Economics and current events, no-tweet, no-tiktok: you posted a damn advertisement

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Economics and current events, no-tweet, no-tiktok: you posted a damn advertisement

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Sundae: Dec 1, 2005

LanceHunter posted:

Yes, the highly monopolistic, corporatized industry of *checks notes* day care centers are only raising prices because of corporate greed and not at all because of rising labor costs.

Day care is also a bad comparator in general because the entire process ought to be subsidized in the first place. The economics of a child-healthy daycare do not really make sense at any scale of labor costs under the privatized US model, at least. Between caretaker-kid ratios (very important to keep low for child-healthy environments), facility rental costs, insurance costs, operational fees, etc etc, any daycare that pays its workers a good wage while providing a good location for your kids is going to be out of price for a large portion of the population. I can't find it at work, but there's a big NPR piece about the economics of scale for daycares and how it seems to fundamentally not work in the modern US economy.

# ? May 10, 2023 19:34

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 17:24

GhostofJohnMuir: Aug 14, 2014; anime is not good

my mother has complaints about the unreasonable cost and limited availability of daycare when i was a kid decades ago, so it seems like a super entrenched problem

drk posted:

The big table o' inflation is below. Eveyone's got a hot take on inflation numbers, but it appears to me that the primary driver of services inflation is increases in shelter costs (rent and owner equivalent rent). Transportation services has a higher %age increase, but a much lower weight.

i remember hearing shelter costs in cpi are a lagging indicator because of how it's calculated, but i have no idea why exactly or how much that lag is. would be very on-brand for the fed to hold tight way too long due to lagging indicators and shooting way below inflation targets and over unemployment targets though.

# ? May 10, 2023 19:43

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

Daycare seems to be regionally adjusted to 1 month daycare = 1 month rent for a very average, middle of the road 1 bedroom apartment

We paid about 1000 in north Carolina (fairly LCoLl)and we pay $2k in California (fairly HCoL) for one toddler

# ? May 11, 2023 04:39

LanceHunter: Nov 12, 2016; Beautiful People Club

One advantage of being at full/near-full employment: Job satisfaction is rising.

Wall Street Journal posted:

Workers Are Happier Than They�ve Been in Decades

Labor shortages and shifting expectations lead to improvement for millions, survey shows

Job satisfaction hit a 36-year high in 2022, reflecting two effects of the tight pandemic labor market: The quality of jobs improved as wages and work flexibility increased, and workers moved into positions that were a better fit.

Last year, 62.3% of U.S. workers said they were satisfied with their jobs, according to new data from the Conference Board, up from 60.2% in 2021 and 56.8% in 2020. The business-research organization polled workers on 26 aspects of work, and found that people were most content with their commutes, their co-workers, the physical environment of their workplace and job security.

Among the happiest workers: people who voluntarily switched jobs during the pandemic and individuals working in hybrid roles with a mix of in-person and remote work. Men�s satisfaction was higher than women�s in every component, especially in areas such as leave policies, bonus plans, promotions, communication and organizational culture.

The survey of 1,680 workers was conducted in November, before a spate of layoffs at high-profile companies and rising worries about a potential recession. While unemployment remains low, a recent decline in job openings suggests that workers have fewer options and might be feeling more anxious about their job security, said Selcuk Eren, a senior economist at the Conference Board.

Highlighted the one catch in there. That said, the full survey report is here and it is worth a look. In particular, this chart is a beauty...

(Also, as an aside - where are people hosting images now that imgur has hosed off? I'm just attaching things but obviously that is pretty limited.)

Only registered members can see post attachments!

# ? May 11, 2023 15:45

Boot and Rally: Apr 21, 2006; 8===D; Nap Ghost

Hadlock posted:

Daycare seems to be regionally adjusted to 1 month daycare = 1 month rent for a very average, middle of the road 1 bedroom apartment

We paid about 1000 in north Carolina (fairly LCoLl)and we pay $2k in California (fairly HCoL) for one toddler

That makes sense to me. At least in terms of difference, if not magnitude. Daycare cannot be off-shored to cheaper cost of living areas, or places with less regulations, like manufacturing can. So the price of daycare is set by a much smaller 'region' than the price of nuts and bolts. To me, inflation isn't going to budge until shelter costs start to drop because the US is a service economy.

