I’ve written several columns (here, here, here, here, and here) detailing the folly of rent control.

And now that New York City’s dilettante socialist mayor has proposed to expand rent control, I thought about doing the same thing.

But I noticed so many clever comments on Twitter/X that I decided on a different approach.

Here are nine tweets that expose the stupidity of rent control.

1. We’ll start with a reminder from @cafreiman that economists may be deeply divided on many issues, rent control is an area where there is near-universal understanding that the consequences are negative.

Yet some politicians ignore their advisors because they are willing to hurt people in exchange for votes.

2. Meanwhile, @sarthakgh shares some evidence from Massachusettts.

3. Now let’s add some academic evidence, courtesy of @berkie1.

4. Now let’s look at some real-world evidence that @jayparsons shared from Montgomery County in Maryland.

5. Courtesy of @endwokeness, here’s the evidence from Argentina.

By the way, click here to learn more about Milei’s successful approach.

6. I don’t know who @syntrØpy is, but this is a nice partial list of the negative consequences New York City will experience.

Though, looking at the final line, I’m mystified what “ngmi” means.

7. Next we have a reminder of some inevitable effects of rent control from @theobjectivist.

8. New York City already has some rent control and @tedfrank notes that it’s already a disaster.

9. Last but not least, here’s a tweet from @alexstapp about San Francisco’s experience with rent control.

I’ll close with the observation that disaster of rent control is a specific example of the general principle that price controls always backfire (see here, here, and here).