USCE Summer 2022: You can't change the crisis settings.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE Summer 2022: You can't change the crisis settings.

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Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Menacing in the third degree. If pressing charges for that doesn't make you feel like less of a man, I don't know what will.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2022 15:21

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 08:45

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Willa Rogers posted:

He's no longer an attorney general so I'm confused as to how he can "demand" anything from the NYPD, much less a particular punishment.

The NYPD is probably full of people in authority positions who look back on his tenure fondly.

Plus, it's full of Trump lovers who don't actually live in NYC.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2022 15:39

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

You are incredibly lucky to live in New Jersey, then.

They just formed a third party called "The Moderate Party" and will be running candidates and gaining ballot access in 2022.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/us/politics/new-jersey-moderate-party.html

Fried Frank is a large international law firm. If you're a partner there, you're not exactly a "small businessman" but you probably view yourself as such because the individual person clients you might have are even richer. That moderate party idea is catnip to people like that.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2022 14:13

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Bar Ran Dun posted:

To the.nuttiest ones all contraception is abortion I�ve even heard some say it about condoms.

God struck down Onan for pulling out. Of course contraception is forbidden. You're trying to circumvent the will of God.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2022 18:41

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

TheIncredulousHulk posted:

The Civil Rights Act passed because they were scared of more riots, not because of reasonable bipartisan compromise lol

I may be wrong, but a lot of the riots you might be thinking of happened after 1966. If anything, having those riots (and the fear that it put into white people) would have crippled any chances of passing the Civil Rights Act in 1964

There were GOP votes to make up for the Southern Democratic refusal to support the bill. Also, Kennedy died and LBJ could invoke his memory for very effective political ammunition. The time was just right and LBJ met the moment.

Bel Shazar posted:

God struck down Onan for dishonoring his brother's widow and attempting to steal the birthright from the proper lineage.

Yes. He was supposed to honor his brother's widow by inseminating her.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2022 19:29

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

I saw the graphic from that poll going around a few days ago and it is about as stark as you can get:

There's a widespread, intense and depressing misunderstanding of why someone would get an abortion in the third trimester anyway. I hate this country.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2022 20:29

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Cimber posted:

I wodner if the people who say that abortion should be illegal in the last 3 months of pregnancy actually stop and think about who's getting abortions at that time.

While I don't have the exact stats, I can imagine that almost 95% of the woman who have to have that specific procedure are doing it for health reasons and not for reasons of not wanting a baby. Who's going to go through 7-8-9 months of hell, illness, bloating, discomfort and then say "Ah fuckit, lets get rid of this thing in my belly!"

What if she tried to trap a man and he didn't stay trapped?!?!?!

# ¿ Jun 30, 2022 21:41

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Willa Rogers posted:

The other Gallup result last week that took me aback: Voters don't think women should have abortions for just any old reasons:

whereas most women do get abortions for reasons like "not ready," "can't afford it" and "have enough children."

This what I mean when I say that voters' views on abortion are highly conditional.

(MODS: If I'm making too subtle of a point here, let me know & I'll elaborate. I'm positing a theory here, nothing more & nothing less, and I'm not "arguing" but rather elucidating why the polls have these results.)

https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/

quote:

Many anti-choice women are convinced that their need for abortion is unique � not like those �other� women � even though they have abortions for the same sorts of reasons. Anti-choice women often expect special treatment from clinic staff. Some demand an abortion immediately, wanting to skip important preliminaries such as taking a history or waiting for blood test results. Frequently, anti-abortion women will refuse counseling. Some women insist on sneaking in the back door and hiding in a room away from other patients. Others refuse to sit in the waiting room with women they call �sluts� and �trash.� Or if they do, they get angry when other patients in the waiting room talk or laugh, because it proves to them that women get abortions casually, for �convenience�.

I suspect you may have already read this, but here are a load of anecdotes from people working at abortion clinics about "pro-life" people desperately getting abortions.

