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How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

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Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#131

Post by dk »

calambrac wrote: post #130
dk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked if you would yield price controls, which certainly do exist, and I was curious whether wild market fluctuations were pivotal to your position. I'm assuming this is why you haven't addressed the essence of my point.

I haven't addressed the essence of your point because I don't know what it is. Rent control only really exists in large cities that have experienced wild market fluctuations (in the form of surging rent prices) that displaced renters. If there weren't surging rents displacing people, why would there be rent control? In that case, I would yield them... but in that case, they wouldn't have existed in the first place. S…

Wild fluctuations != rising prices.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#132

Post by pelle »

jacobolus wrote: post #128
pelle wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low numbers of extreme poor? You have followed a bit too much propaganda and not enough reality it seems. The only country that is worse off in the entire region is Haiti. Probably more than 90% of the population is in extreme poverty. Worse than this Cubans was actually better off than most Europeans before Castro. They may have more doctors per capita now a days, but there is no food and no medicine.

> The only country that is worse off in the entire region is Haiti. Probably more than 90% of the population is in extreme poverty. This is completely false. Haiti is indeed much much worse off than the rest of the region, but Cubans have higher purchasing-power parity than Jamaicans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and perhaps a few others, and the country is generally much more equal most Latin Am…

Cubans do not have higher purchasing power parity that Jamaicans, Guatamalans and all the others you mentioned. This might be true if there was anything to purchase but there isn't. If I start paying myself with wads of Monopoly money I will also have higher income than I have ever had before, it is still monopoly money that doesn't work outside board game.

No one is starving in Jamaica and most other countries in the region. (While I have not had the pleasure of living in Cuba, I have lived in Jamaica and Panama and travelled extensively in the region. Both have very high levels of education, health etc.)

Cuba was according to 1960 ILO (The International Labour Organization) number 8 world wide for industrial salaries and number 7 for agricultural salaries. While there was not full literacy it had very high rates for the region. Health was also amongst the best in Latin America. For more about this see http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/cubaprecastro21698.html

Castro has done a great job of selling his miracle revolution. Most of what you hear in hollywood movies and popular press is fabrication and never questioned. Don't believe it.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#133

Post by arockwell »

mmmurf wrote: post #75
davidw wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always going to be a cutoff point, though, where people are unprofitable. Introducing some market oriented reforms might improve things, but you simply can't get around the fact that in a purely profit-oriented system, some people are not worth the money it would cost to save their lives or reduce their suffering. There are plenty of products where the market drives prices down, but doesn't make them free or…

True. I don't think anyone would object to helping the 1% of people who are actually in that category. The problem is that interest groups hijack the programs in order to win handouts for those who don't really need the programs.

Take a look at a list of what is considered an uninsurable condition for personal health insurance. That alone would hit more than 1% of the population.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#134

Post by davidw »

michaelkeenan wrote: post #117
gnaritas wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that viewpoint is it assumes people are inherently good; they aren't. When profit is the goal, people suffer. I find the idea that seeking profit automatically creates the best good rather naive and idealistic. Of course people don't apply the same argument to food, food isn't scarce for most of us and few have problems acquiring it and the ability to produce it can't be easily collected in the hands…

I have sympathy for your point of view. But I worry that attempting to remove the profit motive from healthcare could result in potential doctors choosing different professions. A problem with society having "certain expectations" of doctors - or anyone else - is that extra expectations (above "do a job so that trading with you helps the world") are a disincentive from getting into that profession. All that said, I s…

One possible solution would be to create a free market system, with some government guarantees for those who are unable to pay themselves. That has some problems of its own, but it at least attempts to capture the good bits of a free market system, while not leaving the poor to die in the gutters. Of course, this is more complex than the comment I originally replied to about "just let some entrepreneur take care of it".

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#135

Post by sfk »

pelle wrote: post #82
gnaritas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health is very different from other services, profit should not be the goal. Business does not attempt to help people, but to maximize profit, which does not necessarily mean increasing availability or lowering prices at all. It might be more profitable to dump the lower income people and jack up the prices on those who can afford it. Unlike other industries, getting service is often a literal life or death issue, yo…

Health is no different than other services in 99.9% of the cases. We should not optimize the entire system for that 0.1% of cases. The market optimizes everything for the better if it is allowed. For the exceptions, use exception handling also known as charities such as non profit hospitals and health centers who already donate health care to the poor. The increased efficiency and lower cost of a non regulated approa…

> The market optimizes everything for the better if it is allowed.

