One example is that there is a higher margin on high-end homes. So, in many growing urban and suburban areas, you see all of the new housing being built is targeted at the upper end of the housing market. Theoretically, older high end properties should drop in value, but in practice that doesn't happen, because A) not enough new housing is built to keep up with population growth, B) Homeowners and landlords are constrained on the lower boundary by the amount they owe on mortgages, creating "stickiness" in pricing, and C) Proximity to jobs/attractions/amenities is a primary factor in home prices, so a home in a good location isn't going to lose value, and a home in a bad location is already low value.
Another example would be in touristy areas - think mountain homes or lake homes. Rich people come in and buy up property and homes, and because it's leisure rather than business, price is based on how much they like the place rather than how much of a return they can get on their investment. They're willing to pay more than locals are able to, so they get the property, and locals get priced out.
And that's without getting into how they control the zoning laws to prevent new housing development that would actually be affordable.
Banks were never forced to give loans to people who couldn't qualify. You're probably talking about the Community Reinvestment Act, which didn't do any such thing - it ended the practice of redlining, where loans would not be issued for purchases in certain neighborhoods, regardless of the creditworthiness of the borrower.
A billionaire is not going to engage in mindless speculation than the millionaire next door. It's rube consumers that instigate bidding wars on personal homes.
Billionaires need to put their money somewhere, and there are finite lucrative investment opportunities. Real estate is a very good store of wealth for the long term, so billionaires do in fact put a lot of their wealth into it.
Well, unless they have so much wealth that they can distort markets - particularly the housing market - or have disproportionate influence in politics.
A religion is not the same thing as the foundational texts - I would argue that how it is actually taught and practiced is far more important than the contents of its scripture. Buddhism's teachings were handed down orally for much of its history, so those texts don't even exist in the same way that they do for Islam, or even Christianity and Judaism.
And the point I made wasn't that one religion is as bad as, or as good as another. It was that religion isn't the CAUSE of these problems - it's that religion is a super-convenient excuse used to justify actions that are innately human. That's why you see the same thing happen with just about any religion. Blaming the religion rather than the people isn't terribly helpful, especially in this context, when TFA is about someone making something cool inspired by their religion.
Do non-english speaking "types" have the majority in both houses of congress and the presidency? Does antifa have so much as a single seat in any state legislature? Who's the one talking about marginal boogeymen, and who's talking about a group that has near-total control of government?
What an idiotic statement. Show me an art historian who doesn't think both Islamic and Christian art are important, and I'll show you a chimp in a smock.
"Islam" isn't doing squat. MUSLIMS do many different things, and yes, some (the fundamentalists, mostly of the Salafi and Wahhabi branches of Sunni Islam) are assholes and do incredibly harmful and destructive things, and use Islam as justification. Just like fundamentalist Buddhist assholes in Myanmar and Sri Lanka do incredibly harmful and destructive things and use Buddhism as justification, or like fundamentalist Hindus in India do incredibly harmful and destructive things and use Hinduism as justification, or like fundamentalist Christians do incredibly harmful and destructive things and use Christianity as justification.
The problem is not any of these religions. It is the harmful and destructive things that people do in the name of fundamentalism of any kind.
Public radio isn't state-run. It's publicly funded, it is true, but it does not take marching orders from any government official.
Shit, Fox News is closer to state-run media given their ties to the governing party.
You assume that the KKK encompasses the entire extreme right. Sadly, they are only one organization out of literally hundreds in America. As you point out, KKK membership is at a nadir. But that's not because its ideas are losing support. It's because its members have moved on to form other organizations without the baggage (in the public eye) of the KKK.
How do you figure Bernie is far left? He's a pretty mainstream center-left guy. His primary policy proposals (universal health care, free public colleges) are ones that have been implemented in countries across the world, and that have been defended by even conservative parties in most of those countries.
Compare that to the far right, and it's pretty clear that this is not a "both sides do it" scenario.
This is an idiotic take. Hitler was essentially the text-book definition of far right toxic nationalism. Any claim otherwise betrays the claimant as a person with little understanding of history or political philosophy.
