Monday, August 26, 2024

Links - 26th August 2024 (2 - Left Wing Economics)

Deeqa Rafle Filed for Stay with 46K in Rent Arrears : r/OntarioLandlord - "That Brampton tenant who has not paid since last fall got another hearing date because he wanted French language Adjudicator and then now that he got French language Adjudicator, he made an excuse that someone passed away 😒  Deeqa Rafle with 46K in rental arrears filed for a stay of the eviction after calling the police on LL collecting rent  Every day in this province and in this subreddit, it becomes clear that we need automatic evictions now.  If Bank can evict people in 90 days for non payment, then it needs to happen for LTB too. No tears, no sob story. Unless we start enforcing consequences for actions, this will keep popping up."
"Honestly if automatic eviction happens it would help with the housing crisis. A lot more people will be willing to rent out spare units and supply will go up. Also less invasive screening process as well. I remember back in my school days I could easily rent without giving out any personal details but now with the high risk from LTB delays every rental application feels like a colonoscopy and only AAA tenants with top credit scores can secure housing. Good tenants shouldn't have to pay for bad tenants' actions"

More Tenants Getting Charged for Fraud : r/OntarioLandlord - "Are more people taking legal action against tenants who are serial fraudsters. With skyrocketing cases of non-payment and delays at LTB, I am not sure if tenants know that they can be charged criminally too 🤔"
The Tale of Five Defrauded Landlords and Two Criminal Court Charges - July 2024 - SOLO - "This is the story of Nikki Lynn Hooper who had a history of non-payment of rent starting in 2012 in Durham Region. Her partner Kevin Shane Hill participated in the fraud when they became connected.  In 2021 after multiple housing providers had been defrauded, the dots were finally connected and presented to Police. As a result, 2 charges were laid. There were many twists and turns including name changes and partner changes but one tenant was in the situation for the entire time.  When charges were finally laid, the defendants (2) were told that there will be a no contact order with any of the landlords and if any attempt at contact is made they will be arrested."
"  Brilliant!  This is what happens when LTB orders are made public and deadbeats can't hide. Hopefully this is just a start.  Cash for keys, not blackmail at all...  QUOTE   Texts are available showing attempts requesting the landlords for $5,000.00 in a cash-for-keys payment that they agreed to and then further texts saying “Pay me $8,000.00 in 2 hours or the new amount will be $15,000.00.”"
"I really hope that we start seeing trends of criminal charges against tenants who are hopping from one home to the next doing all kinds of property damage, doing extortion and then defying paying rent."

Rental applications are getting wild. : r/OntarioLandlord - "Did something happen that's made landlords go over the top with applications now?  My partner and I are both have full time work, 800+ credit scores, and proof of income/LOE.  I've applied to a number of places with this which has been fine. But tonight I had to show a landlord 2 years worth of income because I'm self employed. Is it common to ask for notices of assessment as proof? I feel like bank statements should be enough.
Edit: ended up telling this LL to kick rocks. They requested my partner's offer of employment to her new job she got in the area. She opted to show the salary offer within the document, and that was it. LL insisted he sees the entire document despite being told it's confidential between her and the employer, and it being written in bold at the top of the page.  I'm seeing a ton of landlords trying to justify this on the thread. While I agree a tenant should be vetted, this level of information requested goes well beyond reasonable. Let's not forget why the rules are so tipped in the tenants favor, when you all are unchecked you have the potential to be significantly more damaging than a tenant can be. Being homeless is far worse than losing money on an investment property."
"Being a landlord is a risk, period. You have to chose your risk comfort level, just like with any investment. Too many people think they are owed a return on their purchase of an investment property and that it is tenants who owe them. If you want a safer investment, choose something with lower risk."
"And you think the current level of risk is appropriate?  I wonder if increasing the risk of an investment will force investors to require higher returns to make it worth the higher risk? Nah, that would make far too much sense! Surely the worse we make it to be a landlord, the better rental prices will get, right?"
Left wingers mock landlords who lose money as their houses are investment, and investments can go bad. However they also get upset when landlords take measures to protect their investments, and they don't understand that riskier assets need higher returns (i.e. more expensive rents). They hate landlords, not love tenants

Rental applications are getting wild. : r/OntarioLandlord - "  But tenants needs more rights!  Here's a sample list of demands from tenants and tenant unions:
Mandate disclosure of property ownership across all provinces.
Mandate rent control in all provinces to disincentivize landlords from evicting long-term tenants and help maintain the units.
Mandate an end/ban to above guideline increase (AGI).
Mandate an end/more restrictions to N12 because of possible bad faith.
Demand an end/more restrictions to N13 because of possible renoviction.
Demand relief from eviction for non-payment as long as tenant calls it a rent-strike.
Demand landlords to upgrade & maintain their buildings without any AGI."
"I am surprised they are not asking for handcuffs and chains for landlords. Just in case they try to escape."

