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Re: This is how I feel about the free market.

Posted by Sir Loving on May 25, 1997 at 04:39:55:

In Reply to: This is how I feel about Lt. Gov. Betsy Ross posted by Sir Loving on May 23, 1997 at 22:50:37:


Some people have a blind faith in the free market. They believe that the free market will take care of everything. Their belief sometimes becomes an obssession. It is what they know to be the only truth. They believe to the point that they are willing to destroys peoples lives, neigborhoods and even entire communities.

In testing their theory, they supposedly risk nothing. Some will benefit enormosly, while others will pay dearly for their miscaculations. Landlords that have large quatities of rent-regulated buildings stand to gain. Tenants who see their rents become unafordable stand to loose. Even rents that are now considered reasonable will rise sharply if this mayhem were to occur. This will happen because some people in the formerly controlled sector (living in apartments with poor maintenance) will spill over into the uncontrolled sector when rents level-off. This is all assuming that their theories don't back-fire and create a worsening of problems. The devil you know may be better than the devil you don't know.

These free musketeers in their simplistic belief that the free market left unchecked can fix everything, ignore one of the most underlying premises of basic ecomomics. The very premise on which basic the theory of supply and demand of the free market is based. That premise is ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL .

Some blind believers are beginning to open their eyes to the other variables by realizing it is really other barriers blocking new construction. However, they still are ignorant of existing law which clearly does not regulate rents on new housing developments. When told of these and other laws which govern our lives they immediately respond with:

" Assurances that new construction is not subject to control are of little value, coming from politicians who have proven in the past that they can't be trusted. Also, according to the information in your post, the City and State are blocking new construction with a multitude of bureaucratic restrictions."

Rent regulations in New York has kept housing at resonable levels in spite of the other housing constraints. Although these constraints tend to drive up the prices of affordable housing, they do serve a useful purpose. Unions cost, for example, protect workers wages and provide job stability for those that have senority. Landmark provisions in the law is one of the reasons that Greenwich Village a desirable place to live. The provisions preserve the beauty of the neighborhood instead of allowing Hi Risers to destroy the astetics of the older buildings. Commercial zoning laws provide business with the opportunity to meet the needs of the people. Many profitable business have made it big time in New York. Consumers (mostly rent regulated tenants because they are required, under the law, to actually live here to preserve thier rights) have welcomed various industries to serve their needs.

Landlords are not required to hang around and thus frequently spend rents on other economies instead. The "King of J-21 subsidies" has a very large mortgage to pay off in New Jersey. I'll bet some New York regulated tenants provide through their excessive rents, for initial investments, such as the one made on the mother of all casino's in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As landlords deplete the rental resourses of their buildings without reinvesting the profits in their local ecomomies, neighboorhood conditions worsen creating many of the slums we have today.

To give more of our wealth to those that would rather be some place else, other than where they should be, is not a very smart thing for us tenants to do. Instead, I think all tenants should hold on to as much of their rent as they can by renewing the safety check, namely existing rent regulations, on landlords that knowingly speculated in old buildings, instead of believing in blind faith.

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