It's from 2000, though. I wonder how much the data and stories have changed since then.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2022 02:17

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Oracle posted:

There was an updated one where they outright tell doctors they're going to hell (after they perform the abortion, of course) but the rest of it still sounds exactly the same. 'The only moral abortion is my abortion.'

The mean vindictive part of me wants to say that since this SCOTUS decided a right to privacy isn't in the Constitution therefore Roe v Wade is moot, that so is the right to private medical records and clinics should just release all the anti-abortion protestors that came in for an abortion's info.

Someone on my Facebook shared screencaps of a Twitter thread with these stories, but the account appears to be gone now.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2022 02:42

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

What did she think she was getting into?

Being Vice President is like being the lead guitarist of a band, right? You're not the singer, but you're the cool guy soloing over the music!!!!

# ¿ Jul 1, 2022 02:53

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Charles 2 of Spain posted:

Kamala is the Bez of the band.

People like Bez, though.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2022 03:05

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Charles 2 of Spain posted:

And like Kamala, I have no idea why.

It's the dancing, isn't it?

# ¿ Jul 1, 2022 05:26

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Also mass shooters are almost universally radicalised by white supremacist and Nazi rhetoric, but their targets are usually entirely opportunistic and/or familiar. They don't really care, the point is they want to kill people who can't fight back.

I used to get into arguments about this point since a lot of gun lovers say the ability to fight back is why everyone needs guns. "Then these cowards won't make these attacks."

Maybe it reflects badly on me, but I've stopped trying to talk with these people.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2022 15:33

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

haveblue posted:

Yeah, I don�t see what the difference is between this situation and the last time the bill was nearly done except for a few trivial loose ends

The terror of hitting the last months of the campaign trail without anything getting passed?

And an almost certain-to-be-confirmed recession?

Sigh. Bleah.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2022 20:53

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

So it's Sinema who's going to screw everyone this time again?

# ¿ Jul 28, 2022 16:47

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

So whether all that maneuvering has been worth it is now dependent on The Senior Senator from the State of Arizona Kyrsten Sinema.

I have heartburn again.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2022 20:40

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

rscott posted:

Had to stand in line for an hour to vote today in Kansas, I think turnout is going to be quite a bit higher than they were expecting, but I have no idea what that means for the amendment

It's likely going to pass, right? I don't know what to make of that high turnout since abortion arouses such strong passions on both sides of the debate. I don't know what would keep that state legislature from going for a full ban other than some idea that there are lines that even the GOP base will not cross.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2022 19:24

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Fetterman's purchase of a Cameo from Jersey Shore's Snooki (where she did not realize she was sending it to Dr. Oz or making it for a political campaign) has caused Cameo to try and make it harder to trick celebrities and the FEC to consider whether a political campaign buying a celebrity cameo constitutes a "paid endorsement" for legal reasons.

https://twitter.com/rollcall/status/1554852148952944640

I wonder if that Snooki ploy is going to blow up a bit on Fetterman. I thought that Snooki was actually being cool.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2022 16:57

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Slowpoke! posted:

How come when I search Alex Jones child porn all the articles are from June 2019

Beastie posted:

Because this isn�t a new revelation. People just keep thinking it�s from yesterday

Is there a reason why that hasn't caused problems for him yet?

# ¿ Aug 4, 2022 14:37

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

https://twitter.com/ScarlettMLewis/status/1555314690695303173

You're a better person than I am, Mrs. Lewis.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2022 01:01

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Acebuckeye13 posted:

Literally none of this is true. The crash happened because GM and Chrysler were heavily invested in trucks and SUVs, which have higher profit margins and were in high demand during the mid-2000s. The economic crash combined with skyrocketing gas prices absolutely cratered demand, which is why those companies had to beg for money from the government. Notably Ford, which was not as heavily over-leveraged, did not have to take money to prevent bankruptcy (though they did take some to shore up their pension/healthcare plans IIRC)

I would adjust that summary a bit. Ford were already in bad shape in 2007 even before the Great Financial Crisis kicked in. They had borrowed everything they could (and even put the rights to the blue oval Ford logo up as collateral) because they were in the middle of a desperate turnaround plan. They unintentionally lucked out that their Hail Mary effort under Mulally was already under way and got funded during an easy credit market. GM and Chrysler were in bad shape, but just not bad enough until the credit market completely dried up.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2022 02:23

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Jarmak posted:

Reminder that the Gretchen Whitmer plot is only a fishing expedition in the Fox News extended universe. One of the defendants has already pled out to conspiracy to commit kidnapping and been sentenced to 6 years, the rest are scheduled to go to trial in October.

