Surprise. The major issue at the May 5 Reno mayoral debate was not downtown beautification.
KOLO TV-8 reported that the barnburners at ThisIsReno.com’s event were “price gouging and rent caps.” Surprise, surprise.
I don’t know if it means anything, but I’ve never had so many profile views on my oft-neglected LinkedIn. com page as this month. Might rent control (May 4) and abortion (May 11) have played a role? Don’t forget gasoline price-fixing, below.
People actually care about money and morality. Who knew?
So people get ready, that train’s a’coming. Today at 11:00 a.m. in Gomorrah South, Nevada’s largest union, Culinary Local 226, will hold a press conference about launching “a campaign to win neighborhood stability by working with residents and communities’ allies to advance a ballot initiative.”
The announcement arrived just before press-time and included few details.
It noted that “the top 10 apartment owners in Nevada own 26.4 percent of total available units.”
The union added that “rent has gone up three times faster than inflation and local rent hikes have far outpaced cost-of-living increases.”
Surprise, surprise.
“Low-wage workers are also disproportionately impacted,” the union stated, adding that “in March 2022, 39 percent of Nevadans had difficulty paying for housing-related expenses according to federal government survey data.”
Nevada Housing Coalition Executive Director Christine Hess told KTVN TV-2’s Bryan Hofmann last week that some households are forced to spend half their income on rent. Great way to lose weight if you can’t afford food.
I notified the union that a rent control ballot initiative is very probably unnecessary. I broke the story in the May 4 Tribune that all 17 Nevada county commissions already have all the authority they need to control price gouging.
I await the powerful union’s proposal.
BARBWIRE CONFIDENTIAL: Monitor KRNV TV-4/Fox-11 newscasts starting on Channel 4 today at 6:00 p.m. Anchor Joe Hart last Wednesday announced the second of a series on the local housing crisis. This week’s focus: rent control. It should air as scheduled unless there’s a fire, flood or a cat up a tree — especially a wet kitty stranded in a burning tree during a gullywasher.
I referred reporter Ben Margiott to some good landlords who don’t rip people off.
The Reno-Sparks area now has “more than 100 homes purchased for flipping” by speculators, according to one longtimer who groused that Wall Street corporations don’t make improvements, perform upkeep or maintain landscaping. They just sit on the property, put it on the market at an inflated price and screw tenants for exorbitant rent in the interim.
Fortunately, there are still a few (damn few) landlords who don’t jack up rents to “market rates” on good tenants who’ve been with them for years.
GASEOUS GOUGING. Last week, TV-2’s Hofmann also interviewed gasoline industry lobbyist Pete Krueger, an old hand at passing out industry PR.
He even danced the Texas-two step, blaming green energy for high pump prices.
Lone Star State Gov. Greg Abbott, R, shamelessly lied about the real reason so many Texans died in the 2021 statewide blizzard, blaming alternative energy rather than neartotal government deregulation.
I am sure that pols at all levels appreciated Mr. Krueger taking them off the hook by adding that officials “can’t do anything” about petroleum prices. Excrementally and existentially false, even if we ignore gasoline taxes.
The same day as TV-2’s story, the sheikhs of Araby “warned the world” that we are going to run out of oil unless, of course, we pay their vigorish…er, “invest” in more exploration. The actual amount of carbon still in the ground has long been a matter of guesswork. That has not stopped BigOil from taking “depletion” of supply as a tax-deductible expense. They put Nevada corporate welfare to shame.
For the past 40 years, ARCO has set the hourly posted retail price and all other retailers mark accordingly. They never have to talk to each other, just drive by outdoor signs. No talk, no provable conspiracy to fix prices. Prices only fall slowly after a publicity-fueled spike. Any emergency will do, from a fire on a supertanker to a greasy kitten up a mast on said ship. See the 40-year Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive at NevadaLabor.com/
UNFAIR MEDIA PRACTICES. With mass shootings now happening more often than daily (202 since the start of the year), here’s another shot (pardon the expression) at simple cures for what ails us.
How to reign in Internet trolls and conspiracy freaks? Change federal law to make the messengers liable for damages. This newspaper would take a major financial hit for intentionally publishing libelous lies but Facebook does not thanks to an obsolete federal law passed to stimulate growth of the web. Growth, OK. When it turns cancerous, no.
So make the biggies create algorithms that pop-up contrasting points of view for any statement. Sound like the old FCC radio-tv fairness doctrine? Yep. But a hands-off policy is fueling mass murder. Let Facebook red-flag anything I say as long as I get to say it with FB as exposed as me a for falsehoods. Smoke that, Vladimir. All suggestions welcome.
Gun control? Gunned down.
ABORTION: Make sex illegal unless by appointment at a government-controlled intercourse facility. In signing a law criminalizing abortion, the abovementioned Gov. Abbott said rape or incest-caused pregnancies would not be an issue because he would stamp out rape in Texas. Well, guv, this ultimate birth control is the only way to have your cake and eat it, too. Religious zealots will love you even more.
Hard-core fact: Since Abbott took office in 2015, sexual assault in Texas has spiked well above the national average. What a guy.
JOB OPPORTUNITIES. What did new mothers do before baby formula? Hire a wet nurse. Why the product shortage? A three-corporation oligopoly controls the market. As with gasoline and so much else.
FOR ALL THE NEWS YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED TO KNOW ‘TIL NOW, subscribe to Barbwire Confidential (hush, hush!) at BallotBoxing.US/
Monitor NevadaLabor.com for updates on all this stuff as mass mayhem morphs into mediocre modernity.
Pray for Ukraine and 53 other currently war-torn lands.
Take care of each other and be careful out there.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbano, a 53-year Nevadan, is editor of Rentvolution.org, MississippiWestNV.org, ConsumerCoalitionv.org and NevadaLabor.com, among others. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988.
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