thorough enough plan here. For sure. UBI does not solve anything and is unworkable, but not for the reasons you stated.

Pfhreak 6y ago
You have a lot more faith in markets than I do. I don't believe that we've been particularly well served by the housing or health care markets. It's been demonstrated, again and again, that 'more supply will come in' just isn't working for housing. I think we fundamentally disagree, though, which is ok. I see rent control as one mechanism to attempt to decommodify housing (which I'm strongly in favor of). I'm not sure we're going to find much common ground via internet forum.
- chillacy 6y ago
  > 'more supply will come in' just isn't working for housing Curious where you live because in Seattle this has definitely kept the rent prices from growing as fast as in the SFBA. Admittedly these are apartments on the expensive side though, affordable housing is not a priority for developers because it's not as profitable per square foot. Blame {wealth inequality | zoning}, depending on your outlook.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    Seattle. And housing prices here are astronomical. My home has nearly tripled in value over seven years.
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      So why wouldn't developers simply build higher-density housing to maximize this crazy profit per square foot? Why not buy your single-family home, demolish it, and build a multi-family/multi-storey apartment building and maximize the profit from that high-value land? Do they hate money? ... or are there regulatory barriers preventing them from doing that - barriers that are supported by existing property owners, who like their house prices tripling every 7 years. It must be that they hate money.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >we've been particularly well served by the housing or health care markets. Healthcare is going to be special. We're OK with a person not getting a Lexus if they can't afford one, but we are deeply uncomfortable with treating, say, cancer surgery the same way. So healthcare will always have a social component. That's not the case for housing. Housing can be managed the markets just fine, you just need to make sure you don't constrain it a level where it cannot react to demand. Where housing fails, it's always the case of local regulations, from property owners who want to limit supply to keep their house prices up to activist and the local council who will restrict high-density housing development for the dumbest reasons (e.g. if the shadow of the new housing development falling on a playground - true story). You mentioned you're from Seattle - are you sure housing isn't constrained due to crazy progressive municipal policies? >I see rent control as one mechanism to attempt to decommodify housing (which I'm strongly in favor of) This is very perplexing to me. We know rent control hurts housing supply, and it hurts people that it purports to help because we have data on this from decades of studying this policy. There is no economist that supports it. I don't understand how it keeps coming back. >It's been demonstrated, again and again, that 'more supply will come in' just isn't working for housing. Where? Do you mean places like Seattle or San Francisco which make it almost impossible to build new development? Why wouldn't you look at regulatory policies of those areas before wanting to socialize an entire industry? >You have a lot more faith in markets than I do. It's not about faith in anything. Because markets are a messy, chaotic and complicated bottom-up structures where the individual transaction is impossible to predict, but where everything optimizes (at some minima) on a large scale - some people tend to be fundamentally uncomfortable with it. So the alternative is to fix the messiness of the markets by imposing a 'clean' top-down policy where the one true answer is dictated. The problem is that nobody at the top fully understands all the variables of the underlying messiness and hence they always get it wrong. If you take that to the extreme, you end up with a Communist disaster.

Pfhreak 6y ago

You have a lot more faith in markets than I do. I don't believe that we've been particularly well served by the housing or health care markets. It's been demonstrated, again and again, that 'more supply will come in' just isn't working for housing. I think we fundamentally disagree, though, which is ok. I see rent control as one mechanism to attempt to decommodify housing (which I'm strongly in favor of). I'm not sure we're going to find much common ground via internet forum.

chillacy 6y ago
> 'more supply will come in' just isn't working for housing Curious where you live because in Seattle this has definitely kept the rent prices from growing as fast as in the SFBA. Admittedly these are apartments on the expensive side though, affordable housing is not a priority for developers because it's not as profitable per square foot. Blame {wealth inequality | zoning}, depending on your outlook.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Seattle. And housing prices here are astronomical. My home has nearly tripled in value over seven years.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    So why wouldn't developers simply build higher-density housing to maximize this crazy profit per square foot? Why not buy your single-family home, demolish it, and build a multi-family/multi-storey apartment building and maximize the profit from that high-value land? Do they hate money? ... or are there regulatory barriers preventing them from doing that - barriers that are supported by existing property owners, who like their house prices tripling every 7 years. It must be that they hate money.
macspoofing 6y ago
>we've been particularly well served by the housing or health care markets. Healthcare is going to be special. We're OK with a person not getting a Lexus if they can't afford one, but we are deeply uncomfortable with treating, say, cancer surgery the same way. So healthcare will always have a social component. That's not the case for housing. Housing can be managed the markets just fine, you just need to make sure you don't constrain it a level where it cannot react to demand. Where housing fails, it's always the case of local regulations, from property owners who want to limit supply to keep their house prices up to activist and the local council who will restrict high-density housing development for the dumbest reasons (e.g. if the shadow of the new housing development falling on a playground - true story). You mentioned you're from Seattle - are you sure housing isn't constrained due to crazy progressive municipal policies? >I see rent control as one mechanism to attempt to decommodify housing (which I'm strongly in favor of) This is very perplexing to me. We know rent control hurts housing supply, and it hurts people that it purports to help because we have data on this from decades of studying this policy. There is no economist that supports it. I don't understand how it keeps coming back. >It's been demonstrated, again and again, that 'more supply will come in' just isn't working for housing. Where? Do you mean places like Seattle or San Francisco which make it almost impossible to build new development? Why wouldn't you look at regulatory policies of those areas before wanting to socialize an entire industry? >You have a lot more faith in markets than I do. It's not about faith in anything. Because markets are a messy, chaotic and complicated bottom-up structures where the individual transaction is impossible to predict, but where everything optimizes (at some minima) on a large scale - some people tend to be fundamentally uncomfortable with it. So the alternative is to fix the messiness of the markets by imposing a 'clean' top-down policy where the one true answer is dictated. The problem is that nobody at the top fully understands all the variables of the underlying messiness and hence they always get it wrong. If you take that to the extreme, you end up with a Communist disaster.