Free Market

Re "Rents: Free-market system isn't wrong, but it isn't working," by Ken Carlson. Mr. Carlson makes a challenge to anti-rent-control proponents, saying in some veiled ambivalence that a "free market isn't working" and by simply calling anti-rent-control facts "propaganda." But the only challenge here is separating economic fact from fiction. Of course, the free-market process is working. Carlson just doesn't want to face the facts of its effects, and although there hasn't been a truly full and free market in Glendale for some time.

This letter is in response to a rent-control commentary by Aram Barsoumian printed May 26. You feel the rent-control debate is incomplete. I feel quite differently. It seems to me that rent-control commentaries outnumber any other topic of discussion in the Community Forum. I have seen many well-written arguments against rent control, as well as many emotional arguments for it. You bemoan the "personal attacks on Ken Carlson, the messenger." You almost make him sound like the messiah, bending under the weight of the cross, everyone against him. I don't recall many "personal" attacks, unless you would consider a logical attack that makes him look ridiculous as being "personal."

We have three solutions to the current housing affordability crisis: free market, subsidy and rent control. All three can be used in any combination, but there are only these three. The statistics support rent control and reveal alternatives as not viable. The current apartment vacancy rate in Glendale is about 1.6%, according to Glendale Water and Power data. The vacancy rate should be about 5.5% for market equilibrium, according to the Southern California Assn.

landlords I am tired of reading Ken Carlson's comments on the free market. He either doesn't understand the free market or is trying to mislead people. He claims that a free market would result "in a balance," but to him, "balance" means that rents don't go up. He is not talking about a "free market"; he is talking about a "controlled" market. In a free market, prices go up and down. We all know that rents were stable or decreasing for six or seven years in the 1990s and have risen quickly lately.

Gary Moskowitz Yale Law School professor Amy Chua is not convinced that a free-market system and democratic government should always go hand in hand. And the United States government, Chua says, should stop assuming that a free-market democracy will always promote peace in foreign countries. Chua, a 41-year-old Chinese American, is the author of "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability."

I just can't believe Roberta Gutierrez. Every letter she writes is so full of hate and spite toward landlords and other readers. Obviously, she stands to lose a great deal if this rent-control measure fails. She must have once been paying really low rent. I have my own views on some of the propaganda she has been pouring out. First of all, she should really learn to discern the difference between monopolistic or oligopolistic commodities like power and gasoline.

Free market capitalism is a barrier in itself in the formation of cartels and monopolies. This is because wherever there are profits, competitors will flock to that location and industry to reap the rewards of those profits. The resulting would be a general trend in lower prices because of added supply and competition. In the case of the health-care industry, the barrier to entry is high. But this is because the U.S. government has and continues to promote health-care oligopolies in each state.

Responding to Mr. Fan's commentary of Oct. 4 is like trying to prove a negative. He quotes things that were never said and uses statistics that are made up. His position and numbers simply have no basis in fact. (Notice that he was not invited to move?) He does not appear to comprehend the written language or distinguish between fact and propaganda. Wherever did Mr. Fan get his statistics? He should fire his source! Or, at the very least, learn how to interpret the data.

Re: "It's time to unseat feudalism, claim inalienable rights," Community Commentary, Aug. 6, Roberta Gutierrez' futile and ignorant attempt to rewrite the Constitution. I'll make the complex as simple as I can. Socialists like Roberta Gutierrez can't seem either to understand the Constitution or tell the difference between "government" and "private property" and its owners, of which the Constitution specifically protects against exactly what Gutierrez ignorantly portends that 67% of the population (renters)

If landlords don't like it, they can always just sell The new triumvirate of Realtors, the chamber of commerce and Foothill Apartment Assn., calling themselves Property Owners for Property Rights (POPR, pronounced "pauper"), attacks rent control on philosophical grounds, but it is POPR's reasoning that is below the poverty line. They say they favor "free market" over rent control, without explaining why their touted "free market" has so badly failed as to result in spiraling rents, but not achieve the balance they would have us believe will occur.

I am about to land in what some people believe to be the epicenter of socialist economics in the western world. Not Washington, D.C., as one might assume these days, but Paris. It gave me the opportunity to reflect on the debate we are having on the economy and health-care reform. Not in the sense of what the solutions might be, but in terms of how the underlying principles we think are common to all of us shape the policy. There is a premise that most of us are quick to accept as fact, that the free market is the foundation of our success, that the motivation for profit will be this automatic correction system to ensure that the customer gets what they need with the most efficiency.

Free market capitalism is a barrier in itself in the formation of cartels and monopolies. This is because wherever there are profits, competitors will flock to that location and industry to reap the rewards of those profits. The resulting would be a general trend in lower prices because of added supply and competition. In the case of the health-care industry, the barrier to entry is high. But this is because the U.S. government has and continues to promote health-care oligopolies in each state.

P residential candidate Hillary Clinton reportedly says universal health care is a moral imperative, while Rudolph Giuliani says this is just socialization of medicine and that reform should come by way of a market-based solution. What do you think? Is universal health care a moral imperative? Or should it be based on the free market?   Judaism teaches us that we all have a clear moral responsibility for one another’s welfare. This obligation to help the needy extends to the monetary, spiritual, emotional and of course, medical realms.

Ms. Jeanne Armstrong's letter ("These numbers -- and facts -- add up for the city," July 21) in response to Harry Zavos has not allayed my concerns and fears regarding the proposed Glendale Town Center (GTC), nor has it explained why tax increment money is without cost or "free" to the city. In school we are taught that money has a cost and is fungible (any given dollar is equal to any other dollar in terms of buying power at any given time). The cost of money is usually considered to be reflected in the current interest rate.

'Spokespug' and reader appreciate pet adoption coverage Thanks to the News-Press for its thorough coverage of [the July 25] Pet Adoption Day at Petco. The adoption featured pug dogs. I fell in love with 12-year-old Sabrina, who is currently in pet foster care. Sabrina is Little Angels Pug Rescue's "Spokespug." And what a "spokespug" she is. Don't you just want to snap her up? (I would want to if I hadn't already adopted a dog at another Glendale-located adoption.

Gary Moskowitz Yale Law School professor Amy Chua is not convinced that a free-market system and democratic government should always go hand in hand. And the United States government, Chua says, should stop assuming that a free-market democracy will always promote peace in foreign countries. Chua, a 41-year-old Chinese American, is the author of "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability."

Re: "It's time to unseat feudalism, claim inalienable rights," Community Commentary, Aug. 6, Roberta Gutierrez' futile and ignorant attempt to rewrite the Constitution. I'll make the complex as simple as I can. Socialists like Roberta Gutierrez can't seem either to understand the Constitution or tell the difference between "government" and "private property" and its owners, of which the Constitution specifically protects against exactly what Gutierrez ignorantly portends that 67% of the population (renters)