Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Less Tall Megan

Shorter Megan McArdle:


How The Poor Can Afford To Live In New York: The lucky ducky poors get rent control and everyone else gets higher rents.


Bonus: McArdle demonstrates her faux elitism:
You frequently see studies and articles pushing some version of No. 1: that when you account for the “true cost,” adding in things such as transportation, it’s surprisingly cheap to live in the city. I find these studies broadly implausible, because they leave out little things like “the cost of having to have everything delivered,” “the cost of taking taxis when you’re in a hurry” and “the cost of having to have a pet taxi to take the dog anywhere.” They also fail to account for the upward pressure that high real estate prices put on the cost of everything else and the time cost of mass-transit commutes. And let’s not get started on incidentals such as educating your children.
A quote that you will never ever get from McArdle, from a pro-tenant site:
What is the profile of most rent-controlled tenants? According to the 2005 Housing and Vacancy Survey, there are now 43,000 rent-controlled apartments in New York City. The median income of those households was $22,200. The median rent is $551 per apartment, and the median household pays over 33.5% of income for rent. The city's rent-controlled tenants are mostly elderly – with most tenants having lived in their apartments since 1971 or before.

8 comments:

NonyNony said...

She really has no idea how struggling people live, does she?

because they leave out little things like “the cost of having to have everything delivered,”

You don't have everything delivered - you walk to the store and walk back with a bag of groceries. For big things you have them delivered, but since you're living in an apartment there really aren't that many big things you need delivered. Does she not understand that everyone doesn't have a huge kitchen full of every gadget imaginable in it?

the cost of taking taxis when you’re in a hurry

You learn the bus (and in NYC - subway) time tables and get to places early. You try to never be in a situation where you have to hurry because you're screwed when you do.

“the cost of having to have a pet taxi to take the dog anywhere.”

You don't own a dog. A dog is a luxury that you choose to take on if you can afford it. This is why many people who are struggling (or even not struggling but merely not well off) do not own pets when they live in cities.

I mean Jeebus. She really cannot even imagine a universe where she doesn't have the money to do whatever she wants whenever she wants, can she?

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Shirley those useless olds could be warehouses in less valuable parts of the country?

Or...Carrousel! (The deserving John and Jane Salts, of course, will be able to pay off the sandmen.)
~

Anonymous said...

This is a woman who felt shabby without new clothes when she was underemployed like almost 2 years in New York.

cynic said...

Her Mcrazy math skilz shine through once again, this time without a calculator:

"Answer Nos. 2 and 3 are obviously true but still don’t explain how the city can have a median household income of $50,000 and an average rental price of $3,000."

Because anything is possible when you compare the median of one measure to the average of another. Especially if they are only weakly correlated in the first place.

cynic said...

And the hits keep on coming:

"This is obviously only practical for so long, which is why I know a growing number of New Yorkers who have relocated to Washington, or another city, when it was time to buy a house or have kids."

Right. You want to have kids *or* buy a house (Not McMegan *or* McMegan; never both) and you cannot do it in any of the surrounding suburbs in NJ, CT or counties like Yonkers and Westchester: You have to pack up and go to frickin' Washington DC.

The world according to the only things McMegan knows.

fish said...

Washington DC, the second or third most expensive city on the east coast...

Anonymous said...

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Susan of Texas said...

McArdle clawed her way into the top 10% and it drives her nuts that she still can't afford to live like a rich person. You aren't rich unless you have public proof that you are rich.

She had to leave NY because she failed at her NY career and began a DC career, not because rent was too high. If she had a job on Wall Street she'd happily pay the rent.

She ignores the effect of gross income inequality in the bidding wars on NY property, and the fact that it is desired by people all over the world. McArdle can't afford the apartment she grew up in but her trust fund former schoolmates can.