4 ms·

The literal alternative, which is actually happening right now and not some textbook hypothetical is supply not keeping up anyway and landlords charging however

The literal alternative, which is actually happening right now and not some textbook hypothetical is supply not keeping up anyway and landlords charging however much they want pretty much unbridled, not to mention major companies snapping up real estate and leveraging it as investment collateral rather than treating them and managing them as, you know, housing. We need a change. We don't need to do rent freezes in a vacuum. Coupled with the right policy supports they can definitely work, and Mamdani's proposed freezes are limited in scope. He is freezing rents only for select controlled units, last I checked. Before you go spreading the bs propaganda, consider what your fellow citizens actually need to survive and whether or not you want to be viewed as being on the side of a few billionaires or on the side of the vast population that is increasingly becoming impoverished.

ecshafer 11mo ago
1. New york city has rent control on 1 million units already 2. New york city has laws making it so you can only increase rent by a small fraction of the investment for renovation taking a large amount of units off the market as its economically infeasible 3. Nyc has a very strict zoning and regulation system that is reducing housing supply
- voidhorse 11mo ago
  Two of these things are orthogonal to freezes on rent controlled units, so I don't understand your point here. I agree that 3. Is a problem. I'm not convinced mamadani is against reconsidering zoning and regulation to increase supply. Nothing I've heard suggest he would be.
- FireBeyond 11mo ago
  No it doesn't. There are about 25,000 rent-controlled units, less than 1% of units in the City. You are thinking of rent stabilization, but that's not close to the same thing.
  - WatchDog 11mo ago
    They are both price controls on rent. The eligibility criteria are different, and the terms by which rent may increase are different, but they seem pretty close to the same thing to me.
    - ThrowMeAway1618 11mo ago
      [flagged]
      - WatchDog 11mo ago
        Nothing on that page contradicts anything I said.
- liveoneggs 11mo ago
  (from wikipedia) 1. rent control is a specific, technical term which represents about 24k units 2. rent stabilized representing about 1M sets limits on rent increases in exchange for tax breaks for the building 3. corruption
  - Ferret7446 11mo ago
    When you have to argue semantics by defining a new term ("it's not rent control, it's rent stabilization") that's a pretty good sign that you've fucked up and you're trying to hide it. What's next, "these people are technically not in poverty, they're income challenged"
    - ThrowMeAway1618 11mo ago
      >When you have to argue semantics by defining a new term ("it's not rent control, it's rent stabilization") that's a pretty good sign that you've fucked up and you're trying to hide it. It's not "defining a new term." In New York City, "Rent Control" is the official name of a specific program/set of laws and "Rent Stabilization" is the official name of a different specific program/set of laws.[0] And since we're talking about New York City housing laws/policies and that Mamdani is proposing a rent freeze for units in one of those two programs, being specific about it isn't semantics at all. The all-encompassing term that you thought you were using a gotcha on is "rent regulation." Please! Put some knowledge on, your ignorance is showing. Sheesh! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation_in_New_York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation_in_New_York Edit: Added ">" to identify the section I quoted.
bdastous 11mo ago
> He is freezing rents only for select controlled units 45% of apartments in NYC
- FireBeyond 11mo ago
  Rent-controlled units account for less than 1%. Rent-stabilized units for less than 25%.
  - WatchDog 11mo ago
    Over 50% of rented units in New York are regulated somehow. 34% “rent stabilised pre-74”, 8% “rent stabilized post-73”, 1% rent controlled, 7% public housing, 2% other
tinyhouse 11mo ago
Actually demand has being going down and rents have been trending down as a result. The main reason is less immigration and international students. I recall years ago every open house I would go to ended up selling above market value for cash from someone from overseas who "invests" their money on the back of locals trying to buy a house to live in for their family. The billionaires were not the ones to blame for this.
- voidhorse 11mo ago
  lol, going down according to who? https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/new-york-ny/ https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/new-york... I don't doubt that immigration has probably marginally impacted the market, that doesn't change the fact that rent in NYC is still increasing YoY and is way too expensive. And yes, the people extracting exorbitant rent cost are in fact the ones to blame. I don't understand people who seem to occupy a fairytale land in which they feel the need to defend billionaires as though they owe some fealty to them.
  - tinyhouse 11mo ago
    Maybe NYC lags behind other major cities. Check Boston for example.
throwaway3060 11mo ago
Making it about "sides" is exactly why politics is as toxic as it is today. Is it inconceivable that one could look at the candidates and, without being a billionaire, decide that Mamdani is not a candidate they want to bet their chips on?
- voidhorse 11mo ago
  Politics is all about sides. To think it isn't is delusional. It's uncomfortable to take sides, but that's what politics is. It's finding out what you believe is important (e.g. helping average people make ends meet, even if it require regulation, or eliminating regulation), you will end up taking sides whether you like it or not. I think it's incredibly naive not to consider who our choices benefit. If your choices benefit people who already have massive amounts of wealth, you should acknowledge that and be aware of that and accept the consequences of that, and vice versa. Obviously in many cases it is complicated--your choices may benefit several different classes of people and undermine others. If anything the problem with politics is that many people make choices without considering what "sides" will benefit, letting ads, propaganda, and persuasion convince them instead. This leads people to actively vote against their own interests without even realizing it.
  - throwaway3060 11mo ago
    Doesn't this also apply in reverse? How many supporters of Mamdani acknowledge the groups that this choice will potentially harm? I am instead seeing people usually get defensive and downplay the potential harm on the more controversial issues. I also haven't seen anyone acknowledge that if the risk goes awry, it could end up causing even more harm to exactly those the policies were supposed to help. If the goal is to vote for one's self interest, isn't it assuming a lot that this will always be aligned with one side? Sometimes self-interest means supporting one side on one issue, and a different side on a different issue. The act of taking a side is in of itself a form of compromise. I see nothing wrong with that, but that's not what people usually mean when they talk of sides.
testfoobar 11mo ago
The underlying cause of impoverishment where inflation of housing, healthcare, and education is outpacing income is an expansionist monetary policy. ZIRP (Zero interest policy) along with QE (quantitative easing) pushed ever increasing amounts of printed money into the system. No one is touching the root cause. Not Mamdani, not Democrats and not Republicans. https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2010/12/08/131903366/jon-stewart-busts-fed-s-chair-ben-bernanke-on-printing-money https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2010/12/08/13190... "Jon Stewart Busts Fed Chair Ben Bernanke On 'Printing Money' December 8, 201010:39 AM ET By Frank James Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is so busted. Comedy Central host Jon Stewart added his voice to others who caught the central banker contradicting himself over whether or not the Fed is "printing money" through its actions to bolster the economy. On 60 Minutes this week, when asked by reporter Scott Pelley about the Fed's $600 billion purchase of Treasury bonds that is meant to lower interest rates further, the Fed chair said: BERNANKE: Well, this fear of inflation, I think is way overstated. We've looked at it very, very carefully. We've analyzed it every which way. One myth that's out there is that what we're doing is printing money. We're not printing money. The amount of currency in circulation is not changing. The money supply is not changing in any significant way. ... Twenty-one months earlier on the same program and to the same reporter, Bernanke said something quite different: Asked if it's tax money the Fed is spending, Bernanke said, "It's not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed, much the same way that you have an account in a commercial bank. So, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It's much more akin to printing money than it is to borrowing." "You've been printing money?" Pelley asked. "Well, effectively," Bernanke said. "And we need to do that, because our economy is very weak and inflation is very low. When the economy begins to recover, that will be the time that we need to unwind those programs, raise interest rates, reduce the money supply, and make sure that we have a recovery that does not involve inflation." "