Such as financial products? I think we have enough evidence right now that people are not mature enough for a totally free market.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#136

Post by pelle »

sfk wrote: post #135
pelle wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health is no different than other services in 99.9% of the cases. We should not optimize the entire system for that 0.1% of cases. The market optimizes everything for the better if it is allowed. For the exceptions, use exception handling also known as charities such as non profit hospitals and health centers who already donate health care to the poor. The increased efficiency and lower cost of a non regulated approa…

> The market optimizes everything for the better if it is allowed. Such as financial products? I think we have enough evidence right now that people are not mature enough for a totally free market.

You are talking about one of the most highly regulated markets in the US. It's been at least 100 years since the financial markets where free in the US.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#137

Post by [deleted] »

jfoutz wrote: post #112
davidw wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet that smuggling is a tiny trickle compared to what the market could provide with many commodities (wheat, cotton, corn, stuff like that, not diamonds and rhino horns), meaning that the market is not effectively routing around it at all.

False. In Colombia, 4.5 kg of coca paste, which will yield about one kilo of cocaine, fetches about $4,500. On the streets of the United States, selling this kilogram of cocaine will earn between $200,000 and $600,000. ( http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia150.htm ) Claritin 10 mg Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71 ( http://www.rense.com/general54/preco.htm ) normalized…

[deleted]

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#138

Post by mseebach »

jfoutz wrote: post #112
davidw wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet that smuggling is a tiny trickle compared to what the market could provide with many commodities (wheat, cotton, corn, stuff like that, not diamonds and rhino horns), meaning that the market is not effectively routing around it at all.

False. In Colombia, 4.5 kg of coca paste, which will yield about one kilo of cocaine, fetches about $4,500. On the streets of the United States, selling this kilogram of cocaine will earn between $200,000 and $600,000. ( http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia150.htm ) Claritin 10 mg Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71 ( http://www.rense.com/general54/preco.htm ) normalized…

Huh?

Your math is off by a few orders of magniture. 100x10mg = 1g, so 1 kg should be 1000x$215.17 = $215,170.00, for an ingredient cost of 1000x$.71 = $710.

Also, I can buy 100 x 10mg Clarityn for $65, but I won't, because I can get 100 x 10mg Mildin (exact same active ingredient) for $35.

Edit: Oops, forgot to add a point.

Your point holds true, your calculations are just for 100 kg instead. Thing is, medicine isn't invented, manufactured sold or bought in a free market. Another difference between Clarityn and coke is that there is a very elaborate framework in place to make sure your pills are good - if your dealer dilutes your coke with flour or ratpoison, you're screwed and nobody cares. If there was no demand/requirement for that protection, I'm sure we could get our pills for around $1.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#139

Post by DabAsteroid »

jfoutz wrote: post #112
davidw wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet that smuggling is a tiny trickle compared to what the market could provide with many commodities (wheat, cotton, corn, stuff like that, not diamonds and rhino horns), meaning that the market is not effectively routing around it at all.

False. In Colombia, 4.5 kg of coca paste, which will yield about one kilo of cocaine, fetches about $4,500. On the streets of the United States, selling this kilogram of cocaine will earn between $200,000 and $600,000. ( http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia150.htm ) Claritin 10 mg Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71 ( http://www.rense.com/general54/preco.htm ) normalized…

one kilo of cocaine ... $4,500 ... On the streets ... between $200,000 and $600,000. ... Claritin ... $215.17 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71

Your analogy does not work, because it compares two regulated items (cocaine and Claritin), instead of one regulated item vs. one unregulated item.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#140

Post by DabAsteroid »

jfoutz wrote: post #112
davidw wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet that smuggling is a tiny trickle compared to what the market could provide with many commodities (wheat, cotton, corn, stuff like that, not diamonds and rhino horns), meaning that the market is not effectively routing around it at all.

False. In Colombia, 4.5 kg of coca paste, which will yield about one kilo of cocaine, fetches about $4,500. On the streets of the United States, selling this kilogram of cocaine will earn between $200,000 and $600,000. ( http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia150.htm ) Claritin 10 mg Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71 ( http://www.rense.com/general54/preco.htm ) normalized…

Also, your stateside cocaine kilo prices are off by more than 10 times, even factoring in the recent price jump. Here are the latest news stories mentioning stateside prices: http://news.google.com/news?q=kilo+of+cocaine+costs

You used to be able get about $18000 for a key (kilogram, or 2.2 pounds) of cocaine. New you’re seeing prices of $27000, $28000 per key. That’s a big jump. ...

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