Comment by PaulDavisThe1st
2 days ago
> First off you're using "rent seeking" wrong, it's a specific economic term that means something else.
It is a specific term, but it means: taking control of a limited resource (e.g. housing), most typically by ownership, that you do not have any direct use for, and then seeking revenue by then renting it to other people who actually want to use it (e.g. live in it).
Which, not suprisingly, is precisely what landlords are doing.
And also not surprisingly, those "entire industries" would be rent-seeking if the resources they rent out were limited. However, that does not apply to rental equipment, for example (though there are a few specific exceptions in the case of extremely expensive, very complex and/or very large equipment).
>Which, not suprisingly, is precisely what landlords are doing.
The bulk of the political will for this garbage doesn't come from landlords. Landlords want more, more, more. There literally aren't enough landlords in this country for that.
It comes from existing homeowners who are not landlords and don't want a bunch of high(er than them) turnover housing near them let alone cheaper housing because of the "neighborhood character" or whatever. Basically got mine fuck you.
And this is enabled with the remainder of the political will being provided by a select number of unconscionably ignorant non property owners who have insane takes about how the government should manage all this, be deeply involved in this, immensely scrutinize any sort of property development, etc, etc, all of which is to the benefit of megacorp landlords and developers and the detriment of the small time guys who own a number of properties you can count on one hand with a sum total of units you can count on two or thereabouts who make up the overwhelming majority of landlords on a unit basis and if even a small percent of them added a little bit of capacity would be a huge amount.
> However, that does not apply to rental equipment, for example (though there are a few specific exceptions in the case of extremely expensive, very complex and/or very large equipment).
They don't rent seek the literal equipment. They rent seek your ability to use it without a bunch of thugs showing up with a "stop or else" proposition. You can literally buy a car crusher on Alibaba but you can't open a junkyard in my state without a permit that they have a well known hospital-esque "we only allow X to exist overall" system for, assuming your town doesn't outlaw the business outright.
Once again, this is all to the benefit of big business for whom a few million bucks of donations to the right stuff and work directed at the right firms as needed to get a variance (i.e. pay the law away) for their billion dollar dildo manufacturing plant or whatever whereas the guy who wants to, IDK, take his HVAC bending business to the next level, open a second site and get into process equipment is shit outta luck because without greasing palms he can't afford to the government will hem and haw about every goddamn detail and prevent anything from happening. And the existing industrial plant that got in before the rules is laughing its way to the bank the whole time, well, right up until it gets regulated all the way to China but that's a different problem.
Your view of the world we live in is extremely different from mine. I don't think it is remotely correct, but hey, that's just, like, my opinion. I hope you find some peace in the midst of your experience.