certainly its also dysfunctional that we legislate that random property owners must provide the safety net for the poor & elderly.
Whenever someone says 'it's unfair that I must provide these social benefits', let's recall the enormous amount of social benefits that each of us receives, especially in developed countries: Security, safety, a system of laws, roads, education, food supply, healthcare, sanitation, infrastructure built by generations, rights, research on everything from health to history to gas fracking to something once called APRAnet, etc etc. And then there are the benefits each industry and many private companies obtain from government, licitly and otherwise.
We all benefit more than we ever can repay. So yes, optimally the costs should be distributed in a very systematic, fair way. But at the same time my general response is: stop whining when asked to pull your weight a little.
That's not really how this works. You don't arbitrarily force property owners to bear the full cost of supporting these people. If society deems them worthy of support, then society should support them. If we collectively think these people shouldn't be forced from their homes, then great. Let's pay the delta between what we think their rent ought to be and what the market price for that rent is. Let's all pay it together. Randomly and capriciously forcing whoever happens to own that property at the time to foot the bill is short sighted and silly.
they already do - presumably they aren't dodging taxes, and is in a progressive tax system. This is about housing, and property owners might not reach an income level where the progressive system taxed them enough to produce a surplus to cater for the poor, and if so, making property specific taxes is one such way to force the burden on to them.
You mean the same progressive tax system inhabited by those property owners?
> This is about housing, and property owners might not reach an income level where the progressive system taxed them enough to produce a surplus to cater for the poor and if so, making property specific taxes is one such way to force the burden on to them.
...seriously? My point is that it's arbitrary and unfair, and you respond by saying, well, it might be that by chance some of these people escaped paying their fair share? How is that a response?
They do, in their own fields. Lawyers provide pro bono representation to the indigent, help charities and others who couldn't afford them, develop law to address problems, etc. Doctors do similar things, helping the ill regardless of their ability to pay. A-list actors use their status to draw attention to issues. Etc.
> A-list actors use their status to draw attention to issues
No way that compares...
Doctors treating patients is not voluntary; in many cases the doctor cannot turn away the patient. Lawyers' pro bono services aren't always voluntary AFAIK; sometimes the court appoints them. And it if it wasn't done sufficiently in a voluntary fashion, it would be required.
Clearly, that is not possible.
Doing business (which renting out property is) is not a given right. The cost of doing business (taxes and regulations) is what makes possible the existence of the state at all - far from being a 'dysfunctional' concept.
The same goes for your own time and labor. You can't be a free person (as opposed to a slave) if you can't own your own time and labor -- if you can't sell your labor.
As with much else, the state gets to impose taxes and regulations. No argument there. But if those taxes or regulations prevent you from enjoying your ownership of property or self, then they are confiscatory and make you un-free. At the very least unreasonable tax/regulatory burdens make for a dysfunctional / distorted market, though as long as you can freely vote with your feet you're not so un-free as to be a slave. Still, just because you can move to some freer locality doesn't mean it's a good thing that the locality your leaving has high tax/regulatory burdens.
narrow rent control law is a capricious policy in general, not just for property owners. a bunch of semi-corrupt political lotteries don't make a good government or just society.
They then proceeded to harass their tenants, and to break the law, in an incredibly blatant and disproportionate manner.
If you don't want to follow tenancy laws, don't be a landlord. You have a choice in the matter, your tenants don't.
We need to make tenant abuse as ruinous to the landlord as it is to their tenants.
When we catch people selling drugs, we take their drugs, and their money, and throw them into prison. When we catch landlords doing this, we should take their properties. They aren't operating some secret underground criminal enterprise here - many of these abuses are well-documented.
I assure you, if you make an example out of a few landlords, the rest will stop with the frivolous evictions. The reason they are playing these games is that they have a lot less to lose then their tenants.
I suspect the landlords would up their aggressiveness to collect a higher risk premium on account of having a higher rate of getting busted. In expectation, it would likely be a wash.