Thank you for saying this. I was about to ask why that poster characterized the plot against Whitmer like that.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2022 15:19

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Re: the Whitmer trial, here's a link.

https://apnews.com/article/whitmer-kidnap-plot-trial-hung-jury-e5b58234b134e32d9655288a51f107fb

quote:

Prosecutors said the group was steeped in anti-government extremism and furious over Whitmer�s pandemic restrictions. There was evidence of a crudely built �shoot house� to practice going in and out of her vacation home, and a night ride by Croft, Fox and covert operatives to check the property.

But defense lawyers portrayed the men as credulous weekend warriors, often stoned on marijuana and prone to big, wild talk. They said FBI agents and informants tricked and cajoled the men into targeting the governor.

An entrapment defense rarely works as you basically have to admit you did what you were accused of, but got forced to do it by law enforcement. It looks like the defense attorneys were able to use a defense of "our clients are big talking morons," and it was enough to get a hung jury.

I wonder what happened during voir dire. The worst people in the world often end up on juries, unfortunately.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2022 16:07

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

The plot was so brazen and crazy that I could see how a couple of jurors had doubts that anyone who think they could get away with it.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2022 16:17

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

For those of you wondering when life for the Democrats is going to go to poo poo again, one thing to look out for is the monthly CPI information releases. We have one tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/MarketWatch/status/1557161374618456066

quote:

Traders, investors and economists are all counting on Wednesday�s consumer-price index report to show a decline in the annual headline U.S. inflation rate for July. But there�s another figure buried in the consumer-price index data that has the propensity to jolt markets.

It�s called the core year-over-year CPI reading, a measure which strips out volatile food and energy costs. It came in at 5.9% for the 12 months that ended in June, and the consensus view is that it will inch up to 6.1% on a year-over-year basis for July. Gargi Chaudhuri of BlackRock Inc., the world�s largest money manager, sees the core reading coming in even a bit higher, at 6.2%, while a pair of Goldman Sachs analysts are warning that the near-term U.S. inflation picture �is likely to remain uncomfortably high.�

A move higher in the annual CPI core rate would be significant because it would be seen as reflecting the true underlying trend of inflation � while also dashing widespread hopes in financial markets over the past month that price gains have peaked. Many traders and investors have generally been clinging to the overall annual headline CPI rate for July, which includes food and energy � and the view that it probably fell to 8.7% or 8.8%, from an almost 41-year high of 9.1% in June, after factoring in recent declines in gas and commodity prices.

�The outlook for inflation remains the primary concern for investors,� Wilmington Trust Investment Advisors� Chief Investment Officer Tony Roth and Chief Economist Luke Tilley wrote in an email on Tuesday. �Persistent inflation is weighing on sentiment for consumers and businesses, yet economic data remains quite mixed and concerns are elevated that aggressive Fed policy could push the U.S. into recession.�

�While we still expect inflation to decelerate going forward, some components will remain stubbornly high and complicate the outlook,� they said.

Signs of the financial market�s broad-based expectations that inflation is poised to ease are abundant: U.S. stocks have generally rallied from their lows in mid-June, though they finished lower on Tuesday. Meanwhile, medium- and long-term Treasury yields have dropped from their peaks in June � along with break-even rates, according to Tradeweb data.

The "consensus view" seems to underestimate how bad inflation is and the markets have been rallying lately due to expectations that inflation has eased. I have a sinking feeling those good vibes are going to get a reality check tomorrow and that usually puts "INFLATION!!!11!!!" and bad economic sentiment back in the headlines.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2022 01:52

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Charliegrs posted:

It would be impossible to find 13 people that don't know who Trump is. But, they probably just need to find 13 people that are completely totally disconnected from politics. Like people that never vote, people that don't know how many branches of government we have etc. That should depressingly easy in the US.

