5 ms·

> And while the governent largely paid most.of this grifter's rent, my family member was still out over 15k in lost rent and legal fees. Not "the government".

> And while the governent largely paid most.of this grifter's rent, my family member was still out over 15k in lost rent and legal fees. Not "the government". Taxpayers. Taxpayers bailed out rent seekers. > you'll see a lot of small, private landlords get out, only to leave large corporate landlords who will have much stricter rental policies. If this were to happen, it would be a good thing. Consolidation erodes the electoral base of rent seekers, which makes Georgist policies much easier to implement. But it won't happen, because... > long term rental

noduerme 5y ago
A staggering majority of rental units in the US are owned by individuals who own and rent less than 5 units. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/02/as-national-eviction-ban-expires-a-look-at-who-rents-and-who-owns-in-the-u-s/ft_21-07-16_landlordsrenters_3/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/02/as-national... What really happened was that taxpayers (read: People who earn and save money and hold some property) bailed out the people who took an opportunity to skip out on paying rent, and took a hit anyway, while their renters were getting all kinds of other free handouts in taxpayer subsidies. Great. So maybe we need some wealth redistribution. But cheering the consolidation of the rental market in the hands of corporations is like snickering evil. You're advocating for the destruction of the middle class. I guess it would make revolution an easier sell. But you know what else could make you happy? Joining the middle class, buckling up and saving money, taking the hard part of it without feeling like a constant victim, and stop wasting your time trying to destroying the wealth people spend their lives working for. Harming other people to bring them down really isn't going to elevate anyone, and you know it. Rooting for the middle class to be destroyed for your own personal satisfaction is greedy, indolent and ultimately self destructive. [edit: It's sad to see you channeling your grievance into something that will only keep you down.]
- diordiderot 5y ago
  'Middle class' is a blip in human experience caused by fear of a real possibility of socialist takeover made possible by highly progressive taxation. There are only two classes comrade
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Pffft - lmao. So everyone should be equally poor? Have you read no history? The only thing the Soviet Union was attempting to do by building socialism was to turn illiterate serfs into a "middle class". The actual, successful construction of a middle class via market capitalism turned out to be the most successful experiment in human human history to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, eradicate famine and plagues, and create almost universal literacy. The very fact that you have the words and "thoughts" with which to question bourgeois society speaks to the great pains your forebears went to to make sure you weren't a slave peasant, and that's what you want to go back to? Shame on ya.
    - SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
      > So everyone should be equally poor? The idea behind workers owning the means of production is that everyone should be equally prosperous.
    - diordiderot 5y ago
      > the most successful experiment in human human history to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty Sorry bub, that's China. > (American success) via market capitalism Via Europeans enslaving everyone else on earth then nearly destroying themselves in WWII > great pains your forebears went to to make sure you weren't a slave peasant If you mean lobbing off Old Louis and Marie's fat gourds then yeah, you're right Anyone born between 1940-70 was born on third base and thought they hit a triple.
jjav 5y ago