There is some truth to this. But there is a pretty serious difference between the far left and the far right: The far left is marginalized even within the left-most of US parties, whereas the far right not only controls the right-most of US parties, they have control of the Presidency and the House of Representatives, near control of the Senate, and control of something like half of state legislatures and governorships.
So, while the far left and the far right share some similarities in terms of where their extremism would take the country, the risk posed by the far right is FAR, FAR greater than the risk posed by the far left.
The UK doesn't have Single Payer. They have Socialized medicine - doctors are public employees, and the government runs the whole deal (supplemental care excepted)
How exactly are these people going to be able to afford alcohol and drugs if they can't afford to fund a hobby? Going to movies is a hell of a lot less expensive than going to a bar. Going fishing is a hell of a lot less expensive than going on a crack bender. Learning to paint is a lot less expensive than learning how to have a meth habit.
Basically, your argument boils down to "Idle hands do the devil's work". Maybe the only thing keeping you from getting into massive amounts of trouble is having to go to work, but for far more people, the need to work gets in the way of doing the things they actually care about. Work isn't meaningful for the vast majority of people - it is something they do in order to be able to pay the bills.
And you also assume that UBI would be the cause of lack of work, rather than a way to stabilize society as the need for unskilled laborers goes away. Even if the "work keeps people out of trouble" argument were to have any merit, it doesn't address the fact that the work is going away. The whole point of automation is to make it so employers don't have to pay for low-level work. If they're not interested in paying low-level workers to do work for them, they're not going to have any interest in paying taxes to pay low level workers to do busy work.
Really, I don't see anything in your argument that doesn't come from the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
Slashdot Mirror
How do they distort the housing market?
One example is that there is a higher margin on high-end homes. So, in many growing urban and suburban areas, you see all of the new housing being built is targeted at the upper end of the housing market. Theoretically, older high end properties should drop in value, but in practice that doesn't happen, because A) not enough new housing is built to keep up with population growth, B) Homeowners and landlords are constrained on the lower boundary by the amount they owe on mortgages, creating "stickiness" in pricing, and C) Proximity to jobs/attractions/amenities is a primary factor in home prices, so a home in a good location isn't going to lose value, and a home in a bad location is already low value.
Another example would be in touristy areas - think mountain homes or lake homes. Rich people come in and buy up property and homes, and because it's leisure rather than business, price is based on how much they like the place rather than how much of a return they can get on their investment. They're willing to pay more than locals are able to, so they get the property, and locals get priced out.
And that's without getting into how they control the zoning laws to prevent new housing development that would actually be affordable.
Banks were never forced to give loans to people who couldn't qualify. You're probably talking about the Community Reinvestment Act, which didn't do any such thing - it ended the practice of redlining, where loans would not be issued for purchases in certain neighborhoods, regardless of the creditworthiness of the borrower.
A billionaire is not going to engage in mindless speculation than the millionaire next door. It's rube consumers that instigate bidding wars on personal homes.
Billionaires need to put their money somewhere, and there are finite lucrative investment opportunities. Real estate is a very good store of wealth for the long term, so billionaires do in fact put a lot of their wealth into it.
how rich other people are is un important.
Well, unless they have so much wealth that they can distort markets - particularly the housing market - or have disproportionate influence in politics.
A religion is not the same thing as the foundational texts - I would argue that how it is actually taught and practiced is far more important than the contents of its scripture. Buddhism's teachings were handed down orally for much of its history, so those texts don't even exist in the same way that they do for Islam, or even Christianity and Judaism.
And the point I made wasn't that one religion is as bad as, or as good as another. It was that religion isn't the CAUSE of these problems - it's that religion is a super-convenient excuse used to justify actions that are innately human. That's why you see the same thing happen with just about any religion. Blaming the religion rather than the people isn't terribly helpful, especially in this context, when TFA is about someone making something cool inspired by their religion.
Do non-english speaking "types" have the majority in both houses of congress and the presidency? Does antifa have so much as a single seat in any state legislature? Who's the one talking about marginal boogeymen, and who's talking about a group that has near-total control of government?
