Case against the Foreign Buyers Taxes and Speculation Taxes

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by KincLosddy

Basic principles in sales and competition don't seem to have much effect on one of the worst housing bubbles on Earth. Show me the developers on the race to the bottom building cheap, small, no frills affordable units to outsell the competition. Oh wait, that's not happening. They are building "affordable luxury" that isn't affordable where there is no choice but the high cost stuff they build for maximum profit instead of competitive edge.

Market distortions, including investors and investment corporations are ensuring that if the people can't afford it, the rich can, and the supply remains constrained because that area of the housing market is lacking in regulations to protect normal, hard working people who don't have the huge financial means to fight against distorted market forces that are running amok.

In a supply managed market where developers are only allowed to build and sell a fixed number of condos a year, why wouldn't they build 100 high price condos instead of 100 cheap ones? When DeBeers had the diamond market monopoly and was supply managing diamonds they didn't flood the market with cheap ones either. The market distortion is the government (and really ultimately the voters) deciding to manage the supply of new development, not investors buying housing (and renting it out of course!) "People who I don't like are buying products" is not what "market distortion" means.

If you want to split hairs on regulation and semantics, sure continue to stroke your ego. As I said before regulations designed to improve market conditions are a good thing. Deregulation is not. Deregulation is the rallying call of those who want to get away with things.

I do appreciate that your entire takeaway was "Oh you agreeee with me."

This really is a hair splitter. One man's "deregulation" is another man's "regulation reform". I think we both agree that there is inevitably going to be some regulation (fire safety for one?). When I say "deregulation" I'm generally referring to reforming regulation in such a way that blocks less development. The fact of the matter is Minneapolis became more permissive of development. This was a good thing.

I am a staunch supporter of rational regulatory changes. I am not a supporter of policies or people that look to completely unleash the so called "free market forces" that, without regulation, always end up in monopoly, oligarchy, collusion and conspiracy. Our housing is not a damned commodity to be controlled by those with all of the economic reach. We don't need kings and lords to our serfs. The only thing that can prevent a slow and steady failure of our system into monopolization is smart, rational regulations and policies which prevent the housing market from being an investors wonderland.

Our food and clothing are damned commodities "controlled" by the globalist farmers and textile producers of the world. It seems like our needs are well taken care of there. (In fact, we actually provide government subsidies to the farmers to pad their profits and ensure a steady supply of food!)