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Landlords Are Pushing the Supreme Court to End Rent Control

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41–50 of 81 posts

Re: Landlords Are Pushing the Supreme Court to End Rent Control

#41

This is the natural consequence of Citizen United (such a dishonest name). When those with money is allowed to leverage their wealth to disproportionately affect legal proceedings and lawmaking, it is just a step towards dystopia.

Citizen United is bad but this has nothing to do with it.

It's just a lawsuit against NY that the plaintiffs hope to get in front of Supreme Court and win there.

The article insinuates there's lobbying involved but it's mum on the details i.e. what exactly they are spending money on given that it'll be decided by 9 judges.

Furthermore, I believe Citizen United is specifically about spending money on political candidates and whatever lobbying this is, it's not that.

Re: Landlords Are Pushing the Supreme Court to End Rent Control

#42

Good. People think rent control helps poor and middle class people find a good place to live, and punishes those evil, evil landlords. What it does in practice is discourage building new housing, and encourages evil, evil landlords to convert existing housing into condos they can sell. It drives people out of the city.

Rent control is the only thing that keeps dozens of my friends in San Francisco. Ages 22-75.

Nobody denies that some people benefit - the question is does society as a whole benefit?

Re: Landlords Are Pushing the Supreme Court to End Rent Control

#43
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called capitalism for a reason. What are you suggesting as an alternative?

Capitalism is a monetary policy, not a form of government. In the US, it is becoming a form of government to the detriment of democracy. When people cannot voice their opinion through voting, it tends to end badly. Here’s hoping the rich folks figure that out before it’s too late to solve with democracy.

> Capitalism is a monetary policy, not a form of government.

Capitalism is a mode of social relations that monetary policy is downstream from. Remember capitalism was established as dominant by way of revolution. Capitalism and democracy fundamentally contradict one another from the outset, but democracy was capitalism's path to victory. The contradiction still remains.

Re: Landlords Are Pushing the Supreme Court to End Rent Control

#44
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called capitalism for a reason. What are you suggesting as an alternative?

Capitalism is a monetary policy, not a form of government. In the US, it is becoming a form of government to the detriment of democracy. When people cannot voice their opinion through voting, it tends to end badly. Here’s hoping the rich folks figure that out before it’s too late to solve with democracy.

Capitalism is a production policy. It just meant that the one who choose what get built and where are the one with the monetary capital.

Re: Landlords Are Pushing the Supreme Court to End Rent Control

#46

Good. People think rent control helps poor and middle class people find a good place to live, and punishes those evil, evil landlords. What it does in practice is discourage building new housing, and encourages evil, evil landlords to convert existing housing into condos they can sell. It drives people out of the city.

Rent control is the only thing that keeps dozens of my friends in San Francisco. Ages 22-75.

Good for them but how is it just and fair?

Why your friends get cheap rents and not my friends who would also like to have cheap apartments in SF?

How is it fair that everyone who doesn't have rent controlled apartment is paying more for their apt than they otherwise would, as dictated by supply-demand 101.

How is it fair that a private entity (a landlord) subsidies another private entity (renter) under threat of government violence?

In any other business context (e.g. selling cars) such rules would be beyond the pale.

Can you imagine the government telling Ford that if a buyer meets some criteria Ford has to sell them F-150 at 40% discount? It sounds absurd but this is what rent control is.

Re: Landlords Are Pushing the Supreme Court to End Rent Control

#47
post #44
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is a monetary policy, not a form of government. In the US, it is becoming a form of government to the detriment of democracy. When people cannot voice their opinion through voting, it tends to end badly. Here’s hoping the rich folks figure that out before it’s too late to solve with democracy.

Capitalism is a production policy. It just meant that the one who choose what get built and where are the one with the monetary capital.

If you don't bother to mention how they attained the capital, you could be describing feudalism as well!

Realize the most important aspect of capitalism is the ability to accumulate capital, to a fundamentally infinite end because any limits will be overturned by the controllers of the capital.

Re: Landlords Are Pushing the Supreme Court to End Rent Control

#48

Rent control is dumb policy anyways. Now how can we get rid of nimby rule? Local governments have way too much influence on development, for better or worse. Perhaps sufficiently large development proposals must be entertained by the entire city or town rather than being unilaterally decided by a board - that seems like a sufficient compromise (at the expense of speed, but development is slow anyway given the appeals…

[flagged]

- "Remove planning rights from local/city government entirely"

- "use the government to essentially take land and repurpose it"

These are third world tactics.

Re: Landlords Are Pushing the Supreme Court to End Rent Control

#49
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remove planning rights from local/city government entirely > You must use the government to essentially take land and repurpose it. Which government? In your first sentence we removed land planning from the local government.

I think he’s proposing urban dekulakization, so presumably the dispossession and redistribution would be enforced at the national level or at least by state level authorities.

Gotta keep an eye on those totally-not-made-up-for-political-purposes kulaks. First, they'll want to keep all* of the grain they grow, next their homes. Such selfish people.

* - enough to eat, anyway.

Re: Landlords Are Pushing the Supreme Court to End Rent Control

#50
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

California basically did this[1]. Sadly though the desirable coastal areas are literally full and all spoken for and even without any real zoning anymore there’s nowhere to actually build. So you’re gonna need to eminent domain some Malibu mansions to make room for the non stop line of 1+5s from LA to SF. It’s also interesting to me how many people propose increasing supply when there is nowhere to build, but can’t e…

As someone who also lives in California, can you point out the parts of the state where there's nowhere left to build? It certainly isn't any of the places I've lived (Beverly hills, SF, East Bay), each of which has seen significant commercial redevelopment in my lifetime. None of them are dense by global standards either. SF only has 25% the population density of Paris, for example.
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