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Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

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Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally just capitalism. This is the point of the economic system. Why are people surprised? Is the propaganda just that good?

It's possible to have capitalism without certain shitty practices like this. It's entirely within the government's capability to outlaw these things.

There is no single state of capitalism. We should think of markets as a fluid mass filling the vessel that government provides. In some places these practices are allowed, and other places these practices are restricted - markets form elsewhere in those economies.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#92
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HOAs often enacts rules that would be illegal for a city council to enact. (between the US constitution, US federal laws, State constitution, State laws, and county laws there are often strict limits to what can be done that HOAs are not effected by). Courts have reigned in some of that, but there is still a lot that a HOA can do. HOAs also tend to be too small - it is hard to find someone qualified who wants to be i…

> between the US constitution, US federal laws, State constitution, State laws, and county laws there are often strict limits to what can be done that HOAs are not effected (sic) by HOAs cannot enforce rules that conflict with State or Federal law or the Constitution.

https://mynews4.com/news/local/renos-caughlin-ranch-hoa-prop...

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#93
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HOAs often enacts rules that would be illegal for a city council to enact. (between the US constitution, US federal laws, State constitution, State laws, and county laws there are often strict limits to what can be done that HOAs are not effected by). Courts have reigned in some of that, but there is still a lot that a HOA can do. HOAs also tend to be too small - it is hard to find someone qualified who wants to be i…

> between the US constitution, US federal laws, State constitution, State laws, and county laws there are often strict limits to what can be done that HOAs are not effected (sic) by HOAs cannot enforce rules that conflict with State or Federal law or the Constitution.

HOAs often restrict freedom of expression which would not be legal if done by a city government.

The first amendment, however, only protects against government censorship, not private organization censorship so an HOA can force you to paint over the mural on your garage whereas a city government could not*.

Some of this depends on state of course. California, for instance, recognizes HOAs as quasigovernments which imposes some restrictions on an HOAs power to censor speech, but many other states do not.

* Case law on this is actually quite minimal. Local governments do try to ban free speech of course and almost certainly overstep their bounds, but no one has gotten a case to the Supreme Court.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#94
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having two opinions on two different forms of land use restriction is not necessarily inconstant. Especially since one is a form of contract law, the other government regulation. Beyond enforcement, the government has no real part in the former. Except perhaps not disallowing it. But we have rights to specific parts of usage excluded from land sales all the time - water rights being a particularly gnarly one.

>Having two opinions on two different forms of land use restriction is not necessarily inconstant. Especially since one is a form of contract law, the other government regulation. Shouldn't he rail harder against the former than the latter? A contract is agreed to by two willing parties. The same can't be said for government regulation, especially for people who want to move into an area but are blocked by NIMBYs.

> A contract is agreed to by two willing parties.

That doesn't matter at all, "two willing parties" doesn't make a contract legal. Neither of those willing parties are the ones harmed being harmed by the anti-competitive contracts.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#95

These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal. It's basically a corporation trying to act as a pseudogovernment, enforcing regulations on land that they no longer own themselves. One could argue that HOAs are kind of a similar issue, acting like a pseudogovernment, with restrictions on housing passing on down indefinitely, even to new owners who may not have wanted to agree to them (but with housing being as…

> These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal

An easier solution is mandatory sunsets after a period of time. Because the flip side of making them illegal is you'll have a lot more land with conservation easements being exploited for resources.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#96

These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal. It's basically a corporation trying to act as a pseudogovernment, enforcing regulations on land that they no longer own themselves. One could argue that HOAs are kind of a similar issue, acting like a pseudogovernment, with restrictions on housing passing on down indefinitely, even to new owners who may not have wanted to agree to them (but with housing being as…

> These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal An easier solution is mandatory sunsets after a period of time. Because the flip side of making them illegal is you'll have a lot more land with conservation easements being exploited for resources.

That is indeed a downside, but the expectation there should be that the government should be restricting resource exploitation where that's undesirable.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case since it's deed restrictions as part of the land/building sale it's not the government enforcing these restrictions, it's plain old contract law.

The government enforces all contracts, by having the power to impose the consequences of violating contracts. In this case, the government is not doing its anti trust duties resulting in harm to the public.

Perhaps it's just me, but I'm pretty glad that we don't have the government interfering with our every contracted act (a sale is such an act).

On the flip side, without the government to enforce a contract one party has broken, there would be no reason to ever fulfill a contract - you'd have to rely on citizen's force, and history has not shown that it's been particularly good to rely on regular citizens.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#98
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally just capitalism. This is the point of the economic system. Why are people surprised? Is the propaganda just that good?

It's literally just regulatory capture. It has nothing to do with capitalism. In a truly capitalistic economy, there would be no regulations preventing competitors from coming in and creating competition. The propaganda doesn't have to be good when nobody understands what is and isn't capitalism anyways.

When the incumbent owns the vacant lot, it's capitalism. Free formation of contracts (saying you promise not to open a grocery store there, in exchange for getting the land at all) is also a big part of capitalism.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokyo does just fine

As does San Francisco.

Building codes were updated, and I'd guess a similar earthquake today would have less damage, but San Francisco did not exactly do fine in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#100
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally felt that the use of the phrasing «it’s funny» implied that the comment was some kind of criticism. In both comments. I understand whataboutism as bringing up something that is somewhat related in order to shift the focus away from the original topic.

>I understand whataboutism as bringing up something that is somewhat related in order to shift the focus away from the original topic. ...or it's to draw attention that the author might be selectively applying arguments whenever it suits him, and readers shouldn't take him at face value. Between the two articles, it looks like Stroller is against big corporations first and foremost, and musters whatever argument is h…

> In the case of house builders, he's explicitly says land use regulations aren't a significant factor ("just pointing at over-regulation in and of itself isn’t a satisfying explanation"),

Umm... what? Those are two quite different statements. You can't conflate them that way and be arguing in good faith. You have either misunderstood his stance or are deliberately misrepresenting it.

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