Rental applications are getting wild. : r/OntarioLandlord - "Your investment should be based on the appreciation of the property. Landlords are using properties as a for profit model. As long as your mortgage and expenses are covered, why does rent have to be higher?"
"As long as your lentils and oatmeal are covered, why does your paycheck have to be higher? Or as long as your student loan payments are covered, why does your salary have to be higher?"

Javier Milei Got Rid of Rent Control in Argentina. Housing Supply Skyrocketed - "Argentina's recent repeal of rent control by libertarian President Javier Milei has led to a surge in housing supply, with the freedom to negotiate contracts, previously restricted, directly causing a drop in rental prices.  Milei, a self-described "anarcho-capitalist" known for his free-market approach, repealed the 2020 Rental Law, enacted by former leftist President Alberto Fernández, which had imposed restrictions on landlords and led to a significant decline in rental availability.  With Argentina's inflation reaching 211.4%—the highest in 32 years—rent prices were adjusted every 12 months, and leases had to last at least three years. The law, introduced in 2020, ended up distorting the real estate market and hurting both landlords and tenants.   The law aimed to provide tenants with more financial security, but by the end of last year, an estimated one in seven homes in Buenos Aires was sitting empty as landlords chose not to rent them out in Argentine pesos. Deposits were capped, and it was nearly impossible to end tenancies early.  For many locals, finding a new apartment had become "mission impossible." But after the repeal, Buenos Aires saw a doubling of available rental units, and rental prices have stabilized. Under the new rules, landlords and tenants have more freedom to agree on lease terms. If the duration isn't specified, it defaults to two years. "We've seen a significant increase in rental apartments, and in some cases, we had to lower prices in pesos because of fewer viewings," Soledad Balayan, head of the real-estate agency Maure Inmobiliaria, told Argentine newspaper La Nación.  Since Millei's repeal of rent control laws took effect on December 29, the supply of rental housing in Buenos Aires has jumped by 195.23%, according to the Statistical Observatory of the Real Estate Market of the Real Estate College (CI)...   President Joe Biden has proposed federal rent control measures, saying they're needed to protect tenants from corporate landlords. He proposed limiting rent hikes to 5% a year for the next two years for landlords with more than 50 units.  Vice President Kamala Harris has also recently indicated support for rent controls, saying at her first major rally since becoming the nominee that she wanted to "take on corporate landlords and cap unfair rent increases." In 2019, after Oregon passed a statewide rent control measure, she praised the bill on Twitter. Biden's plan was meant to last two years, which the White House argues is enough time to build more housing that would relieve some of the affordability issues, particularly in cities. However, critics argue that even with exemptions for new construction, rent caps discourage building more homes.  "Evidence shows that rent caps may push landlords to convert rental units into condos, cut back on maintenance, and become more selective about tenants," read a Cato Institute analysis of Biden's proposal."

Any fact checkers? : r/facepalm - Elon Musk @elonmusk: "For those wondering, I will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year"
Anya Overmann @AnyaLOvermann: "That's 4.5% of your net worth. You paid 3.27% between 2014 and 2018, & no fed taxes at all in 2018. You made $36 billion in ONE DAY in 2021. Most US ppl pay 10 to 37% in fed taxes & up to 13.3% in state taxes. Stop vying for sympathy from people who pay and pay your fair share."
"Tax is on income, not net worth. I don’t like the guy either but at least be accurate with your complaints."
"It also makes me question the single day earnings. Did he actually earn that? Or are they counting gains on stocks and such which he wouldn't pay taxes on until he sold?"
"It was single day stock gains. It isn’t earnings until you sell."
"Billionaires don't sell stock; they use them as collateral for low-interest loans so they don't have to pay any tax until well after they're dead. Incomes are for poor people and capital gains are for slightly less poor people (from a billionaire's perspective)"
"Except you can't just take a loan and never pay it back. Eventually some of that stock gets sold and that is how you end up with a tax bill of 11 billion dollars. Loaning instead of selling is only a temporary measure so that the billionaires get to sell the stock in a controlled manner at at a time of their choosing. Selling everything at once would crash the price"
"They're citing one single day the stock flew up. Ignoring that, you know, it goes down too."
"He used his stocks as collateral for a loan to buy X. Just like people remortgage their home to buy stuff all the time. That doesn't mean those people are selling their house."
"Didn't he use his stocks to get a loan?  If you mortgage your house to buy a car, should you pay tax on the loan? No, because a loan is not income.  Please correct me if I'm mistaken about him getting a loan."
Left wingers don't understand the difference between income and wealth/net worth, income and unrealised capital gains. This is why they're poor. They also think that borrowing on collateral is income - presumably this is why they get into debt and then blame capitalism for being broken, because they think a loan is free money