In manufacturing economies, factories can move so that prices can drop while productivity remains the same. Companies buy nuts and bolts from somewhere cheaper. The response to rising interest rates is off-shoring to places with cheaper labor costs.

In service economies price and wages keep rising, even with interest rates going up, because there is no release of off-shoring. Services that can't be usefully moved (waiters, daycare, education, lawn care, whatever) aren't going to see a drop in price increases until the people who pay for those services stop paying for them. There has been some drop in the people who pay for those services, people who work services that can be moved (e.g. coders and consultants). Because housing is in short supply, the people on the top of the income bracket set housing prices. Thus I say that inflation isn't going to cool until housing prices drop.

I'm aware I've beat this drum before in other places.

# ? May 11, 2023 16:58

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

my mother has complaints about the unreasonable cost and limited availability of daycare when i was a kid decades ago, so it seems like a super entrenched problem

i remember hearing shelter costs in cpi are a lagging indicator because of how it's calculated, but i have no idea why exactly or how much that lag is. would be very on-brand for the fed to hold tight way too long due to lagging indicators and shooting way below inflation targets and over unemployment targets though.

The Federal statistics calculates rent based on all rental leases. The private statistics almost all use new rental lease agreements only. This means the fed's stats include a lot of renters who haven't updated their lease in many months, during which the new lease rate might have changed greatly. As a result, the federal numbers on shelter costs* will always lag behind the industry numbers.

* CPI doesn't use mortgage payments values for homeowners. It uses owners� equivalent rent of primary residence, so even homeowner CPI is based on rental data.

# ? May 12, 2023 16:39

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

I thought the Fed calculated rents by asking homeowners (who are living in the house, often for many years, and thus not professional landlords/market experts) how much they would rent their house for

Maybe that's for a different inflation calculation

# ? May 12, 2023 16:47

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/owners-equivalent-rent-and-rent.htm

Owners� equivalent rent of residences is mostly based on the Consumer Expenditure Survey where they ask homeowners how much they would rent their house for, but there's more math and a few other things going in to smooth their estimates. The deeper you go into how they actually calculate the inflation number, the more you realize they rely on proxies, approximations, and imputed math to try to make an impossible task into a vaguely possible one.

# ? May 12, 2023 19:43

tumblr hype man: Jul 29, 2008; nice meltdown; Slippery Tilde

golden bubble posted:

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/owners-equivalent-rent-and-rent.htm

Owners� equivalent rent of residences is mostly based on the Consumer Expenditure Survey where they ask homeowners how much they would rent their house for,\

lol what could go wrong with asking my old boss whose mortgage is $1,400/month for a like 1,800 SF rambler what equivalent rents are?

# ? May 13, 2023 02:55

Sundae: Dec 1, 2005

tumblr hype man posted:

lol what could go wrong with asking my old boss whose mortgage is $1,400/month for a like 1,800 SF rambler what equivalent rents are?

This is reminding me of my grandfather sending my little brother to the grocery store in like 2005 with a list of groceries and a five-dollar bill.

# ? May 13, 2023 04:07

LanceHunter: Nov 12, 2016; Beautiful People Club

St. Louis Fed president James Bullard gave an interesting presentation on how monetary and fiscal policy affected inflation. (That link is to the press release. This is to the presentation PDF.)

James Bullard posted:

The Monetary-Fiscal Response

Think of the pandemic as a global war that induced large-scale deficit spending combined with accommodative monetary policy, Bullard suggested.

�The spirit of the macroeconomic policy response to the pandemic was to err on the side of too much rather than too little,� he said. �This could be thought of as risking a high-inflation regime, as the monetary authority did not attempt to offset the inflationary impulse unleashed by the fiscal authority.�

The deficit spending was used for transfer payments to disrupted workers and businesses, which shows up as a sharp increase in personal saving relative to trend, Bullard explained. Meanwhile, the monetary policy reaction to the pandemic was to lower the policy rate sharply, accommodating the deficit spending.

�In macroeconomic historical context, this combination of policies often leads to substantial inflation,� he said.

The Switch to Disinflationary Policy

According to economic literature, what is now required is a switch back to the pre-pandemic monetary-fiscal regime that featured inflation near target, Bullard said, asking �is such a switch occurring?�

The effects of the fiscal stimulus have been fading, he said, and personal saving is now below the pre-pandemic trend line. Although excess savings are diminishing, more than $400 billion of excess savings remain.

