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The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain

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Re: The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain

#111

Post by thereisnospork »

ColanR wrote: post #87
thereisnospork wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the problem in SF that the wages have gone up hugely for a small subset of the population? Wages of the renting population is irrelevant to the 'fair economic price1' of an apartment. The equilibrium/fair cost of a latte doesn't go up because a few millionaires move into a neighborhood, it might go up because of a barista labor-shortage, a coffee bean-tariff, or other supply-side effect. You're not wrong that…

Well, it seems like you're making an assumption about the 'opportunity cost' of building/operating the apartment building, that it's grown far less than the wages. If your argument (that rental costs are too high) rests on that assumption, seems like it should be addressed and backed up. I am curious, though, about the artificial constraint you mentioned. Don't know what you're specifically referring to, would like t…

My analysis is a top-down one, In summary: rents in SF/Bay area are 3-4k for new construction 1 bedroom, which is say double Chicago or Houston, and much more even than the Bay Area 10 or 15 years ago. So it reasons that at the prices being paid, people should be able to build profitably. That they aren't implies they can't or have onerous restrictions.

For fun, take a (google maps) walk around SF or downtown Oakland and count the single-family homes, parking lots, and vacant lots that, at least mechanically, could easily be turned into very profitable apartments - yet aren't.

> I am curious, though, about the artificial constraint you mentioned. Don't know what you're specifically referring to, would like to know more.

Restrictive zoning, planning commissions, NIMBYs, activist groups (historical societies, environmental groups,), onerous and vague regulations1 (that can be easily challenged in court.) for a few examples. All serve to both make development costs increase and project success uncertain.

1 e.g. Regulations should exist that require buildings to be earthquake safe (environmentally friendly, etc.), but said regulations should also provide concrete metrics to define 'earthquake safe' otherwise nothing stops lawsuits alleging a failure to properly design a building to be earthquake safe -- which costs a lot of money and time.

Re: The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain

#112

Post by unmole »

sremani wrote: post #42

The one party that seems to go unscathed or are even in power positions are the princes that chose to ally with the British to retain their kingdoms. The Last Nizam went to become an MP for a long time. His violent Razakar militia morphed into Political party and wins every Parliamentary election in Hyderabad. The Scindias of Gwalior are power players in both the INC and BJP. There are numerous other royal descendant…

> The Last Nizam went to become an MP for a long time.

Osman Ali Khan was briefly the titular head of post-accession Hyderabad but was never an MP.

> His violent Razakar militia morphed into Political party and wins every Parliamentary election in Hyderabad.

MIM as a political entity predates the Razakars. And I'd say the present day AIMIM has as much in common with it's predecessor as the Congress has with it's pre-independce avatar, which is not much.

Re: The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain

#113

Post by ColanR »

thereisnospork wrote: post #111
ColanR wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it seems like you're making an assumption about the 'opportunity cost' of building/operating the apartment building, that it's grown far less than the wages. If your argument (that rental costs are too high) rests on that assumption, seems like it should be addressed and backed up. I am curious, though, about the artificial constraint you mentioned. Don't know what you're specifically referring to, would like t…

My analysis is a top-down one, In summary: rents in SF/Bay area are 3-4k for new construction 1 bedroom, which is say double Chicago or Houston, and much more even than the Bay Area 10 or 15 years ago. So it reasons that at the prices being paid, people should be able to build profitably. That they aren't implies they can't or have onerous restrictions. For fun, take a (google maps) walk around SF or downtown Oakland…

Well, I don't disagree with either of those points. :) Thanks for the elucidation.

Re: The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain

#114

Post by [deleted] »

sullyj3 wrote: post #104
thereisnospork wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the problem in SF that the wages have gone up hugely for a small subset of the population? Wages of the renting population is irrelevant to the 'fair economic price1' of an apartment. The equilibrium/fair cost of a latte doesn't go up because a few millionaires move into a neighborhood, it might go up because of a barista labor-shortage, a coffee bean-tariff, or other supply-side effect. You're not wrong that…

There's no such thing as a "fair price". There's just what people are or aren't willing to pay.

