Bad Ideas Fail... Get used to that Result

PayPal controversy: App backtracks on new policy to fine $2500 for misinformation

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/paypal-controversy-app-backtracks-on-new-policy-to-fine-242500-for-misinformation/ar-AA12VzHu

Searches for how to “delete PayPal” skyrocketed by nearly 1,400% worldwide after the payment service released a policy update that said users would have to pay up to $2,500 in damages for spreading misinformation — which the company has since called an error.

It was a Festivus miracle..!!

St. Paul Regrets Rent Control

The City Council does damage control after builders flee.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/st-paul-regrets-rent-control-city-council-minnesota-housing-11664827614

Rent control is among the dumbest policies known to man, but cities keep trying it. St. Paul, Minn., is the latest to discover this universal truth, though not before significant damage was done.

Voters passed a ballot measure last November imposing a 3% cap on annual rent increases. The result was that builders shunned the city, and the City Council has responded by voting late last month to create new exceptions to the cap.

Effective Jan. 1, there will be a 20-year rent-control exemption for new residential properties and some apartments that participate in government affordable-housing programs. After a tenant leaves or is evicted with just cause, landlords will be able to raise rent by 8% plus inflation.

Property owners can also apply to St. Paul for an exemption to the 3% rent cap if their property taxes go up or if there are “unavoidable increases” in maintenance and operating costs, including increases owing to inflation. But the City Council also restricted landlords from passing along new utility charges to tenants as a way to offset the rent caps.

Score half a point for the persuasive power of economic reality. The City Council noted in its reform bill that, “according to data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, there have been only two hundred (200) residential building permits in Saint Paul through April of 2022, compared to 1,391 at the same point in 2021.” Imagine that.

Mercatus Center senior research fellow Salim Furth has also found that multifamily permitting surged in Minneapolis after its twin city passed rent control. Developers have a choice of where to build, and St. Paul gave them little incentive to invest there.

The City Council’s reforms treat the old rent-control ordinance as merely too much of an acceptable policy. But rent control is destructive because it reduces the supply of housing, especially for low-income households. The city’s reforms are a wink at this economic reality, but repeal would have been better.

Maybe another "deal" with pallets of cash is in order?

U.S. says Iran supplying drones to Russia violates U.N. resolution

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-says-iran-supplying-drones-russia-violates-un-resolution-2022-10-17/

WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The United States agrees with British and French assessments that Iran supplying drones to Russia would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six powers, U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said on Monday.

"Earlier today our French and British allies publicly offered the assessment that Iran’s supply of these UAVs (for) Russia is a violation of UN Security Council resolution 2231," Patel told reporters, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones. "This is something that we agree with."

Ukraine has reported a spate of Russian attacks using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones in recent weeks. Iran denies supplying the drones to Russia, while the Kremlin has not commented.