I thought I would borrow from what people in other countries are doing to give a sense
of the context, and also to give a way to evaluate what Mr. Biden's team is coming up
with.
So I chose an example of one of the largest cities in the world: Berlin, Germany, the
center of the most important economy in all of Europe, a major player in the world economy
today.
In Berlin there is a government.
Because they have multiple parties (they're not like the United States, they don't think
two parties is enough) they actually want competition from multiple political parties.
So they have a good half dozen major parties and even more small ones.
The government in the city of Berlin is a coalition of three parties because no party
came even close to 50% of the vote.
Here are the three parties and if you didn't know this, that's something to do with what
the media in the United States do and do not cover.
The three parties that together govern the city of Berlin, a city of millions of people,
is #1 - the German Socialist Party, #2 - the German Left Party (which is what I'm going
to come back to and it is to the left of the Socialist Party), and the third party that
make up the three party coalition that governs Berlin is the German Green Party.
Socialists, Leftists, and Greens.
Why is this important?
Because they've come up with a number of policies, three in particular, that I want to mention
to all of you so they can imagine what that might mean in terms of what Mr. Biden's team
is and is not doing.
So let's begin.
Two years ago the government of Berlin passed a law, and that law said there could be no
increase in rents in Berlin for 5 years.
That law is not in effect.
Landlords are fighting it in the courts, but they have so far failed to change it.
The law has a number of other qualities, for example, new renters to an apartment can not
be charged more than was being paid by the previous renters of an apartment.
Interesting idea.
Does not exist in the United States, and to my knowledge, never has.
Here's the second.
This is an initiative, it's not yet a law, but Die Linke (this left wing party which
is the 2nd largest component of the coalition), they're pushing for a referendum in this September's
election.
They've already gotten 77,000 signatures, they're going for the 170,000 you need to
get on the ballot.
Here is what their ballot initiative will have happen: every real estate company in
Berlin that owns over 3,000 homes will have to give them up, sell them to the city, which
will make sure to keep them in a quality, and keep the rents low, because it won't have
to make extortionist profits from doing so.
The largest effected by this is something called Deutsche Wohnen (which means "German
apartments" or "German homes").
It owns 110,000 homes in Berlin.
But I thought you'd be interested in the two other enterprises that together own 10% of
all the homes in Berlin: one is.
the American capital company Blackstone, and the other is the Boston capital company MFS
Investment Managers.
American companies owning and ripping off tenants in Berlin.
They would suffer, sadly, if this becomes a law.
And here's the third initiative, also of Die Linke party in the Berlin government.
They have proposed a law that requires (this is interesting) all city jobs, from kindergarten
teacher, to garbage collector, to courtroom staff to meet a quota of 35% of employees
who are either first or second generation immigrants.
And the arguments of Die Linke party is that the population of Berlin is 35% immigrants,
and that therefore the employment should be roughly the same.
Currently, immigrants are 12% (of city jobs).
This is an attempt by Die Linke to do something about the ghettoization, the discrimination,
the second-class citizenship that immigrants (who are citizens) still suffer in Germany.
Interesting for Mr. Biden's team, perhaps, to consider and for all of us to know our
possibilities, not out of someone's head, but out of a practical political project in
one of the world's major capitals.