The CDC implemented an eviction moratorium for around a year (September 4, 2020 through August 26, 2021). That had very real, negative impact on landlords during that time. I doubt those effected would call it toothless.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/09/04/2020-19...
My point was the CDC was also forcing people to do things against their will in addition to state and local governments, it just affected fewer people. That force negatively affected many people (mostly landlords and non-US National travelers).
The flip-flop guidance throughout the pandemic was annoying, but completely ignorable.
Makes zero sense to me that our pandemic response was about "keeping small businesses afloat" rather than keeping transmission low for a few weeks. I guess besides sacrificing grandma to the economy for $2 margaritas at Applebee's we should have evicted millions during winter so that landlords wouldn't be aversely affected by a pandemic. Weird how the eviction moratorium included aid for them as well, but I guess they were the real victims here and should have gotten more.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/01/25/nearly-20percent-of-rent...
That means as an individual you will either pay higher rent or be forced to buy. Many people would rather have the flexibility and no maintenance that renting provides.
It's a good thing that's not what they did, then. Making landlords wait to be paid for a limited time is not the same thing as "stealing," and furthermore there were billions upon billions in subsidies passed around to mitigate the effects of this very reasonable measure.
It's telling that the best we can come up with to criticize the CDC's actions is "won't someone think of the landlords."
They weren't being paid, that's the whole issue. If they were then an eviction moratorium wouldn't have mattered.
> furthermore there were billions upon billions in subsidies passed around to mitigate the effects of this very reasonable measure
Are government subsidies to corporations something you're supporting here?
> It's telling that the best we can come up with to criticize the CDC's actions is "won't someone think of the landlords."
Property rights are fundamental to a capitalist, free, society. If you want an economic system where property rights are ignored or where the government wholesale manages the economy then just come out and say it.
> Are government subsidies to corporations something you're supporting here?
Actually, in the case I have direct knowledge of, this was direct subsidies to renters (via the Emergency Rental Assistance Program), who then repaid their landlords.
> If you want an economic system where property rights are ignored or where the government wholesale manages the economy then just come out and say it.
I believe we could have an economic system that is so rigid and inflexible that it can't respond sensibly to a crisis and instead forces society into a death spiral to protect capital, but that we're wiser than that.
By whom? My understanding of the situation was that landlords did not get a subsidy to make up for lost rents or being unable to evict non-paying tenants. Back-rent would be nice, but is not likely, especially with up to 12 months worth.
> I believe we could have an economic system that is so rigid and inflexible that it can't respond sensibly to a crisis and instead forces society into a death spiral to protect capital, but that we're wiser than that.
Well if that's the only choice here, then you made a pretty good argument for it.
The back rent owed exceeds the limits of the assistance program, so even if/when they get paid, it'll be far less than what they are owed. And every month that goes by unpaid isn't covered by the program and will never be paid. But they won't make a decision on the applications, and they won't allow eviction. The homeowners are stuck in an unlimited legal limbo, indefinitely.
Yay California.
It is though. Banks make an entire business about taking your money now and giving it back to you later. They even pay you extra!
How would you feel if your employer decided to only pay you in 3 months' time? What consequences do you think this could have on the average person?
So basically what I already do every year?
That's not even considering the currency devaluation, which is probably an even bigger contributing factor than landlord uncertainty. But it sure doesn't help.
But also, semi-related: they implemented a policy to prevent people from becoming homeless during a global pandemic and it had a negative impact on the people who have been padding their bank accounts for decades by steadily increasing margins on a basic life necessity. Sorry if I don't feel bad.
At some point someone while sneeze and everyone will be restricted to their homes. Not every bad decision has a bad intend at the start, but they will happen without any form of opposition.
> At some point someone while sneeze and everyone will be restricted to their homes
What would their motivation be? Why wouldn't there be any opposition? This isn't like spying where you can do it without people knowing. Even if entirely justified (like we saw during covid), people will oppose such measures - what makes you think they wouldn't of they weren't justified?
