Quote of the Day
When the government restricts return on any particular asset, that asset will be allowed to deteriorate until its value is low enough that it earns an acceptable return. If there is no value low enough, the asset will, one way or another, end up in the government’s hands and become a burden on taxpayers. Whoever…
When the government restricts return on any particular asset, that asset will be allowed to deteriorate until its value is low enough that it earns an acceptable return. If there is no value low enough, the asset will, one way or another, end up in the government’s hands and become a burden on taxpayers. Whoever used the old saw “market failure” earlier in this discussion has successfully memorized a popular socialist catch phrase but does not appreciate the law of unintended consequences. If you force landlords to rent units at below market rents, the affected housing stock will slowly deteriorate. The remaining housing stock becomes prohibitively expensive, and new renters find it difficult or impossible to get into the below market units. The below market units effectively become a one-time property transfer from landlords (who actually took risk in buying and spend money for upkeep and repairs) to whoever had the dumb luck to be in a controlled apartment when the rules took effect. The controlled housing stock is tightly clutched in the hands of a less and less deserving population until it has to be pried from their dead hands, while over time the people who actually need affordable housing stock find it impossible to find because everything that isn’t being held until death is overpriced.
— by lechacal in Democratic Assembly Passes Pro-Tenant Legislation
love the post. actually, doesn’t chicago have affordable housing and no rent control? and, it’s all much much nicer at the lower rents.
“many people want the gov’t to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the gov’t”
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary gov’t program”
“if u put the federal gov’t in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 yrs there’d be a shortage of sand.” -Milton Friedman
Legion:
1. I honestly don’t think Geithner was purposefully evading taxes.
2. That will never happen. Doesn’t matter if it makes sense.
3. I’m not sure how you connected capital gains tax with small businesses in particular. That’s a pretty weak argument. Self-employment taxes, sure. Sure capital gains hit people when they sell their businesses, but (a) that has nowhere near the effect on small business formation as currently payable taxes and (b) are you suggesting that your reform would be limited to small business exits? I doubt it.
4. Amen and halleluiah. Preach the gospel brother.
5. Amen and halleluiah. Preach the gospel brother.
6. Getting a bit far afield there pal. Reel it back in.
7. Overly simplistic but I guess OK in general.
8. OK in the abstract.
“much of our basic nature is made up of fear and/or sloth.”
and the rest is greed
“How else to explain nations of millions being enslaved by totalitarian dogma”
yeah, like half this nation is with unfettered capitalism.
“Transfer the al quaeda slime at guantanamo to work camps in”
Guilty until proven innocent, eh? Do you have any f()(* idea what percentage of those poor beaten, tortured souls are innocent?
Way to go, legion, are you also in favor of bringing back slavery?
Here’s some solutions for you folks, if you want to begin to correct the problems;
1. Don’t nominate or confirm political appointees that don’t care to pay taxes, and put them in charge of the tax code; people like Rangel and Geitner or Daschel or that other nominee who had the good grace to decline her nomination once it came out that she too didn’t believe in paying taxes.
2. Restructure the entire tax code. A flat tax rate perhaps, this way all those sneaky people running “cash” businesses actually pay their taxes, and so do the corporate criminals. Right now, the top 50% of earners pay 98% of taxes. Nothing wrong with not making alot of money, but there are an awful lot of people living on the dole by sheer laziness (see, Americans who won’t work at fast food restaurants or on farms or in gardening). Somewhere in the 1990’s it became unacceptable for american teenagers to work at these jobs. And yes, I’ve worked at everything from washing dishes to mopping floors. And no, I’m no longer poor.
3.Cut capital gains taxes even more, small businesses create 80% of jobs in this nation. yes 80%. You want jobs growth, stimulate small businesses to go into business. Small businesses thrive on the idea that they take risks with money to gain on the other end with their good ideas. I’m talking about the Dunkin’ Donuts shops, the doctor’s offices, the corner diners and the architect’s office. The current “stimulus plan” does little to address this.
4. Give up on the idea of socialism, it simply does not work because it ignores a simple but ugly truth about human nature, which is this; much of our basic nature is made up of fear and/or sloth. Given the opportunity, feeding into our fears will allow the tendency towards sloth to predominate. And this is not just a physical sloth but a mental sloth. How else to explain nations of millions being enslaved by totalitarian dogma ; Stalin, Tito, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Ill, the list goes on and on accross continents. Socialism is a nice idea but it unplugs humans from their basic drive to achive and replaces it with an idealistic pursuit towards a common “brotherly” good. Inherently at odds with our selfish genes. We’re just not evolved enough.
5.Rent control is a form of socialism, it wasn’t originally intended that way but has become that. Rent control is meant to protect the original tenant, not a carload of distant “cousins” and “sons in law”. By all means protect the original tenant from 1958, but the slacker cousin from Des Moines, doesn’t deserve a classic six on the park for the price of a bus ticket.
6.Realize there is a limit to how many persons a nation can sustain and still maintain a decent standard of living. We have 300 million people and the best standard of living for the largest population of people at any time in history.Don’t mess with it by attempting to import the poverty of the rest of the world. We cannot win that game, and our decendents will surely suffer. We can only help show other nations the way to prosperity for themselves, That is, Democracy and free markets (well regulated of course). And of course, not exploiting others.
7. No Wall Street bonuses paid for by my tax dollars. I don’t get a bonus for running my business into the ground. I get to go bankrupt and start from zero. I don’t get another ticket to ride from uncle sam and our grand children. I don’t get a “golden parachute” and a house in Sag Harbor.
8. Corporate corruption should be treated as a treasonous crime. Their threat to the economic stability of this nation is equivalent to domestic terrorism. Transfer the al quaeda slime at guantanamo to work camps in Northern Alaska (to appease the whiny liberals) and line up the corporate criminals for a permanent holiday on the American part of sunny Cuba.
fasten your seatbelts, we’re in for a bumpy ride…
CMU;
Please spare us the moralizing and self-righteousness. How about having a debate on the merits of the issue, and accepting that people of good faith can have different opinions and experiences?
DIBS- why would you quote such a jerk? I have a hard time accepting the credibility of someone’s views of freedom when they don’t think slavery was such a bad thing.
> “Dr. Adrian Rogers: who the hell is he?”
A real piece of work according to Wikipedia:
Dr. Rogers served three times as president of the Southern Baptist Convention… He was first elected to this post on a platform of biblical inerrancy…
According to one author, the pastor once responded to a question about biblical references in support of slavery during biblical times by saying, “I feel slavery is a much maligned institution. If we had slavery today we would not have such a welfare problem…”
Dr. Rogers was an adamant supporter of the pro-life movement, had stated that the institution of capital punishment is spiritually ordained, and supported a boycott of Disney because of the company’s supposed promotion of homosexuality…
– – – –
Methinks he won’t be sending DIBS a Christmas card.
cmu- I can’t argue that point. I’ve even been on the receiving end of a few anti-tenant comments. I rent, ergo I am a loser, or I’m too stupid to own or I’m fool for renting instead of owning. I think it’s lunacy for a LL who claims to be running a business, tell his clients if they don’t like it, move. What business model is that? The Doomed to Fail Model. But what do I know? I rent 🙂