[...]
The Prospects for Disinflation

Discussing disinflation, Bullard said that so far, core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation has declined only modestly from the peak levels observed last year.

�However, an encouraging sign that the switch to pre-pandemic fiscal-monetary policy is working comes from market-based inflation expectations,� he said. �These expectations were near 2% in the first quarter of 2021, before any inflation had appeared or was widely expected. After moving higher in the last two years, these expectations have now returned to levels consistent with 2% inflation.�

This chart in particular paints a hell of a picture...

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# ? May 13, 2023 05:17

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

San Francisco real estate has been really interesting to follow because their economy is so heavily subsidized* by the tech industry and it's willingness to embrace WFH and all that you don't need a primer on it. End result is that the real estate market was the slowest to recover in most/many cases

Looking like SF might finally have bottomed out of the current price correction after the summer peak last year. Trend has been headed in that direction and finally has a positive upswing

https://archive.is/Fg5SH / https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/bay-area-home-values-18096248.php

This first graph seems to closely mirror the graph in the post immediately above mine

Does anyone have direct access to stuff like new housing starts by region and new home sales, historical house sales by week etc. I think if you're a realtor you have access to this via your local MLS but hard to find local data as a commoner. Fed tracks new housing starts nationally, I know

My mother in law lives in a fairly new housing area in the bay area and I've noticed they've started construction again in earnest, and they've started grading additional land at a couple different sites near her house after a long pause

*or pick your adjective,/verb/adverb I don't have an agenda

# ? May 15, 2023 01:15

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

https://archive.is/7t4p8 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/14/mortgage-rates-housing-supply/

Standard boilerplate wind up

quote:

But they can’t imagine giving up their ultralow rate for a new mortgage above 6 percent on a bigger house. The more likely scenario: delay having another kid and stay put.
“My mortgage payment would essentially double if we purchased a house with around the same square footage, with just a better layout,” Randall said. “I just can’t do it. If I could predict the future, we’re probably going to stay where we are. It’s just too comfortable a position.”

And here's the pitch

quote:

sent mortgage rates surging past 7 percent last fall, and while they’ve pulled back somewhat, the 30-year fixed rate is still around 6.35 percent, according to Freddie Mac.

At end of 2022, 62 percent of mortgage holders had a rate below 4 percent, and 82 percent had a rate below 5 percent, according to Redfin data. A whopping 92 percent had a rate below 6 percent.

# ? May 15, 2023 08:04

notwithoutmyanus: Mar 17, 2009

Hadlock posted:

https://archive.is/7t4p8 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/14/mortgage-rates-housing-supply/

Standard boilerplate wind up

And here's the pitch

The first half of the article is the wrong premise anyway as answered by the second half, building new homes and apartment buildings is how you resolve a lack of supply. Government is actually trying to solve it but that takes time. That actually has been somewhat going up as is, in the important areas. People staying in their homes is of course going to happen. People will probably sell when more supply hits to create oversupply and thus a crash. When? :shrug:

https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/news-and-economics/docs/housing-economics/starts-and-permits/housing-starts.pdf and https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/news-and-economics/docs/housing-economics/starts-and-permits/building-permits.pdf

Notice multi family homes being built, that's the stuff that corrects housing prices and we've moved positively towards that trend after correcting from single family homes. Although it's a cyclical industry, I'd hesitate to extrapolate beyond that.

It *doesn't* mean houses will be cheaper at the same time though, because of demand and lumber costs. https://chicagoagentmagazine.com/2022/09/05/as-demand-for-new-homes-cools-builders-reconsider-future-plans/

# ? May 15, 2023 13:56

pmchem: Jan 22, 2010

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-15/svb-s-former-ceo-says-fed-social-media-contributed-to-collapse

news:

quote:

The fastest pace of rate hikes by the Federal Reserve in decades combined with negative social media sentiment contributed to the failure of SVB Financial Group�s Silicon Valley Bank, said Greg Becker, former chief executive officer of the company.
�The messaging from the Federal Reserve was that interest rates would remain low and that the inflation that was starting to bubble up would only be �transitory,�� Becker said in written testimony prepared for a US Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday focused on Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, both of which were seized by regulators in March. �Indeed, between the start of 2020 and the end of 2021, banks collectively purchased nearly $2.3 trillion of investment securities in this low-yield environment created by the Federal Reserve.�
(words)
�I never imagined that these unprecedented events could happen to SVB and strongly believe that the leadership team and I made the best decisions we could with the facts, forecasts and outside expert advice available to us at the time,� Becker said.

views:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSPaXgAdzE

# ? May 15, 2023 23:25

drk: Jan 16, 2005

lol, are they really complaining that some non-binding comments from the fed failed to predict the future with 100% accuracy?

reminds me of this chart (and its many variations):

# ? May 15, 2023 23:46

FistEnergy: Nov 3, 2000; DAY CREW: WORKING HARD; Fun Shoe

pmchem posted:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-15/svb-s-former-ceo-says-fed-social-media-contributed-to-collapse

news:

views:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSPaXgAdzE

Everyone on SA and reddit knew it wasn't transitory from the beginning so this guy is either lying his rear end off or even stupider than I expected. Probably both.

# ? May 16, 2023 02:03

drk: Jan 16, 2005

its possible the extent of their risk management was consulting fed dot plots, like this one from 2021:

as we all know, that's not what happened, but SVB seems to be making the argument that projections like the above were more or less a promise from the fed to have a certain monetary policy

# ? May 16, 2023 02:23

pseudanonymous: Aug 30, 2008; When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

No! Guarantee.

# ? May 16, 2023 02:48

pmchem: Jan 22, 2010

FistEnergy posted:

Everyone on SA and reddit knew it wasn't transitory from the beginning so this guy is either lying his rear end off or even stupider than I expected. Probably both.

yeah, compare to M&T Bank's CEO in their 2021 annual letter:

# ? May 16, 2023 03:01

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

notwithoutmyanus posted:

The first half of the article is the wrong premise anyway as answered by the second half, building new homes and apartment buildings is how you resolve a lack of supply. Government is actually trying to solve it but that takes time. That actually has been somewhat going up as is, in the important areas. People staying in their homes is of course going to happen. People will probably sell when more supply hits to create oversupply and thus a crash. When? https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/news-and-economics/docs/housing-economics/starts-and-permits/housing-starts.pdf and https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/news-and-economics/docs/housing-economics/starts-and-permits/building-permits.pdf

Notice multi family homes being built, that's the stuff that corrects housing prices and we've moved positively towards that trend after correcting from single family homes. Although it's a cyclical industry, I'd hesitate to extrapolate beyond that.

It *doesn't* mean houses will be cheaper at the same time though, because of demand and lumber costs. https://chicagoagentmagazine.com/2022/09/05/as-demand-for-new-homes-cools-builders-reconsider-future-plans/

"crash" is a bit strong of a word to use here. I don't think house prices are going to crash in the near or even long term, barring something truly catastrophic like a re-run of 2008. Houses take a long time to build, and I doubt we're going to see such a housing boom that it actually gluts the market and forces prices down drastically.

What I do think we'll see is a stabilization of home prices, maybe after a modest correction, and they'll flatline for a while. That's assuming robust and ongoing construction, though.

That said, it's almost meaningless to talk about this on a country-wide level. It's all so hyper-local that it feels weird to talk about the extremely volatile markets or even the straight up stagnant/declining ones in the same paragraph as ones that are turbo-charged by a money-flush industry or geographical constraints. No matter how much someone wants to build another huge condo development an hour and a half drive outside of Cupertino, that long-rear end drive is still going to prop up home values closer in. Same with North Virginia - whole poo poo ton of land available to build on out in Reston or Manassas, but that's not going to put too much of a dent in prices in Arlington or Alexandria, just because there are plenty of high-earners in the area who value a shorter drive to DC.

# ? May 16, 2023 14:01

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

lifg posted:

Do dedollarization articles increase in frequency every time there�s a recession or a crisis?

This was a good read, lots of supporting graphs

https://www.epsilontheory.com/dedollarization-is-not-a-thing/

# ? May 16, 2023 21:10

lifg: Dec 4, 2000; <this tag left blank>; Muldoon

That was a good read.

Stuff like this makes me wish there was a singular tvtropes for journalism. Could have everything from �dedollarization� to �comics aren�t for kids anymore.�

# ? May 16, 2023 23:49

pseudanonymous: Aug 30, 2008; When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

Hadlock posted:

This was a good read, lots of supporting graphs

https://www.epsilontheory.com/dedollarization-is-not-a-thing/

It's good at first but then there's a doozy

Make a distinction between A) the gradual erosion of fiat in favor of harder assets like BTC, gold, and real estate,

Oh yeah, harder assets. Yes. I see.

