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I don't know if I'm clear, here are some analogies:

Chemical plant contaminated nearby housing development, some homeowners sell at a discounted rate to investors who hope to profit after a successful cleanup.

Pension funds buy Argentine bonds in the 90's. When it becomes clear Argentina is unwilling to pay it's debts, some sell to a vulture fund who has a better chance of collecting.

In both cases, some of the current owners of distressed assets are not sympathetic. That doesn't change the fact that a major loss of housing/bond interest/rent is occurring.

Rent control in San Francisco only applies to property that was built before rent control laws was passed (1979). So any building that was built at that time (a majority of the city's housing stock) has had an owner lose a lot of money from rent control, either by receiving less rent or by selling their property for less that it would otherwise have been worth. The fact that someone else may have purchased the encumbered property at a discounted price that takes the reduced rent into account doesn't change that.

I think rent control is not very relevant to this discussion of poverty. Most cities in the US do not have rent control. This includes high-rent cities like Boston and Seattle.

Getting rid of rent control in SF would decrease market rates, but market rates are so high it's hard to see how they could go down enough that anyone near what we define as "poverty" could afford to live there. I think current low-income residents would be evicted en-masse (because their rent just went from $1000 to $3000), while medium-income and more frugal high-income people would relocate from the suburbs to the city (because market rate went from $4000 to $3000). As a software developer I could afford a better house but you might not be able to get the world's best burrito in the Mission anymore.

Obviously there is an ideological split over whether that would be a good change or a bad one. The living expenses of current residents are currently subsidized at the expense of landlords. It's a microcosm of wealth redistribution in general and pretty much zero-sum.

However, increasing supply is not zero sum. It increases the total number of people that get a place to live. It's more attachment vs. progress than poor vs. rich. I think we have a chance to build a winning coallition on this issue.

Rent control does not prevent development, at least in SF, because it does not apply to new construction. If we can get enough construction going that market rates are decreasing, maybe then it will be time to figure out how to keep Mr. "I've lived in this apartment in the Pacific Heights since I graduated from law school and am richer than my landlord" (Esq.) from saving fat stacks of cash for the rest of his life, without screwing that family who runs a tacqueria in the Mission.

>They contribute to the issue of renters being unable to buy.

But on the other hand, they give renters a good deal. Buying at a high price:rent ratio means a low cap rate, which makes for a bad investment. So the landlord is essentially giving ownership returns to the renter, while keeping price risk themselves.

To the extent that rents are also high, this shows that the problem is not, in fact, investors but instead a limited supply of housing.

Investors who rent out their properties might change the price:rent ratio, but they don't contribute to the housing shortage.

The examples in the article are atypical because they are monopolies. Restaurants are typical because they are not monopolies. Academic research about a typical case is high-quality evidence.

The article describes how PE works badly in a limited set on industries (monopolies), but uses expansive language and doesn't properly caveat it's argument that PE is bad in general. Parent uses restaurants as an example of a more ordinary competitive business, where academic research exists that shows the benefits of PE.

>meaning freestanding homes that have a yard, not condos/apartments; such homes actually appear to be so rare within city limits that you'd have difficulty getting them no matter how much money you were willing to spend

I'm not claiming these homes are affordable inside SF, but they certainly exist - anyone who has spent much time in the city or searched zillow can attest (I would link you if I weren't on my phone). There are three-story single-family Victorians all over the place. The yard is usually in the back, though, as putting one next to city street traffic is a waste of space. There are some gated communities with front yards.

The preponderance of single-family homes in the city is one of the causes of the high housing prices. Most of the apartments/condos are actually subdivided versions of the victorians, because it is not legal to build anything taller. And now you have owners evicting all occupants of a property like this, converting them back into a single-family-home with an open floor plan, giant deck, lots of windows, and asking price in the millions. The circle is complete.

>For example, I know Daly City is only a few miles from SF proper, but that doesn't mean you can get doorstep-to-doorstep in under an hour given the transit conditions.

The BART train from Daly City reaches Montgomery station in 15 minutes. If you can't stand a train you do need to commute in off-hours.

>This is a good idea if you can get the timing right.

Granted, there are possible scenarios where this won't work, but all you need is for housing to appreciate at the rate of inflation over a few decades. If that happens fifteen years after you buy, you can sell and lock in your gains early. It's not so different from putting your 401k in equities when you are decades from retirement.

I have a phone with a headphone jack, and I'm using Bluetooth headphones for hours every day. The headphone battery lasts a lot longer than the phone. In the past few years even audiophile brands have been releasing blueooth models and they are getting good.

I'm not saying I agree with getting rid of the headphone jack. The amount of utility it provides is pretty high relative to the volume it takes up.

I agree that two ports would make me a lot less annoyed by the change, especially when you can keep an adapter around for one of the ports.

But from experience, designs where the charging and audio ports are on opposing ends are pretty annoying in practice, because the two cords restrict how you can move the phone when it is charging and headphones are in use. Apple stopped doing it that way several years ago.

I think users would be happier day-to-day with a larger battery, but in the ATT showroom they are more likely to go for the thinner phone with a small battery and no headphone jack.

At least for most headphones with some kind of band, there is a lot of room for a battery.

This doesn't seem remotely true, if you compare the regulations tech has been subject to with those applied to other industries (or tech in Europe).

Can you give some examples of anti-tech activities you are referring to, in case I am missing something?

Which, not coincidentally, is also what the companies stashing profits overseas hope to accomplish through future changes in the tax law.

Unless the parent commenter was the one who did that lobbying, the argument stands.

>(In SF or NYC, you probably can't obtain a comparable living situation, but a 2500 sq ft apartment apparently runs around $15k/mo, meaning you'd have to make almost $1M/yr to barely afford one)

I'm not sure where you are getting this from. The mcmansion trend hit the bay area just as much as it hit anywhere else. The burbs are 20-30 minutes away with tech worker job hours. The 2500 sqft homes here cost a million dollars, so your mortgage cancels out the additional bay area income. But that mortgage money doesn't go into a black hole, it's equity. So at the end of the day you can sell your bay area house, go back to oklahoma, and buy ten houses. This is probably the best opportunity going in the world right now to build dynastic wealth.