• 1 Post
  • 8 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 13th, 2023
  • fireweed@lemmy.worldtoNews@lemmy.world•America’s Magical Thinking About Housing: The city of Austin built a lot of homes. Now rent is falling, and some people seem to think that’s a bad thing
    46·
    8 months ago

    The headline completely buries the lede by making it sound like this is an article specifically about Austin, rather than the entire housing market.

    In the U.S., our houses are meant to perform contrary roles in society: shelter for today and investment vehicle for tomorrow. This approach creates a kind of temporal disjunction around the housing market, where what appears sensible for one generation (Please, no more construction near me, it’s annoying and could hurt my property values!) is calamitous for the next (Wait, there’s nowhere near me for my children to live!).

    If homeownership is best understood as an investment, like equities, we should root for prices to go up. If housing is an essential good, like food and clothing, we should cheer when prices stay flat—or even when they fall. Instead, many Americans seem to think of a home as existing in a quantum superposition between a present-day necessity and a future asset.

    Thank you, article, for finally spelling out the obvious paradox that is housing in North America. I don’t understand why this isn’t immediately obvious to everyone, but then again we live under the myth that perpetual growth is not only possible, it’s vital to a healthy society.

  • fireweed@lemmy.worldtoNews@lemmy.world•Behind the scenes, Biden has grown angry and anxious about re-election effort
    1192·
    8 months ago

    I’d be furious too, having such incompetent, out-of-touch advisors. This article alludes to it but others have gone more in-depth: Biden’s advisors keep telling him the economy is great, the problem is messaging: the American people just haven’t heard how great it is. Telling people struggling to pay their bills every month that they’re better off than they were four years ago isn’t messaging, it’s gaslighting. His advisors should be telling him the truth, that the economy is only good on paper, that while the “haves” are living large the “have nots” are not only struggling, their ranks are quickly growing. Don’t get me wrong, anyone who votes for Trump because they think he’ll do better at economic issues is a moron, but history shows that a lot of people are going to go this route come November at the current pace of things. And Biden’s advisors are just as moronic if they don’t understand this.

  • fireweed@lemmy.worldtoNo Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•If UBI (universal basic income) were ever implemented wouldn't corporations and landlords immediately raise prices to effectively take that away from people?
    9·
    8 months ago

    Holy crap that’s complex. And for what? We know that the more complicated a system is the more prone it is to loopholes and abuse, while simultaneously letting tons of folks who should qualify for assistance to fall through the cracks. If you’re a single parent working three jobs, or a foster kid who just aged out of the system and are newly on your own, or mentally disabled, or undereducated, or simply trying to keep your shit together while trying to deal with something like addiction or mental illness or recent homelessness or what have you, you’re undoubtedly going to be leaving a shitload of money on the table by not having the time/energy/wherewithal to fully take advantage of this convoluted system, even though you’re part of the exact population that needs the most assistance. UBI experiments (and similar examples from the charity world) have been pretty clear: just give people the fucking cash, no strings, no fine print, no hoops, and that will have the best result for the recipients, and the least overhead for the givers.