5 ms·

Maybe unpopular, but like socialism, I think rent control is a good idea. It's always the implementation that falls apart (because politicians). If you have a f

Maybe unpopular, but like socialism, I think rent control is a good idea. It's always the implementation that falls apart (because politicians). If you have a fixed income (disabled and/or over retirement age), fix away.

mikkergp 4y ago
The argument I've seen against rent control is that it limits supply and ends up driving up prices. I don't have a moral problem with rent control, but I wonder what the negative externalities are in terms of affordability to folks trying to enter a market.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  How does rent control limit supply? The owning class (Both single home owners that live in the house they own AND people who rent out units) already fight against the building of additional supply.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    > The owning class, already fight against the building of additional supply. I mean of course, but both are true, it limits supply in just the straightforward way that it means more people can compete in high desirability areas. (maybe it increases demand, not limits supply?) either way it drives prices up.
- malermeister 4y ago
  The trick is to combine it with the state creating housing supply. That's what Vienna does and it's famous for its low-cost, high quality housing. The city of Vienna is Europe's biggest landlord. It's also the most livable city in the world for something like a decade in a row now.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  The moral problem with rent control is that it prevents people discriminating on price, so they discriminate on other factors (colour? sexuality? Age!) instead. There are others too, but that'd the most glaring...
  - droidist2 4y ago
    That's my biggest problem with socialism in general, it replaces "This person is willing to pay me more" with "I just like this person better" or "This person has the right connections." Of course there are situations when "This person is willing to pay me more" isn't fair, but those other things are even more unfair.
    - LatteLazy 4y ago
      The nice thing about the highest bidder gets it is that is creates an incentive and resources to make more of whatever "it" is. Capitalism isn't meant to be fair, it's meant to make more. That doesn't always work, housing is a good example of it struggling, but it at least tacitly tries to solve the core problem (shortage).
dominotw 4y ago
> because politicians how can politicians be directly to blame for everything bad. Surely majority people are electing this person to do what he/she/they are doing.
- Supermancho 4y ago
  > how can politicians be directly to blame for everything bad I didn't say this, ofc. I think you meant to say, how can they be to blame for the implementation. I think "the why" is obvious in that context. They craft the legislation and vote on it. > Surely majority people are electing this person to do what he/she/they are doing. Surely not. Elections are not physical handcuffs, where everything that an elected official is elected for is performed or all expectations are met. Voters largely have to make compromises based on all kinds of circumstantial conditions, like the range of candidates and their records and their sentiments on related issues. You probably know all this, but the phrasing makes me think you don't understand the way democracy works in a practical sense. Rent control is a niche issue for most people. The result of a rent-control policy is usually nothing a voter can directly notice or measure over a relatively long time, say multiple election cycles. That's why most analyses of rent control are sampled over a years and large populations.
nyokodo 4y ago
> I think rent control is a good idea. It's always the implementation that falls apart (because politicians) If the implementation of a good idea always falls apart for any reason then it's a bad idea.
- Supermancho 4y ago
  > If the implementation of a good idea always falls apart for any reason then it's a bad idea. Then your civilization never progresses. Seems like a bad rule of thumb to me.
- malermeister 4y ago
  Kind of like capitalism?
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    I've been assured by many that real capitalism has never been tried because people are afraid of how perfectly it will work, and that North Korea is the perfect example of the result of any kind of socialized anything.
flyingfences 4y ago
>If you have a fixed income If you have a fixed income _and_ already have a lease somewhere you like and don't foresee any reason to move in the future then (and only then) rent control works in your favor, at the expense of anyone else who is looking to move into or within the area.
AnimalMuppet 4y ago
See Sowell's Basic Economics (the chapter on rent control) for why this doesn't work. It's not because of bad implementations, it's because it's a bad idea. There won't be a good implementation.
- Supermancho 4y ago
  It's not clear what you mean by "doesn't work". > https://ichthyoid.writeas.com/price-controls-basic-economics-by-thomas-sowell-ch https://ichthyoid.writeas.com/price-controls-basic-economics... The goals and outcomes that this chapter describes far exceeds the goals I have described (maybe oversimplified). To clarify, the outcome desired is prolonging an established balance between fixed income (subsidy) and rent (market force) by artificial control for the specific case of the elderly indigent, which is necessarily capped by senescence. Ironically, throughout the chapter, politics are mentioned in a myriad of contexts and even highlighted. > since luxury housing is often exempt from rent control. Because why? Politics.
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    "Doesn't work" meaning "fails to achieve the stated objective". Maybe you're asking why or how it doesn't work? It doesn't work because money is in some sense not what's really going on. Sowell's main point in the whole book is that in a free market economy, money is how we allocate scarce resources that have alternate uses. But the real action is the allocation of resources, not the money. So if you institute rent control, you have not created any more housing. You have not increased the incentive for creating more housing. All you've done is allocate the existing housing a different way. (You've also created a disincentive to pay for proper maintenance on rent-controlled apartments.) You've moved the problem, helping those who are in the right position when rent control is enacted, at the expense of others. (Of course, those who are in the right position become major advocates of rent control, but that doesn't make it a good policy. It just makes it politically popular with the beneficiaries.) [Edit: I don't have time to plow through the link you provided in your edit/update. But I think that for the specific issue you're trying to address, a pure subsidy might work better than rent control.]
imtringued 4y ago
Come on, tax the land.
legitster 4y ago
If a good idea relies entirely on adversaries to cheerlead it, it probably is not a good idea. Truly good ideas usually succeed on their own merits despite opposition.