You realize those people are basically going to be like this:

https://twitter.com/TikTokInvestors/status/1555390848279293952

https://twitter.com/TikTokInvestors/status/1549954425782882304

# ¿ Aug 11, 2022 19:21

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Edward Mass posted:

Here comes Garland.

Emerges out of a cloud of aerosolized adrenochrome looking beautiful... :allears:

# ¿ Aug 11, 2022 19:33

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

"There's no investigation of Trump. He's innocent and he's actually the real President of the United States." (Garland runs away crying.)

# ¿ Aug 11, 2022 19:49

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Some people are snobs and only watch Tooturnttony, but I embrace it all.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2022 20:00

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

The final compromise text of the Iran nuclear deal revival was finished and the negotiations ended.

The U.S. has signed on to the compromise, they are going to find a way to deal with the excess uranium without Russia, and Iran says that it "can be acceptable if it provides assurances" for some of Iran's specific demands.

So, they just need Iran to sign off on the "assurances" and it's done.

Also, this is either a sign of how desperate the U.S. is to close the deal now that they are so close or how little they care about john Bolton, but either way it is kind of hilarious.

"Look, I know you just tried to kill John Bolton, but that's a separate thing and we won't hold it against you. Just please sign."

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1558058232358346752

What is the possibility for Congress to scupper the deal this time? I know it's not a treaty, but is there some sort of Senate approval/disapproval period again?

# ¿ Aug 12, 2022 13:15

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Like many public policy issues, our nation's wishful thinking that market dynamics will solve everything so politicians don't have to make tough choices is holding us back. With that government inaction, you basically have a toxic mix of lagging reactions by landowners and builders and local-level policies designed to maximize the value of housing for those who already own it.

The NY Times (I can hear your jeers now) had a good piece on it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/23/business/housing-market-crisis-supply.html

quote:

We Need to Keep Building Houses, Even if No One Wants to Buy

Right now, builders have too many homes and not enough people to sell them to. In the long term, the United States has the opposite problem: Not enough houses for all the people who want them.

By Conor Dougherty and Ben Casselman

July 23, 2022

The United States has a deep, decades-old housing shortage. Also, at the moment, homebuilders across the country are pulling back on development because they can�t sell enough homes.

How can both of these things be true? That riddle is at the heart of the boom-bust nature of housing, where an excess of regulation and the mixed incentives of the market mean there is never a supply that lines up with demand. One way or the other, solving it will require more building during downturns, and, most likely, some sort of public program to subsidize it.

Consider what the past few months have visited on Hayden Homes, a regional homebuilder that is based in Redmond, Ore., and builds about 2,000 houses a year throughout the Pacific Northwest. At the beginning of the year, Hayden�s biggest problem, shared by almost every other U.S. homebuilder, was figuring out how to supply enough houses for everyone who wanted one.

The company couldn�t find enough land, workers were scarce, lumber prices were exploding, and the faltering supply chain turned the search for everything from dishwashers to garage doors into a kind of corporate scavenger hunt.

The one thing builders were not short on was qualified buyers, who were in abundance because of low interest rates, high household savings and the sudden ability for millions of workers to set up home offices wherever they wanted. To deal with the crush of demand, builders like Hayden began choosing buyers from waiting lists or conducting elaborate lotteries to pick a �winner� from the crowd.

Now, in the space of a few weeks, the situation for Hayden, and the housing market, has reversed. Interest rates on the average 30-year mortgage have jumped to about 5.5 percent, from about 3 percent at the start of the year. That has added hundreds of dollars a month to the typical house payment and disqualified many buyers. At the same time, a broader slowdown in home sales and price gains have caused many would-be purchasers to pull back for fear of buying at the market�s peak.

