> Many airbnb are not people "renting on a weekend when they go on holiday". It's a mini hotel. The former I don't mind, the latter should be taxed out of existence.

1. What percentage of Airbnb users belong to each category? Why do you ignore the former and hope 'they all get their fingers badly burned when rates rise'?

2. You still have provided no argument as to why the latter should be 'taxed out of existence'.

> Your comment about groceries is dire. Production of food is elastic. Production of land is not.

This is irrelevant to the point you and I were discussing, namely, that restricting the supply of something will not magically lower its price. It works just as well with any other supply-inelastic good or service.

> Taxing those who simply try to be middle men to be, yes, a rentier is a good thing.

Can you clarify what you mean by 'those who simply try to be middle men'?

> So many bad comments on HN that fail to understand elasticity and how prices are set. I'm off.

1. It's a bit ironic for you to make this accusation when you're literally advocating for taxing an entire economic sector 'out of existence'.

2. I made no comments about elasticity of supply. You did.

Uh... Keynes never said we should tax people who rent their homes out of existence. That idea is quite nonsensical and counterproductive from an economic point of view. It's like saying we should tax groceries out of existence to reduce food prices.

> Econ 101 sucks.

?

> But you contradict yourself as econ 101 always states supply and demand.

Your sentence is incomprehensible. Please explain how I'm contradicting myself.

> AirBnb is for short-term rentals only. It does not target people in Montreal looking for 12 month rolling tenancies. But it does reduce supply as landlords move from supplying 12 month places to airbnb. If we made life harder for airbnb supply would go up of rentals for families. Or landlords would sell up reducing prices and allowing families who presently rent to buy.

Why should we favor 12-month rentees at the expense of the rest of society, to the point of forcing everyone else out?

> They bring nothing to the community and make life harder for many families.

I know right? They've brought absolutely nothing of value to the millions of customers who use their service. That's why they keep using it, of course!