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Move fast, break things: A review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

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Re: Move fast, break things: A review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

#101

Post by HDThoreaun »

xnx wrote: post #54
davidw wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a specific hearing that I attended where exactly that dynamic played out https://bendyimby.com/2024/04/16/the-hearing-and-the-housing... A room full of angry, wealthy, older people who showed up at 11AM on a weekday to stop homes for people who doubtless earn less than they do. And in that case, they were successful, sadly.

I'm conflicted. Who should be allowed to say what gets built in an area: the neighbors, the neighborhood, the city, the county, the state, the federal government?

The actual answer is the state in the US. What it should be probably doesnt matter because its not changing anytime soon

Re: Move fast, break things: A review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

#102

Post by HDThoreaun »

tptacek wrote: post #58
nradov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a common misconception. The most active NIMBYs have lived in their homes for years and intend to die there. They don't intend to ever sell and aren't particularly concerned with property values per se . What they do care about are quality of life issues: noise, traffic, privacy, parking, crime, litter, etc. The more neighbors you have, the greater the risk that some of them will be antisocial assholes who let…

That may be true in some places, but in the Village of Oak Park, where I live, it's definitely not. Places like Oak Park --- wealthy inner-ring suburbs of major American cities --- are defined by their school systems. Those schools drive property taxes, which ratchet down affordability. Housing is dominated by SFZ lots, and the houses built on those lots are rational acquisitions only for families of school-aged chil…

I know you dont want to hear this but the other person you responded to is right. The problem here is that Illinois uses property taxes to fund schools when basically every other blue state uses a more equitable income tax based funding method. We need to vote for a fairer funding system.

Re: Move fast, break things: A review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

#103

Post by HDThoreaun »

velcrovan wrote: post #17

From another good review of the book: > “One of the personally amusing aspects of reading Abundance is that it kept reminding me of a two-hour discussion I had with Ezra Klein in 2019 about Medicare for All. […] In our discussion, Klein balked at making Medicare for All the centerpiece of a Democratic health care agenda because he thought it was not politically practical. […] At one point in the discussion, he asks h…

Abundance's main thesis isnt about policy at all, as the OPs author points out. Their main thesis is that democrats have lost the trust of the voters because they are too focused on process instead of results. Klein and co call for incremental policy change but even beyond that they call for a reorganization of the bureaucratic state which would require no policy change at all.

Re: Move fast, break things: A review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

#104

Post by HDThoreaun »

nradov wrote: post #61
velcrovan wrote: post #17

From another good review of the book: > “One of the personally amusing aspects of reading Abundance is that it kept reminding me of a two-hour discussion I had with Ezra Klein in 2019 about Medicare for All. […] In our discussion, Klein balked at making Medicare for All the centerpiece of a Democratic health care agenda because he thought it was not politically practical. […] At one point in the discussion, he asks h…

The focus on "Medicare for All" or single payer healthcare in general is so misguided. Commercial insurers are like the smallest problem in the whole messed up US healthcare system. Putting everyone on Medicare wouldn't solve any of the more fundamental problems. https://www.sensible-med.com/p/the-entire-healthcare-system-...

One of the most fundamental problems with the US healthcare system is the fee for service payment system. Another closely realted one is the abundance of bureaucrats and administrators. Obamacare created a pilot program to move medicare off fee for service and toward fee per patient, and m4a would likely expand that program. Combined with some sort of pharma reform and 3 of the biggest problems healthcare face could be solved. Then congress needed to expand residency funding and the next biggest problem(lack of physicians, they currently make 9% of healthcare spending in the US) would be easily solved as well.

Re: Move fast, break things: A review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

#105

Post by intended »

davidw wrote: post #14

I just started reading it, but the housing part of it is spot on, something I know very well from years of working to try and make my city and state's housing situation better. The effects of the housing shortage are very real and something that can absolutely be worked on at the local and state level. Not enough housing means: * Longer commutes, which means more CO2, less time with friends and family, more stress, a…

At the same time a recent NBER paper indicates that it’s not housing supply that’s causing house prices to rise, but geographic income levels.