Following a steep decline in sales for June, and after watching its waiting lists dissipate, Hayden is rejiggering its inventory to emphasize smaller, cheaper dwellings, and ratcheting back the number of already-built �spec homes� it produces. All of this is happening even though the ranks of prospective buyers are still broadly employed, still sitting on a down payment and still dreaming of a new home.

�We would rather forgo a few sales in the future than be stuck with homes we are unable to sell now,� said Deborah Flagan, a vice president at Hayden.

The problem facing Hayden and other builders is simple: Sales of new homes are falling � down 15 percent this spring from a year earlier � at the same time that a wave of homes, begun before the jump in interest rates, are hitting the market. The number of homes that have been completed but not yet sold hit a 15-month high in May. Redfin, the real estate brokerage, recently reported that buyers are trying to back out of sales agreements at the fastest pace since the early weeks of the pandemic.

�Demand has slowed enough that builders are finding themselves with homes and no buyers for them,� said Ali Wolf, chief economist with Zonda, a housing data and consulting firm. �That is a problem we haven�t faced in years.�

Developers are responding the way Economics 101 says they should: by cutting prices on the houses they have already built, and by pulling the plug on virtually any project that wasn�t already too far along to be abandoned. Builders started construction on about 93,000 single-family homes in June, down 16 percent from a year earlier.

�Very smartly, builders are saying hey, let�s rein it in,� said Rick Palacios Jr., director of research for John Burns Real Estate Consulting. �Yes, we are undersupplied from a structural standpoint, but when rates roughly double in the space of three or four months, builders don�t care. They are planning their business for the now.�

If the slowdown continues for more than a few months, as many economists predict, the next step will be to cut back on future land development. The likely effect of this would be that when housing gets going again, builders will remain behind. So families will once again be clamoring for homes, getting one will once again depend on winning a lottery � and the housing shortage will continue to crush family finances and make it harder to build wealth.

�This is going to have a significant impact on future supply,� said Randall Lewis, a principal at the family-owned Lewis Group of Companies, a developer of master planned communities in California and Nevada. Mr. Lewis�s company takes raw land and over the course of decades adds basic infrastructure like sewers, streets and traffic signals. When companies like his pull back, the number of lots homebuilders can use in the future declines.

�We are now saying we�re going to look project by project and say which ones are we are going to go ahead on and which we are going to take a pause on,� he said. �As a developer, the question is, how much money do you want to put in the dirt when you don�t know what the future is going to hold?�

That is a problem, because while the challenge for builders, in the short term, might be that they have too many homes and not enough buyers, the challenge for the country, in the long term, remains precisely the opposite: There are not enough houses for all the people who want them.

Last year, Freddie Mac estimated the nation�s housing supply deficit at 3.8 million units, up from 2.5 million in 2018. Other analysts come up with different figures, but pretty much everyone agrees that the country hasn�t been building nearly enough homes to keep up with demand, especially for middle and lower-income families. The failure to build those units is the single biggest contributor to the affordability crisis that in recent years has spread from a few coastal cities to a much larger swath of the country.

Sam Khater, Freddie Mac�s chief economist, said there was an irony to what�s happening right now: The Federal Reserve is trying to snuff out inflation by increasing interest rates, which is leading to a pullback in construction, which will make housing even less affordable down the road. In a sense, policymakers are solving the immediate cost-of-living crisis (inflation) by making the longer-run cost-of-living crisis (housing) even worse.

�It�s an unintended consequence,� Mr. Khater said.

The housing market has responded so quickly to the Fed�s actions because it is built on debt, making it ultrasensitive to interest rates. Builders borrow money to build new homes, then sell them to buyers who, for the most part, borrow 80 percent or more of the home�s cost. When banks pull back on credit by raising monthly borrowing costs, it causes buyers and builders to retreat for different versions of the same reason, which is the fear they will be left with property they can no longer afford and might be worth less than they paid for it to boot.

