3 ms·

Your technical analysis is correct as usual, but I agree with sologoub's comment[0], "That’s not success, that’s picking winners and losers." [0] https://news.

by edbob 6y ago

Your technical analysis is correct as usual, but I agree with sologoub's comment[0], "That’s not success, that’s picking winners and losers." [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26316547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26316547

vkou 6y ago
Markets pick winners and losers all the time. It's just that winners in market housing situations are always the people with the most money. It's difficult to make an argument that it's a more virtuous way to select winners, compared to 'the winners are the people who were here first'. Both are fundamentally unfair. Life, in general, isn't fair. Rent control doesn't exist to maximize overall virtue. It exists to minimize disruption and upheaval in people's lives. You're explicitly excluding that from your criteria for success.
- edbob 6y ago
  > It's difficult to make an argument that it's a more virtuous way to select winners That's because it's a strawman that you've constructed. Real debates involve consideration of the needs of people who can't find housing in heavily-regulated areas. Existing tenants aren't the only people worth considering. They just happen to be the people with the votes and the political power, so it's no surprise that local government focuses on their needs at the expense of everyone else.
  - vkou 6y ago
    You're conflating rent control (which impacts long-term tenant-landlord relations - which are largely a zero-sum game that does not create any new housing units on the market) with zoning and building and lending regulation, and tax rates, and returns on investments in real estate and stock markets and debt (which impacts construction of new housing.) The entire purpose of this subthread is to tease the two apart. Rent control is a solution for the here and now. Building new housing stock is a solution for the future. The two are largely orthogonal, and the causal relationship between rent control and construction of new housing stock is incredibly weak. There are a million factors that have a far bigger influence on the latter, compared to rent control. If you want to encourage development, relax zoning, cut the red tape for construction, stop letting NIMBY groups veto projects, raise property taxes, and actually start non-rent controlled property at market values. If rent control were eliminated tomorrow in San Francisco, it would continue to have a crippling housing shortage, because of those million factors. You have a wrong impression of who most local governments focus on. They don't focus on the needs of the tenants - they focus on the needs of landlords (mostly concerned with keeping rents high by preventing any new construction) and property developers (mostly concerned with getting concessions and hand-outs from their municipalities.) Most city councils are squarely in the pocketbook of the latter. Both of those groups have a lot more money to spend on influencing campaigns and elections, compared to unorganized groups of tenants.
    - edbob 6y ago
      Good points.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      Rent control is a mechanism to ensure that zoning can stay the same and construction is discouraged as much as possible. >If rent control were eliminated tomorrow in San Francisco, it would continue to have a crippling housing shortage, because of those million factors. Yes and as long as politicians don't get the dumb idea of reinstating rent control they would be forced to listen to all those angry voices instead of just giving them rent control to make them shut up. Rent control is a tool to reduce accountability. It's mostly abused to sweep problems under the rug.
- imtringued 6y ago
  >Markets pick winners and losers all the time. Markets pick winners and losers all the time. This isn't true. If people are paying enough for the developer to build additional housing then everyone will win in the end. >It's just that winners in market housing situations are always the people with the most money. That is the price you have to pay for allocating resources in the most productive way possible and ensuring that everyone wins in the end. It's a small price compared to the benefits. >It's difficult to make an argument that it's a more virtuous way to select winners, compared to 'the winners are the people who were here first'. As I said, it's the path to everyone winning. If you fail to allocate resources efficiently then you will just get a lot of losers and some special interests who are not losing. >Both are fundamentally unfair. Life, in general, isn't fair. The difference is that one of them will stay unfair forever, while the other would have the potential to get fairer, year by year. >Rent control doesn't exist to maximize overall virtue. It exists to minimize disruption and upheaval in people's lives. You're explicitly excluding that from your criteria for success. They will have to move one day, since there isn't enough room for everyone and when they do, they leave for good with no second chance.

by edbob 6y ago

vkou 6y ago

Markets pick winners and losers all the time. It's just that winners in market housing situations are always the people with the most money. It's difficult to make an argument that it's a more virtuous way to select winners, compared to 'the winners are the people who were here first'. Both are fundamentally unfair. Life, in general, isn't fair. Rent control doesn't exist to maximize overall virtue. It exists to minimize disruption and upheaval in people's lives. You're explicitly excluding that from your criteria for success.

edbob 6y ago
> It's difficult to make an argument that it's a more virtuous way to select winners That's because it's a strawman that you've constructed. Real debates involve consideration of the needs of people who can't find housing in heavily-regulated areas. Existing tenants aren't the only people worth considering. They just happen to be the people with the votes and the political power, so it's no surprise that local government focuses on their needs at the expense of everyone else.
- vkou 6y ago
  You're conflating rent control (which impacts long-term tenant-landlord relations - which are largely a zero-sum game that does not create any new housing units on the market) with zoning and building and lending regulation, and tax rates, and returns on investments in real estate and stock markets and debt (which impacts construction of new housing.) The entire purpose of this subthread is to tease the two apart. Rent control is a solution for the here and now. Building new housing stock is a solution for the future. The two are largely orthogonal, and the causal relationship between rent control and construction of new housing stock is incredibly weak. There are a million factors that have a far bigger influence on the latter, compared to rent control. If you want to encourage development, relax zoning, cut the red tape for construction, stop letting NIMBY groups veto projects, raise property taxes, and actually start non-rent controlled property at market values. If rent control were eliminated tomorrow in San Francisco, it would continue to have a crippling housing shortage, because of those million factors. You have a wrong impression of who most local governments focus on. They don't focus on the needs of the tenants - they focus on the needs of landlords (mostly concerned with keeping rents high by preventing any new construction) and property developers (mostly concerned with getting concessions and hand-outs from their municipalities.) Most city councils are squarely in the pocketbook of the latter. Both of those groups have a lot more money to spend on influencing campaigns and elections, compared to unorganized groups of tenants.
  - edbob 6y ago
    Good points.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Rent control is a mechanism to ensure that zoning can stay the same and construction is discouraged as much as possible. >If rent control were eliminated tomorrow in San Francisco, it would continue to have a crippling housing shortage, because of those million factors. Yes and as long as politicians don't get the dumb idea of reinstating rent control they would be forced to listen to all those angry voices instead of just giving them rent control to make them shut up. Rent control is a tool to reduce accountability. It's mostly abused to sweep problems under the rug.
imtringued 6y ago
>Markets pick winners and losers all the time. Markets pick winners and losers all the time. This isn't true. If people are paying enough for the developer to build additional housing then everyone will win in the end. >It's just that winners in market housing situations are always the people with the most money. That is the price you have to pay for allocating resources in the most productive way possible and ensuring that everyone wins in the end. It's a small price compared to the benefits. >It's difficult to make an argument that it's a more virtuous way to select winners, compared to 'the winners are the people who were here first'. As I said, it's the path to everyone winning. If you fail to allocate resources efficiently then you will just get a lot of losers and some special interests who are not losing. >Both are fundamentally unfair. Life, in general, isn't fair. The difference is that one of them will stay unfair forever, while the other would have the potential to get fairer, year by year. >Rent control doesn't exist to maximize overall virtue. It exists to minimize disruption and upheaval in people's lives. You're explicitly excluding that from your criteria for success. They will have to move one day, since there isn't enough room for everyone and when they do, they leave for good with no second chance.