I see all of these as problems with zoning. I could also rant about rent control but it has a much smaller effect compared to the prevention of construction and density.
3,057 karma · joined February 13, 2015
I see all of these as problems with zoning. I could also rant about rent control but it has a much smaller effect compared to the prevention of construction and density.
My initial reaction is how does this address the issue of developing more units in dense urban environments? For example, if we convert all multi family dwellings in LA to CLTs. Housing is more affordable and no residents are being displaced. Now more people want to move to LA. Who builds housing for them?
They would be required for compete over an extremely limited number of SFHs. Unless the CLTs had a provision that every Nth year, they would be torn down and redeveloped for greater density, this sounds like it would cause a city to completely stagnate. That Nth year clause would really go against the non-displacement goal. It could be sustainable if a city had zero growth, but for desirable metro areas that are mostly developed, that is not the case.
Market rents cause healthy turn over. There are other ways to address affordability, such as addressing wage growth, removing density restrictions, or expanding Section 8. Non-profit landlords would just further distort the system by not addressing systemic needs that require capital.
The person who owns the land makes it available by deciding to rent to people. The person who owns the land can decide to tear it down or not rent to people.
>take no risks
Real estate is not a risk free investment. It would be much more popular than bonds (when interest rates aren't near zero) if it was.
>provide no service
Maintaining the property in a habitable condition is a service. Maintenance expenses are why a large number of people choose to rent instead of buy when staying somewhere short term.
>add no value
Making housing available in desirable locations for less than the cost of a SFH is adding value. It can reduce people's commute or put them in neighborhoods they want to live in. If that land was instead covered in SFHs (which seems to be the implied ideal for the "landlords should not exist" crowd) the number of people who could live there would be significantly reduced.
>employ nobody
Landscapers, plumbers, electricians, roofers, property managers, cleaners, inspectors. In the case of new construction, a lot more people.
>often literally do nothing
Ha. I wish.
I never really understand this. Let's say I own a 4 unit building on a decent sized lot in a big city. I make housing available to 3 other families in a place they could not afford to own. What is your alternative? I should tear down the apartments and opt to live in a single family home? How does that help anyone?
Stock prices are rising because the interest rates are so low. A ton of institutional money that was in bonds is now out seeking yield. This moves a ton of money into stocks and, as we see in the article, real estate.
The labor class has been shafted for years by the US dollar being the global reserve currency, causing us to run persistent trade deficits. This has off-shored manufacturing and gutted our capabilities. If the US weakens the dollar and rebuilds the manufacturing base, which they appear to be trying to do with the investment in semiconductors, I think we will be in a much better position. I am happy with the stimulus because it does both, weaken the dollar and invest in US capabilities. We just need to make sure it flows to the correct places.
Another policy point would be data de-risking. It has been shown time and time again that companies cannot protect their own data, not to mention user data. I think we should make it very costly to be breached and lose PII. It would raise the bar a lot for who could do what, but I do not think companies have really demonstrated that they can handle this data responsibly. These data losses have even become a national security risk. [1]
1. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/21/china-stolen-us-data-ex...
>Delhi Police raids Twitter offices over manipulated label
>Police in India visited Twitter offices over ‘manipulated media’ label
This was a huge shift in mentality for me. I wanted to do exploit dev, I wanted to (and for a while, did) teach computer security online, and the list goes on. There was always this huge dissonance when I didn't do those things.
Then I sat down and looked at what I did do. I program obsessively. I defined that as what I enjoyed doing, rather than conflating what I wanted to do or be with what I enjoyed doing. I don't reverse engineer or create content for 10 hours a day. I do sit down and work on problems I'm excited about though.
I don't know the history super well but I would speculate that either Iran wanted to sell oil in another currency, or the other oil exporting countries we got in bed with (OPEC) didn't like Iran, or another one of our allies (Israel) didn't like Iran.
Edit: I've upgraded. I've felt guilty for years for how much mileage I've gotten out of Sublime. It is one of my most used applications.
I have the driver with it disabled and would patch diff it against a new one if I had the time, but I'm very busy with work. It would be an interesting problem of binary diffing at scale (dozens of libraries). Very interested if anyone has any insight.