> > you'll see a lot of small, private landlords get out, only to leave large corporate landlords who will have much stricter rental policies. > If this were to happen, it would be a good thing. Doubtful. For one thing, renting from individuals is far more pleasant than renting from giant housing conglomerates. With an individual landlord everything is negotiable and flexible, it's a person you can talk to. When renting from a corporation, there are strict rules enforced by teams of lawyers and zero flexibility. > Consolidation erodes the electoral base of rent seekers You got that exactly backwards. Yes, there are more individuals renting out their single properties each, but those are ordinary people who have no lawyers and no lobbyists and they don't have any coordinated voice and no influence with politicians. The more rental properties are consolidated to giant corporations, the more outsized their influence in congress becomes as they can afford an army of lobbyists to bend the laws ever more in their favor.
- femiagbabiaka 5y ago
  > Doubtful. For one thing, renting from individuals is far more pleasant than renting from giant housing conglomerates. With an individual landlord everything is negotiable and flexible, it's a person you can talk to. When renting from a corporation, there are strict rules enforced by teams of lawyers and zero flexibility. I've had the exact opposite experience. > You got that exactly backwards. Yes, there are more individuals renting out their single properties each, but those are ordinary people who have no lawyers and no lobbyists and they don't have any coordinated voice and no influence with politicians. This is just blatantly false.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  Depends on the individual you are renting from. I learned the hard way to never have a lawyer for a landlord. Landlords shouldn’t be allowed to represent themselves (too bad it’s a constitutional right!). Anyway, come to find out the guy set the deposit amount specifically to make it just enough that even if you went to court to get it back, you’d never get it back because that’s how much you’d spend to get it back. After randomly running into his ex-wife at a party and hearing that it was all done on purpose, we started to put together a class action with all of his past tenants. Then we moved to the EU instead.
cheald 5y ago
"Rent seeking" is a very specific economics term which has nothing to do with landlords. In fact, in this scenario, the tenants exploiting government restrictions to capture the landlord's value were the ones engaged in rent-seeking. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  The first sentence of the link you posted shows that the GP used the term correctly: > Rent seeking (or rent-seeking) is an economic concept that occurs when an entity seeks to gain added wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity. Landlords produce nothing. They don't provide housing; builders do. All landlords do is hoard housing and get other people to pay their mortgages. They literally want to get paid for owning stuff.
  - cko 5y ago
    At the very least, they do maintain housing. It takes constant upkeep and updating to keep a structure in decent condition. Unless they're a slum lord, which isn't the most sustainable business model. Some landlords rehab a completely unlivable structure into something livable. That's something too. I am a renter and I hesitate to own my home because of the upkeep costs and responsibility. So I subscribe to shelter-as-a-service.
    - actually_a_dog 5y ago
      Yes, landlords maintain housing. So do homeowners who live in their homes. If anything, homeowners have more incentive to properly maintain their property than landlords, because they live there. Maintaining things properly often costs more money than doing the type of "good enough" repair that a landlord would be tempted to do because it's less money out of their pocket. So, if anything, "landlords maintain housing" is an argument against landlords. The point is that "landlords maintain housing," along with "landlords pay property taxes" and other such statements are at best a wash. Those things would happen anyway, no matter who owned the housing.