If I had mod points, I would definitely give you +1, Insightful.
What an idiotic statement. Show me an art historian who doesn't think both Islamic and Christian art are important, and I'll show you a chimp in a smock.
"Islam" isn't doing squat. MUSLIMS do many different things, and yes, some (the fundamentalists, mostly of the Salafi and Wahhabi branches of Sunni Islam) are assholes and do incredibly harmful and destructive things, and use Islam as justification. Just like fundamentalist Buddhist assholes in Myanmar and Sri Lanka do incredibly harmful and destructive things and use Buddhism as justification, or like fundamentalist Hindus in India do incredibly harmful and destructive things and use Hinduism as justification, or like fundamentalist Christians do incredibly harmful and destructive things and use Christianity as justification. The problem is not any of these religions. It is the harmful and destructive things that people do in the name of fundamentalism of any kind.
Where does that $400/day figure come from? It's not in your source.
I guess, if you ignore the evidence we already have.
Bring back the draft! It might get people to think twice before going all gung-ho on declaring war on Eurasia.
Come on, man. There's no need for slurs. Saying that homosexual people are akin to our current president is just vile. They don't deserve that.
So you're saying it's bad when a candidate's campaign works with foreign operatives to influence an election?
Public radio isn't state-run. It's publicly funded, it is true, but it does not take marching orders from any government official. Shit, Fox News is closer to state-run media given their ties to the governing party.
Unless you are filthy rich, your shares will buy you less control of a corporation than your votes buy you control over government.
You misspelled "communist". The ones getting called Nazis are the ones enabling this.
You assume that the KKK encompasses the entire extreme right. Sadly, they are only one organization out of literally hundreds in America. As you point out, KKK membership is at a nadir. But that's not because its ideas are losing support. It's because its members have moved on to form other organizations without the baggage (in the public eye) of the KKK.
How do you figure Bernie is far left? He's a pretty mainstream center-left guy. His primary policy proposals (universal health care, free public colleges) are ones that have been implemented in countries across the world, and that have been defended by even conservative parties in most of those countries. Compare that to the far right, and it's pretty clear that this is not a "both sides do it" scenario.
Hitler was to the left ... of Attila the Hun and basically no one else.
This is an idiotic take. Hitler was essentially the text-book definition of far right toxic nationalism. Any claim otherwise betrays the claimant as a person with little understanding of history or political philosophy.
There is some truth to this. But there is a pretty serious difference between the far left and the far right: The far left is marginalized even within the left-most of US parties, whereas the far right not only controls the right-most of US parties, they have control of the Presidency and the House of Representatives, near control of the Senate, and control of something like half of state legislatures and governorships. So, while the far left and the far right share some similarities in terms of where their extremism would take the country, the risk posed by the far right is FAR, FAR greater than the risk posed by the far left.
The UK doesn't have Single Payer. They have Socialized medicine - doctors are public employees, and the government runs the whole deal (supplemental care excepted)
How exactly are these people going to be able to afford alcohol and drugs if they can't afford to fund a hobby? Going to movies is a hell of a lot less expensive than going to a bar. Going fishing is a hell of a lot less expensive than going on a crack bender. Learning to paint is a lot less expensive than learning how to have a meth habit. Basically, your argument boils down to "Idle hands do the devil's work". Maybe the only thing keeping you from getting into massive amounts of trouble is having to go to work, but for far more people, the need to work gets in the way of doing the things they actually care about. Work isn't meaningful for the vast majority of people - it is something they do in order to be able to pay the bills. And you also assume that UBI would be the cause of lack of work, rather than a way to stabilize society as the need for unskilled laborers goes away. Even if the "work keeps people out of trouble" argument were to have any merit, it doesn't address the fact that the work is going away. The whole point of automation is to make it so employers don't have to pay for low-level work. If they're not interested in paying low-level workers to do work for them, they're not going to have any interest in paying taxes to pay low level workers to do busy work. Really, I don't see anything in your argument that doesn't come from the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
If that is your takeaway from his comment, you might want to spend some of you hard work and sacrifice on learning to read for comprehension.