The Absurdity of Rental Prohibitions in America

Having been victimized once by rental prohibitions in the US, I became since then very suspicious of rankings that put the country not at the top but ranked relatively high in respect to property rights. Sure, the wealthy are able to keep their wealth untouched - crony capitalism and corporation bailouts abound these days. Odd things have been happening  however to American economic values and the legal framework is not in place to protect small owners like it does in other polities. News like this one:

A court will consider whether homeowners have the right to rent out their property

are unimaginable in regions marked by solid cultural and legal traditions of respect to property rights as in most of Western Europe and, ironically, even in parts of Latin America - consider the example of Chile and, in the case of rental rights, even  Brazil has sounder traditions.