Suddenly the ritual nears completion. The gather acolytes chant.

Fiat

Fiat

Fiat

The demons appears Cash for Gold it roars.

I mean the first 2/3rds are useful anyway.

# ? May 17, 2023 00:14

Lord_Hambrose: Nov 21, 2008; *a foul hooting fills the air*

It's great how all these people are willing to trade my worthless cash for eternal gold.

# ? May 17, 2023 01:44

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

Yeah I don't endorse the random left turn into "gold/Bitcoin is safe place to park wealth" but the first two thirds were interesting

# ? May 17, 2023 01:48

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; This does not make sense when, again, aggregate indicia also indicate improvements. The belief that things are worse is false. It remains false.

What is this group? I found the agenda for an event they're running and it looks to be some sort of eye-popping libertarian techlordery. I was half expecting to see references to roko's basilisk.

https://epsilonconnect.org/

quote:

Over the two and a half days of Epsilon Connect, you�ll participate � not spectate � in core curricula and electives covering the most vital issues of the day. From recognizing the narratives of modern markets to measuring media bias and nudge, from exploring GPT-4 and generative AI to considering a new vision for crypto. from debating the future of American higher education to developing new strategies to talk with each other rather than past each other, we will learn together how to be better investors, citizens and friends.

We are limiting attendance to 100 per session, and this is a not-for-profit event where all after-cost proceeds will support hard science research on narrative structure and weaponized media.

edit: the backing group is the "Foundation for Applied Bio-Linguistic Exploration" which sounds like they should be depopulating the earth with a nanobot virus in a particularly bad sci fi film.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 04:55 on May 17, 2023

# ? May 17, 2023 04:46

Baddog: May 12, 2001

Discendo Vox posted:

edit: the backing group is the "Foundation for Applied Bio-Linguistic Exploration" which sounds like they should be depopulating the earth with a nanobot virus in a particularly bad sci fi film.

Hadlock, are you a secret agent of FABLE??

# ? May 17, 2023 05:48

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

I reserve the right to hold dual citizenship in both FABLE and SPECTRE :colbert:

Actually I found the link on hacker news, I didn't take the time to trawl through the comments section there, I'll see if I can find it

Edit: not much there only 5 comments one using laundry as an analogy. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35962349

# ? May 17, 2023 06:50

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

https://archive.is/R6e2d | https://fortune.com/2023/05/17/smaller-homes-as-builders-responde-to-unaffordable-housing-market/

5% reduction in square footage isn't much but it's a trend towards starter homes. Average size of new construction is 2480 sq ft in the US which would result in 2350 which is basically the reduction of one bedroom

https://www.ahs.com/home-matters/real-estate/the-2022-american-home-size-index/ *

quote:

In order to address the affordability crunch, many builders are reducing home size.

“There’s really this active response by the builders to address these affordability concerns head on, and one of the main kind of levers that they’re pulling is reducing home square footage,”

It’s all to address these affordability constraints,”

Close to half of the survey’s respondents anticipate that projects will be even smaller in square footage this year compared to last year. With that, Saunders said there’s an increase in production of entry-level homes

Our forecast right now, in terms of average square footage, is for single-family starts to decline by around negative 3% this year, and then around negative 2% next year

*I was surprised to see Texas is #11 in new home construction size at 2150sq ft, top three are Utah (2800) Colorado (2500) Idaho (2300)

# ? May 17, 2023 17:01

drk: Jan 16, 2005

Utah makes sense as number 1 as they have the highest birth rate of any US state.

Not sure about Colorado and Idaho, though if you asked people there, I imagine they would tell you its due to rich people moving in from California.

# ? May 17, 2023 17:33

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

immigration/emigration from a state is probably more important than its birth rate?

https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-census-estimates-show-a-tepid-rise-in-u-s-population-growth-buoyed-by-immigration/

This article is about net immigration vs. birth rate for the US as a whole, but this chart is illustrative:

In many modern/"developed" countries, population growth would be negative without immigration. Countries that have not historically welcomed lots of immigrants, like Japan, face a serious demographic problem due to net population loss concentrated in the younger generations.

# ? May 17, 2023 17:56

drk: Jan 16, 2005

I doubt (international) migration is a significant driver of new house sizes though.

