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I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

mcsweeneys.net

111–120 of 452 posts

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#111
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what could have happened in Dublin to use up loads of the available housing? Does anyone know?

Years and years of insufficient building, combined with zoning rules that discourage apartment buildings. EDIT: It's fascinating that I'm downvoted for this. I wonder if the voters also live in Dublin?

With most housing things, people like to blame everything else except for supply restrictions, you can also see this in the other replies to the comment you replied to. It's way easier to blame ghosts than it is for any politician to piss off the homeowner constituency.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#113
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what could have happened in Dublin to use up loads of the available housing? Does anyone know?

I was told by a local while living there a major factor was Google and Meta (and others) buying out entire buildings to house their staff

... because after Ireland agreed to implement the OECD minimum corporate tax rate (15%) same as everyone else, Ireland just didn't do as agreed, came up with some excuse (I would tell you which excuse, but they keep retroactively changing it), the prime minister explained in at least 5 extensive speeches how fabulous, fantastic and great he was for implementing it, and kept it at 12.5%. Then the minister of finance signed up to another minimum tax initiative in 2023 (the "EU Minimum Tax Directive"), in trade for EU money. In this they agreed to retroactively impose EU taxes up to 15% on all companies (oh and no deductions allowed to get it below 15%), and pay most of that money to the EU instead.

... which Ireland proceeded not to do. Then the new prime minister went onto TV declaring what a great success all this was for Ireland (... while ignoring that this is literally stealing money from other EU countries), and how they intend to continue this and were putting some of the money into a new "Irish" sovereign wealth fund (isif.ie) that has since used the money to hire the zero-experience-and-suspiciously-young-for-such-positions-but-totally-awesome investement team [2] composed of members of his own party that have been tasked with investing in Irish x business (please replace x with "the taoseach's new business" when making investment decisions and leave it out when publishing in the paper)

For unknown reasons, there is nothing on the isif.ie site about what they effectively do: steal money from EU hospitals, schools, pensions ... to personally enrich large US companies, and of course themselves. This is also missing from the government speeches on how fantastic they are.

But do not worry. Meanwhile in Brussels and Strasbourg, the requisition for a meeting about the approval of the color of the bikeshed (so called because when you call the place where you park your armoured Audi A9 motorcade a bikeshed chances of reelection go up dramatically. It IS, of course, a garage that was built where a park with a playground used to be) where then the request for the beginning of the process to requisition a meeting room to discuss who will make the agenda for discussing a meeting room for the actual issue is making great progress!

[1] https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-finance/press-releases/m...

[2] https://isif.ie/about/meet-the-team

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#114

I know next to nothing about the US but France has 3 million unoccupied housings. https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/7727384

How did that happen? People buy houses and then not live there like Canada? Or there is not enough people? Can I move to france and live for free pls

You won't "live for free" as France has quite a high tax rate. But if you have any valuable skill and are open to the culture you can certainly live a good life there.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#115
post #72
post #7

> I’m the kind of person who contributes to society by starting companies that leverage technology to build smart tea kettles that brew themselves while you sleep at night. I’m a fucking innovator. Is there a reason that the press is always making scapegoats out of tech nerds? The vast majority of people are not employed in tech, and are part of the same society and have very similar self interests. Truly tired of ev…

Follow-up: All these replies missed my point. I’m not saying tech is blameless, rather that the press constantly criticizes tech for both doing too much and doing nothing and not fixing society. I would argue that this is toxic and ignores the agency of literally all other professions/people. Further, to ignore the housing/etc lobbying by basically everyone else outside of tech and make it seem like SV giants control…

> rather that the press constantly criticizes tech

Clearly we're consuming different types of media, because on my estimation tech gets let off fairly light relative to the damage we cause.

As practitioners, we're not entitled to get angry about being criticised for the damage we cause at least until we've stopped it.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that has more to do with the summer gypsies than an endemic homeless problem.

You realize that's a slur, right?

Really, you wanna police speech on HN? What priggishness. smh As long as the gypsies in Slovakia call themselves thus, you have no moral leg to stand on.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#118
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dilemma is you can’t make new housing cheap because if the price falls too much it becomes unprofitable to build and you don’t get new supply. My city is currently facing this where the interest rate hikes, build tax hikes and falling prices have created a perfect storm of vastly reduced housing starts.

>if the price falls too much it becomes unprofitable to build and you don’t get new supply This is saying "building is expensive because building is expensive". Why is it expensive and how do we address it to make it cheaper?

Undocumented construction workers and/or shoddy building materials are the traditional methods.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to see how this would work. Would this be single family homes only? Duplexes and triplexes? Apartments/condos?

It doesn't matter, any residential property.

If I build a 40-unit apartment building (provides housing for 36 families on average), am I taxed as if that’s 40 residential properties? Do we want to use tax policy to punish this construction?

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#120
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that's a slur, right?

Really, you wanna police speech on HN? What priggishness. smh As long as the gypsies in Slovakia call themselves thus, you have no moral leg to stand on.

> As long as the gypsies in Slovakia call themselves thus

As is the case with the n-word.

I'm not policing anything (obviously, since I'm not in any position of authority) - I am however pointing it out since I've come across people that truly didn't know.

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