# Rent strike in the USA **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 1, 2020, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981 "2020-05-01T14:42:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/41 "2020-05-03T14:55:15Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > A universal health care system. Health care should be seen as a public service like education or firefighting or law enforcement. Or perhaps a universal health care law, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we need government-run hospitals, but government-mandated standards for care and that profits can be “capped” and reinvested back into the system of care. Maybe if we could find ways to ensure that Mitch McConnell and his descendants could get kickbacks out of the deal, he’d be on board, eh? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > 1. Overturn the Buckley v Valeo decision. It was bad law and it’s had terrible consequences. This would probably take a constitutional amendment at this point. What will be revealed in time is that the Constitution is very unlikely to produce the kinds of changes that a modern America needs. It’s a dinosaur, created at a different time with different values. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > 1. Raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation. > > 2. Raise the child care tax credit. I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/42 "2020-05-03T16:50:43Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > So it is a money-making venture? You are right, I should’ve used the term “income-generating”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/43 "2020-05-03T16:54:57Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Or perhaps a universal health care law, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we need government-run hospitals, but government-mandated standards for care and that profits can be “capped” and reinvested back into the system of care. I wouldn’t be optimistic about the success of such a plan. If you set up a set of caps and then leave it up to private industry to provide the service, you’re not going to find a lot of takers. Private businesses want profits; it’s their natural function. So why should they be interested in investing in an area where their profits are limited? Competent businessmen will look for other opportunities where they have more freedom. The only businessmen you’d attract under such an arrangement would be those who cut corners and do a half-assed job. This is what happened with the private prison industry. I feel that once you decide that something is a public service, you should go full in. Run it as a government agency and remove the profit motive entirely. > [@asahi](#): > > What will be revealed in time is that the Constitution is very unlikely to produce the kinds of changes that a modern America needs. It’s a dinosaur, created at a different time with different values. I disagree. I feel that the only two things which guarantee the long-term well-being of the general population are democratic government and the rule of law. Any system which is controlled by an elite will end up going bad, no matter how well intentioned that elite might be at the outset. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/44 "2020-05-03T18:14:45Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I wouldn’t be optimistic about the success of such a plan. If you set up a set of caps and then leave it up to private industry to provide the service, you’re not going to find a lot of takers. Private businesses want profits; it’s their natural function. So why should they be interested in investing in an area where their profits are limited? Competent businessmen will look for other opportunities where they have more freedom. The only businessmen you’d attract under such an arrangement would be those who cut corners and do a half-assed job. This is what happened with the private prison industry. I believe Obamacare regulated that only a certain percentage of revenues could be spent on marketing - something like that. I don’t advocate making the business unprofitable, just perhaps less so. Medicine needs to be regulated more like a utility company. And if that doesn’t work, then yeah, maybe a basic tiered system of public hospitals and providers with private options for those who can afford it. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/45 "2020-05-03T19:48:42Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I don’t advocate making the business unprofitable, just perhaps less so. [In 2018 the health insurance industry’s profit margin was about 3.3%.](https://naic.org/documents/topic_insurance_industry_snapshots_2018_health_ins_ind_report.pdf) How low do you want to reduce it, and how does not paying your rent bring this about? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/46 "2020-05-03T20:45:44Z")
> [@Bookkeeper](#): > > Landlords have to look at this as: Should I let this tenant/business who can’t pay rent because of the pandemic stay, in hopes of them being able to pay after the economy recovers, or evict them, which means I will definitely not be collecting any rent, because I have no hope of getting a replacement tenant until after the economy recovers. What makes you think landlords in general don’t look it at that way? But right now in NY (I know, personally) you cannot even start eviction proceedings against anyone, Housing Court is closed. So it’s not a choice. The City has basically told tenants not to pay rent unless they have some old fashioned moral sense that they should. But it has told landlords you better pay in full, on time for property tax and water/sewer (you pay NYC for that, not a separate utility like some places) bills. The City though may be in for bad news about the rate of collection of those bills. If the landlord has a mortgage, banks have to give forbearance on fed govt gteed mortgages but few commercial property loans are those. Although banks are under pressure to do this where it’s not legally required, and their own realization that foreclosure and sale is difficult if properties have no rent coming in, and there’s no way to enforce leases. This is kind of stuff people may not always think through if they are of the opinion that restrictions, such as recently in NY say, are sustainable for many more months. No matter where you squeeze the balloon, it’s probably not sustainable a whole lot longer. In theory the federal govt could just backstop everything forever, but the nightmare scenario there is if/when markets begin to lose confidence in that solution. Just shifting the burden to ‘The Man’ in the private sector doesn’t necessarily make it sustainable. If one took a strictly rational non-populist view of it I think one would probably view officially sanctioned blanket non-payment of rent, as in NY now, as non-optimal. If eviction proceedings were allowed, that wouldn’t make the _highly_ pro tenant Housing Court in NY suddenly change its stripes. They’d protect tenants who really can’t pay, but force people who can pay, to pay, as they should. Again I speak of NY because I know the system there pretty well. The systems in other places differ, but I think a lot of people speak about this knowing little about it even in the place where they might live. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/47 "2020-05-03T22:10:59Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > [In 2018 the health insurance industry’s profit margin was about 3.3%.](https://naic.org/documents/topic_insurance_industry_snapshots_2018_health_ins_ind_report.pdf) That’s the health insurance industry, which is separate from the healthcare industry. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/48 "2020-05-04T11:51:51Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That’s the health insurance industry, which is separate from the healthcare industry. The profit margin for healthcare providers was lower than that - [about 2.92%.](https://guidehouse.com/-/media/www/site/insights/healthcare/2019/guidehousehsfa2019infographic.pdf) How low should it be, and how does not paying rent bring that about? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/49 "2020-05-04T12:27:23Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > [In 2018 the health insurance industry’s profit margin was about 3.3%.](https://naic.org/documents/topic_insurance_industry_snapshots_2018_health_ins_ind_report.pdf) How low do you want to reduce it, and how does not paying your rent bring this about? > > Regards, > Shodan Your first question is a fair one - I don’t exactly know the answer, either. As to your second, the discussion has meandered, but bringing it back to the rent strike, as I said, this is not necessarily a protest against paying rent; this is a protest against modern capitalism, which is failing an increasing number of people. Believe it or not, Shodan, I still have traces of conservatism inside me (old instincts fade but never completely), and one of things that perhaps you and I could agree on is that Americans need to do a better job of fiscal management. I’d like to see high school graduates taking courses in basic household budgeting and learning about what interest and bad debt can do to crimp a lifestyle. I’m not a socialist. I’m a social capitalist. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/50 "2020-05-04T13:18:07Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > It’s not meant to make landlords sympathetic; it’s meant to be an act of radical protest. It’s a middle finger to modern capitalism, and it’s not going away. And the reason it’s not going away is that greater wealth inequality will be the legacy of the recession, just as it was the legacy of the last recession. It’s becoming more and more impossible for the average person to realize socioeconomic mobility. A state like NY is giving mortgage freezes, but no rent freezes. More inequality. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/51 "2020-05-04T13:28:47Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > How low should it be, and how does not paying rent bring that about? I’ve already stated my opinion, in this thread and in others. I have doubts about the idea of running the healthcare system by private industry with government set profits. I would prefer to see a healthcare system run by the government as a public service with no profit motive involved. And I do not see a connection between not paying rent and changing the healthcare system. ---
**Author:** ![ArtBeforeScience](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@ArtBeforeScience](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArtBeforeScience)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/52 "2020-05-04T14:12:24Z")
I do NOT support a general nationwide “rent strike” and wish they would think things through a little more. However I quote 2 people from the Oakland Tenant Union as to why people were planning this even PRIOR to the shutdown: > [@](#): > > #1: The national call for rent strike is an attempt to make a political statement: That the nation’s economy has become so corrupted that rents are out of balance with the need and basic cost of housing, compared with the depressed wages and financial conditions of workers and tenants, and that no rent is owing or should be paid until this balance is realigned. > > #2: rent strikes as a way by which tenants can learn about organizing for renter rights… State and local moratoriums will end at some point… tenants will > [be] affected by the same laws [that were] on the books before the moratorium [which included] situations when > rent strikes could be a serious option. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/53 "2020-05-04T14:21:32Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I have doubts about the idea of running the healthcare system by private industry with government set profits. I would prefer to see a healthcare system run by the government as a public service with no profit motive involved. Profit is always a motive in some factor. You can hide it, or force into warped forms, but you can’t get rid of it. And trying usually causes problems, but that’s an argument for another day. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/54 "2020-05-04T15:51:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Okay, here’s four specific proposals which I feel would help: > > 1. A universal health care system. Health care should be seen as a public service like education or firefighting or law enforcement. > > 2. Overturn the Buckley v Valeo decision. It was bad law and it’s had terrible consequences. This would probably take a constitutional amendment at this point. > > 3. Raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation. > > 4. Raise the child care tax credit. I can’t believe I am going to say this but I think I agree with 75% of this! Except #4, why would we want to incentivize people having kids who currently cannot adequately support them. (and I have 5 kids myself) ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/55 "2020-05-04T15:54:39Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > I’m not a huge rent control fan, but I’d love to see a cite that shows that abandoned buildings increase with and result from rent control. > [@Shodan](#): > > [Cite](https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html). > [Cite](https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2015/04/24/how-ironic-americas-rent-controlled-cities-are-its-least-affordable/#77ead30b48c6). > [Cite](https://www.city-journal.org/self-defeating-effects-of-ny-rent-regulation). > > Simply saying that you can’t evict for not paying rent is a pretty extreme form of rent control, and the longer and more extreme it is, the greater the likely effects. First of all, let me say that I appreciate you actually providing three cites for your claim. It’s honestly more than I expected. Now, that said, the quality of these cites is poor. You’ve cited three opinion pieces which agree with you. None of them lay any kind of framework for their opinions - they basically just assert that rent control is the cause of abandonments. And they almost universally cite decades-old examples, strangely needing to rely on a period of time in the US (and all examples are from the US, of course, even though rent control isn’t a uniquely American phenomenon) when cities were undergoing increases in crime and white flight. How about looking at the differentials between cities that did and did not enact rent control, with some attempt to control for other economic factors? How about a comparison with European cities, which did not experience the same level of urban decay as their American cohorts but did enact rent control? The serious economic literature on rent control is relatively damning - there’s a lot of data around underinvestment, cheating, limited mobility to keep a low, locked-in rent level, and other problems. Property abandonment is not one of them. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/56 "2020-05-04T16:34:00Z")