Is Mississippi Really as Poor as Britain? - "The shame of it! Mississippi has found itself in the humiliating position of being compared disobligingly to the United Kingdom. Just last week, the Financial Times ran a column asking, “Is Britain really as poor as Mississippi?”   Most Mississippians do not spend much time worrying about comparisons to Britain. The same cannot be said about those on the other side of the Atlantic. For Brits—and I am one, though now based in Jackson, Mississippi—the issue of whether they are more or less prosperous than Mississippi has become a thing. Indeed, the Financial Times now calls it “the Mississippi Question.”  It was nine years ago that Fraser Nelson, the editor of The Spectator, first suggested that the U.K. was poorer than any U.S. state but Mississippi. This came as an uncomfortable shock for many in Britain for whom the word Mississippi conjures up clichés about the Deep South, as a byword for backwardness. Every time anyone has made the comparison since, there has been an indignant outburst from Britons keen to denounce the data...  the gap between Mississippi and Britain seems to be growing. Never mind PPP. Just run the numbers for GDP per capita in current dollars for the first part of 2023, rather than 2022, and see that Mississippi’s output is rising at a faster rate than Britain’s.   Over the past 30 years, several southern states have seen rapid economic growth. States like Texas and cities such as Nashville have become economic hubs to rival California or Chicago. North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and even Alabama have all flourished. Mississippi was missing out. Until now.   Historically, business in Mississippi was highly regulated. Licenses used to be mandatory in order to practice many of even the most routine professions. The state has now lifted a lot of these restrictions, deregulating the labor market. According to a recent report by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group representing conservative state legislators, the size of Mississippi’s public payroll has been pared back. In 2013, there were 645 public employees per 10,000 population; today, the number is down to 607. Last year, Mississippi also passed the largest tax cut in recent history, reducing the income tax rate to a flat 4 percent...   Most of my fellow Brits like to think that they live in a prosperous free-market society. They have not fully grasped the way in which their country has been sleepwalking toward regulatory regimentation. Stringent new regulations on landlords have seen thousands of owners pull out of the market, resulting in a dire shortage of rental accommodation. New corporate diversity requirements have imposed additional costs across the financial-services sector, with little evidence that bank customers are getting a better deal. Restaurants are required to display a calory count for each serving on their menus.  Individually, none of these restrictions matters all that much. But together, this relentless micromanagement inhibits innovation and growth. And Brits have become so accustomed to government red tape, they no longer seem to see the crimson blizzard that blankets so many aspects of their economic, and even social, life...   To recognize that one’s country has been run on a false premise for three decades is difficult. To have to acknowledge that Britain is now poorer than the poorest state in the Union could prompt a moment of self-reckoning that many Brits seem determined to postpone.  Britain’s recurrent fixation with the Mississippi Question tells us as much about the country’s state of mind as it does about GDP. Rather than confront uncomfortable truths, my countrymen dispute the data. Instead of facing up to the consequences bad public policy in Britain, many blame Brexit, or Ukraine.   Putin’s war on Ukraine might have caused higher energy prices, but it alone does little to explain Britain’s poor economic performance. As for Brexit, though opinion formers who originally opposed it love to blame the country’s woes on it now, they never seem to ask why, if leaving the European Union was the cause of Britain’s lack of growth, Britain has still managed to outperform much of Europe.   Since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, the U.K. economy has grown by 5.9 percent. German GDP has only increased by 5 percent. Unlike Germany, the U.K. has so far also managed to avoid recession. Far from a reduction in trade, Britain has seen a boom in exports, especially in the service sector, since withdrawing from the EU trade block. Service exports grew by nearly 18 percent in real terms from 2016 to 2022—the strongest growth in this sector among the G7 countries, according to OECD data, and far more than in neighbors such as Italy, Germany, and France.   In any case, Nelson posed the Mississippi Question nearly two years before Britain voted to leave the EU. The country’s lackluster output, productivity, and growth were apparent long before Brexit. Leaving the EU should have been a perfect opportunity to correct course, but little has been done to address the problem. In fact, after leaving the EU, Britain has been hit by a succession of disastrous policy choices.   Having rushed to impose a lockdown in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, British ministers insisted on ever more draconian measures long after it was apparent that such steps were disproportionate, as well as ruinously expensive. Then, in the name of achieving Net Zero targets on “decarbonizing” the U.K. economy by 2050, successive governments have made rash commitments to move to renewables. Higher energy costs have helped price British industry out of world markets.  Instead of changing course, ministers have stuck stubbornly to their dogma—even though the latest moves to outlaw the internal combustion engine and new emissions regulations are making car ownership unaffordable for millions."