Utah, as usual, is best just explained as "mormons": the state has the number one birth rate and number one household size of all of the states.

# ? May 17, 2023 18:12

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

Yeah 1) Mormons and 2) Utah is pretty mountainous, but still plenty of big flat areas, it's not especially productive farm land so land value is relatively low and as a result you can build giant homes

This is a wind map but has both elevation and roads well marked

Also the whole state is only 3.3 million people and the SLC metro area is 1.2 million so no shortage of buildable land.

# ? May 17, 2023 18:34

GlyphGryph: Jun 23, 2013; Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.

Hadlock posted:

5% reduction in square footage isn't much but it's a trend towards starter homes. Average size of new construction is 2480 sq ft in the US which would result in 2350 which is basically the reduction of one bedroom

If I recall correctly from last time I dug through the numbers, we were down from 40% of new housing construction being in the started home size range (<1400 sq ft) to about 5% in the late 2010s. I do wonder what those numbers look like now.

# ? May 17, 2023 19:21

Warmachine: Jan 30, 2012

Hadlock posted:

Yeah I don't endorse the random left turn into "gold/Bitcoin is safe place to park wealth" but the first two thirds were interesting

That article definitely struck me as a broken clock being right. Similarly to how I noted in a college paper how UBI was pretty much the only place I vaguely agreed with libertarians on anything, which got a chuckle out of my professor.

I think 'dedollarization' always seems to make its way into headlines for the same reason war and murder do: if it bleeds, it leads. And nothing whips up the doomsday economics crowd like the sword of Damocles about to fall squarely on American hegemony. That article more or less points out what people who spend more than 5 minutes on find out very quickly--the USD is as healthy as ever as a global reserve currency, and nothing in actual data supports the doomers, nor has it since 1945.

# ? May 17, 2023 19:33

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

Are condos and multifamily included in that 1400 and under number? 1400 sq ft seems like condo and duplex territory to me

lifg posted:

Stuff like this makes me wish there was a singular tvtropes for journalism. Could have everything from “dedollarization” to “comics aren’t for kids anymore.”

This is a good idea actually

# ? May 17, 2023 19:44

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Hadlock posted:

Yeah 1) Mormons and 2) Utah is pretty mountainous, but still plenty of big flat areas, it's not especially productive farm land so land value is relatively low and as a result you can build giant homes

This is a wind map but has both elevation and roads well marked

Also the whole state is only 3.3 million people and the SLC metro area is 1.2 million so no shortage of buildable land.

Also for all their other problems Mormons generally don't tolerate anti-growth NIMBY blockades against ever building anything anywhere. The church says "we're gonna have X% population growth so we need Y thousand new homes, plus new sewer and water, roads, and schools, and an airport."

Kinda like China, Utah has basically zero political freedom (the church runs everything and puts their people in every elected position outside of a few gentile and tourism enclaves) but dang they aren't fantastic at building public infrastructure. There were a few articles a couple years back about how Utah was the only state to make any kind of meaningful progress in reducing homelessness because they did the radical thing of--- get this-- building homes for homeless people to live in.

# ? May 17, 2023 20:06

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; This does not make sense when, again, aggregate indicia also indicate improvements. The belief that things are worse is false. It remains false.

Warmachine posted:

That article definitely struck me as a broken clock being right. Similarly to how I noted in a college paper how UBI was pretty much the only place I vaguely agreed with libertarians on anything, which got a chuckle out of my professor.

I think 'dedollarization' always seems to make its way into headlines for the same reason war and murder do: if it bleeds, it leads. And nothing whips up the doomsday economics crowd like the sword of Damocles about to fall squarely on American hegemony. That article more or less points out what people who spend more than 5 minutes on find out very quickly--the USD is as healthy as ever as a global reserve currency, and nothing in actual data supports the doomers, nor has it since 1945.

I suspect the parts of the article that are appealing are a hook to bring the target audience along for the turn.

# ? May 17, 2023 20:09

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 17:24

SpartanIvy: May 18, 2007; Hair Elf

Hadlock posted:

Are condos and multifamily included in that 1400 and under number? 1400 sq ft seems like condo and duplex territory to me

This is a good idea actually

I think the 1,400 number may be of all inventory which includes a lot of older homes which trend way smaller.

# ? May 17, 2023 20:30

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Economics and current events, no-tweet, no-tiktok: you posted a damn advertisement

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