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Inferior Third Season posted:This isn't really true, it's just survivorship bias. You're not seeing any of the lovely houses built 80 years ago because they were destroyed or demolished at some point for being lovely. Yeah, the 80+ year old houses that are still standing are doing so because they were built like brick shithouses even for the time they were built in. The 1930s versions of modern McMansions (insofar as the ones built with cheap, low quality material as quick as possible with no minding of surroundings and environment) aren't really around because they fell the gently caress apart after 30 years. If you're doing new construction housing that is well planned using quality materials and labor, even modern houses can still be built to last a century or more, especially with advances in construction technology that has happened since the Post WW2 housing boom.
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Feb 16, 2017 18:11
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Except it's incredibly hard to afford "quality materials and labor" unless you're going for a full custom house. I've seen the $500k+ homes go up around Denver and, let me tell ya, they're not using good materials. I still think the average house built in the 1940s is, on a per-dollar basis, of a higher quality than most modern housing.
call to action fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Feb 17, 2017 |
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Feb 17, 2017 19:45
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It's very possible houses, as in the physical structures themselves, have gotten better, but the land they're built on has gotten much more expensive.
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Feb 17, 2017 20:05
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JeffersonClay posted:It's very possible houses, as in the physical structures themselves, have gotten better, but the land they're built on has gotten much more expensive. That depends on where it's built but if memory serves a lot of it is the development company's CEO demanding an outlandish salary because he decided to build some houses there. Pretty much anything that happens in America ends up requiring a large chunk of money going to some CEO's pockets because he told somebody to do something.
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Feb 18, 2017 00:16
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call to action posted:Except it's incredibly hard to afford "quality materials and labor" unless you're going for a full custom house. I've seen the $500k+ homes go up around Denver and, let me tell ya, they're not using good materials. I still think the average house built in the 1940s is, on a per-dollar basis, of a higher quality than most modern housing. They're $500k because of land value, not because they're nice houses. A $500k new house can still be really lovely and cut-rate. I'm living in a $160k 2013-built house, and it's fine. Code has made basically all new homes really energy efficient because of way better insulation / radiant barrier in the roof / modern windows / high SEER A/C units, and nobody's really doing low-end finishes anymore so I have ceramic tile floors and granite countertops and poo poo. I've been considering moving, and I'm learning that in most of the US lovely new construction tract homes are $300k+, but it's just because land is expensive. If you put outright construction cost vs construction cost, new homes are definitely better. A lot of the old houses that people hold up as "how they built 'em back then" were really expensive to build inflation adjusted, or have been significantly improved over the years. Especially wiring and plumbing.
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Feb 20, 2017 22:50
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Paradoxish, ToxicSlurpee, or anyone else looking for your opinions on something. So I think it was you Paradoxish who said that those of us in this thread will be working for the rest of our lives, but aren't we already in the process of not having enough work for labor. I mean as automation and technological disruption continues, you're going to face a problem of not having enough work for everybody. If someone like Uber does implement driverless cars, you already eliminate millions of jobs so then what do you do with that new surplus of unemployment? This is what is so bizarre about Trump always trumpeting "Jobs! Jobs! Jobs" and "Putting America back to work!", but shouldn't the fundamental question we should be asking why should we even work? I thought one of the basics of economics is that as nation becomes wealthier, we are meant to be working less and feeling less insecure, not working for crappier wages at longer hours. I guess this gets into the ethics of capitalism, like the Protestant work ethic, because we have a system that says you need to work, and everybody needs to work, but what if you don't need to? To go back to Uber, the owners get all the returns under a driverless model (and whatever robotics firm helps them achieve it) so now the 1% get even more national wealth, which further gets concentrated in fewer hands. But what do we do in that situation, start busting up these firms with anti-trust laws? Is it really going to take such a one way direction of the returns in the hands of the 1%, to make it even more obvious, before this becomes a national political issue and voters do something about it? Redistributing that wealth and democratizing it would be sustainable. And I'm not against a robot taking my job if that means I'm free to do something else, and yeah I know there are things robots will probably not do in my lifetime like hospice care for the elderly, but there's still a lot of work that can be disrupted technologically. Not only that but if you took 10% of the population working, say China, they can produce everything we need. In fact they can make a super abundance for the planet, so why are bothering to work? Why does every country need to make their own cars, especially if we are going into this self driverless car direction? We don't need all of these various car models and brands. Is it too simple to say well just take 10% off the top of the 1%, redistribute that and we get to do whatever we want with our time?
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Feb 24, 2017 01:57
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Redistribution is only a band-aid for the real problem, which is power and social relations as they intertwine with economics and basic survival for millions. The higher you jack up taxes on the John Galts of the world, the more they'll bitch and undermine everyone else. Best they not existed in the first place.
