Huge investment firms involvement in renting properties is no different, in principle, than buying up cars, or tuxedos, or furniture. The difference is that the government, with perhaps good intentions, has created an environment in which nobody can increase the supply of new housing without cutting through years of red tape, fending off abutters, and conducting review after review and study after study, at exorbitant cost. What you have done is put billions of dollars on a silver platter in front of huge investment firms and then you get outraged when they reach out and grab it. “It’s unethical!” What’s unethical, and downright wrong, is continuing to maintain the perverse environment in which these firms operate. And this is only on the supply side! On the demand side we have had decades of Federal Reserve policy that has let these firms borrow money at artificially and historically low interest rates. How is that ethical?

Same story with drug patents. You cannot create a system where firms can make billions of dollars with minimal risk and minimal effort, and be shocked when they go out and do so. All this misdirected outrage amounts to nothing. End drug patents now, replace them with a system of subsidies and prizes, and do something constructive to improve this failed system.

That’s a weird question. Say one landlord inherited their property and so 100% of their expenses are not fixed rate mortgages. Another landlord borrowed the entire purchase price a year ago at a fixed rate. Their P&I payments are guaranteed to be stable (but massive) and now they’re under water too. And they have all the same non-fixed expenses as the first landlord. Who’s in the better position?

What? You rely on food, clothing, transportation, medical care, etc for your life. In all of those industries, huge investment firms are trying to squeeze every every penny out of the market. Why is housing any different?

And what do you do for work Mother Teresa?