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I would guess this speaks more to political mismanagement than an intentional goal. No politician is going to get elected on a platform of higher rents and lowe

I would guess this speaks more to political mismanagement than an intentional goal. No politician is going to get elected on a platform of higher rents and lower wages. Increased rents, at least, are usually caused more by good intentions gone bad than by intentional malice

pydry 6y ago
>No politician is going to get elected on a platform of higher rents and lower wages Have you noticed how little the media focuses on the actual platforms of most politicians and focuses on the spectacle and drama of politics instead? That distraction serve a purpose (for the owners of said media). Also, a platform of higher rents and lower wages will usually be called "lower taxes" and "freedom from onerous regulations". If you want to see more of this type of propaganda, look at https://www.aei.org/ https://www.aei.org/ for instance. This type of thing falls apart when analyzed too closely, which is partly why the media will use it to drive soundbites but won't dive in too deep. Politicians get elected on a platform of higher rents and lower wages because the donations they rely upon come from people who want it and the media coverage they rely upon come from people who want it.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  What. Lowering taxes doesn't lower wages. Higher rents are caused by regulations, not freedom from regulations. You have to ask permission for something as simple as building places to live.
  - pydry 6y ago
    No, it raises rents. California rents can be traced back to prop 13, for instance. Prop 13 wasn't run on a platform of raising rents, was it?
    - SamReidHughes 6y ago
      Lowering taxes on renters can raise rents, if new housing is banned, because renters then have more money to compete for limited housing with. Likewise, the recent corporate income tax cuts raised wages at the bottom.
    - xyzzyz 6y ago
      As bad as Prop 13 is for California, it's silly to put the whole blame on high rents on it. It's enough to note that rents are high in NYC, Boston, DC, and Seattle, and none of these places have Prop 13. If you can have skyrocketing rents without Prop 13, why would you think that it's Proposition 13 that's bearing the whole blame in California?
      - pydry 6y ago
        I wasn't putting the whole blame on it. I was citing it as one example. And, Boston, NY, etc. rents are NOT as high as San Fran.
        SamReidHughes 6y ago
        San Fran also has rent control, good weather, and high income jobs. But while Prop 13 also affects politics around new construction, it's a far reach to use its long term effects on voter behavior to associate general concepts of lower taxes and less regulation with higher rents or lower wages. Notably, it's a law that taxes people unequally.
- rayiner 6y ago
  If you can find an NYT article in the last two years using AEI as the source of a story I’ll buy you a nice bottle of whiskey. The media will systematically ignore sources like AEI, that use actual numbers, in favor of soundbites like the one in this Common Dreams article.
  - pydry 6y ago
    the media ignores them does it? https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/05/26/capitalism-coronavirus-driven-economic-downturn-recovery-squawk-box.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/05/26/capitalism-coronavirus... i would be mildly surprised if "liberal" CNBC had even one person from common dreams on. i'm not gonna dig through the new york times for examples where they cited somebody from AEI coz it's paywalled but it wouldn't surprise me if they, like CNBC do, routinely.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      CNBC isn’t NBC, and it’s not a general-interest media outlet. It’s a specialized outlet for financial and business people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNBC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNBC

pydry 6y ago

>No politician is going to get elected on a platform of higher rents and lower wages Have you noticed how little the media focuses on the actual platforms of most politicians and focuses on the spectacle and drama of politics instead? That distraction serve a purpose (for the owners of said media). Also, a platform of higher rents and lower wages will usually be called "lower taxes" and "freedom from onerous regulations". If you want to see more of this type of propaganda, look at https://www.aei.org/ https://www.aei.org/ for instance. This type of thing falls apart when analyzed too closely, which is partly why the media will use it to drive soundbites but won't dive in too deep. Politicians get elected on a platform of higher rents and lower wages because the donations they rely upon come from people who want it and the media coverage they rely upon come from people who want it.

SamReidHughes 6y ago
What. Lowering taxes doesn't lower wages. Higher rents are caused by regulations, not freedom from regulations. You have to ask permission for something as simple as building places to live.
- pydry 6y ago
  No, it raises rents. California rents can be traced back to prop 13, for instance. Prop 13 wasn't run on a platform of raising rents, was it?
  - SamReidHughes 6y ago
    Lowering taxes on renters can raise rents, if new housing is banned, because renters then have more money to compete for limited housing with. Likewise, the recent corporate income tax cuts raised wages at the bottom.
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    As bad as Prop 13 is for California, it's silly to put the whole blame on high rents on it. It's enough to note that rents are high in NYC, Boston, DC, and Seattle, and none of these places have Prop 13. If you can have skyrocketing rents without Prop 13, why would you think that it's Proposition 13 that's bearing the whole blame in California?
    - pydry 6y ago
      I wasn't putting the whole blame on it. I was citing it as one example. And, Boston, NY, etc. rents are NOT as high as San Fran.
      - SamReidHughes 6y ago
        San Fran also has rent control, good weather, and high income jobs. But while Prop 13 also affects politics around new construction, it's a far reach to use its long term effects on voter behavior to associate general concepts of lower taxes and less regulation with higher rents or lower wages. Notably, it's a law that taxes people unequally.
rayiner 6y ago
If you can find an NYT article in the last two years using AEI as the source of a story I’ll buy you a nice bottle of whiskey. The media will systematically ignore sources like AEI, that use actual numbers, in favor of soundbites like the one in this Common Dreams article.
- pydry 6y ago
  the media ignores them does it? https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/05/26/capitalism-coronavirus-driven-economic-downturn-recovery-squawk-box.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/05/26/capitalism-coronavirus... i would be mildly surprised if "liberal" CNBC had even one person from common dreams on. i'm not gonna dig through the new york times for examples where they cited somebody from AEI coz it's paywalled but it wouldn't surprise me if they, like CNBC do, routinely.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    CNBC isn’t NBC, and it’s not a general-interest media outlet. It’s a specialized outlet for financial and business people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNBC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNBC