***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[IATT]

 

[rexanglorum]

More importantly, how many pairs of UNC 3’s did she get her beau, aepps20 ?

 

[aepps20]

More importantly, how many pairs of UNC 3’s did she get her beau, aepps20 ?

 

[RustyShackleford]

Just know I reported both of you

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[gry60]

They don't even hide anymore.
During slavery, all white southerners had to either be part of slave patrols or militias.

Of course, this time it's different. It's "everybody"

 

[rexanglorum]

Ilhan with the best posting game in Congress

 

[blastercombo]

Ilhan with the best posting game in Congress

Funny because the true statement is that he’s an American.

 

[IATT]

 

[dinyc3st]

I mean....yea I got nothing.

 

[TooOlfForThisIsh]

As far as subjectivity goes, housing seems like a good that people know of good or bad. Unlike restaurant ratings which are a function of personal taste, idiosyncrasies, cultural tastes etc. people know if their housing is cramped, their commute long, the plumbing is unreliable, the ventilation is bad etc.

Did you see my follow-up? These stars aren't awarded by surveying renters. CoStar, the data provider, has a reasonable set of criteria for evaluating. It's more like the hotel star system. Although, I'll note that I've stayed in some absolutely dilapidated 5 star hotels and some really nice 3 stars...

If the ratings do line up with rent price, then it’s clear that high end housing is its own market and at best, it prevents high earners from renting housing that could otherwise be within reach of middle and low income earners. But there is already an abundance of high end housing. There’s clearly not a shortage of high end housing.

In fact, there is a glut of it. The conventional economic theory used by YIMBY absolutists is that with more vacancies at the high end, rents will fall so much that middle income earners can occupy some formerly high rent units and that, in turn, increases vacancies at the middle end and subsequently, some low income renters move up to the middle income housing and hopefully some unhoused people can now occupy newly vacated and cheaper, low end rentals. That’s the conventional theory

I think you have to qualify which economic market you're talking about. I finally got to the article (Thanks, Public Enemy ). The author speculates that demand could be cascading downmarket and supporting prices in more affordable tiers. But in order for this to work, the opposite would have to be true as well: in expansionary markets, demand will shift upwards and you have something like the conventional theory.

I'd hesitate to draw a lot of conclusions using the last year's data. The Covid story was a bit more complicated than "rich people flee the city".

At any rate, much like with luxury rents going down, this article seems to undermine many of the follow-on points you've made.

and it would work if we did not have perverse incentives in the tax code, institutional investors acting as a bailout mechanism and price floor for high end property owners, and economic apartheid in rental markets.

The conventional theory about housing is like most conventional economic theories, in that they are mostly unworkable in the real world, especially a real world defined by this level of inequality.

I don't think economics is as useless as all that, but I'm the wrong defender.

Again, I agree with the argument that a luxury property rental, on its own, doesn’t hurt the situation with middle and low income housing but it clearly hasn’t helped, even in a year where COVID is causing the wealth to demand fewer urban rentals. And sure, in theory, you could build a bunch of high end properties AND low income housing units. But it doesn't play out that way, most of the time. What actually happens is that there’s a bottle neck in the form of a permitting process and the luxury condo builders have the power to dominate the docket. So in practice, those luxury condos crowd out low income housing.

More cities need a plan, I think everyone agrees on that, maybe a formula, a robust formula, that would require genuine affordable units, income tested, be built 2:1 or 3:1 to more expensive units. But the problem is that, there’s no political will to do so.

I guess one place we differ is that you seem to believe that there's an absolute notion of luxury rentals. I think what really happens is that the market will create distinction, even if it has to exaggerate differences. Creating new luxury today demotes old luxury into just "nice" and there's a cascade effect. My guess is that the Costar criteria I praised above is subject to change as values and expectations change. So each time you create new inventory - anywhere you create it it, the market will recalibrate and you'll end up effectively creating inventory in each bucket. I've lived in some less nice properties in my life, but I'm sure all of them were considered above average at some point.

One place we really agree is that cities need to mandate more development of affordable housing.

 

[aepps20]

Just know I reported both of you

 

[frink85]

I mean....yea I got nothing.

the internet already got her, she posted some half *** "apology" on her IG. after posting some free speech trump MAGA BS an hour before

edit: apparently the "i messed up" came in between racist lib MAGA rants https://www.instagram.com/stephaniedenaro_/

 

[rexanglorum]

TooOlfForThisIsh

Thanks for getting to the bottom of what those dang stars meant.

When it comes to economics, my academic background is in economics and it’s a worthwhile field. That said, I have seen and used to participate in the abuse and weaponization of simple, perfect market, demand and supply models. At minimum, there’s multiple demand and supply graphs or multiple demand and supply curves. No one is applying simple demand-supply models to entire housing markets but I have a muscle memory to make economic models complicated because I used to be such a sucker for very simple models.

Also, when I say luxury properties in the context of housing policy, I am not concerned with how sumptuous it is not a specific price point or age of the building. My main distinction is how much economic discrimination happens in that property. If the renting criteria is designed only for very high earners, trust fund kids and rich people wanting an urban vacation home. Basically, how much of the city is specifically set aside for the well off and excludes low income renters even in a somewhat down market and even if those low and middle income renters are willing to have a number of roommates.

And lastly, My obsession with housing policy boils down to my moral revulsion with the fact that our economic system demands that most people not only work but increasingly they have to fight over a handful of good jobs just to get by. As those good jobs increasingly cluster in a few big cities, those big cities become unaffordable to more and more people. It’s a cruel jape that as middle-class jobs cluster in the city, the city increasingly becomes a playground for the rich.