[deleted]

Re: The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain

#116

Post by SJetKaran »

earthicus wrote: post #40

Here's an interesting article which gives some response to the accusations made of Churchill's actions during the Bengal famine. It's short and well worth reading, although it clearly is papering over Churchill's racism. https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/in-the-media/churchil...

https://xi.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/267rzg/what_e...

> Churchill certainly did not engineer the famine in Bengal, but he was ultimately responsible for the lack of a relief effort for it.

https://xi.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6zi5fx/was_ch...

> It is hard to say where British incompetence, obsession with the war effort, and active cruelty begin and end. My read of the evidence is that official rice production statistics were wrong, and the British let millions of people in Bengal die because the war was more important, but there's a lot of debate about what actually happened.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/83oijk/was_c...

Re: The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain

#117

Post by scarejunba »

sullyj3 wrote: post #104
thereisnospork wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the problem in SF that the wages have gone up hugely for a small subset of the population? Wages of the renting population is irrelevant to the 'fair economic price1' of an apartment. The equilibrium/fair cost of a latte doesn't go up because a few millionaires move into a neighborhood, it might go up because of a barista labor-shortage, a coffee bean-tariff, or other supply-side effect. You're not wrong that…

There's no such thing as a "fair price". There's just what people are or aren't willing to pay.

For others reading, the appropriate concepts are economic rent and rent seeking. The model espoused above (what people will pay) captures too few behaviours to be useful on its own in this situation. Certainly, the question of whether property taxes should be capped and whether governments should allow more buildings to be built requires tools beyond “the value is the current bid price”.

Re: The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain

#118

Post by Fins »

pessimizer wrote: post #81
therealforsen wrote: post #66

Turns out when you save the world from Hitler, you don't have to be a paragon.

Whenever I say that about Stalin, people get mad at me.

Maybe because it is a) wrong about Stalin, and b) Staling killed far more people than Hitler, Churchill, and Ted Bundy combined?

Re: The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain

#119

Post by ColanR »

claudiawerner wrote: post #97
ColanR wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're advocating for the landlord to lose ownership of their property? If so, question of my own. The landlord worked and spent resources (time, money) to increase his assets (develop the property). You, at your job, worked and spent resources (time, etc.) to increase your assets (e.g. size of your bank account). Do you think you should have indefinite ownership of your bank accou…

A key idea here is the distinction between what many consider to be personal property (one's toothbrush and probably bank account and house) and private property, which is used to the ends of profit or production otherwise, in older terms, production of surplus value. Land is an interesting case that cannot be compared to bank accounts also because it's a finite natural resource, in some sense still only given only b…

Interesting source. I should read the book in its entirety. And yet, in applying Proudhon's above paragraphs here, I think you've overstated your case.

"prohibit[ion] from walking in the highways, from resting in the fields, from taking shelter in caves, from lighting fires, from picking berries, from gathering herbs and boiling them in a bit of baked clay" is a much broader principle and restriction than what is at stake here. I don't mind discussing it, but I think we should be clear. To conflate the government-protected right of a landlord to evict trespassers from privately owned property, with the government prohibiting anyone from walking down a road (modern translation of 'highway') or camping in (e.g.) a national forest, is disingenuous.

Even if I were to grant the above point, the second does not follow. Appropriation is here a question of wholesale restriction; Proudhon says that because a naturally provided necessity is scarce, it must be made absolutely free of restriction. (aside: even if that were just, it would be impossible to maintain, in the case of land, due to bad actors.) Yet we are not dealing with a dichotomy here, as Proudhon implies: what we currently experience, at least in the US, is accommodation made by the government for both ends of the economic spectrum. If you are sufficiently rich, you can afford private housing. If you are not, you have government-sponsored public housing. If you are not eligible, there are homeless shelters. If there isn't room there, the national parks are available for camping.

I don't argue that the latter options are preferable, but they answer the objection raised by your source. In short, because the problem raised by P. is not present, the argument justified by that problem is not valid.

Re: The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain

#120

Post by Aloha »

pessimizer wrote: post #81
therealforsen wrote: post #66

Turns out when you save the world from Hitler, you don't have to be a paragon.

Whenever I say that about Stalin, people get mad at me.

I put Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt on much the same plane - their wartime performance largely overcomes their respecting failings as peacetime leaders.
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