The slowdown in homebuilding wouldn�t have such a significant effect on the nation�s overall housing supply if builders could quickly adjust to demand, making up for the recessionary shortages during boom times. But they can�t: Housing is a hugely fragmented industry of mostly independent companies that includes developers that spend decades turning raw land into parcels that can be built upon and subcontractors that hire laborers by the hour. The system works fine when demand is strong, but deteriorates with even a modest sign of trouble and can take years to restart, creating a backlog that gets deeper each time building slows.

�It�s much easier to turn it off than to turn it on,� Mr. Palacios said.

The collapse of the housing market during the Great Recession put many smaller home builders out of business, and left the ones that survived extremely cautious. Housing starts cratered to 554,000 in 2009 from 2.1 million in 2005, then barely recovered, even as demand steadily grew. Only in the past couple years did developers finally start building at something close to their pre-bubble pace � only to slam on the brakes now that rates are rising.

That cyclical dynamic is exacerbated by another problem. In the places where new housing is needed the most, existing homeowners don�t want it and local governments won�t allow it. Around the country, a combination of rampant NIMBYism � neighbors who protest new development � along with zoning and land use regulations, heavily limit how much housing can actually be built.

In other words, backlogs grow during downturns because of market forces, then persist during good times because of government-imposed limitations on construction.

�It�s a chronic issue,� Mr. Khater said. �We have both a market failure and a government failure.�

Those failures are both on display in San Francisco, which has a decades-old housing shortage. When interest rates were low and demand was strong, developers desperately wanted to build, but had to spend years obtaining the necessary approvals and permits. Now that the market has turned, some of the projects that managed to survive that process are being called off because developers can no longer afford to build them.

Michael Covarrubias, chief executive of TMG Partners, is a developer of residential and commercial property in the Bay Area. Mr. Covarrubias said he had two projects he could legally start construction on, with about 800 condominiums between them. But they�re furloughed because of rising costs of materials and financing.

�Real estate at its core is a simple business,� Mr. Covarrubias said. �You have to get a return on your costs, and it�s harder and harder to make the math work.�

Around the country, the persistent shortage of housing has caused a number of legislators to revisit an old idea: Public housing. In California, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Colorado, legislators have either introduced or passed proposals to allow state and local governments to develop housing for a range of incomes.

�If government gets in the business of providing housing, we can be that countercyclical supply,� said Alex Lee, Democrat of San Jose and member of California�s State Assembly. This year Mr. Lee introduced a measure that would have created a new state agency to build mixed-income housing across California. It failed in committee, but Mr. Lee has vowed to continue pursuing government-built housing.

To expect private companies to build during downturns is to expect them to risk financial ruin. The government can try to help families with rising costs by capping rent increases and providing subsidies or loan programs that help first-time home buyers.

But unless the government builds new housing itself, or creates incentives for builders like Hayden to keep at it when it doesn�t make sense, the housing shortage is destined to compound each time the economic winds blow against the building industry.

The precise solution is politics, but there�s little mystery what the problem is. America doesn�t have enough housing, and someone has to build it, in bad times as well as good.

Conor Dougherty is an economics reporter and the author of �Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America.� His work focuses on the West Coast, real estate and wage stagnation among U.S. workers. @ConorDougherty

Ben Casselman writes about economics, with a particular focus on stories involving data. He previously reported for FiveThirtyEight and The Wall Street Journal. @bencasselman � Facebook

# ¿ Aug 16, 2022 15:31

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

cr0y posted:

I paid off all my student loans myself. I still want student loans forgiven. Id like my friends to not be in debt and maybe be able to like go do fun poo poo with me. Why is this hard.

The crab bucket mentality is hard to shake for many people.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2022 20:31

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

evilweasel posted:

My theory is that it's Patel. Patel has been running against Maloney in the primaries for the UES district for several election cycles and has never won, but has come close-ish. So when you merge the UWS (Nadler) and UES (Maloney) districts, you would think you get roughly 50% Nadler voters, 50% Maloney voters. But instead you had more like 50% Nadler voters, 30% Maloney voters, and 20% Patel voters. Patel got no traction with Nadler voters because the Nadler/Maloney thing got most of the attention in the race, but previous Patel voters stuck with him.