My suspicion is that it’s a question of who has more control over asset classes and wealth.

Even in India, I see eye-wateringly expensive houses snapped up, with more being built. The same for london and any major city in the world.

It feels very much like the biggest participants in the economy, are the asset managers for yet richer people.

The economy feels like it’s retooling for the wealthy and above.

Re: Move fast, break things: A review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

#107

Post by ajross »

tgma wrote: post #25
ajross wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> basically advocating for and co-opting many of the core economic ideas of the current administration That seems laughable. Which policies specifically are you talking about? Trust me, no one would more like this to be true than I. But... good grief.

Feel free to act outraged. I am not going to further debate this charged topic. The authors are literally on every podcast trying to contrast themselves from various aspects of DOGE or deregulation and ideas that came before from Peter Thiel et al. That proves the point is not as far-fetched and crazy to debate, even if you disagree with the conclusion.

> Feel free to act outraged. I am not going to further debate this charged topic.

I'd genuinely prefer to engage on specifics. What Trump administration policies do you think Klein is co-opting?

Re: Move fast, break things: A review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

#108

Post by dragonwriter »

davidw wrote: post #67
xnx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm conflicted. Who should be allowed to say what gets built in an area: the neighbors, the neighborhood, the city, the county, the state, the federal government?

The property owner, unless what's being built is really smelly, loud, or dangerous. With perhaps some carve outs if people want to voluntarily have some kind of HOA type thing that isn't publicly enforced. I think this take on it is pretty good: https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines

> ith perhaps some carve outs if people want to voluntarily have some kind of HOA type thing that isn't publicly enforced.

HOA's entire point is to using leveraging property covenants to create viral contracts attached to property that leverage contract to create a basis or public enforcement, that's the hammer behind any of their private enforcement, without which they would have no effect. "Voluntary...HOA type thing" is an oxymoron.

Re: Move fast, break things: A review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

#109

Post by dragonwriter »

xnx wrote: post #97
davidw wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The property owner, unless what's being built is really smelly, loud, or dangerous. With perhaps some carve outs if people want to voluntarily have some kind of HOA type thing that isn't publicly enforced. I think this take on it is pretty good: https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines

I agree that a property owner should be able to do what they want as long as excess noise, smells, or shadow doesn't leave their property. I wonder if zoning rules aren't just another form of HOA that people voluntarily opt into by moving to specific cities.

> I wonder if zoning rules aren't just another form of HOA that people voluntarily opt into by moving to specific cities.

It's the other way around; HOA's are largely an outgrowth of the real estate industry stepping in to solve the problem of how racial discrimination in housing could be made formalized and still publicly enforced through the courts when explicit racial discrimination by local governments in racial zoning was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1917; starting with racial restrictions, other busybody terms started getting adding to property covenants.

Re: Move fast, break things: A review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

#110

Post by dralley »

tgma wrote: post #71
divan wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both advocate ... increasing economic growth Does anybody ever advocate economic decline?

I gave a concrete example to the affirmative to a different commenter, so strictly speaking, yes. Arguably many European politicians don't say this but advocate for policies whose immediate logical conclusion is stagnation or decreasing growth. One example to demonstrate the point is banning fossil fuels (not debating the merits of it, but to demonstrate the point). In fact, the writing of Abundance is implicitly ack…

You're making a fantastic argument for why your earlier accusation that Ezra is advocating "the core ideas of the current administration" is completely ludicrous.

All of MAGA's most core policies are fundamentally degrowth. Tariffs, cancelling the CHIPS act, cutting funding for medical research, pushing expensive fossil fuels like coal above cheaper renewables or even natural gas, pushing resource extraction and commodity manufacturing and agriculture at the expense of advanced manufacturing.

The outcome of all of those policies will be degrowth, even if Trump isn't using that rhetoric.

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