Rent Controls, Socialism of the Elite

Santa Monica sure was pleasant tonight. I gave a friend a lift to his friends place. They live in a very nice townhouse on a quaint, quiet street near the beach. Another townhouse at a diagnol across the street was up for rent. I made a snide crack about neighborhood watches and screening. But I guess one person's joke is another's reality. On this Marc O'Cherrian street, the subject of suitable neighbors is alive and well.

I remain uncertain how the subject turned to rent controls, but it seems like logical-ish progression. And the conversation itself was brief and thin. It's what was left unsaid that speaks measures.

One of the deliberately spoken roommates, a purchaser for a computer retail outlet, hates the idea of rent controls. Keep it expensive. Price the trash out. But he didn't say much after that. His computer wasn't communicating with the printer, and he had something he needed to print.

The other favored rent controls. He thought that the elimination of rent controls would disenfranchise poor black folk.

I sided with the computer illiterate computer purchaser. Living at the beach is a priviledge. And housing prices are something that should be market based, because in a responsibly run economy housing prices steadily and significantly appreciate over time. It's the nest you put all your eggs in. It's your nest egg.

But lets take this even further: When was the last time the "poor black folk" had the opportunity to find one of these beach front rent controlled apartments?

I hear about rent controls all the time. But only from my "good family" friends. Rent controls are controlled by priviledge. You don't find rent controls on Craigslist. You find rent controls because your rich big sister finally was able to buy her house by the beach, or your roommate in grad school is backpacking in Europe. You know what I mean. There's a significant difference between rent controls and low income housing.

I guess it's not so Marc O'Cherrian after all, although I wouldn't go so far as to call it Bushian. If the projects is American socialism for the poor, you might call rent controls socialism for the elite.