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Feb 24, 2017 04:04
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The 1% hoovering up as much wealth as possible declared economic war on everyone else decades ago and you're basically asking "should we shoot back?" Yeah, we're going to have to shoot back.
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Feb 24, 2017 04:06
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Aliquid posted:Redistribution is only a band-aid for the real problem, which is power and social relations as they intertwine with economics and basic survival for millions. The higher you jack up taxes on the John Galts of the world, the more they'll bitch and undermine everyone else. Best they not existed in the first place. "It's perfectly OK for a billionaire to withhold what another person needs to survive without any repercussions." - You Actually forcing the rich to share more of the pie isn't redistribution. It's justice.
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Feb 24, 2017 04:15
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what the gently caress
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Feb 24, 2017 04:17
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That's the most amazing misreading of a post I've seen in a long time. 
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Feb 24, 2017 04:36
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Haha jesus christ, literally skimming for things to be offended about.
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Feb 24, 2017 04:47
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Confounding Factor posted:Is it too simple to say well just take 10% off the top of the 1%, redistribute that and we get to do whatever we want with our time? Not really, that's a pretty good start.
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Feb 24, 2017 04:49
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ToxicSlurpee posted:"It's perfectly OK for a billionaire to withhold what another person needs to survive without any repercussions." wat
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Feb 24, 2017 09:01
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Confounding Factor posted:Is it too simple to say well just take 10% off the top of the 1%, redistribute that and we get to do whatever we want with our time? No, that would work great.
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Feb 24, 2017 09:07
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Confounding Factor posted:Is it too simple to say well just take 10% off the top of the 1%, redistribute that and we get to do whatever we want with our time? This, but make it 95%.
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Feb 24, 2017 09:11
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Aliquid: (Literally) Eat the rich. ToxicSlurpee: Stop sucking up to the rich, Aliquid! Everyone else: Huh?
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Feb 24, 2017 10:26
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9-Volt Assault posted:This, but make it 95%. This. I've seen all sorts of arguments for why the super-rich deserve and have a right to enjoy their vast fortunes, but I find none of them convincing. Millionaires I can live with. But billions? In private hands? As the Koch brothers among others have so thorougly demonstrated, a concentration of wealth is a concentration of power, and is undemocratic in its very nature. I also don't believe that the super-rich 1% deserve what they have. After all, did they work for it? Can they have worked for it? Given the average worker's wage in the industrialized world, how many wage-units does the income of the super-rich represent? Is it possible or even fair that a person should be paid that amound when no individual human effort can possibly be worth this amount? Doctors, for instance, are higly paid because their personal efforts literally save lives. And the efforts of the super-rich supercede that? I can't believe that they do. But what about rights, property rights etc? Well, all that's being accomplished with the current approach is to let the super-rich gain a massive advantage from the societal contract, dispropotionately profiting from - and disproportionally affecting the politics of - a society that gets proportionally very little in return. It's very simple, you can only be super-rich if you do not contribute your fair share. So, what is "fair"? A balance of needs and considerations: Hundreds of thousands of poor people's needs towards food security, healthcare, housing and general living costs vs. a Trump or any of his cronies need for another golden toilet or useless luxury. It really does boil down to this, because in its essence any approach to rights and principles in life should fundamentally be pragmatic and not ideological. What do I mean by pragmatism? Simple reason. It's pragmatically a horrible idea for society to discriminate based on race and gender, while ideologically you can justify all kinds of things. In a pragmatic sense, in a real sense, the super-rich are a new nobility: Laws do not apply to them equally, they live in massive comfort and mostly hereditary wealth (wealth that is inherited is easily utilized to increase wealth, tilting the scales disproportionally in their favour) and even sneer at the common people with the same contempt as the famous french aristocrats - and to paraphrase the great and late George Carlin: Please don't delude yourself into thinking that the 1% have anything but utter utter contempt for you. In closing, gently caress the 1%, take everything they have for their role in taking everything they can from the 99%, and bear in mind the words of Mark Blyth: The Hamptons are not a defensible position. Money won't save them if the people start demanding fairness and egalitarian access to income, and our current trajectory will get us to that place. Soon. This has been my rant, thank you for reading.
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Feb 24, 2017 10:28
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anonumos posted:Aliquid: (Literally) Eat the rich. There was some confusion because of where the eating started
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Feb 24, 2017 14:17
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JeffersonClay posted:No, that would work great. it actually wouldn't, because that's simply not enough money to pay for a full-featured cradle-to-grave welfare state. you have to tax the middle class
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Feb 24, 2017 20:01
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icantfindaname posted:it actually wouldn't, because that's simply not enough money to pay for a full-featured cradle-to-grave welfare state. you have to tax the middle class ? You wouldn't need to tax the middle or lower income brackets at all. Got any data/numbers you can provide that support your claim?
