The gist of this seems to be "small-time landlords aren't rich; they have thin margins" while ignoring the fact that they do in fact have a lot of _wealth_ especially relative to their tenants.<p>I've recently been listening to the audio version of Piketty's more recent book, Capital and Ideology. I think noting the difference between wealth and income, and the wage-share vs capital-share (more his 2013 book) is helpful framing for the question of "how badly should we feel for small landlords?" But the rest of this lobbying piece is echoing the more recent book much more clearly. It participates in creating and perpetuating a set of beliefs and values.<p>The concept pitched here is that "most landlords are small-time, having only a handful of units". But if the big ones are big, e.g. if there's a power-law or similar distribution, don't forget that most tenants (or most units) might have much larger landlords, which don't look like the people discussed here. Their own copy implies it: "Over 43% of rental units ... are owned by small businesses" -> "A majority of rental units are not owned by small businesses".<p>The largest landlord in my city, with over 5K units and a value of over $3B, received PPP funds, b/c its number of "real" employees is relatively modest.<p>And even the small ones are too used to having the law or policies bent to their needs. I live in a multi-unit building in a popular neighborhood, which should probably be worth >$3M, but is taxed at an assessment of ~$135K. And my landlord is probably by most standards not bad.<p>I walk by some buildings near me that were quite likely torched by their owners to get out old, low-paying tenants. Arson is pretty hard to prove, but it can work out quite well for the owners.<p>Whatever I feel for landlords, it's not sympathy.