wanye on X - "My son told me, “daddy, we should get a truck like the workers so that then we can fix our own house,” which would seem to suggest that what he thinks separates him from a carpenter with 30 years of experience is his lack of material resources. Toddlers are natural leftists."

American Woman on X - "Democratic policies nave been failing Americans in large cities for years; they want to keep you poor and dependant on the Government so that way they have full control over you ..
10 Poorest Cities in America - % below poverty level
Detroit 32.5%
Buffalo 29.9%
Cincinnati 27.8%
Cleveland 27.0%
Miami 26.9%
5. St. Louis 26.8%
El Paso 26.4%
Milwaukee 26.2%
Philadelphia 25.1%
Newark 24.2%
None have had a Republican Mayor since 1989."

Did Rush Limbaugh Say This About Liberal vs. Conservative Views on Compassion? | Snopes.com - "Rush Limbaugh once said, “Liberals measure compassion by how many people are given welfare. Conservatives measure compassion by how many people no longer need it.”
Correct Attribution"
This is why left wingers keep on going on about needing to spend more money - they think that is the solution to everything since they confuse effort and outcome. Not coincidentally, this also leads to the state expanding

People who support Highway 413, tell us why : r/ontario - "You can tell who actually drives in Ontario versus people who don’t based on the comments.  Like, this sub has so much Ford derangement syndrome that somehow expanding road infrastructure which historically is a net benefit to economies is somehow going to single handily (based on comments I’m reading) destroy the green belt, cause more traffic, while simultaneously be empty, and then somehow get sold off for tolls despite the fact it’s going to be empty.  Expanding highway infrastructure has always been a net benefit to an economy as busy as Ontario.  It’s clear a lot of the people here who are commenting on how this is a bad idea have done little to no research as to what this will actually do."

People who support Highway 413, tell us why : r/ontario - "When the greenbelt was created, people were up in arms over limits on farmer’s ability to sell their land at market price, it was seen as unfair. Now the properties in the greenbelt are worth less than market price and people act like the greenbelt is some holy preservation that has been that way since creation."

Meme - Bernie Sanders: "If you have health insurance, I'm asking you to fight pay for those who don'Pay If you're native-born, I'm asking you to fight pay for the undocumented. If you can afford an education, I'm asking you to fight pay for those who can't. The only way we defeat Trump is with human solidarity Communism"
Clearly, everything on the left wing agenda can be paid for by taxing the "rich", even though they mock "rich" people who leave high tax jurisdictions

Meme - Memes That Can Save the: "There's no entry-level food. No entry-level rent. No entry-level cars. Why are there entry-level jobs?"
Jay Hubbard: "Ramen noodles. Roommates. Used cars. That you forgot about these things indicates you've probably never struggled in your entire life."

Chris Freiman on X - "A persistent mistake in political debates is assuming that anyone who opposes your proposed policy (e.g., price controls on food) thereby opposes the end your proposed policy aims to achieve (e.g., increasing the affordability of food)"
Todd Bryant on X - "I used to think that. I gave people the benefit of the doubt, thinking that this was a common mistake. The reality is that most people who engage in political discussions do so in bad faith and smear their opponents on purpose, knowing the low-IQ among us will be persuaded."

