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This rewards people who had the money to pay rent during the pandemic but chose not to, knowing there was an eviction moratorium. Many government policies are r

This rewards people who had the money to pay rent during the pandemic but chose not to, knowing there was an eviction moratorium. Many government policies are rewarding people for doing the wrong thing.

nickthemagicman 5y ago
Food stamps are similar. There's people who abuse the program and people who actually need the help and it's a question if the needy people outweigh the abusers. The government literally disallowed people who WANTED to work...to support themselves or their families for over a year. The real solution is for this to never have happened.
HWR_14 5y ago
How does this reward them specifically?
- vmception 5y ago
  The point they are making is that many others made other sacrifices to keep making their rent, when it turns out they didn't have to Some didn't sacrifice anything and just invested/consumed their money or nothing instead of paying rent, this group has accurately predicted that there would not be consequences, some people find that annoying Regardless, its good that landlords are being made whole as that is a core element of the economy that had been neglected in a lot of the calculus
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  Bob was laid off. He couldn't pay his rent, but knew that he had to pay this eventually. So he scoured craiglist for part time jobs to put together as much rent as he could. He did his best to minimize the amount of back-rent he owes. Joe was also laid off. But he didn't look for extra work, and just let back-rent accumulate. Jack was in the same boat. He took part time jobs, but pocketed all his money and lived rent free even though he could have paid as much of his rent as Bob. Now all of them are having their owed rent absolved. That rewards Joe and Jack over Bob. It's better to either not work, or continue working but cease paying rent.
  - frumper 5y ago
    Josh kept working the whole time and stopped paying rent and is better off than Joe and Jack.
  - yumraj 5y ago
    Not just that, Tom reduced his expenses, consumed only essentials in order to pay his rent, when if he known this was going to happen, he didn't need to had he known. This is effectively giving Joe and Jack extra income, while giving little extra income to Bob and none to Tom. This is the same issue with forgiving student loans... At the very least, CA should consider the forgiven rent as income paid to the renters whose rent was forgiven.
mindslight 5y ago
Even worse, it rewards landlords who bought into the property bubble with an overoptimistic model of risk. We need some debt repudiation to raise interest rates and stop this debt spiral. A law that nullified these debts would be much better - paying them off is just dumping more gas on the fire.
bsder 5y ago
> This rewards people who had the money to pay rent during the pandemic but chose not to There are always jerks who do things like this, but they're normally quite in the minority. I don't base my decisions on the few exceptional cases if there is a large cohort who gets helped. If you want "means testing" how about we "means test" the landlords. If the net worth of the landlord is above $25 million (or $10 million, or whatever, pick a useful number for cutoff), you don't get any assistance--losing 12 months of rent is a rounding error to you. This will help avoid the "feeding the landlord banks" problem.

nickthemagicman 5y ago

Food stamps are similar. There's people who abuse the program and people who actually need the help and it's a question if the needy people outweigh the abusers. The government literally disallowed people who WANTED to work...to support themselves or their families for over a year. The real solution is for this to never have happened.

HWR_14 5y ago

How does this reward them specifically?

vmception 5y ago
The point they are making is that many others made other sacrifices to keep making their rent, when it turns out they didn't have to Some didn't sacrifice anything and just invested/consumed their money or nothing instead of paying rent, this group has accurately predicted that there would not be consequences, some people find that annoying Regardless, its good that landlords are being made whole as that is a core element of the economy that had been neglected in a lot of the calculus
Manuel_D 5y ago
Bob was laid off. He couldn't pay his rent, but knew that he had to pay this eventually. So he scoured craiglist for part time jobs to put together as much rent as he could. He did his best to minimize the amount of back-rent he owes. Joe was also laid off. But he didn't look for extra work, and just let back-rent accumulate. Jack was in the same boat. He took part time jobs, but pocketed all his money and lived rent free even though he could have paid as much of his rent as Bob. Now all of them are having their owed rent absolved. That rewards Joe and Jack over Bob. It's better to either not work, or continue working but cease paying rent.
- frumper 5y ago
  Josh kept working the whole time and stopped paying rent and is better off than Joe and Jack.
- yumraj 5y ago
  Not just that, Tom reduced his expenses, consumed only essentials in order to pay his rent, when if he known this was going to happen, he didn't need to had he known. This is effectively giving Joe and Jack extra income, while giving little extra income to Bob and none to Tom. This is the same issue with forgiving student loans... At the very least, CA should consider the forgiven rent as income paid to the renters whose rent was forgiven.

mindslight 5y ago

Even worse, it rewards landlords who bought into the property bubble with an overoptimistic model of risk. We need some debt repudiation to raise interest rates and stop this debt spiral. A law that nullified these debts would be much better - paying them off is just dumping more gas on the fire.

bsder 5y ago

> This rewards people who had the money to pay rent during the pandemic but chose not to There are always jerks who do things like this, but they're normally quite in the minority. I don't base my decisions on the few exceptional cases if there is a large cohort who gets helped. If you want "means testing" how about we "means test" the landlords. If the net worth of the landlord is above $25 million (or $10 million, or whatever, pick a useful number for cutoff), you don't get any assistance--losing 12 months of rent is a rounding error to you. This will help avoid the "feeding the landlord banks" problem.