On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 7:40 AM, Stuart Jansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On > the topic of housing, however, there was a strong counter argument: "The > market has swung too far, even those who don't want them are being > forced to buy too large homes on too small land."
Except that's not really true at all. Even in cities where there is no minimum lot size -- and Bryan pointed out several of those -- it's easy to buy a lot and have a builder build whatever size home you like on it. > And when the market fails, the > role of government is step in for the good of society. Obviously some > people feel the system is currently malfunctioning and aren't happy > about waiting for a market correction. The market doesn't "fail" nearly as often as most people think, though. Here, people are complaining that other people aren't making the choices they'd prefer, and "there oughtta be a law" to force others to make the "right" choice. Of course, a state-wide minimum lot size law would drive up prices for everyone, but they don't care about that (or maybe they just think that all the government needs to do is wave a magic wand basic economic laws will no longer apply. Often, the level of economic savvy displayed by the average voter or politician approaches the physics ability of the legislature that voted to make pi 3. which is a false urban legend but a great story :) Homework assignment: next person to complain about greedy developers has to contact an actual developer and find out their profit margin. I would bet they are between 8 and 15%, I.e., completely normal in a competitive market. If "greedy developers" were the source of the problem, exploiting consumers for abnormally huge profits, you'd see slightly less greedy developers start companies and take market share away until profits came down to normal levels. -Jonathan /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
