YIMBYism has a lot of advocates, but I was referring specifically to the literal impossibility of making housing more affordable by pushing up wages, which is not something I see stressed much.
Although now that I explicitly search for it, I do see some people pointing this out, e.g. this from 2013.
I've been beating this drum for years, and I think you're the only other person I've ever seen acknowledge it, but it's so obvious. It's like musical chairs. If there are more would-be households than housing units, it simply is not possible for everyone to have affordable housing. No matter how high wages are, housing must be rationed either by queuing or by rising to a level where some households can't afford it and either double up or go without housing (ideally by moving to cheaper city, but homelessness is another option).
In modern economies, you don't need heavy taxation to provide law and order. The cost of policing is really very small compared to the welfare state. Even a relatively small cut in subsidies to private consumption could fund a large increase in policing and corrections.
Sure, but if you look at annualized month-over-month core CPI inflation, there's a clear downward trend. Inflation is coming down, despite everything Biden and the Democrats have done to get in the Fed's way.
I just realized that naming the "Inflation Reduction Act" that, despite having essentially no credible anti-inflation measures, was a cynical ploy to put Biden and the Democrats in a position to take credit for totally unrelated reductions in inflation occurring as a result of monetary policy and falling oil prices.
Inflation is down. The Inflation Reduction Act must have worked. Bidenomics!
Credit where credit is due: I respect a good grift.
These were refundable tax credits, and I'm pretty sure families with children who are near the SPM threshold already have negative federal income tax liability to begin with. It really is free money, not just allowing them to keep more of the money they earned.
The real scandal here is that Republicans are interfering with school librarians' freedom of speech by banning this video from elementary school libraries.
In theory, welfare spending could reduce poverty by breaking the cycle of poverty and helping people, or at least their children, to become self-sufficient. In reality, of course, it doesn't do that, because socioeconomic determinist theories of poverty are wrong, wrong, wrong, and the cycle of poverty is perpetuated mostly by heritable behavioral traits, possibly with some cultural effects thrown in.
That said, the excerpt above refers to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which does take government spending into account, so giving people more money reduces poverty primarily through brute force arithmetic: If you make $27,000 per year, the SPM threshold for your family is $29,500, and the government gives you $3,000, your income for SPM purposes is now $30,000, pushing you over the threshold, and you are no longer poor.
And let's be clear that that's exactly what's happening here: It's not that 7% of children fell from the middle class into deep poverty; it's that their family incomes inclusive of welfare benefits fell from just a bit above the SPM threshold to just a bit below the SPM threshold.
Actually, I take that part about being consistently 40-50% higher back. It says Alabama has a homicide rate of 6.5, which is far too low. Oregon's is about right. I have no idea how they got these numbers.
The default sorting is alphabetical by state and then city. This puts Mobile, Alabama at the top. If you see Mobile at the top, none of the numerical columns will be sorted.
I have no particular interest in defending Mobile's honor. But you're definitely reading the table wrong.
Yeah, I saw it too. I'm saying that that site is wrong. I don't know how they got it wrong, but they did. I'm looking over their numbers, and it looks like on a per-state basis they're consistently about 40-50% higher than the homicide rate reported by other sources.
That's a list sorted alphabetically by state and city name. For property crime, Albuquerque is highest. For homicide and overall violent crime, St. Louis. Mobile isn't in the top 10 for either.
That's definitely not right. DC's population was about 670k in 2022. To have a homicide rate of 50 per 100k would require about 335 homicides, but it topped out around 225 last year, so that's more like 33.
This is still higher by far than any state. Granted, it's just a city, but I'm told that the real violence problem is in small towns, so I don't think that should be considered a handicap.
Albuquerque is about 50/50 white/Hispanic, which makes me wonder what the hell is going on. The homicide rate has quadrupled since 2014. There was no spike in 2020 like there was in many other cities, but in 2021 it just skyrocketed, and hasn't come down. In the US, Hispanics commit a bit more homicide than non-Hispanic whites, but not that much more. At 21 per 100k, the deviation from what would be predicted based on demographics is nearly as extreme as that seen in Portland. Is it cartel violence, maybe?
Yeah, I figured that out eventually, after thinking maybe it was choking on "Jewry." I'm surprised that you saw the multiple copies, because I deleted all but one. Thanks, for fishing it out!
Apologies for the fact that I the only copy I could find was in that cesspit, but take a look at this video, wherein he refers to "k____s, J_wry, capitalism, billionaires" as his enemies.
I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until it sinks in: Anticapitalism, antisemitism, and CRT all come from the same place: A fallacious assumption that when some people are doing better than others, the only possible explanation is that the people who are doing better are cheating somehow, and holding back the others.
Here’s a picture of me from April 2020 when I found an excuse to drive to a friend’s house and leave some hamburger, Hamburger Helper, and a bottle of wine on his porch WITHOUT INTERACTING WITH HIM
Note the part in capital letters. Is this the behavior of a man who thought that masks were highly effective against transmission of COVID-19?
On “Open Mic for the week of 9/11/2023”
Fair enough. I remember only a small fraction of what I've read here over the years, and read an even smaller fraction of what's been posted.
"
YIMBYism has a lot of advocates, but I was referring specifically to the literal impossibility of making housing more affordable by pushing up wages, which is not something I see stressed much.
Although now that I explicitly search for it, I do see some people pointing this out, e.g. this from 2013.
"
I've been beating this drum for years, and I think you're the only other person I've ever seen acknowledge it, but it's so obvious. It's like musical chairs. If there are more would-be households than housing units, it simply is not possible for everyone to have affordable housing. No matter how high wages are, housing must be rationed either by queuing or by rising to a level where some households can't afford it and either double up or go without housing (ideally by moving to cheaper city, but homelessness is another option).
