The only place in the world where the mayor is considered lousy when real estate prices go up is in Israel.... I am not able to establish a ceiling on rental prices, and there are 10 reasons why I do not buy a Mercedes - the first is because I don't have money for it, and the other 9 are not important. People, you have decided that the State of Israel should be a country with a free market economy. You have decided so, and you have said that this is what you want. We elect Bibi and his ilk, and the Knesset makes laws that Israel is a free market. In a free market economy one cannot come to me and tell me to be a regulator, because if you want me to be a regulator, then you don't want a free market economy...
-- Mayor of Tel Aviv Ron Huldai
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+1 for spelling out the bleedin' obvious. It shouldn't have to be spelled out, but when rationality has been cast aside by so many political movements, I guess you gotta.
ReplyDeleteEverytime I hear from the Mayor Huldai I tend to like him more.
ReplyDeleteThe mayor is wrong.
ReplyDeleteThere isn't a free market in the world that doesn't have regulators and regulations.
You can have a free market economy and have regulation, and you can certainly put price ceilings on a societal staple like a percentage of housing in a free market without too much detrimental affect.
All the Major US cities have such regulations.
Anon 18:29 - the best kind of regulation is manipulating the market forces themselves. If you try to make a law that apartments may not be sold for more than x NIS per sq.m, then sellers may refuse to sell at those prices, reducing supply, and effectively increasing the price for apartments that might otherwise have sold under your artificial, legislated ceiling price.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, if you put up a lot of land for residential development, increasing the supply of housing, then the housing price will naturally drop, without any legislation or regulation. Being that Huldai is mayor of Tel Aviv, I'm not sure there actually is any land there still available for residential development, so Tel Aviv prices will stay high.
"Being that Huldai is mayor of Tel Aviv, I'm not sure there actually is any land there still available for residential development, so Tel Aviv prices will stay high."
ReplyDeleteYou should look things up first. On my way to work, I pass by 4 construction yards with new buildings being built. All the places are being sold for Millions of shekels.
And that's just a 6 block area of Tel Aviv.
"If you try to make a law that apartments may not be sold for more than x NIS per sq.m,"
But who does that or is suggesting that? Normally, large cities make a law that says for every X sqm of rich housing going up, 10% (or some other number) must also be built for "affordable housing". (smaller places, cheaper materials, and subsidized by taxes)
In Tel Aviv today, everyone is only building the million shekel appartments, and nobody is building affordable housing.
Fair comment. Except that I personally oppose any government subsidies on any housing. That's just a detail in my general libertarian, very-very-small-government hashkafa. :-)
ReplyDeleteSure, no subsidies at all. So first, since the government/JNF or whatever owns much of the land that can be developed it should charge the highest possible prices for it. Moreover. It should probably even hold back on selling it to keep prices high. Market forces at work, baby. Then, it should stop subsidizing roads, sewers, electrical grid, etc. If you want to put up a building figure it out yourself. It should also stop regulating where what and how people can build. You want to put up a 30 story tower in the middle of a small neighborhood, fine. Enforce building standards, no way. Let the poor people buy poorly built unsafe housing. Let those who can afford it buy it.
ReplyDeleteWant to see where all those policies I described work so well? Go visit any large city in India.
MJ,
ReplyDeleteThat's a very good straw man argument.
It's not what I said, though.
But this is not the time or place to debate principles libertarianism or small government. If you want to discuss offline, you are welcome to mail me at shaul.behr at gmail.com.