A Stitch in Haste

A few days ago I noted an obnoxious proposal to rescind the right of voluntary homeowner associations and condominium boards to restrict flag displays on resident property.

Not to be outdone, hack New York State politicians want to abolish not just freedom of contract but also privacy of contract:

The prices paid for co-op apartments in New York City could be made public for the first time under a bill passed last week by the Legislature in Albany. The bill proposes to lift the veil on what has long been a central secret of real estate in the city: how much your neighbor paid.
...
The bill was drafted at the request of the city's Finance Department. It allows the city to make public the information provided on transfer tax forms, including the sales price, bringing co-op sales in line with other real estate transactions, including those involving condominiums and single-family homes.

If the bill becomes law, the information would be available on an online database, and would also include addresses, and the names of the buyers and sellers. In 2003, a similar law went into effect allowing the city to make public the sales prices of all other real estate transactions.

Do words simply not have meaning anymore? How is a private sale of private property between private parties in any way a matter of "public" concern? How is this anything other than "financial voyeurism"?

Or look at it this way: how can anyone assert that transfer tax forms should be made public but that, say, income tax returns should not? (Warning: Don't ask that question in Finland.)

And why should a seller -- who may no longer be a resident of the state (or even alive, for that matter) -- have his name and address made available, to anyone and everyone, years after the transaction? I ask again: exactly what "public interest" is being served here?

There's a difference between running a city and running it into the ground. Only hack politicians could possibly believe that giving people yet another reason not to live here and not to invest here could be a sound policy.