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Comment by millzlane | Hacker News Reader

>I mean...you're a landlord, and now everyone has $1000 a month more...obviously you are going after some of that...what are people going to do, move? where?

I think Canada has laws against a landlord doing this type of thing, maybe up to a percentage. Also, Not all landlords are that shitty.

>same with Canada's near monopolies on groceries and mobile networks...of course these folks are just going to raise prices to capture the free money, not hard given than there is no real competition to prevent this

I wonder what the Competition Bureau of Canada would think of those near monopolies raising prices artificially? Unless there is price fixing going on, why would I raise my prices with the other groceries stores? Everyone would see the higher prices and instead shop at my store with normal pricing.

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> I think Canada has laws against a landlord doing this type of thing, maybe up to a percentage. Also, Not all landlords are that shitty.

Doesn’t matter. Prices would still go up over time as demand increases while supply stays the same.

UBI plus build more houses. Excellent, any more problems with solutions that easy? Line em up and I'll knock them down

Landlords set their rent at what the local market will bear. That is not just a trait of "shitty landlords": I have friends who inherited a flat or two and rent it out, but are bohemian types and not too concerned about making lots of money in real estate, and still their guide for how much to charge tenants is what the market in their town bears. Without targeted legislation, everyone getting some extra money absolutely will result in rent increases even from many chill landlords.

Didn't this happen in the UK with housing benefit? The UK govt helps out with rent so landlords raised their rents accordingly to capture that added benefit. UBI will just be captured by Landlords. I believe the number of UK MPs who were landlords went up considerably. In Canada 20% of MPs are landlords and 40% are real-estate investors. Not surprising since Canada's economy is based almost entirely on resource extraction.

> Unless there is price fixing going on, why would I raise my prices with the other groceries stores?

You would raise your prices because you see your competitors are raising theirs, and you like money. You can also have more confidence there won't be much blowback if you're not the only one raising prices.

> Everyone would see the higher prices and instead shop at my store with normal pricing.

That kind of logic has demonstrably not kept inflation under control (IIRC, much of the "inflation" over the last few years was businesses raising prices to increase profits, and using "inflation" as an excuse).

It's probably possible to spread out price increases slowly enough that it doesn't tend to hit many people's "switch to competitor" threshold.

In Ontario at least, and I'm sure in many (all?) provinces, there is rent control.

Ontario rent increase for 2024 is 2.5%

https://www.ontario.ca/page/residential-rent-increases

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