Politics: J'accuse!

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
No, I'm advocating for permitting a community of people to enter into a mutually restrictive arrangment that solves a collective action problem, which happens to be accomplished through government rather than private contract, and against a system whereby one group of people imposes welfare obligations upon another group of people. I didn't argue that rent control is unconstitutional--it is, just as is zoning regulation. I argued that rent control is a bad, unfair policy that does not come close to achieving its purported objectives while creating numerous problems for all parties involved. Zoning does none of those things, except for the person who's pissed off that he can't sell his house to a developer.

They are the same thing, rent control and zoning. Rent control got voted in, and hasn't been voted out, and zoning got voted in, and hasn't gotten voted out. Zoning disadvantages some owners and unfairly enriches others. Rent control does the same thing (because people are unwilling to move, there is less available housing, so prices of new and newly available units go up). Zoning changes the economic makeup of neighborhoods, as does rent control. Zoning can give advantages to people who circumvent the rules (e.g., someone who owns a nice house in McMansion land can get more money if he breaks the rules and rents part of the house to another family) just like rent control did to RT's friend. If people don't like the restrictive zoning, they can vote with their feet. Rent control does achieve the objective of letting people stay where they are, and tends to produces economically diverse neighborhoods. However, it also encourages bad behavior, like not keeping up buildings, cheating, etc. Different types of residential zoning does achieve the objective of giving people control over who their neighbors are. However, it also prevents entire areas from becoming economically diverse. In fact, it tends to ensure that certain areas will NEVER become economically diverse.

I know I fuck around with arguments sometimes, but I'm actually serious this time. I am not, however, saying that the effects of zoning have the same degree of distortion on a micro level. I think on a macro level, the effects of differing residential zoning are a lot stronger, if only because it si far more widespread.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Duplicity
Intentionally or unintentionally, you are echoing Jonah Goldberg, so it's only right to post Yglesias' debunking of him:

A. Intentionally. He's a god.

B. The rest of my post indicated that I was referring to the difference between projected, and newly projected. Thus, "rising". Not absolute, as I didn't speak thusly - relatively, in terms of the projections. Your argument seems to be that they're not rising enough for you, and I don't think I could ever meet that burden.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
she's not that young. got your back, RT.

Everybody should have such friends.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
OMG!!!!!! Bilmore and Hello and Hank and all are French!

I'll take a lot of abuse to be here, but you go a bit far now.

No, I'm not arguing that the things done weren't bad, or even "weren't that bad". That's a mischaracterization of what I was saying (and note that, whatever I was saying, I was saying before I learned of the deaths.)

I was simply saying that the common understanding of the term "war crimes" that was being bandied about was something far more serious than what we were seeing that had been done to the Iraqis. (Again, this is before I knew of the deaths. Those, I think, qualify.) My examples - Treblinka, My Lai, etc. - those fit what we think of when we think "war crimes". Less seemed to me to be arguing the overly-nerdy-lawyer argument that a speeding ticket in a war zone is a "war crime". (Or at least a "war petty misdemeanor".)

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
If you create or use such a sock, I will sue you back into the stone age. I've got Pomposity under exclusive license from Bilmore.

License, my ass. Are you embarrassed to admit to the crowd that, professional courtesy notwithstanding, you came and took it from me with a prior use argument?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
They are the same thing, rent control and zoning. Rent control got voted in, and hasn't been voted out, and zoning got voted in, and hasn't gotten voted out. Zoning disadvantages some owners and unfairly enriches others. Rent control does the same thing (because people are unwilling to move, there is less available housing, so prices of new and newly available units go up).

In fact, it tends to ensure that certain areas will NEVER become economically diverse.

How does zoning disadvantage some at the expense of others? Because it excludes people from certain areas because they can't afford a larger lot? Then the entire market is exclusionary. Otherwise, zoning simply restricts the use of property across the board. It does not effectuate a transfer of wealth. The only time it may do that is when new zoning is put in place, but that's not what you're talking about--you're talking about zoning generally.

Rent control is a base expropriation from one person to another. Zoning accomplishes no such thing.

