• BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    Rent control is literally the textbook case of making a bad situation worse via unintended consequences.

      • SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works
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        23 days ago

        I learned this in my Econ101 class; if you impose rent control you will disinsintivize investment into building homes exacerbating the problem of housing supply. Some one in my class literally asked why rent control was common in places like NY and my Econ teacher dodged the question. Econ101 in the US is basically neoliberal indoctrination.

        The easiest response to the textbook is to point out that the current problem isn’t supply. In the US we have 6 houses for every homeless person. We have plenty of housing stock. The problem monopoly power over housing.

        Beyond that I believe that housing investment should be managed cooperatively; rather than by the profit incentive.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          23 days ago

          Can you explain the monopoly bit without me watching a youtube video?

          Literally every single time anyone has ever (literally ever) linked me a Youtube video to explain something or serve as a source, that video could have been summarized in an article that would take less than 60 seconds to read. The trend should die.

          • SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works
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            23 days ago

            TLDW: Landlords are colluding to fix pricing with algorithms. The FBI is actually doing something good for once and breaking them up.

          • cum@lemmy.cafe
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            22 days ago

            No but I can link a youtube video that’s completely unrelated

          • SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works
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            23 days ago

            I don’t remember them saying that specifically. But we did spend a lot of time on supply and demand curves which heavily implies that.

            To be fair to my econ101 class for a moment when I took that class it was during the Obama years and that was a bit before progressivism made the come back it has now. A lot of people were still Fukuyamaists.

            I think economics is a pretty complicated subject that is deeply intersecting with ideology. It maybe impossible fully to disentangle how the economy works with how it should work. To expect kids just out of high school to critically examine all the nuances of a field beyond the assumptions they grew up with, while simultaneously learning the basics of that field is a pretty tall order. And if the experts at the time are moving away from that way of thinking anyway, why bother?

            Of course in retrospect they probably should have bothered. But that’s just how the flow of history has to work I guess.

            Edit: There’s some nuance and detail I could probably add to that conclusion. But I’m running out of steam for tonight.

            • eskimofry@lemmy.world
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              23 days ago

              My problem with economics is that it takes economic theory and tries to prescribe it to reality… rather than explain the reality of it. It is also quite vague about what happens when institutions that deliberately meddle with fundamental assumptions like that of a free market… like Multimillion dollar MNCs that manipulate governments and essentially are policy makers who shape the market itself.

              Does economic theory hold good when the free market ceases to exist as described by it?

      • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        Sure, so Oregon did the same thing in 2019.

        “7% plus the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, West Region (All Items), as most recently published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or 10%, whichever is lower.”

        https://www.oregon.gov/das/oea/pages/rent-stabilization.aspx

        So 10% in 2024, 14.6% in 2023, 9.9% in 2022.

        What this does is encourage landlords to increase rent by the maximum allowed, because they don’t know how much they can increase it next year.

        Even in years where they might not have had a reason to increase rent, or increase it minimally, they take the maximum.

        https://www.opb.org/article/2022/09/13/oregon-maximum-rent-increase-announced/

    • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      You forgot the other thing they teach.

      Never discuss that with anyone who hasn’t studied economics - the same as how we will deliberately reduce GDP to increase the unemployment rate, or sometimes a country is better off by axing a productive market and putting 50k people out of work. They don’t see how and will only take it out on you.

      Its just not worth the arguement.