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Feb 24, 2017 20:02
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Because we are spying on everyone, it is extremely easy to get the money we are due. destroy London.
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Feb 24, 2017 20:20
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Confounding Factor posted:? You wouldn't need to tax the middle or lower income brackets at all. Got any data/numbers you can provide that support your claim? Bernie's healthcare plan envisioned an extra 6.7% payroll tax and a 2.2% income tax on individual incomes under $200,000, and that's for an optimistic assesment of how much the program would cost http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/jan/13/how-much-would-bernie-sanders-health-care-plan-cos/ Then on top of that free college tuition would be a lot, and more generous social security benefits would be a lot. Euro countries pay for this stuff with VAT sales taxes for the most part I'm not a tax expert and I'm at work so I don't have a more thorough case to make than that but it seems to be widely accepted in discourse on this topic
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Feb 24, 2017 20:20
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It wouldn't work because even if you're able to pull off going back to 50s tax rates you're still leaving the capitalist class in control of the economic power in society, and they will use all of that power to roll back all your accomplishments as fast as they can once they get the opportunity. For an example of this in action, see the past four decades.
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Feb 24, 2017 20:23
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Cerebral Bore posted:It wouldn't work because even if you're able to pull off going back to 50s tax rates you're still leaving the capitalist class in control of the economic power in society, and they will use all of that power to roll back all your accomplishments as fast as they can once they get the opportunity. For an example of this in action, see the past four decades. That too
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Feb 24, 2017 20:24
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Cerebral Bore posted:It wouldn't work because even if you're able to pull off going back to 50s tax rates you're still leaving the capitalist class in control of the economic power in society, and they will use all of that power to roll back all your accomplishments as fast as they can once they get the opportunity. For an example of this in action, see the past four decades. We've done it before we can do it again. The Citigroup Plutonomy papers shows that they're acutely aware of this.
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Feb 24, 2017 21:49
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Rex-Goliath posted:We've done it before we can do it again. The Citigroup Plutonomy papers shows that they're acutely aware of this. Sure you might, but personally I just think that removing the power of capitalist class by seizing the means of production sounds like a better long-term plan than refighting the same battle every generation.
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Feb 24, 2017 21:52
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Cerebral Bore posted:Sure you might, but personally I just think that removing the power of capitalist class by seizing the means of production sounds like a better long-term plan than refighting the same battle every generation. I think by this point I've given up on the proletariat on revolting against the capitalists. A progressive tax, maybe a new 1 million dollar bracket at a modest 75% rate, closing all tax loopholes, no more offshoring money in tax havens, these fuckers start paying their taxes, etc. I mean Romney is paying what an effective tax rate of 9% and I'm paying much more than that. This is just a modest start. I'll get back to the tax increase with Bernie's healthcare plan, something isn't adding up... EDIT: The class crying about such a tax hike doesn't really affect them in any meaningful way. You could even get the tax rate at 99% and they are still millionaires that doesn't impact their lifestyle. How many loving yachts do you need anyway? Confounding Factor fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Feb 24, 2017 |
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Feb 24, 2017 21:58
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Confounding Factor posted:I think by this point I've given up on the proletariat on revolting against the capitalists. A progressive tax, maybe a new 1 million dollar bracket at a modest 75% rate, closing all tax loopholes, no more offshoring money in tax havens, these fuckers start paying their taxes, etc. I mean Romney is paying what an effective tax rate of 9% and I'm paying much more than that. And about as likely to happen as Full Communism Now, if we go by the recieved wisdom.
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Feb 24, 2017 22:04
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Cerebral Bore posted:And about as likely to happen as Full Communism Now, if we go by the recieved wisdom. If I go full on pessimistic the trajectory is capitalism -> militant authoritarianism -> a global ecological catastrophe that kills us all. We'll never get from capitalism to whatever something after capitalism looks like, even if that is communism. I wish it would happen, I just don't see it. But as far as setting these kind of taxes, I dunno I think its more likely than full on communism just because they aren't radical changes. Yes I know our government is bought by a few oligarchs, but I dunno I'm not ready to buy into full on cynicism yet. If you really deepen the income inequality gap, the more chance there is to get a leftist populism movement going. I don't subscribe to making the perfect the enemy of the good. There's different ways we can go, its not communism or nothing. But income inequality is the de facto biggest issue in the 21st century, and the absence of the left in Western democracies to address it is a very bad sign. We will keep losing until we can come up with a theoretical framework that addresses it. So where I'm at, mildly optimistic and pessimistic. The support for Sanders by millennials is certainly a good thing, just need to get more of them voting and active. I see hope in that generation at least.
