Jason Stone wrote: > Barbara's ideas reflect a strong will, courage, and personal motivation. They appear to focus on > personal experience instead of acknowledging the interaction of any historical and cyclical > poverty and discrimination. > > Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is a great thing, but if you've got one arm and one leg tied > behind your back it can get a little tricky. Something as critical as housing merits controls > because revenue optimization has no moral checkpoints.
Brandon Lacy wrote: He cited an increase in property taxes > as his reason for raising rent. While I definately feel for him, I also > fully expect that landlords will not pass the entire burden of their tax > increase on to their renters. Mark Anderson reply: Brandon's reply is the kind of "moral checkpoint" that I'm worried about if we have rent control. Brandon seems to think it is the moral obligation of a landlord to incur a loss in order to benefit his/her tenants. I haven't noticed government controls adding any more morality to our society. Since most people in Minneapolis will have more sympathy for the tenant than the landlord, the landlord would more often than not get screwed by the government. This would in turn lead to an exodus of landlords. Any landlord remaining would only spend money on his property if a regulator forced him to, and he'd cut as many corners as possible. Tenants in the building would no longer have the leverage against the landlord of moving out, because the tenant could never find an equivalently-priced flat. Rent control would be a great recipe for increasing our requirements for housing inspectors by ten-fold. Rather than destroy the housing market and destroy tenants' current leverage; it makes a lot more sense to subsidize housing costs if we feel some people can't afford housing. Whether that means rent stamps, welfare payments, or something else, it is a lot less disruptive of the housing market. Mark Anderson Bancroft TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
