61–70 of 167 posts
He did this because he was struggling with personal debt and his new wife had expensive taste.
Feels like there should be a lesson in there somewhere.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Housing isn't a free market; it's heavily regulated, subsidized, and politicized.
Houses are also not fungible. If people have a reason to live in a particular area (e.g., work, jurisdictional issues), and housing isn't regulated, you get places like Kowloon: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/a/a7/...
In Ben Macintyre’s The Spy and The Traitor he goes into detail on Aldrich Ames, a double crossing CIA agent who sold out US soviet assets to the Soviets (which led to 10 being executed) in exchange for Soviet cash. I think Macintyre called it one of the largest betrayals in US history. He did this because he was struggling with personal debt and his new wife had expensive taste. Feels like there should be a lesson in…
The broader problem is lack of housing that can be afforded by the non-wealthy, which is caused in significant part by zoning laws. If more housing was available, the increased supply would better match the demand.
That is broader problem to solve, not taking account any civil infrastructure the houses will be bought by corporate rent company and renters will be charged "fair price" - pretty same as now (not long ago the was article with discussion about rent price fixing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575803 )
I'm floored they don't get a military-style cost-of-living-allowance. Similar situation of being assigned to live in arbitrary places, but (pending short term problems caused by slower or inaccurate COLA adjustments than rent changes) it's not a problem for US military members, since their pay varies by location, specifically to avoid the problem the article highlights.
The GS schedule has location adjustments. They don't always keep up with the actual cost of living in a location. The NYC area means there's a 37% boost to pay, but NYC is not just 37% more expensive to live in than baseline.
It’s a typical gov’t employment issue. It’s also why so many military bases and gov’t centers (except for HQ type areas) tend to be in the middle of nowhere - the folks who man them can actually afford to live there.
It’s also a huge kickback to Congress/house members (especially conservative ones), since military tends to vote conservative, and those areas also end up quite dependent on military/gov’t funding (Military Town, or industry town).
So they can lock in votes by keeping relatively well paid jobs/income in areas dependent on them doing so, and those people will be relatively happy because compared to other options they do pretty well. Most officers end up owning multiple homes (and renting them out) as they move around the country, for instance. Not sure about now, but even E5s can end up with a house in many of these places, and that’s only like $42k/yr.
The ones that get screwed are the ones low in the totem pole who end up in high COL areas, but those folks are usually pretty ambitious (hence why they are near the HQ/exciting area) and low overhead.
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is broader problem to solve, not taking account any civil infrastructure the houses will be bought by corporate rent company and renters will be charged "fair price" - pretty same as now (not long ago the was article with discussion about rent price fixing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575803 )
The root cause is the state or local govt preventing new housing. If there were enough housing, rent fixing wouldn't even make a dent.
The broader problem is lack of housing that can be afforded by the non-wealthy, which is caused in significant part by zoning laws. If more housing was available, the increased supply would better match the demand.
That is broader problem to solve, not taking account any civil infrastructure the houses will be bought by corporate rent company and renters will be charged "fair price" - pretty same as now (not long ago the was article with discussion about rent price fixing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575803 )
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s true for all government employees and elected officials. For Congress specifically, I’m in favor of raising salaries to $1M/year while simultaneously taking a zero tolerance policy on all lobbyist funded excursions. That’ll attract plenty of honest folks as the base salary would be more than enough.
Yes, but the FBI contains part of the US government's attempts to counter spies and infiltrators, and my understanding is that it's seen as especially important that those people aren't easily bribable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I knew people making 100K in California spending up to 60% of their income on housing. Housing prices are destroying everything.
What about the free enterprise????