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Feb 24, 2017 22:13
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Confounding Factor posted:If I go full on pessimistic the trajectory is capitalism -> militant authoritarianism -> a global ecological catastrophe that kills us all. We'll never get from capitalism to whatever something after capitalism looks like, even if that is communism. So you can see some left-populist movement overcoming the power of the oligarchs and be in a position to institute now-unthinkable reforms, but for some reason actually breaking the power of the oligarchs is a step too far? Confounding Factor posted:I don't subscribe to making the perfect the enemy of the good. There's different ways we can go, its not communism or nothing. I think you'll find that the choice is between Socialism or barbarism. Confounding Factor posted:But income inequality is the de facto biggest issue in the 21st century, and the absence of the left in Western democracies to address it is a very bad sign. We will keep losing until we can come up with a theoretical framework that addresses it. I think you'll find that it's called Socialism.
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Feb 24, 2017 22:18
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Cerebral Bore posted:So you can see some left-populist movement overcoming the power of the oligarchs and be in a position to institute now-unthinkable reforms, but for some reason actually breaking the power of the oligarchs is a step too far? I don't think it's a step too far, but the issue is what is more feasible in the short term. Look I'm pretty impatient myself with incrementalism, but even something simple like tax reform is a pretty big deal. I think you may have misunderstood what I meant by that last quote, and perhaps I need to be clearer. For me, in an era of Trump, Le Pen, and other of these right nationalist movements its important not to indulge in reactionary proclivities to fight against these figures. I've been disappointed by how liberals have reacted with Trump's win and we have to move passed the cataclysmic hysteria of an imagined imminent apocalypse. All of what Trump "does" is distracting us from laying down the groundwork for a new left platform for the incoming struggles. This is probably the biggest issue the Left has, whatever we call the Left, that there is no comprehensive theoretical description of the uniquely 21st century contradictions in capitalism. Even the notion there are new contradictions, if they have been adequately identified, is problematic. Sure much of the basic contradictions today are just rebranded forms from the 19th and 20th centuries, there still has been a lot that has changed in political economy since Marx's time. So we should be thinking and working outside our political process to generate some real answers that address the struggles we currently face and what we will see in the future. We have a lot of work to do.
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Feb 24, 2017 22:36
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We're hosed if we can't even imagine what a new world would look like.
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Feb 24, 2017 22:42
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call to action posted:We're hosed if we can't even imagine what a new world would look like. That's why it's easier to imagine the end of the world rather than the end of capitalism.
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Feb 24, 2017 22:46
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It's not like we're not utterly hosed anyway. The only ones who have any meaningful influence to do anything are the ones who actively benefit from making it even worse. 
Poil fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Feb 25, 2017 |
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Feb 24, 2017 23:49
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Confounding Factor posted:EDIT: The class crying about such a tax hike doesn't really affect them in any meaningful way. You could even get the tax rate at 99% and they are still millionaires that doesn't impact their lifestyle. How many loving yachts do you need anyway? Nowadays you need at least 2. You see, you used to just have the one yacht. But then you of course wanted to add a helicopter + helipad, a couple of motorboats, some jet-skis and a mini-submarine. All that stuff takes a lot of space. And then there's the staff who require some space for their sleeping/cooking etc needs as well and you obviously don't want them to mingle with your family and guests. Now your yacht is starting to feel kind of cramped. So a trend of the last 10 years or so is to offload all that stuff onto an auxiliary yacht so you can enjoy the high life on your primary yacht. What I'm saying is eat the loving rich.
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Feb 25, 2017 10:52
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Cerebral Bore posted:
Socialism is not a theoretical framework tho. It does not have any theory as to how to organize production and distribution of said production except for some bearded dude saying "people will literally change to be perfect once the system is perfect". No one knows what the perfect system is, just that it is not the current system. The argument in entirety is: Since A is bad, B must be better because it is not A. Hence, Venezuela.
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Feb 25, 2017 12:40
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caps on caps on caps posted:Socialism is not a theoretical framework tho. It does not have any theory as to how to organize production and distribution of said production except for some bearded dude saying "people will literally change to be perfect once the system is perfect". No one knows what the perfect system is, just that it is not the current system. The argument in entirety is: Since A is bad, B must be better because it is not A. Yeah it's a real shame there haven't been any noted authors writing some books about how to organize the means of production under socialism... I guess the entire 150 year old ideology is just composed of magical thinking.
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Feb 25, 2017 13:36
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Rosa Luxemburg rolling in her grave.
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Feb 25, 2017 15:29
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Nice piece of fish posted:This. I've seen all sorts of arguments for why the super-rich deserve and have a right to enjoy their vast fortunes, but I find none of them convincing. May I introduce you to a little something called democratic socialism?
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Feb 25, 2017 17:10
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