noduerme 5y ago

A staggering majority of rental units in the US are owned by individuals who own and rent less than 5 units. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/02/as-national-eviction-ban-expires-a-look-at-who-rents-and-who-owns-in-the-u-s/ft_21-07-16_landlordsrenters_3/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/02/as-national... What really happened was that taxpayers (read: People who earn and save money and hold some property) bailed out the people who took an opportunity to skip out on paying rent, and took a hit anyway, while their renters were getting all kinds of other free handouts in taxpayer subsidies. Great. So maybe we need some wealth redistribution. But cheering the consolidation of the rental market in the hands of corporations is like snickering evil. You're advocating for the destruction of the middle class. I guess it would make revolution an easier sell. But you know what else could make you happy? Joining the middle class, buckling up and saving money, taking the hard part of it without feeling like a constant victim, and stop wasting your time trying to destroying the wealth people spend their lives working for. Harming other people to bring them down really isn't going to elevate anyone, and you know it. Rooting for the middle class to be destroyed for your own personal satisfaction is greedy, indolent and ultimately self destructive. [edit: It's sad to see you channeling your grievance into something that will only keep you down.]

diordiderot 5y ago
'Middle class' is a blip in human experience caused by fear of a real possibility of socialist takeover made possible by highly progressive taxation. There are only two classes comrade
- noduerme 5y ago
  Pffft - lmao. So everyone should be equally poor? Have you read no history? The only thing the Soviet Union was attempting to do by building socialism was to turn illiterate serfs into a "middle class". The actual, successful construction of a middle class via market capitalism turned out to be the most successful experiment in human human history to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, eradicate famine and plagues, and create almost universal literacy. The very fact that you have the words and "thoughts" with which to question bourgeois society speaks to the great pains your forebears went to to make sure you weren't a slave peasant, and that's what you want to go back to? Shame on ya.
  - SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
    > So everyone should be equally poor? The idea behind workers owning the means of production is that everyone should be equally prosperous.
  - diordiderot 5y ago
    > the most successful experiment in human human history to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty Sorry bub, that's China. > (American success) via market capitalism Via Europeans enslaving everyone else on earth then nearly destroying themselves in WWII > great pains your forebears went to to make sure you weren't a slave peasant If you mean lobbing off Old Louis and Marie's fat gourds then yeah, you're right Anyone born between 1940-70 was born on third base and thought they hit a triple.

jjav 5y ago

> > you'll see a lot of small, private landlords get out, only to leave large corporate landlords who will have much stricter rental policies. > If this were to happen, it would be a good thing. Doubtful. For one thing, renting from individuals is far more pleasant than renting from giant housing conglomerates. With an individual landlord everything is negotiable and flexible, it's a person you can talk to. When renting from a corporation, there are strict rules enforced by teams of lawyers and zero flexibility. > Consolidation erodes the electoral base of rent seekers You got that exactly backwards. Yes, there are more individuals renting out their single properties each, but those are ordinary people who have no lawyers and no lobbyists and they don't have any coordinated voice and no influence with politicians. The more rental properties are consolidated to giant corporations, the more outsized their influence in congress becomes as they can afford an army of lobbyists to bend the laws ever more in their favor.

femiagbabiaka 5y ago
> Doubtful. For one thing, renting from individuals is far more pleasant than renting from giant housing conglomerates. With an individual landlord everything is negotiable and flexible, it's a person you can talk to. When renting from a corporation, there are strict rules enforced by teams of lawyers and zero flexibility. I've had the exact opposite experience. > You got that exactly backwards. Yes, there are more individuals renting out their single properties each, but those are ordinary people who have no lawyers and no lobbyists and they don't have any coordinated voice and no influence with politicians. This is just blatantly false.
withinboredom 5y ago
Depends on the individual you are renting from. I learned the hard way to never have a lawyer for a landlord. Landlords shouldn’t be allowed to represent themselves (too bad it’s a constitutional right!). Anyway, come to find out the guy set the deposit amount specifically to make it just enough that even if you went to court to get it back, you’d never get it back because that’s how much you’d spend to get it back. After randomly running into his ex-wife at a party and hearing that it was all done on purpose, we started to put together a class action with all of his past tenants. Then we moved to the EU instead.

cheald 5y ago

"Rent seeking" is a very specific economics term which has nothing to do with landlords. In fact, in this scenario, the tenants exploiting government restrictions to capture the landlord's value were the ones engaged in rent-seeking. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp

actually_a_dog 5y ago
The first sentence of the link you posted shows that the GP used the term correctly: > Rent seeking (or rent-seeking) is an economic concept that occurs when an entity seeks to gain added wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity. Landlords produce nothing. They don't provide housing; builders do. All landlords do is hoard housing and get other people to pay their mortgages. They literally want to get paid for owning stuff.
- cko 5y ago
  At the very least, they do maintain housing. It takes constant upkeep and updating to keep a structure in decent condition. Unless they're a slum lord, which isn't the most sustainable business model. Some landlords rehab a completely unlivable structure into something livable. That's something too. I am a renter and I hesitate to own my home because of the upkeep costs and responsibility. So I subscribe to shelter-as-a-service.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    Yes, landlords maintain housing. So do homeowners who live in their homes. If anything, homeowners have more incentive to properly maintain their property than landlords, because they live there. Maintaining things properly often costs more money than doing the type of "good enough" repair that a landlord would be tempted to do because it's less money out of their pocket. So, if anything, "landlords maintain housing" is an argument against landlords. The point is that "landlords maintain housing," along with "landlords pay property taxes" and other such statements are at best a wash. Those things would happen anyway, no matter who owned the housing.