Ever noticed that most interior ministers are surveillance freaks? Comes with the job as well. An opposition is actually beneficial for them as the consequences of decisions wouldn't rest on their shoulders alone.
So a solution to this dilemma is to limit powers in the first place. Such decisions should ideally go through parliament in democracies. Sure, sometimes acting fast is beneficial, but just as often quick decisions come with costs as well.
This is just plain wrong.
* you are painting every landlord with the same brush
* you beleive the fabric of our society should treat people differently, predicated upon the above point
* you think it is OK to suspend checks on government power, if you happen to dislike a category of people it effects
From your attitude, I would presume you believe renting places to live, to be wrong?
That anyone doing so, must be effectively stealing from people?
You need to get your head on straight. I know lots of landlords which have one house the rent out, or a duplex (where they live in the top).
If you want to be anti-profit about everything, why aren't you railing on about grocery stores? Schools? Clothes manufacturers?
Care to elaborate? CDC has historically been an extremely powerful organization devoted to the safety of the US public.
They are a government institution, and not to be blindly trusted. They require oversight above and beyond what private institutions require. I'm not sure why you want to give them the benefit of the doubt here.
A few of the best ways to lose your individual autonomy are to die or become ill or disabled.
Optimizing for as little of that as possible across society is a good thing for individual freedoms.
The CDC unliterally...
* Outlawed all evictions * Mandated masks on airplanes and public transportation * Banned migrants at the border * Grounded the entire cruise industry
And it's not that those things shouldn't be done. It's that they were done by a body with no checks and balances. None - whatsoever. There should not be a body in our government that can just make laws undemocratically. Or should there? This should be a cause of concern for everyone.
There's no question the CDC increased deaths by calling masks ineffective at the beginning of the pandemic. Their credibility never recovered, especially not when they are still flip flopping to this day (recommendations on masks oscillated by the week, often in response to public sentiment/political pressure -- not science).
There was a poll [1] on this specific question (from May 2021 - so right in the middle of the pandemic), and as of then only 52% of Americans felt that the CDC was trustworthy. That factor alone is going to dramatically outweigh any sort of benefit of their lie. And of course it wasn't just the lie, but their general behavior which frequently came off as extremely disingenuous.
In anything even vaguely approaching the longrun, honesty always win. Because while lies may create more optimal outcomes in the extreme shortrun, the decline in trust it causes ultimately means we start getting to play out the fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf on a societal level. And that's not pleasant.
[1] - https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/94/202...
I'd say the worst thing about the past two years is how it's proven how absolutely fucked we are if anything more dangerous and lethal than Covid comes along. There'll be people like this making every effort to prevent governments from doing anything to protect people.
Turns out there are a lot of anarcho-capitalists out there, especially present here on HN, and especially loud during pandemic-related topics. And i thought it's one of those historical things that theoretically exists today as a fringe ( like actual neo-Nazis).
But smoking? Do we really need to study it? It isn't even a disease. The states signed the Master Settlement Agreement. I feel like that should be the last time the government ever brings it up or spends another dollar worrying about it. The corporations were given blanket immunity in exchange for a paycheck. Any further expenditure of government on the subject is a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Addiction is considered a disease by physicians, psychiatrists, and medical researchers[1].
> I feel like that should be the last time the government ever brings it up or spends another dollar worrying about it.
The CDC publishes research on things like:
- second-hand smoke
- preventing your children from starting to smoke
- the costs to society -- not just the smoker
- pros/cons of taxing tobacco in different ways
Because of government-funded research, smoking is banned in a lot of places that I don't have a choice of avoiding, such as airports, government offices, and grocery stores.
The government's research is to protect non-smokers from corporations that are trying to trick them into an addiction and also from smokers who fill shared air with carcinogens.
And that's not even getting into the cost to society of someone dying early. They leave behind medical debts that increase all of our costs, and they potentially leave behind family members who need care.
1. https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/brain-health/science-says-...