What is the desirability of economic diversity? Maybe there is one, but I don't think that's what you're getting at. It's social diversity, and that's a fundamentally different matter. Besides, if economic diversity is a good thing, vote with your feet and move to houston.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Rent control is a base expropriation from one person to another. Zoning accomplishes no such thing.

I've been reading and agreeing with your posts until I hit this.

Rent control IS a base expropriation from one to another.

So is zoning. The only purpose of zoning is to take away from me the right to do "X" with my property if I want to do "X", because my doing "X" will harm others ("harm" being a very relative term.) It transfers my excess property value (that I could get by doing "X") to those others.

[Duplicity]

Originally posted by bilmore
Your argument seems to be that they're not rising enough for you, and I don't think I could ever meet that burden.

My argument is that they are falling. If you made $100K last year, thought you were going to make $80K this year, and now realize you've made $90K this year, your income has decreased, not increased.

[Duplicity]

Originally posted by bilmore
Everybody should have such friends.

You're not that young. Got your back, b.

[Duplicity]

Originally posted by bilmore
Rent control IS a base expropriation from one to another.

So is zoning. The only purpose of zoning is to take away from me the right to do "X" with my property if I want to do "X", because my doing "X" will harm others ("harm" being a very relative term.) It transfers my excess property value (that I could get by doing "X") to those others.

No, zoing is not an expropriation from one to another. It's a restriction that affects what you want to do with your property, but it doesn't transfer that value to another. By restricting everyone, zoning makes everyone's property more valuable. It's a response to a collective action problem.

eta: Hat trick! Triplicity!

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Duplicity
1. It's a restriction that affects what you want to do with your property, but it doesn't transfer that value to another.

2. By restricting everyone, zoning makes everyone's property more valuable.

I think these are contrary statements. A restriction on a valuable use of my property "doesn't transfer that value to another", but it "makes everyone's (else's, I assume) property more valuable?

[Duplicity]

Originally posted by bilmore
I think these are contrary statements. A restriction on a valuable use of my property "doesn't transfer that value to another", but it "makes everyone's (else's, I assume) property more valuable?

It makes other things more valuable, but it's not a transfer of value. With rent control, it's clear that the money not collected by a specific landlord is a subsidy to that specific tenant. With zoning, you can't trace or quantify the benefits in this way.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by bilmore
License, my ass. Are you embarrassed to admit to the crowd that, professional courtesy notwithstanding, you came and took it from me with a prior use argument?

You laid down on that one too quickly. This is one time I'll happily defer to your advanced age in both a Yahoo!/Infirm sense and an absolute sense. There is a remote chance I may have been using pomposity IRL before you started it on the boards, but that was a non-infringing use.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by bilmore
I think these are contrary statements. A restriction on a valuable use of my property "doesn't transfer that value to another", but it "makes everyone's (else's, I assume) property more valuable?

If I run a dry cleaning business out of my home, I'll wager my neighbors' collective loss of property value will exceed the increase in my property's value, even if you can show me it's the highest and best use of my particular parcel.

ETA: Lemme 'splain. I think Ty's point is that you're thinking of zoning too much like a negative covenant between individual parcels, and then assuming that the burden on the parcel owned by the guy who wants to run the dry cleaning business must translate into unique benefit (added value) for everybody else --- hence, wealth transfer. But it's not like that. If the benefit applies equally to every house in the neighborhood, it doesn't uniquely raise the property value of non-burdened parcels; it sets an all-property-improving condition, like giving every house in the neighborhood the same view. A use restriction that applies equally throughout a neighborhood can thus be a gain, net net. Believe you me, McMansion neighborhoods wouldn't have such recockulous CC&Rs if they didn't maximize individual parcel sales value.

[PuriTY]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
You laid down on that one too quickly. This is one time I'll happily defer to your advanced age in both a Yahoo!/Infirm sense and an absolute sense. There is a remote chance I may have been using pomposity IRL before you started it on the boards, but that was a non-infringing use.

you two do realize that for a trademark license to be effective, the licensed product needs to be of the same basic quality as the original, don't you. I think at least you are different flavors.