It Helps To Have an Argument

Somebody named Joe left a comment explaining that he didn’t like my post about New York rent control. I was going to reply in the comments, but my response got long enough that I decided to make it a post. Normally, I do that when a commenter brings up interesting points, but in this case I wanted to point out some particularly annoying argument tactics.

It’s sad that, as soon as the second paragraph, the writer here demonstrates the ignorance of rent regulation laws in New York City that advocates indicated exists on the panel. It’s almost as if advocates said, “beware if you write about rent regulation in NYC – because you probably do not understand it” and then the author proceeded to prove them right. Once you address this fundamental error in paragraph 2 I will read the rest of the article: “And apparently sets increases to the same amount for everyone, as if there was no variation in the housing market from one neighborhood to the next.”

I will not help you out by explaining how this is almost, but not quite completely, wrong. Please contact people at whatever organization offering expertise in this area and they will explain it to you. Until you do, writing about rent regulation in NYC should be in your “Let me wait and find out first” file (lol) and when this is corrected, I, for one, will be happy to read the rest of the article.

First of all, I don’t particularly care if Joe reads the rest of my post. (Or this one.) But he shouldn’t criticize it as broadly as he does later if he hasn’t actually read it. It’s like a reviewer who says he walked out of a movie and then complains about the ending.

Second, telling me I’m wrong and then not explaining why is a weak attempt to hide the lack of an argument. This isn’t Twitter, where space is limited. Joe could easily have written a brief argument or provided a few links.

Third, when you write “I will not help you out by explaining,” you’re not fooling anyone. We’ve all seen that trick before:

“Lots of zoologists will tell you that unicorns are real!”

“Like who?”

“You can find them if you know where to look.”

“Do you have any names? Or maybe a link?”

“I’m not going to do your work for you.”

Joe’s trying to spin his response as if he’s refusing to help a lazy writer like me find something obvious, in the hope that no one will notice that he hasn’t provided support for his argument.

Fourth, my main source for the assertion that rent control “…apparently sets increases to the same amount for everyone, as if there was no variation in the housing market from one neighborhood to the next” is Fraade’s own article, which describes a single 1% rate increase cap for all rent stabilized housing in the entire city of New York.

Fifth, a plain reading of the explanatory statement for most recent Apartment Order from the New York City Rent Guidelines lists a single rate for the entire city, as does the Apartment Order itself.

Sixth, I realize that there are differences between apartments based on the regulations they fall under, the year they were built, their individual rental history, and any improvements to the building or the individual units. But the 1% city-wide rent stabilization cap nevertheless implicitly assumes a certain unnatural sameness, regardless of changes in market value. I have yet to find anything that contradicts this.

Please don’t take that the wrong way – I’m not being arrogant about knowledge here; just insisting that you start off with an understanding of the rent regulation laws in NYC rather than letting your ideology guide you in discussing it. Look closely at the facts first (and get them right), do some research on the matter (your own research if you really want to impress your readers) and then construct an argument that gives us something to think about that is not talking points regurgitated from economics 101.

Suggesting I do research seems like a reasonable demand, but it’s actually another trick argument. It works like this:

“There are trolls living under our bridges!”

“I’ve never seen any.”

“Ah, then you must not be looking hard enough.”

If I say that I looked into it and can’t find anything wrong with what I said, he can respond that I’m just bad at research. Which is a lot easier than showing me his research that explains my error. I mean, it’s amusing that Joe’s advice on what I can do to impress my readers is to do research and construct an argument, since he does none of that in his comment.

(Seriously, the point about uniform rent increases is not actually a major part of the point I was making, but if anyone out there can show me where I got it wrong, I’d appreciate the correction.)

Further, Joe’s assertion that I shouldn’t let my ideology guide my discussion is just nuts. That’s what ideology is for. I swear, some people use “ideology” as a way to make having principles sound dirty. Joe doesn’t have to agree with my ideas, and Lord knows he’s welcome to dispute them, but to say I shouldn’t be bringing my ideas into an argument is just silly.

Joe tries the same trick again when he refers to my argument as “talking points.” Saying that you’ve heard my argument from someone else is not the same as proving me wrong. I have to admit though, while I’ve seen political pundits attacking each other for spouting Republican or Democratic talking points, I’ve never before seen someone refer to economics as talking points.

I guess maybe Joe’s tired of hearing opponents of rent control explain over and over that the problems of price controls are “basic Economics 101.” But that doesn’t change the fact that the problems of price control are basic Economics 101. Literally. As in, the effects of price caps on supply is covered in Chapter 6 of one of the most popular introductory economics textbooks. (If you don’t want to buy a whole textbook, this is quick summary of the effects of price controls, and this summary even uses New York rent control as an example.)

Economists disagree over a lot of things, but the awfulness of rent control is not one of them. Only 2% of the members of the IGM Experts Panel agreed with the statement that “Local ordinances that limit rent increases for some rental housing units, such as in New York and San Francisco, have had a positive impact over the past three decades on the amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them.”

I mean, for God’s sake, economists as far apart as Paul Krugman and Thomas Sowell are both against rent control. Do you realize how crazy that is? The reason you keep hearing economics “talking points” about rent control is because the idea that rent controls reduce the quality and quantity of housing is arguably the most agreed-upon proposition in economics.