If the MSA is failing at that, the solution is to void the agreement and coerce the tobacco industry into another one with updated statues. Not to expand the CDC into areas like tax policy.
And really - "preventing your children from starting to smoke"? There is no research that needs to be done in this area. The industry can't market to children. The industry can't sell to children. There are no shortage of smokers who shared their plight before their death (Yul Brynner comes to mind). If all that isn't enough to stop the problem, then the problem lies elsewhere in society. No more money needs to be evaporated into this "research".
That is what they're researching: how to stop people from harming themselves, others, and society by smoking.
Tobacco companies can't market directly to children, but they have been working around it in many ways for decades. The latest method is vaping.
Science and policy are not "one and done". We need to know if past policies were mistakes, and we need to adapt new policies to changes in tactics by bad actors.
Coercion is the literal function of government.
The issue is, government is too spineless to ever actually do that. Governments have become dependent on the money that flows in from taxes on those products and settlements like the MSA. They can't actually make good on the threat to ban them because they depend on the money.
So instead we get "research", "negotiations", and "compromise". Which are all a waste of taxpayer money. The US has some of the most brutal punishments in the world for drug trafficking and possession (I think China is actually worse, but I am unsure) for individuals. But we can't just ban the marketing of nicotine containing products and accessories? I don't buy it.
Would it help to learn that the CDC researched AIDS extensively in the very early 1980s (as well as one small study from 1978-1984)? That they tracked the spread of AIDS worldwide during that time, and were the first to identify blood-transfustions as a vector for infection. That in 1982/1983 they were issuing guidance for dealing with suspected cases - 2 years before there was a test. That the CDC hosted the first international symposium on AIDS in 1985?
The solution there is not to get information from the president, but from the experts.
Smoking was something they started researching after they were granted more investigative powers in 1987 and 1992 bringing their scope beyond "disease" to "health research". And messaging. AFAIK, most research they do on smoking is on smoking cessation programs and the efficacy of anti-smoking measures. Well, and thanks to vaping, a lot on the health effects of that.
>virtually unlimited executive powers the CDC believes it has
is not true
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/firearms/funded-resea...
>virtually unlimited executive powers the CDC believes it has
is not true"
This is from the same user. That and the use of "even" in the other comment makes me think they believe that the CDC can't do/fund firearm research, as that is a common media/political narrative.
Obama also had them author a massive study on all aspects of gun violence, but the results went quite against what the Dems wanted to claim, so it got pretty quiet again.
What happened is they did publish some studies, and one was quite bad (to this day the author will not release the dataset, for example), but was invoked for a lot of policy. Congress chastised them for it, banned them from advocating public policy, but they did not ban the CDC from studies (and they still do studies, very few - if you search you can find them).
Other than that, I'm not sure why you're being downvoted without replies.
Here are the recent CDC funded gun studies.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/firearms/funded-resea...
Kellerman’s methodology that he published among swaths of missing data included ~250 phone surveys where someone was shot in their own home and a police report was filed (nothing verified, no concern to who owned the gun or who was shot). This was FAR more representative of drug use and domestic violence than a typical gun owner - yet - it was used as a primary factor to the push assault weapon ban and Brady Bill in 94. This then directly led to the Republican blowout of 96 and likely costing Al Gore the presidency in 2000 according to Bill Clinton. Kellermann is an absolute hack who still enjoys appearances on NPR, ABC, etc as a gun violence expert.
That said, 2018 finally saw an interpretation of the Dickey Amendment codified that allowed, unambiguously, research into gun violence. And 2020 finally saw funding allocated for gun violence research. So, after over two decades, the CDC finally regained both the go ahead and the funding.
Given the above, I think it's still reasonable for people to use the shorthand of saying the CDC had been banned from doing gun violence research. Softening the language to be slightly less absolute would help, but I'd consider people to be in the ballpark of correct when they call it a ban on research. And it's also correct that that's no longer the case, thankfully.
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/18319/priorities-f...