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The distance between Canada's savings projections for euthanasia across an aging population and Xinjiang's harvesting is not moral. It is procedural.
As virtually every economist has told us for decades, “In many cases, rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city except for bombing.” Politicians keep promising the same thing not so they can actually fix the problem -- even the most inept political reptile is aware of this -- but to win votes from people who still think that emotions can trump the reality of a rent cap.
As Marcos Falcone points out in this guest post, it's not even necessary to understand the reasons for rent control being do destructive. In contrasting the experience of Spain and Argentina, where xxx, he shows what the Greens and Green voters should realise before helping to destroy rental accommodation here...
Rent Control Always Fails—Argentina Shows a Better Way
by Marcos Falcone
On Friday, March 20, in light of the Iran war, which has pushed up energy and other prices, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced measures to lower the cost of living. Rent control was included among those measures, even though it is already failing in Spain.
Reportedly under pressure from one of its left-wing coalition partners, Sánchez decreed a nationwide contract extension at current prices for rentals about to expire, effectively amounting to a rent freeze. He has also instituted a 2 percent annual cap on rent increases through the end of 2027, which will apply to existing contracts currently indexed to inflation.
Ironically, a report published by the Instituto Juan de Mariana the same week as Sánchez’s announcement shows the extent of the harm that various forms of rent control are already causing in Spain. Following the introduction of rent caps in the region of Catalonia in 2024, the supply of rental housing has declined by 23 percent. Even more dramatically, the city of A Coruña and the region of Navarra saw rental supply fall by 44 percent and 51 percent, respectively, only six months after they designated certain areas as “stressed” housing markets and also imposed rent caps.
In a country with an estimated deficit of 700,000 housing units, rent control is making things even worse.
Rent control in Spain not only cuts supply but also fails to improve conditions for renters. As the Instituto Juan de Mariana shows, wherever rent control has recently been introduced, average rental unit space has decreased, and prices per square meter have either stayed the same or increased—in Barcelona, for example, prices reached a record high in the third quarter of 2025.
The Spanish experience contrasts sharply with Argentina’s, which has adopted the exact opposite approach since Javier Milei became president in December 2023.
Before then, listings had plunged by a massive 53 percent following the passage of a rent control law in 2020. But after Milei repealed it ten days after taking office, supplies rose by a staggering 180 percent less than a year and a half later. (My colleague Ryan Bourne and I documented that extensively here).
As of December 2025, rental prices in the city of Buenos Aires were still almost 30 percent down in real terms from two years before, and supply has not declined.
Rent control does more harm than good, as Ryan Bourne explains in The War on Prices. Hopefully, Spain will correct course as Argentina did before things get much worse.
* * * *
Marcos Falcone is a policy analyst focusing on Latin America at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. His research interests range from contemporary public policy in his home country of Argentina to the history, theory, and language of classical liberalism. His essays have received awards by the Mont Pelerin Society, Caminos de la Libertad, and the European Center for Austrian Economics, among others. His columns appear frequently in Argentine and US media.His post first appeared at the Cato at Liberty blog.
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“They Will Kill You” sounds harsh, but the horror-comedy’s real target isn’t snowflake viewers.
It’s the rich.
Again.
You know, the people we see on Oscar night, endless red carpet galas and US Weekly spreads. No, it’s not just the oil barons and legal eagles making all the money.
A-list movie stars do quite well, thank you.
Yet Hollywood keeps force feeding us “eat the rich” tales, hoping we’ll revive that Occupy Wall Street vibe or perhaps turn on the Mogul in Chief?
Not so fast.
The critical and financial results have been mixed, at best. The standouts include 2019’s “Parasite” and 2022’s “The Menu,” tall tales that took the affluent to task without sacrificing creativity.
“The Menu” grossed a respectable $38 million stateside and told a wildly original tale brimming with danger and mystery. The Oscar-winning “Parasite” scored $53 million at US theaters, but it had tremendous awards season publicity at its back.
Lately, we’re growing bored of the genre. The 2023 film “Saltburn” had a buzzy cast, including Jacob Elordi and Barry Keoghan, but it still netted just $11 million stateside. The celebrated 2022 satire “Triangle of Sadness” laid on the “eat the rich” motifs with glee.
And, once again, the U.S. film receipts proved paltry – $4.6 million (versus $21 million internationally)
More recent “eat the rich” films have fared just as poorly.
The 2025 misfire “Opus” followed a wealthy, reclusive singer (John Malkovich) who uses his fame to bend the wills of everyone around him. It skewers celebrityhood, wealth and journalistic ethics (or lack thereof). Once again, audiences stayed away (an anemic $2 million bounty).
“Death of a Unicorn,” a genre mashup featuring two prime players – Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega – crashed last year with a $12 million haul. The story found the stars fighting a billionaire eager to leverage unicorn blood for profit.
The films in question pulled nary a punch against their hoity-toity targets. My, aren’t those uber-rich types the worst? And we just got two more of ’em.
The 2019 surprise “Ready or Not,” featuring a bride getting to know her wealthy in-laws, made $28 million in 2019. The sequel, “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” couldn’t build on that film’s goodwill and will be lucky to match that total in a more horror-friendly landscape.
Those films imagine a society of Satan-worshipping elites eager to conquer the world.
Need even more jabs at the rich and wealthy? Try “They Will Kill You,” which opened against little new competition on Friday. The film is limping to a $5 million haul on nearly 2,800 screens.
The story? A young woman (Zazie Beetz) applies to be a housekeeper at a swanky building only to run into a Satanic cult oozing with cash and cruelty.
The Hollywood Reporter shares a line uttered at the very end of the film by a survivor of the melee … “Rich people.”
Rich people, indeed, in an industry where an actor fresh off his Oscar win will demand a bigger payday, and movies like “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” strain under the salaries of its high-profile talent.
We used to admire rich and glamorous movie stars. Now, they often tell tales meant to mock the 1 percent. Can somebody get them a mirror, stat?
Someone should make a movie about those Hollywood-sized egos cashing huge paychecks. Maybe that would bring people back to theaters.
The post Are Audiences Sick of ‘Eat the Rich’ Movies? appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.
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