Reply #51: that's it

[m berst]

People who moralize about personal responsibility and are so quick to blame others never "do the numbers" and compare incomes with living expenses. The numbers don't work. You can't have a stable society for long where the numbers don't work, and all of the preaching about personal responsibility - which is only permitted to go one way - doesn't change that.

The landlords are very much a part of the problem. I have been on both sides of this issue, having worked in property management for dozens of landlords, and I can tell you that in my experience the irresponsible deadbeats are more likely to be the landlord than the tenant. There are a few bad tenants who expect something for nothing, but I think that most landlords expect something for nothing. They believe that their cleverness in "getting into the market" trumps any obligation they have to the people who pay off their investment for them, or any obligation they have to the social context that gives them the return on their money.

Landlords want to moralize about the behavior of their tenants, but when it comes to their own behavior it is whatever they can get away with, - they are after all, the landlord, they will tell you, and getting as much money as they can wring out of the property - it is, after all, an investment and maximizing the return is just the clever thing to do, they will tell you.