ecshafer 11mo ago

1. New york city has rent control on 1 million units already 2. New york city has laws making it so you can only increase rent by a small fraction of the investment for renovation taking a large amount of units off the market as its economically infeasible 3. Nyc has a very strict zoning and regulation system that is reducing housing supply

voidhorse 11mo ago
Two of these things are orthogonal to freezes on rent controlled units, so I don't understand your point here. I agree that 3. Is a problem. I'm not convinced mamadani is against reconsidering zoning and regulation to increase supply. Nothing I've heard suggest he would be.
FireBeyond 11mo ago
No it doesn't. There are about 25,000 rent-controlled units, less than 1% of units in the City. You are thinking of rent stabilization, but that's not close to the same thing.
- WatchDog 11mo ago
  They are both price controls on rent. The eligibility criteria are different, and the terms by which rent may increase are different, but they seem pretty close to the same thing to me.
  - ThrowMeAway1618 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - WatchDog 11mo ago
      Nothing on that page contradicts anything I said.
liveoneggs 11mo ago
(from wikipedia) 1. rent control is a specific, technical term which represents about 24k units 2. rent stabilized representing about 1M sets limits on rent increases in exchange for tax breaks for the building 3. corruption
- Ferret7446 11mo ago
  When you have to argue semantics by defining a new term ("it's not rent control, it's rent stabilization") that's a pretty good sign that you've fucked up and you're trying to hide it. What's next, "these people are technically not in poverty, they're income challenged"
  - ThrowMeAway1618 11mo ago
    >When you have to argue semantics by defining a new term ("it's not rent control, it's rent stabilization") that's a pretty good sign that you've fucked up and you're trying to hide it. It's not "defining a new term." In New York City, "Rent Control" is the official name of a specific program/set of laws and "Rent Stabilization" is the official name of a different specific program/set of laws.[0] And since we're talking about New York City housing laws/policies and that Mamdani is proposing a rent freeze for units in one of those two programs, being specific about it isn't semantics at all. The all-encompassing term that you thought you were using a gotcha on is "rent regulation." Please! Put some knowledge on, your ignorance is showing. Sheesh! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation_in_New_York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation_in_New_York Edit: Added ">" to identify the section I quoted.