Meme - Robert Sterling @RobertMSterling: "Let’s say a scientist invents a product that costs $5 per unit to mass produce—just five bucks for the raw materials and the direct labor costs of manufacturing it.  What’s a fair price to charge? Should she be allowed to charge $10, for a 50% gross margin? What about charging $500, for a 99% gross margin?  On top of that, what if I told you the scientist expects to sell 1M units per year. Is it equitable that the scientist will generate nearly $500M of gross profit, off of just $5M in direct costs?  Sounds unfair, right? Why should she be allowed to gouge her customers that badly?! Why should we permit her to extract that much surplus value out of her employees? It sure sounds like exploitation!  Before you answer, though: What if I told you the inventor had first invested $1B of her own money to create the product? Would that change your answer, knowing that her gross profit (before overhead) is generating just a 50% return on her invested capital?  What if I also told you that, in addition to the $1B she invested on R&D for this product, she had also spent $1.5B on R&D for products that didn’t work, or which never received regulatory approval? Would your answer change, knowing that her overall return on total invested capital is now 20% at the most?  Lastly, what if I also told you the inventor could have taken her $2.5B and invested it in real estate, for a 15% ROIC? Would you change your answer, knowing that our brilliant inventor could have easily just taken her money, deployed it into passive opportunities, and sat on a beach, rather than investing her funds—in addition to her time and her talents—into a highly risky venture?  If you don’t understand these why these questions are relevant—if you don’t grasp the concept of ROIC, or why investor returns matter more than just product margins, or how dead-project costs factor into pricing for products that do make it to market, or how incentives affect capital-allocation decisions—you might want to put your phone down, log off Twitter, and never again offer such an uniformed opinion about prescription drug pricing."
Warren Gunnels: "Price controls are good, actually:
Price of Ozempic (costs $5 to make)
*US* $969
*Canada* $155
*Denmark* #122
*Germany* $59
Price of Wegovy (costs $5 to make)
*US* $1,349
*Denmark* $186
*UK* $92
Life Expectancy
*US* 77.5
*Canada* 82
*Denmark* 82
*Germany* 81
*UK* 81"

Vice President Kamala Harris Reveals Plan for ‘Opportunity Economy’ : r/Economics - "Relaxing regulations almost never solves the issue on the long term. There's a reason they exist, most regulations are "written in blood". Remember last time they "relaxed regulations" in the housing industry?  If anything they need to be more stringent in certain aspects."
"Many regulations are also written by politicians who are bribed by lobbyists... Regulations don't always benefit consumers."

The bad talking point comparing student loan forgiveness to PPP loans - The Washington Post - "Few things are as core to our political debates these days as whataboutism and charges of hypocrisy. It’s much easier to accuse the other side of ceding the moral high ground than to defend your own policies and actions. And there’s a place for that kind of turnabout play — when the evidence is compelling.  The evidence is less than compelling when it comes to comparisons between President Biden’s student-loan forgiveness and the Paycheck Protection Program. As Biden has rolled out plans to forgive student loans — including this week — his White House and its allies have regularly pointed to GOP critics’ acceptance of coronavirus pandemic-era PPP loans that were forgiven.  A graphic has circulated on social media this week listing more than a dozen Republicans who took out forgiven PPP loans and the amounts... While both situations are technically about loan forgiveness, the key word there is “technically.” There are significant differences.  The main one is that the PPP money, while labeled “loans,” was really designed to be payments.  Congress and the Trump administration enacted the program in 2020 as lockdowns were taking hold across the country. The idea was to keep small businesses afloat and help them pay employees rather than lay them off. The text of the legislation said the loans were eligible for forgiveness in amounts “equal to the cost of maintaining payroll continuity,” as long as the money was used for eligible expenses.  Making the payments forgivable loans expedited the process at a particularly fraught time for the economy by allowing banks to quickly loan money with the knowledge that they would be made whole by the government.  “The idea is that taxpayers would forgive the majority of the money that was going to the workers,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in May 2020, adding: “But this was not designed as a loan; it was really designed as a grant.” So there was an acknowledgment from the jump that these were effectively grants; unlike student loans, this was not about people taking on debt that they would be expected to pay back over time — and then having that burden lifted.  The other big differences are the entity lifting the burden, and why.  A reason Biden’s student-loan forgiveness attempts are so contentious is that he has tried to do it himself, through executive action, because Congress hasn’t complied with his plans. The Supreme Court last year rejected $400 billion in student loan relief because it ruled that Biden lacked the authority. So Biden has sought to work around the edges in more targeted ways that could pass legal muster, including this week.  The PPP, by contrast, was approved by Congress in the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which passed by overwhelming bipartisan margins. It wasn’t an administration trying to get around the will of Congress to give people a bailout. The effective grants from the government also made sense because the government was forcing lockdowns over which the businesses had no control. You can take issue with the high and skyrocketing cost of tuition and the practices of lenders, but student loans are debt that the borrowers entered into on their own and with the terms available. It’s one thing for Congress to bail people out to make them whole when they have been affected negatively by emergency government policy and a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic; it’s another for a president to unilaterally cut a break to people who entered into something of their own volition and benefited from it (in the form of education).  Biden might have the power to do that. The question is whether it’s good policy. Congress hasn’t agreed that it is, and even some Democrats have questioned the wisdom of the approach."
On covid loans

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