I know why it’s happening, it’s the market dictating all of that, rich people have more money for their fourth or fifth home in the city to play every other weekend and they can outbid people who are homeless or low income. It’s so unjust that the wealthy minority, that dies t have to work at all, expects everyone else to work and they have to have long commutes and live in extremely cramped housing I order to work a job that pays slightly more than starvation wages.

All of that is, to me, distilled down in the image of even one empty unit in some high rise condo while unhoused people sleep below. So I apologize if I come off as a bit of a crank on this topic, my moral perception of this issue makes it hard to look at the nuances in vast amounts of sometimes confusing and contradictory data.

 

[elpablo21]

Feel sorry for those kids man

 

[gry60]

the internet already got her, she posted some half *** "apology" on her IG. after posting some free speech trump MAGA BS an hour before

edit: apparently the "i messed up" came in between racist lib MAGA rants https://www.instagram.com/stephaniedenaro_/

She posted her black kids and tried to use them to justify saying n*****.

There is a universal truth when it comes to slurs. Wherever you go on this planet, you will never gain the right to peacefully call someone by a slur if you don't belong to their demographic. If your friends are giving you the [slur] pass, they are not your friends; they are setting you up.

 

[dinyc3st]

the internet already got her, she posted some half *** "apology" on her IG. after posting some free speech trump MAGA BS an hour before

edit: apparently the "i messed up" came in between racist lib MAGA rants https://www.instagram.com/stephaniedenaro_/

The audacity....

 

[IATT]

 

[zekethephysique]

The audacity....

What a piece of garbage. “Jealous libs”?! What’s to be jealous of? She looks like her box stinks.

 

[deusavertat]

I mean....yea I got nothing.

I made the right decision giving up white women after Trump

I didn't want to have to guess which one is crazy and which one isn't.

 

[zekethephysique]

Hope she gets *** cancer.


“I said, ‘You’re a *****-*** n----r,’ a term they use,” she said in a phone interview. “All of my children have a Black father. That’s a term I’ve heard them use all my life.”

When asked if she was concerned about the video going viral, she said, “It’s actually great, because they’re forcing people in New York City to wear masks. It’s political theater. I don’t believe in COVID-19. It’s a hoax to convince people to use absentee ballots to steal the election from Donald Trump.”

 

[Mark Antony]

I made the right decision giving up white women after Trump

I didn't want to have to guess which one is crazy and which one isn't.

Man I don't discriminate and there's this tall fine *** one every now and then I look at my phone seriously wanting to get at and just go

I just don't know if i'm back there yet.

 

[TooOlfForThisIsh]

TooOlfForThisIsh

Thanks for getting to the bottom of what those dang stars meant.

When it comes to economics, my academic background is in economics and it’s a worthwhile field. That said, I have seen and used to participate in the abuse and weaponization of simple, perfect market, demand and supply models. At minimum, there’s multiple demand and supply graphs or multiple demand and supply curves. No one is applying simple demand-supply models to entire housing markets but I have a muscle memory to make economic models complicated because I used to be such a sucker for very simple models.

Also, when I say luxury properties in the context of housing policy, I am not concerned with how sumptuous it is not a specific price point or age of the building. My main distinction is how much economic discrimination happens in that property. If the renting criteria is designed only for very high earners, trust fund kids and rich people wanting an urban vacation home. Basically, how much of the city is specifically set aside for the well off and excludes low income renters even in a somewhat down market and even if those low and middle income renters are willing to have a number of roommates.

And lastly, My obsession with housing policy boils down to my moral revulsion with the fact that our economic system demands that most people not only work but increasingly they have to fight over a handful of good jobs just to get by. As those good jobs increasingly cluster in a few big cities, those big cities become unaffordable to more and more people. It’s a cruel jape that as middle-class jobs cluster in the city, the city increasingly becomes a playground for the rich.

I know why it’s happening, it’s the market dictating all of that, rich people have more money for their fourth or fifth home in the city to play every other weekend and they can outbid people who are homeless or low income. It’s so unjust that the wealthy minority, that dies t have to work at all, expects everyone else to work and they have to have long commutes and live in extremely cramped housing I order to work a job that pays slightly more than starvation wages.

All of that is, to me, distilled down in the image of even one empty unit in some high rise condo while unhoused people sleep below. So I apologize if I come off as a bit of a crank on this topic, my moral perception of this issue makes it hard to look at the nuances in vast amounts of sometimes confusing and contradictory data.

I take a very utilitarian view on the goodness of models. That said, simple supply demand curves probably should be limited to their pedagogical uses cases.

Thats an interesting definition of luxury. I might refer to it as exclusivity instead, but semantics is boring. My own suspicion is that economic exclusivity it really a proxy for racial exclusivity. If some upper middle class white people get lost along the way, that’s just a cost the .1% is willing to pay.

Anyways, I think we agree that the current direction of housing isn’t good. As a member of what you refer to as the managerial class, I’m occasionally depressed by how little my selling out buys me in terms of real estate. To have a shot at buying a place about the size of my childhood home in gentrified Brooklyn, I have to out-earn my father by a factor of 4 or 5, even accounting for inflation. I say this not to evoke sympathy, but rather to point out our agreement that it really is almost everyone getting screwed by the elite. I do wish the 9% (maybe 9.9?) would get its collective head out and realize wealth inequality isn’t great for us either.