New York governor approves short-term apartment rental ban in NYC

But the problem is when most voters don't care about a particular issue, and a small minority (in this instance hoteliers) do. I would introduce reforms to partially overcome these problems:

1. politicians can only make something illegal with a super-majority (say 55 or 60%). This means there is an automatic bias towards liberty.

2. recall elections for politicians at all levels

3. ban businesses from donating money to politicians. It just creates too many opportunities for corruption.

4. all legislative assemblies to be elected by proportional representation. This would mean genuine voter choice rather than 2 monolithic big parties.

5. all assemblies at lower than the country level (which in the US, means state governments and below) are allowed to legalise any activity made illegal by a higher government on a straight 50% of the vote. As with (1) this is also a bias towards liberty.

6. any law passed by any assembly must be subject to a referendum if enough people want it.

At the point you are doing that with any sort of regularity you should be subject to licensing, insurance, etc.

NYC -- famous for high cost-of-living. So folks start micro-leasing as a way to recoup costs. Several startups are created as a way to coordinate these micro-leases.

Response? Government steps in and shuts it down.

The reason social problems, like housing shortages and the political responses, are important to talk about on HN is that big companies solve big problems, and nothing happens in a vacuum. Sometimes your biggest competitor can be the political status quo.

I find the governor's remarks true, yet unconvincing. Kind of like a lot of politician-speak. Politicians (of all stripes) learn from the legal, public relations, and polling professions how to take any position on any side of an argument and make it sound somewhat plausible and reasonable for Joe Six Pack giving the entire matter 5 minutes thought.

In the absence of public uproar, this was done for commercial reasons. Dig deep enough and you'll find somebody with a checkbook.

It is usually the duty of parents to raise their children (and pay for their education). The left however feels that it “takes the village to raise the child” (nice way of saying that someone else should pay for education, etc…). This means that dysfunctional people and families can externalise the consequences of their actions.

If we think of it in a crude way: wouldn’t the most fit evolutionary strategy in such a system be to just get as much children as you want? Since someone else will bust their but to pay for the raising and education of your child.

This is unfortunately what happens in many countries, and it is quite sad. In my country there are 13.4 million people on government grants and there are 12 million people working. Of those that work, only about 3 million pay tax (75% which is paid by 750,000). Of the 13.4 million receiving “social grants”, about 9 million are child grants (government pays them for each child under 16, thereby encouraging people to get children. Many people receive the child grant from their children before they stop getting their own grant).

The point of this is that each tax payer is paying to raise 3 children that are not theirs. Is that fair? Should someone really be allowed to get children if they cannot afford them?

This is also one of the reasons I believe that democracy does not work in most countries – especially countries with a high population or which is not homogeneous.

The excuse of “family location” is BS. Many people have put off or postponed having children until they can afford them, and at least kept the number of children to a minimum. Many people also at least put in the effort to raise the kids that they have properly.