> [@ArtBeforeScience](#): > > I do NOT support a general nationwide “rent strike” and wish they would think things through a little more. However I quote 2 people from the Oakland Tenant Union as to why people were planning this even PRIOR to the shutdown: The problem with this is that the reason rents are so high is that there is a chronic undersupply of housing units, due to various nimby laws. Rent strikes would make people more reluctant to rent properties, further restricting supply and raising rents. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/57 "2020-05-04T16:45:03Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The problem with this is that the reason rents are so high is that there is a chronic undersupply of housing units, due to various nimby laws. Rent strikes would make people more reluctant to rent properties, further restricting supply and raising rents. I remembering listening to a whole Chapo Trap House episode about the ‘housing crisis’ because I was curious about the left-wing persective. They spent most of the time mocking both nimbys and yimbys, because of course, and at the very end they asked their guest, well what should we do. The answer was a bunch of blah-blah about supporting your local tenants union to fight eviction laws, etc. My take-away was that if there’s no acknowledgement whatsoever that the core of the problem is a shortage of supply, there’s no hope of getting a sensible prescription. In short, I think this is a major blind spot of the left (and I mean the real left, not mainstream liberals): we need large banks to fund new construction, particularly in cities where construction projects usually mean multi-story buildings that need serious capital, but since banks are bad guys in their worldview, they don’t want them to be an essential part of the solution. The way to square that circle is to pretend that there is no supply problem. ---
**Author:** ![etasyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9f8e36/32.png) [@etasyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etasyde)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/58 "2020-05-04T17:37:13Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > In short, I think this is a major blind spot of the left (and I mean the real left, not mainstream liberals): we need large banks Complete non-starter. Banks could easily be replaced by credit unions, banks do not need to be “large” to function in a loaning capacity (far better to have 10 small loans from 10 small banks than 1 big loan to one SIFI), and the knock-on effects of allowing large banks to exist vastly outweigh any and all potential benefit. > [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > to fund new construction, particularly in cities where construction projects usually mean multi-story buildings that need serious capital, This is what municiple bonds are for. Not banks. > [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > but since banks are bad guys in their worldview, they don’t want them to be an essential part of the solution. This did not used to be a “leftist” view. The founding fathers were openly hostile to banking institutions, as were many of the presidents that followed. "\*I sincerely believe, with you, that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies… Letter to John Taylor (1816) Source: [https://quotepark.com/quotes/1806450-thomas-jefferson-i-sincerely-believe-that-banking-institutions-are/\*.](https://quotepark.com/quotes/1806450-thomas-jefferson-i-sincerely-believe-that-banking-institutions-are/*.)" But, in modern times, having abandoned all illusion of principle “conservative” and “right” just mean “as extreme an oligarchy as is possible.” > [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > The way to square that circle is to pretend that there is no supply problem. No. Especially not in California. It has been discussed to death on this forum, but the supply problem in California was engineered. By banks. To - and this is a direct quote from the time - “protect capitalism.” Sorry that I don’t have the newspaper articles from the time (I spent long enough last time digging them up, and I can’t find the posts from that long ago), but they were explicit - defeat socialism, protect capitalism, jack up housing prices by making it illegal for the state to fund additional construction. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/59 "2020-05-04T17:46:02Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The problem with this is that the reason rents are so high is that there is a chronic undersupply of housing units, due to various nimby laws. Rent strikes would make people more reluctant to rent properties, further restricting supply and raising rents. If desperate enough, renters will leave the area, which is what Californians have been forced to do the last few years. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/60 "2020-05-04T17:55:22Z")
> [@etasyde](#): > > Complete non-starter. Banks could easily be replaced by credit unions, banks do not need to be “large” to function in a loaning capacity (far better to have 10 small loans from 10 small banks than 1 big loan to one SIFI), and the knock-on effects of allowing large banks to exist vastly outweigh any and all potential benefit. > > This is what municiple bonds are for. Not banks. You at least seem to acknowledge that there is a supply problem. So congrats on that. > [@](#): > > It has been discussed to death on this forum, but the supply problem in California was engineered. By banks. To - and this is a direct quote from the time - “protect capitalism.” Sorry that I don’t have the newspaper articles from the time (I spent long enough last time digging them up, and I can’t find the posts from that long ago), but they were explicit - defeat socialism, protect capitalism, jack up housing prices by making it illegal for the state to fund additional construction. Oh bullshit. Even if banks opposed the state funding additional construction - a position I do not share - that doesn’t make them responsible for the supply problem. The supply problem is because we overly cater to nimby dweebs and forbid building sufficient housing where there is demand for it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981.md?page=4)