Landlord Shmandlord

There is a great guest post about Moral Hazards on Infectious Greed written by Tom Vanderwell.  It starts off with two comics:

In the post Tom describes the dangers of government bailouts and government protections for investors.  If investors do not bear the full risk of their investments, then they will make moves that they wouldn’t otherwise make (the Moral Hazzard).  This leads to various undesirable outcomes, because in the end somebody has to pay when the losses accrue.

I strongly support some of the suggestions that Tom makes, and believe that the US government should do as little of possible (with the one exception of preventing a larger market collapse).  The notion of privatizing the gains and nationalizing the losses, for example what this $25 billion dollar bailout of Freddie and Fannie would be, goes against everything our country stands for.

More inline with the first comic above, I’ve mentioned before that all of my mortgages were all done in a very sustainable way.  They’re almost all fixed mortgages, which ironically enough I took out against the recommendations of both my mortgage brokers and realtors at the time.  If I had taken their advice, and was in bad shape now, I wouldn’t deserve any government help.  But, if those who get in trouble because they chose the less-prudent, shinier path get bailed out,  I may be more likely to take the riskier approach next time.

Hey, why lose out on some extra profits a second time?

Check out this link to see some more great pictures of strange houses.

I hadn’t thought of this technique, but maybe I could use it if ever presented with a similar situation.

A New York landlord hired a marching band to drown out the sound of his tenants protesting asbestos contamination.

Many tenants at the midtown building, owned by Kent Swig of Swig Equities, have been driven out to make room for the construction of luxury condos at the site, the New York Post reported Monday.

The tenants remaining also have complained they have been subjected to airborne asbestos by bad renovation work.

“It’s a question of health and safety … . We have four independent tests that show asbestos,” said resident Alan Kroll, who was among about two dozen protesters outside the building Sunday.

Swig decided to drown out the protesters by hiring the Steppers Marching Band, although the move mostly just drew a curious crowd.

The Department of Environmental Protection has ordered construction halted until the asbestos is cleaned up.

Thanks mshades for the image.