bdastous 11mo ago

> He is freezing rents only for select controlled units 45% of apartments in NYC

FireBeyond 11mo ago
Rent-controlled units account for less than 1%. Rent-stabilized units for less than 25%.
- WatchDog 11mo ago
  Over 50% of rented units in New York are regulated somehow. 34% “rent stabilised pre-74”, 8% “rent stabilized post-73”, 1% rent controlled, 7% public housing, 2% other

tinyhouse 11mo ago

Actually demand has being going down and rents have been trending down as a result. The main reason is less immigration and international students. I recall years ago every open house I would go to ended up selling above market value for cash from someone from overseas who "invests" their money on the back of locals trying to buy a house to live in for their family. The billionaires were not the ones to blame for this.

voidhorse 11mo ago
lol, going down according to who? https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/new-york-ny/ https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/new-york... I don't doubt that immigration has probably marginally impacted the market, that doesn't change the fact that rent in NYC is still increasing YoY and is way too expensive. And yes, the people extracting exorbitant rent cost are in fact the ones to blame. I don't understand people who seem to occupy a fairytale land in which they feel the need to defend billionaires as though they owe some fealty to them.
- tinyhouse 11mo ago
  Maybe NYC lags behind other major cities. Check Boston for example.

throwaway3060 11mo ago

Making it about "sides" is exactly why politics is as toxic as it is today. Is it inconceivable that one could look at the candidates and, without being a billionaire, decide that Mamdani is not a candidate they want to bet their chips on?

voidhorse 11mo ago
Politics is all about sides. To think it isn't is delusional. It's uncomfortable to take sides, but that's what politics is. It's finding out what you believe is important (e.g. helping average people make ends meet, even if it require regulation, or eliminating regulation), you will end up taking sides whether you like it or not. I think it's incredibly naive not to consider who our choices benefit. If your choices benefit people who already have massive amounts of wealth, you should acknowledge that and be aware of that and accept the consequences of that, and vice versa. Obviously in many cases it is complicated--your choices may benefit several different classes of people and undermine others. If anything the problem with politics is that many people make choices without considering what "sides" will benefit, letting ads, propaganda, and persuasion convince them instead. This leads people to actively vote against their own interests without even realizing it.
- throwaway3060 11mo ago
  Doesn't this also apply in reverse? How many supporters of Mamdani acknowledge the groups that this choice will potentially harm? I am instead seeing people usually get defensive and downplay the potential harm on the more controversial issues. I also haven't seen anyone acknowledge that if the risk goes awry, it could end up causing even more harm to exactly those the policies were supposed to help. If the goal is to vote for one's self interest, isn't it assuming a lot that this will always be aligned with one side? Sometimes self-interest means supporting one side on one issue, and a different side on a different issue. The act of taking a side is in of itself a form of compromise. I see nothing wrong with that, but that's not what people usually mean when they talk of sides.

testfoobar 11mo ago

The underlying cause of impoverishment where inflation of housing, healthcare, and education is outpacing income is an expansionist monetary policy. ZIRP (Zero interest policy) along with QE (quantitative easing) pushed ever increasing amounts of printed money into the system. No one is touching the root cause. Not Mamdani, not Democrats and not Republicans. https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2010/12/08/131903366/jon-stewart-busts-fed-s-chair-ben-bernanke-on-printing-money https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2010/12/08/13190... "Jon Stewart Busts Fed Chair Ben Bernanke On 'Printing Money' December 8, 201010:39 AM ET By Frank James Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is so busted. Comedy Central host Jon Stewart added his voice to others who caught the central banker contradicting himself over whether or not the Fed is "printing money" through its actions to bolster the economy. On 60 Minutes this week, when asked by reporter Scott Pelley about the Fed's $600 billion purchase of Treasury bonds that is meant to lower interest rates further, the Fed chair said: BERNANKE: Well, this fear of inflation, I think is way overstated. We've looked at it very, very carefully. We've analyzed it every which way. One myth that's out there is that what we're doing is printing money. We're not printing money. The amount of currency in circulation is not changing. The money supply is not changing in any significant way. ... Twenty-one months earlier on the same program and to the same reporter, Bernanke said something quite different: Asked if it's tax money the Fed is spending, Bernanke said, "It's not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed, much the same way that you have an account in a commercial bank. So, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It's much more akin to printing money than it is to borrowing." "You've been printing money?" Pelley asked. "Well, effectively," Bernanke said. "And we need to do that, because our economy is very weak and inflation is very low. When the economy begins to recover, that will be the time that we need to unwind those programs, raise interest rates, reduce the money supply, and make sure that we have a recovery that does not involve inflation." "