A nation of deadbeats

[Dr. Anthony J. Toole]

I'm sorry to say it but reading the news today made me embarrassed of my country.

For Tenants Nationwide, a Scramble to Pay Months of Rent or Face Eviction

When did we become a nation of deadbeats that can't pay the rent on properties, such as the ones I inherited? It seems a direct consequence of the moral failing of giving away free money to people to sit on their ass. Make them work or die of hunger and they will pay the rent, I guarantee it. So come on, dig deep America and make me proud of my dual nationality.

[Johny Joe Hold]

Re: A nation of deadbeats

When did we become a nation of deadbeats that can't pay the rent on properties, such as the ones I inherited? It seems a direct consequence of the moral failing of giving away free money to people to sit on their ass. Make them work or die of hunger and they will pay the rent, I guarantee it.

Hear! Hear!, Dr. Toole. I'm so annoyed with the press. They talk always about tenants being so bummed out at being evicted. How about a little sympathy for landlords? They have to clean the places these low lives lived in and them rent them to more responsible people. This takes up valuable time. If tenants on the street is such a problem have the government keep on paying the rent to landlords.

[Dr. Anthony J. Toole]

Re: A nation of deadbeats

I work my tail off telling the people I hire how to do their jobs cleaning my apartments. I also pay good money to lawyers to find ways to squeeze the maximum possible income out of my renters. That's my job. And in return I expect a reward, not a tax hike to pay for the losers.

[Joanna Lytton-Vasey]

Re: A nation of deadbeats

These people are always complaining that they can't afford to pay their rent. Well, if that's true, then why don't they just buy their properties like the rest of us do? It's not as though the sort of places they choose to live in are expensive.

[Dr. Anthony J. Toole]

Re: A nation of deadbeats

These people are always complaining that they can't afford to pay their rent. Well, if that's true, then why don't they just buy their properties like the rest of us do? It's not as though the sort of places they choose to live in are expensive.

Precisely. They need to learn to use arbitrage to their advantage, it's simple econ 101, absolute basic stuff, yet they're too lazy to do it. Look how many slum properties Trump managed to inherit get with a very small loan.

[Joanna Lytton-Vasey]

Re: A nation of deadbeats

Precisely. They need to learn to use arbitrage to their advantage, it's simple econ 101, absolute basic stuff, and they're too lazy to do it.

Any of my children old enough to pronounce the word - i.e. over the age of 4, and even including my daughter! - could explain it to them. Do their mothers teach them nothing?

[Dr. Anthony J. Toole]

Re: A nation of deadbeats

Any of my children old enough to pronounce the word - i.e. over the age of 4, and even including my daughter! - could explain it to them. Do their mothers teach them nothing?

Sister, you know what it takes. But even after arranging the right upbringing and financial support network, and health issues that exclude you from some things but not others, and a non-stop property bullmarket and decades of Russian money-laundering, it still takes a certain je ne sais quoi to succeed as a bold man of action.

[MitzaLizalor]

Re: A nation of deadbeats

At the risk of going off-topic, what about the maintenance of accommodation in different places? When absent, the cost of getting someone to look in periodically, turn lights on and stuff, doesn't grow on trees. Otherwise a busload of pot-smoking derelicts can turn up and set up shop knocking out goodness knows what and (since they're your premises) saying, “I had no idea they were there!” is a lead balloon: “Oh yes well you would say that wouldn't you; were they paying rent? No? So luxury accommodation provided rent-free and you weren't taking a cut? Pull the other one, Mabel, it plays Merry Christmas.”

OK, ok, perhaps that's hyperbole: the cops would never use a semi-colon. And when you do spend time there, what about the place you were before? By registering oneself as an alcoholic mental drug addict in some places free rooms are provided by the government. Of course then you have to live with actual inebriated psycho druggies (lice, fleas, scabies, TB, you name it they've got it) which reminds me, the cost of fumigation never seems to go down. Or so I've heard, and rats. They come in from under the bus and find things so much more agreeable – decide to stick around.

Talk about a nation of deadbeats!