Earlier quoted context omitted.
Theoretically yes, although the demand curve also comes into play. In a parallel universe where the risks of a pandemic/lockdown was known and taken seriously, you would definitely expect rents to be higher.
Maybe the landlords should've been more responsible and saved for a rainy day. Isn't that what the less-well-off are always told to do? Poor planning on their part shouldn't be the fault of renters.
31% Can’t Pay the Rent: ‘It’s Only Going to Get Worse’
71–80 of 147 posts
Re: 31% Can’t Pay the Rent: ‘It’s Only Going to Get Worse’
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure that people freely choosing to give landlords hundreds and even thousands of dollars monthly has already proven their worth.
freely choosing I'm as skeptical of neo-Georgism as anyone, but this is a pretty standard fallacy. I seriously doubt that most people who rent their homes and business properties have viable alternatives to renting.
Re: 31% Can’t Pay the Rent: ‘It’s Only Going to Get Worse’
#73Re: 31% Can’t Pay the Rent: ‘It’s Only Going to Get Worse’
#74I don't get why it's not ok to steal food from a grocery store but it is ok to not pay rent. Both are basic necessities and in both cases you hurt someone else by not paying for service (food/shelter).
Most people see a vast moral difference between failing to pay a debt you owe and taking something that doesn't belong to you in the first place. If you broke into an unoccupied apartment and squatted there, that'd be at least as stealing food from a grocery store.
Re: 31% Can’t Pay the Rent: ‘It’s Only Going to Get Worse’
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people see a vast moral difference between failing to pay a debt you owe and taking something that doesn't belong to you in the first place. If you broke into an unoccupied apartment and squatted there, that'd be at least as stealing food from a grocery store.
But living in a place without paying is taking something that doesn't belong to you. That space could be otherwise used if you hadn't temporarily stolen it.
Re: 31% Can’t Pay the Rent: ‘It’s Only Going to Get Worse’
#76I don't get why it's not ok to steal food from a grocery store but it is ok to not pay rent. Both are basic necessities and in both cases you hurt someone else by not paying for service (food/shelter).
I'm sure there's a moral framework where it's never acceptable to hurt someone else when you could sacrifice yourself instead, but I don't think that's a particularly common school of thought. More often people will weigh two potential harms to make a decision, like "I can't pay my rent, but property taxes and foreclosures have been suspended during the pandemic, so my landlord will likely suffer less harm than I would if I became homeless."
Finally, "can't pay the rent" doesn't necessarily mean silently fail to mail a check. It might mean talking to the landlord about a payment plan, or frankly telling them you have no money and can't even afford food for the week. Landlords are humans, just like grocers who might give food to a starving person
Re: 31% Can’t Pay the Rent: ‘It’s Only Going to Get Worse’
#77wait, is that even legal? Aren't security deposits meant to be held in trust?
Re: 31% Can’t Pay the Rent: ‘It’s Only Going to Get Worse’
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Almost by definition "rent" is simply extracting value from the productive economy through ownership. What? Do you define any profit margin as such? Housing rent is not the same thing as the term 'economic rent'. Housing is as much a liability as an asset. There is risk with owning it. Rent payments are compensation for said risk. All profit is just compensation for risk.
Profit is not compensation for risk. Risk is a limiting factor in chasing after profits, sure, but you can take unprofitable risks, and if you have a particularly privileged position or information, you can make a profit with little to no risk. Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster doesn't exactly take a lot of risk for his rents.
My point is that profit as a concept exists because without it, there would be no reason to assume risk in the first place. Therefore, profit is compensation for risk.
Re: 31% Can’t Pay the Rent: ‘It’s Only Going to Get Worse’
#79Rents will have to come down or be waived. Almost by definition "rent" is simply extracting value from the productive economy through ownership. If the productive economy takes a dive or disappears, the amount you can extract must do likewise.
If the bank, credit cards and mortgage owners have payments suspended in recessions, there would be many less recessions.
If the top of the chain, that is the elusive 'trickle down' source, felt the pain for recessions the most, there would be many less recessions.
If 'too big to fail' banks and companies were immediately broken up on commencement of recessions, there would be many less recessions.
Markets are efficient, they will hit targets, market regulations can be used to set targets that will keep the whole thing on the rails, remove the rails and the usual happens, more inequality and stagnation.
We have to put the incentives in the right place. If the lower/middle always feel the pain with no consequence for the top or 'too big to fail' companies, then it will be a regular, repeating occurrence. That will create markets where companies get big enough to be 'too big to fail' and get bailouts, or essentially grow to 'bailout big'.
No matter what you believe about economies, or markets, money only goes where other money is, and you can't keep taking from the spenders in a consumer economy. The constant rent-seeking, predatory, value extraction, wealth destroying events are going to break the lower/middle and public markets. Individuals, families and small business especially need support during these times, the longs that all value extractors extract from and the engine of America as well as the research and development labs of larger companies.
Markets are garden, the in trouble lower/middle should be brought up and focused on, the massively growing top should be scaled back or harvested.
Money trickles up and down and all around, but money only trickles where other money is found.
America is mostly small businesses.
SBA/Chamber of Commerce has 30.2 million for companies under 500 people.
Lots are sole proprietors or very small 99.9% of businesses in the United States are small businesses, owing to the rather large threshold of 500 employees, or fewer.
Small business is the engine of America.
Small businesses comprise what share of the U.S. economy?
Small businesses make up [1][2]:
- 99.7 percent of U.S. employer firms,
- 64 percent of net new private-sector jobs,
- 49.2 percent of private-sector employment,
- 42.9 percent of private-sector payroll,
- 46 percent of private-sector output,
- 43 percent of high-tech employment,
- 98 percent of firms exporting goods,
- 33 percent of exporting value.
It is time to help the lower/middle and sole-proprietors and small business or America as we know it is much much different after this.
About 8 trillion in 'stimulus', at a cost of 20k to every citizen, for that we got $1200 we haven't got yet and small businesses finding out how small of fish they a really are.
This market is broken for lower/middle and people or small business. It is gangbusters for wealth and value extraction ops.
The stimulus for individuals, families and small business is vaporware, time for some vaporwave as we fade away into the ether.
Good luck wealth and big business with no one to skim from and no small business to use as research and development or suppliers.
[1] https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/FAQ_Sept_2012.pdf
[2] Source: U.S. Census Bureau, SUSB, CPS; International Trade Administration; Bureau of Labor Statistics, BED; Advocacy-funded research, Small Business GDP: Update 2002- 2010, www.sba.gov/advocacy/7540/42371.
Re: 31% Can’t Pay the Rent: ‘It’s Only Going to Get Worse’
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
A study of the Spanish Flu pandemic indicates that an early severe lockdown actually minimises the long term economic impact. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/pandemic-economy-less...
No city I'm aware of enacted a severe lockdown by our standards during the Spanish Flu. I haven't seen any record of a ban on private gatherings, or a general shutdown of non-essential businesses (as opposed to a targeted ban of bars and restaurants).