"
That was still going on? After the end of the pandemic, plus two years of sub-5% unemployment?
In a just world the city council would be personally liable for the unpaid rent.
"
Ah, the Politician's Syllogism.
The status quo is rarely the worst option on the table. Doing "something" is not inherently worthy of praise.
On “A Real Problem For Retail? A Shoplifting Q and A”
In modern economies, you don't need heavy taxation to provide law and order. The cost of policing is really very small compared to the welfare state. Even a relatively small cut in subsidies to private consumption could fund a large increase in policing and corrections.
On “Open Mic for the week of 9/11/2023”
Sure, but if you look at annualized month-over-month core CPI inflation, there's a clear downward trend. Inflation is coming down, despite everything Biden and the Democrats have done to get in the Fed's way.
"
I just realized that naming the "Inflation Reduction Act" that, despite having essentially no credible anti-inflation measures, was a cynical ploy to put Biden and the Democrats in a position to take credit for totally unrelated reductions in inflation occurring as a result of monetary policy and falling oil prices.
Inflation is down. The Inflation Reduction Act must have worked. Bidenomics!
Credit where credit is due: I respect a good grift.
"
These were refundable tax credits, and I'm pretty sure families with children who are near the SPM threshold already have negative federal income tax liability to begin with. It really is free money, not just allowing them to keep more of the money they earned.
"
Come on, man. Prostitutes are doing honest work for honest pay. Let's not smear them by association with politicians.
"
The real scandal here is that Republicans are interfering with school librarians' freedom of speech by banning this video from elementary school libraries.
"
In theory, welfare spending could reduce poverty by breaking the cycle of poverty and helping people, or at least their children, to become self-sufficient. In reality, of course, it doesn't do that, because socioeconomic determinist theories of poverty are wrong, wrong, wrong, and the cycle of poverty is perpetuated mostly by heritable behavioral traits, possibly with some cultural effects thrown in.
That said, the excerpt above refers to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which does take government spending into account, so giving people more money reduces poverty primarily through brute force arithmetic: If you make $27,000 per year, the SPM threshold for your family is $29,500, and the government gives you $3,000, your income for SPM purposes is now $30,000, pushing you over the threshold, and you are no longer poor.
And let's be clear that that's exactly what's happening here: It's not that 7% of children fell from the middle class into deep poverty; it's that their family incomes inclusive of welfare benefits fell from just a bit above the SPM threshold to just a bit below the SPM threshold.
On “From The Washington Post: A shaken Washington copes with surging violence: ‘This is not normal’”
Actually, I take that part about being consistently 40-50% higher back. It says Alabama has a homicide rate of 6.5, which is far too low. Oregon's is about right. I have no idea how they got these numbers.
"
Albuquerque: 8734.98 total crimes per 100k (#1)
Mobile: 6217.02 total crimes per 100k (#16)
The default sorting is alphabetical by state and then city. This puts Mobile, Alabama at the top. If you see Mobile at the top, none of the numerical columns will be sorted.
I have no particular interest in defending Mobile's honor. But you're definitely reading the table wrong.
"
Yeah, I saw it too. I'm saying that that site is wrong. I don't know how they got it wrong, but they did. I'm looking over their numbers, and it looks like on a per-state basis they're consistently about 40-50% higher than the homicide rate reported by other sources.
"
That's a list sorted alphabetically by state and city name. For property crime, Albuquerque is highest. For homicide and overall violent crime, St. Louis. Mobile isn't in the top 10 for either.
"
That's definitely not right. DC's population was about 670k in 2022. To have a homicide rate of 50 per 100k would require about 335 homicides, but it topped out around 225 last year, so that's more like 33.
This is still higher by far than any state. Granted, it's just a city, but I'm told that the real violence problem is in small towns, so I don't think that should be considered a handicap.
On “Can She Do That? New Mexico Governor Suspends Gun Carry Laws”
Albuquerque is about 50/50 white/Hispanic, which makes me wonder what the hell is going on. The homicide rate has quadrupled since 2014. There was no spike in 2020 like there was in many other cities, but in 2021 it just skyrocketed, and hasn't come down. In the US, Hispanics commit a bit more homicide than non-Hispanic whites, but not that much more. At 21 per 100k, the deviation from what would be predicted based on demographics is nearly as extreme as that seen in Portland. Is it cartel violence, maybe?
"
She's targeting minorities!
On “Bugville On a Busy Day”
You might like /r/Wimmelbilder.
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/28/2023”
Yeah, I figured that out eventually, after thinking maybe it was choking on "Jewry." I'm surprised that you saw the multiple copies, because I deleted all but one. Thanks, for fishing it out!
"
Apologies for the fact that I the only copy I could find was in that cesspit, but take a look at this video, wherein he refers to "k____s, J_wry, capitalism, billionaires" as his enemies.
I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until it sinks in: Anticapitalism, antisemitism, and CRT all come from the same place: A fallacious assumption that when some people are doing better than others, the only possible explanation is that the people who are doing better are cheating somehow, and holding back the others.
On “Let Joe Biden Be Joe Biden: Voter Reactions To President Biden’s Events”
There was this crazy optical illusion where Joe Biden actually looked really good when standing between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
On “Mini-Throughput: Masks, Redux”
Where are you getting this?
Note the part in capital letters. Is this the behavior of a man who thought that masks were highly effective against transmission of COVID-19?
"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1nYEH6EDwM&t=201s
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.