5 ms·

alternatively, "Rent control not working because government allows it to be undermined."

by ahoy 5y ago

mc32 5y ago
How do you even monitor against fraud if even in communist countries this could happen? People will game it, if there is “profit” in it. The only way to avoid it is a very tyrannical East German system where people rat on each other to, we’ll, gain something, maybe that coveted apartment…
- oytis 5y ago
  How do you monitor that people are not working illegally? Or are not selling drugs? It's hard to make sure either of this never ever happens, but it is definitely possible to make sure it's not happening as much as to become a social problem.
  - mc32 5y ago
    That’s my point. It’s not possible and you can only get close if you use tyrannical methods of surveillance and invasions of privacy.
    - oytis 5y ago
      Even in a democratic country if the only jobs people can find are sketchy illegal ones without social protection you can tell the government has failed at its job.
YPPH 5y ago
It seems awfully hard to enforce all cases. If a subletter voluntarily enters into an agreement with a lessee to pay above the rent control amount, who is the victim? Is it not a victimless crime?
- danuker 5y ago
  I suspect the subletter is breaking the law, due to charging more than is allowed. The victim is the person not able to rent on a first-come-first-serve basis instead of someone willing to pay more than is allowed.
  - YPPH 5y ago
    >The victim is the person not able to rent on a first-come-first-serve basis instead of someone willing to pay more than is allowed. That's indeed the only sensible thing I can think of. But it's a very odd thing to me (that a mutual, consensual agreement between two people is governed by the interests of third parties).
    - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
      That's because there's a thing called the social contract, which makes it clear to anyone who can parse situations like a mature adult that all policy has wider social consequences, and short term gimme gimme can have disastrous long term results. And also because "consensual agreements" rarely are. Typically one party has more power than the other and can force terms. By definition, you only get truly consensual agreements when the balance of power is equal - which it very much isn't in rental markets with deliberately restricted stock.
- exhilaration 5y ago
  Isn't the landlord the victim in this case? The extra money should be going to them, not the lessee that is likely violating their rental agreement.
  - 988747 5y ago
    But the landlords are all greedy capitalists who do not deserve that money anyway /s For the group of aspiring startup founders HN community has a very high percentage of Marxists in it :)
988747 5y ago
Rent control is not working because it cannot work - it is directly contradicting the laws of nature, such as supply and demand. Housing gets build in order to extract profit from it. If you disallow profit, you are disincentivizing new housing construction, and you create perverse incentives to work around rent control.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  Strange how rents were manageable in the UK while there was a national not for profit council house building program. Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned from that.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Land is expensive and nobody wants to tax it. More generally. Non reproducible assets/aka monopolies can extort more money out of people now that people have more money thanks to low interest rates. Notice how being rich doesn't make you rich because of abuse of monopoly power to do perfect price discrimination.
- occz 5y ago
  >the laws of nature, such as supply and demand. This has got to be satire, right?
  - 988747 5y ago
    It is actually not. Basic laws of economy are much like the laws of physics: they work the same whether you believe in them or not. Trying to circumvent them with legislation such as rent control leads to various second order effects. For rent control that means limited supply and worse quality of the available apartments. Also: people unwilling to move, occupying apartments much too big for them, just because they are rent-controlled.
    - occz 5y ago
      I know that the observable properties of economic systems happen regardless of belief. It's just seriously strange to equate them with 'laws of nature'. Next thing you know someone is going to call something like the law of demeter a law of nature. Just sort of absurd, really.
imtringued 5y ago
There is no such thing as non undermined rent control. There are a thousand things to do with a property and the government decides, hey guys, stop that 1 thing out of thousands. Then people will do all the thousand other things. The government then acts surprised that its incomplete policy has failed. You can also just tax the land.

alternatively, "Rent control not working because government allows it to be undermined."

by ahoy 5y ago

alternatively, "Rent control not working because government allows it to be undermined."

mc32 5y ago

How do you even monitor against fraud if even in communist countries this could happen? People will game it, if there is “profit” in it. The only way to avoid it is a very tyrannical East German system where people rat on each other to, we’ll, gain something, maybe that coveted apartment…

oytis 5y ago
How do you monitor that people are not working illegally? Or are not selling drugs? It's hard to make sure either of this never ever happens, but it is definitely possible to make sure it's not happening as much as to become a social problem.
- mc32 5y ago
  That’s my point. It’s not possible and you can only get close if you use tyrannical methods of surveillance and invasions of privacy.
  - oytis 5y ago
    Even in a democratic country if the only jobs people can find are sketchy illegal ones without social protection you can tell the government has failed at its job.

YPPH 5y ago

It seems awfully hard to enforce all cases. If a subletter voluntarily enters into an agreement with a lessee to pay above the rent control amount, who is the victim? Is it not a victimless crime?

danuker 5y ago
I suspect the subletter is breaking the law, due to charging more than is allowed. The victim is the person not able to rent on a first-come-first-serve basis instead of someone willing to pay more than is allowed.
- YPPH 5y ago
  >The victim is the person not able to rent on a first-come-first-serve basis instead of someone willing to pay more than is allowed. That's indeed the only sensible thing I can think of. But it's a very odd thing to me (that a mutual, consensual agreement between two people is governed by the interests of third parties).
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    That's because there's a thing called the social contract, which makes it clear to anyone who can parse situations like a mature adult that all policy has wider social consequences, and short term gimme gimme can have disastrous long term results. And also because "consensual agreements" rarely are. Typically one party has more power than the other and can force terms. By definition, you only get truly consensual agreements when the balance of power is equal - which it very much isn't in rental markets with deliberately restricted stock.
exhilaration 5y ago
Isn't the landlord the victim in this case? The extra money should be going to them, not the lessee that is likely violating their rental agreement.
- 988747 5y ago
  But the landlords are all greedy capitalists who do not deserve that money anyway /s For the group of aspiring startup founders HN community has a very high percentage of Marxists in it :)

988747 5y ago

Rent control is not working because it cannot work - it is directly contradicting the laws of nature, such as supply and demand. Housing gets build in order to extract profit from it. If you disallow profit, you are disincentivizing new housing construction, and you create perverse incentives to work around rent control.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
Strange how rents were manageable in the UK while there was a national not for profit council house building program. Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned from that.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Land is expensive and nobody wants to tax it. More generally. Non reproducible assets/aka monopolies can extort more money out of people now that people have more money thanks to low interest rates. Notice how being rich doesn't make you rich because of abuse of monopoly power to do perfect price discrimination.
occz 5y ago
>the laws of nature, such as supply and demand. This has got to be satire, right?
- 988747 5y ago
  It is actually not. Basic laws of economy are much like the laws of physics: they work the same whether you believe in them or not. Trying to circumvent them with legislation such as rent control leads to various second order effects. For rent control that means limited supply and worse quality of the available apartments. Also: people unwilling to move, occupying apartments much too big for them, just because they are rent-controlled.
  - occz 5y ago
    I know that the observable properties of economic systems happen regardless of belief. It's just seriously strange to equate them with 'laws of nature'. Next thing you know someone is going to call something like the law of demeter a law of nature. Just sort of absurd, really.

imtringued 5y ago

There is no such thing as non undermined rent control. There are a thousand things to do with a property and the government decides, hey guys, stop that 1 thing out of thousands. Then people will do all the thousand other things. The government then acts surprised that its incomplete policy has failed. You can also just tax the land.