mikkergp 4y ago

The argument I've seen against rent control is that it limits supply and ends up driving up prices. I don't have a moral problem with rent control, but I wonder what the negative externalities are in terms of affordability to folks trying to enter a market.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
How does rent control limit supply? The owning class (Both single home owners that live in the house they own AND people who rent out units) already fight against the building of additional supply.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mikkergp 4y ago
  > The owning class, already fight against the building of additional supply. I mean of course, but both are true, it limits supply in just the straightforward way that it means more people can compete in high desirability areas. (maybe it increases demand, not limits supply?) either way it drives prices up.
malermeister 4y ago
The trick is to combine it with the state creating housing supply. That's what Vienna does and it's famous for its low-cost, high quality housing. The city of Vienna is Europe's biggest landlord. It's also the most livable city in the world for something like a decade in a row now.
LatteLazy 4y ago
The moral problem with rent control is that it prevents people discriminating on price, so they discriminate on other factors (colour? sexuality? Age!) instead. There are others too, but that'd the most glaring...
- droidist2 4y ago
  That's my biggest problem with socialism in general, it replaces "This person is willing to pay me more" with "I just like this person better" or "This person has the right connections." Of course there are situations when "This person is willing to pay me more" isn't fair, but those other things are even more unfair.
  - LatteLazy 4y ago
    The nice thing about the highest bidder gets it is that is creates an incentive and resources to make more of whatever "it" is. Capitalism isn't meant to be fair, it's meant to make more. That doesn't always work, housing is a good example of it struggling, but it at least tacitly tries to solve the core problem (shortage).

dominotw 4y ago

> because politicians how can politicians be directly to blame for everything bad. Surely majority people are electing this person to do what he/she/they are doing.

Supermancho 4y ago
> how can politicians be directly to blame for everything bad I didn't say this, ofc. I think you meant to say, how can they be to blame for the implementation. I think "the why" is obvious in that context. They craft the legislation and vote on it. > Surely majority people are electing this person to do what he/she/they are doing. Surely not. Elections are not physical handcuffs, where everything that an elected official is elected for is performed or all expectations are met. Voters largely have to make compromises based on all kinds of circumstantial conditions, like the range of candidates and their records and their sentiments on related issues. You probably know all this, but the phrasing makes me think you don't understand the way democracy works in a practical sense. Rent control is a niche issue for most people. The result of a rent-control policy is usually nothing a voter can directly notice or measure over a relatively long time, say multiple election cycles. That's why most analyses of rent control are sampled over a years and large populations.

nyokodo 4y ago

> I think rent control is a good idea. It's always the implementation that falls apart (because politicians) If the implementation of a good idea always falls apart for any reason then it's a bad idea.

Supermancho 4y ago
> If the implementation of a good idea always falls apart for any reason then it's a bad idea. Then your civilization never progresses. Seems like a bad rule of thumb to me.
malermeister 4y ago
Kind of like capitalism?
- pessimizer 4y ago
  I've been assured by many that real capitalism has never been tried because people are afraid of how perfectly it will work, and that North Korea is the perfect example of the result of any kind of socialized anything.

flyingfences 4y ago

>If you have a fixed income If you have a fixed income _and_ already have a lease somewhere you like and don't foresee any reason to move in the future then (and only then) rent control works in your favor, at the expense of anyone else who is looking to move into or within the area.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago

See Sowell's Basic Economics (the chapter on rent control) for why this doesn't work. It's not because of bad implementations, it's because it's a bad idea. There won't be a good implementation.

Supermancho 4y ago
It's not clear what you mean by "doesn't work". > https://ichthyoid.writeas.com/price-controls-basic-economics-by-thomas-sowell-ch https://ichthyoid.writeas.com/price-controls-basic-economics... The goals and outcomes that this chapter describes far exceeds the goals I have described (maybe oversimplified). To clarify, the outcome desired is prolonging an established balance between fixed income (subsidy) and rent (market force) by artificial control for the specific case of the elderly indigent, which is necessarily capped by senescence. Ironically, throughout the chapter, politics are mentioned in a myriad of contexts and even highlighted. > since luxury housing is often exempt from rent control. Because why? Politics.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  "Doesn't work" meaning "fails to achieve the stated objective". Maybe you're asking why or how it doesn't work? It doesn't work because money is in some sense not what's really going on. Sowell's main point in the whole book is that in a free market economy, money is how we allocate scarce resources that have alternate uses. But the real action is the allocation of resources, not the money. So if you institute rent control, you have not created any more housing. You have not increased the incentive for creating more housing. All you've done is allocate the existing housing a different way. (You've also created a disincentive to pay for proper maintenance on rent-controlled apartments.) You've moved the problem, helping those who are in the right position when rent control is enacted, at the expense of others. (Of course, those who are in the right position become major advocates of rent control, but that doesn't make it a good policy. It just makes it politically popular with the beneficiaries.) [Edit: I don't have time to plow through the link you provided in your edit/update. But I think that for the specific issue you're trying to address, a pure subsidy might work better than rent control.]

imtringued 4y ago

Come on, tax the land.

legitster 4y ago

If a good idea relies entirely on adversaries to cheerlead it, it probably is not a good idea. Truly good ideas usually succeed on their own merits despite opposition.