I'm not pretending to represent any mass trend, but I had been voting for Patel for the last couple of primaries because I really don't care for Maloney and I went straight to Nadler with this current primary. I think Maloney just didn't campaign as well and Nadler had a lot more anti-Trump visibility because of his role on the House Judiciary Committee.

Patel seems unlucky in that he is constantly running against some very entrenched incumbent. He's a little bit of an empty suit too. He has been constantly trying to tout himself as an Obama protege and I'm not sure how far that gets you in this particular district.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2022 14:56

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

I'm sorry if this is a "do your own homework" question, but does anyone have a link I can share about how student loan forgiveness isn't just an unjustified gimme to people who don't work?

# ¿ Aug 24, 2022 18:00

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Fair enough, but I would rather not give up on this particular person just yet.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2022 18:07

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

evilweasel posted:

the position they're taking doesn't make a lot of sense and is clearly an emotional reaction, so you need to figure out why (are they bitter because they worked hard to pay down their student loan debt? didn't go to college? went to college for an unfun major and is upset at basket-weaving majors?) before you can address it, because you do not wind up believing people with student loans do not work without some motivated reasoning to get to that conclusion, and so you need to figure out what is motivating the reasoning.

A bankruptcy litigation partner at an AmLaw 100 firm. :P

# ¿ Aug 24, 2022 18:18

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Well, the argument I�m having doesn�t seem to be going well. He�s sent me a a Daily Wire clip.

Anyway� a percentage breakdown of who benefits might be nice though because the argument that I�m running into a lot is that it�s unfairly advantageous to rich people.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2022 02:24

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Star Man posted:

My mom spares no opportunity to cut me down, so she texted me how taxes are going to go up now because of this and a bunch of other bullshit, and how this forgiveness is bullshit because she had to pay off her Parent Plus Loans and how I can't just sign a paper and not expect to pay on a house or a car.

I can't wait for this broad to die. Too bad she's going to live until she's a hundred. My whole fuckin' life it's been about how I don't know things cost money, I need a job with insurance, and so on.

Sorry. That sounds pretty toxic.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2022 03:34

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

some plague rats posted:

Can anyone tell what they're actually going to do? It's a lot of jargon and the only concrete step I can figure out is they're going to have a bunch of guys whose job it is to hang out at drone command saying things like "hey, try not to kill any civilians!" It's all internal auditing and processes...?

You're not wrong, but I saw (what seemed to me to be) other notable, specific changes.

quote:

The steps include putting officials responsible for reducing civilian harm inside the combatant commands and Pentagon policy offices; imposing a new system to reduce the risk of misidentifying targets and �confirmation bias� � the tendency to favor information that confirms pre-existing beliefs; and creating a 30-person center to handle departmentwide analysis and training regarding civilian protection.

[...]

Much of the document is dense with new bureaucratic procedures aimed at ensuring that greater attention to potential impact on civilians � and civilian infrastructure like power plants and water-purification systems � during mission planning is incorporated as basic doctrine.

[...]

Other highlights from the plan include standardizing reporting on how the Pentagon collects, shares and analyzes data related to civilian casualties, with a mechanism for the public to submit allegations and new procedures for investigating such claims.

The plan also expands how the U.S. military can respond to victims, including condolence payments to survivors and family members of those harmed, as well as paying for medical care and the repair of damaged infrastructure.

Recent efforts to provide such aid to civilian casualty survivors and their family members have largely faltered. No one has received condolence payments or other forms of monetary assistance from the U.S. military for the drone strike in Kabul last year, for example.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2022 02:45

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 08:45

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Neo_Crimson posted:

As much as I like the recent Ws, we really really cannot get cocky and declare victory before midterms. MAGA is mainstream Republicanism now, and is far from powerless.

Agreed. Who knows how economic trends shape up between now and November? Jerome Powell just caused a big market drop by stating that the Fed is not convinced that inflation is under control enough to start phasing out interest rate hikes.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2022 19:30

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE Summer 2022: You can't change the crisis settings.

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