But perhaps that's the root of the problem? With so many units at below market rates, the current new to the market units get priced to cover the "loss" of the controlled units? And then of course there's the incentive.
I'm not defending the practice. But I am suggesting - similar to housing and a college edu - that "government intervention" often has unintended consequences.
Those are the people who can afford to weaponize the courts. Us little guys still have to play by the rules as we don't have deep pockets and lawyers on retainer.
The gov grabbed a balloon and now that bubble is bursting, just in a different way.
Again. Not saying it's right. Only that it's really not a surprise. Not at all.
These are the circumstances that have created the housing crisis we have now and previously took down the entire economy. I’m confused as to why you single out trying to intervene on behalf of the average person over the wealthy as the source of the problem when the “free market” term setting has caused the massive distortions and unaffordablity.
There is definitely something very 'i am very smart'-like about tech nerds defending 'the market' against any attempts of humanizing life. "um, actually the free market will..."
Governments exist to provide super-market force. Safety regulation being kind of a prime example, especially for employees. OSHA is anti-free market -- there should be no safety regulations, and let employees the freedom to choose safety or pay and let the free market work it out.
Right?
Countries with freer economies like Switzerland and Hong Kong have higher standard of living on average. Countries which free up their economies have higher relative standards of living after doing so. Countries which oppress their economies have lower relative standards of living after doing so. (By relative, I mean relative to the growth rates of neighboring countries and before the changes, as standards of living rarely decrease absolutely).
In general I agree with you that markets allocate resources far better than the most earnest central authorities. That said, market failures often happen without regulation from governments.
That's not the case. I'm only pointing out that X years ago the gov set out to Y and now X has become Z and is eating X alive.
Now there are so many units under market value that:
1) there is an incentive for landlords to be aggressive.
2) any unit that comes off rent control is driven up in value; to make up for the "loss" of control units; and control keeps units off the market which also drives up price.
Long to short, yesterday'price fix is today's mega-cost __and__ shady biz / landlord practices.
Does that help? I wasn't trying to be vague. I honestly thought the gist of the situation was fairly obvious. Sorry?
There's good and bad to everything and every policy, but this statement is meaningless. How many people have been educated in government-owned colleges, which includes ever public university in the U.S.? Whatever the unintended consequences, it seems to have done an enormous amount of good.
They created artificial demand - for housing and for higher edu - and as we all know that drives prices up.
I hope this clears things up.
The point is, when you squeeze a balloon...shit happens.
That doesn't make it a perfect policy, of course. I think grants to students or simply free education at public universities may be the best options. But that costs more money than loans.
On this specific point: I have yet to see much consensus in research that the loans drove up the cost of college; last I knew there was one paper. AFAIK, it's a story started by the partisan 'shrink-goverment-at-all-costs' crowd, and the repeated.
Demand drives up price.
Loans also increased the price the market can bear.
A study for Ecom 101 just feels like more gov excess.