131–140 of 203 posts
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Cheap 30y fixed rate home loans are an American thing. The federal government subsidizes them.
> The federal government subsidizes them. Curious how does federal govt subsidize them?
Through the VA Loan, FHA Federal Home Loan, and USDA Rural Loan programs.
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> some people lean heavily on government intervention to solve their problems this lecture is better pointed at the naive.. look at system rules in place, benefiting "stall" politics and high tax on labor, local govt zoning, and access to capital projects. You explain to me how "Noah's Bagels" makes multi-hundred franchise with high-end remodelling, to sell bagels. A person "exercising personal initiative" goes out o…
Government is not able to fix the peoples' problems. Entrenched poverty and homelessness has been a problem in New York [3] and California for decades, but even though the same party has been in power for similar decades -- New York has been under single-party control since 1975 [1] and California since 1959 [2] -- the problems remain. There is no motivation to solve the peoples' problems, only "lectures pointed at t…
Neither of those claims are supported by those links (and even the control that actually is shown by those links may be misleading, in that it ignores things like “controlling all of the separately elected executive offices and having majorities in both houses of the legislature is insufficient to govern California since it takes a legislative supermajority to make tax changes that involve any increases, and, prior to 2014, to even pass an annual budget”.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The federal government subsidizes them. Curious how does federal govt subsidize them?
> Curious how does federal govt subsidize them? Through the VA Loan, FHA Federal Home Loan, and USDA Rural Loan programs.
> Cheap 30y fixed rate home loans are an American thing. The federal government subsidizes them.
This statement sounded like 3oy fixed rate is possible only because of fed govt. meaning if its wasn't for fed govt subsidies 30yr fixed rate wouldn't have been possible.
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Government is not able to fix the peoples' problems. Entrenched poverty and homelessness has been a problem in New York [3] and California for decades, but even though the same party has been in power for similar decades -- New York has been under single-party control since 1975 [1] and California since 1959 [2] -- the problems remain. There is no motivation to solve the peoples' problems, only "lectures pointed at t…
> New York has been under Democrat control since 1975 [1] and California since 1959 [2] - Neither of those claims are supported by those links (and even the control that actually is shown by those links may be misleading, in that it ignores things like “controlling all of the separately elected executive offices and having majorities in both houses of the legislature is insufficient to govern California since it take…
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How the f can you have such a big mortgage, with a variable interest rate, and sleep at night ? I'm french, and everyone I know has a fixed interest rate. dont know if it is mandatory, but God, I am so glad that my interest rate will never spike.
In 5 years you should have large portion of principal paid off so this would not matter. Average 30 year mortgage is paid off in 11 years.
In the beginning of the mortgage, the principal is higher, thus the interest portion is higher. In the first five years of a thirty year mortgage, a very small percentage goes towards the principal.
Assuming a thirty year fixed rate mortgage and a 7.5% interest rate, less than 15% of the mortgage payments in the first five years go to paying down the principal [1].
[1] https://www.bankrate.com/mortgages/amortization-calculator/
Actually the biggest blow was not the energy costs, but the interest rates. They went from 1-2% now at 4-5, even 6% for real-estate ( new building and old ) while the prices are still at last year level. For other types of financing, I had a "good" offer which went to 12% interest. I felt like in a 3rd world country. With such expensive money, nothing will be done. The construction economy is really going dow from mi…
Most countries raised interest rates to the same level but they are not in recessesion. I don't know what does it says about Germany's economy... At least in Canada I believe the recession was averted by increasing immigration.
We need new terminology to distinguish between macroeconomic recessions and living standard recessions. Traditionally, those two things are more or less intertwined, so the term "recession" carries connotations of both. With the steady increase of economic inequality, the link between the two meanings becomes less and less firm. The median living standard in Germany has been in free fall for 20 years. By that criteri…
> The median living standard in Germany has been in free fall for 20 years.
Is that a qualitative assessment or a quantitative assessment?
If the later, what metric do you use?
China is outcompeting Germany as a manufacturer of high value goods, particularly cars [1][2]. Last year it overtook Germany as the second biggest car exporter. In the first three months of this year, China has surpassed Japan to become the world's top car exporter for the first time. This is due to its strength in EVs (while Germany's strength is in ICEs). Volkswagen holds a 2% share of the Chinese EV market while t…
Not sure about Germany, but in my country of 120mln people I don't see many EVs, but I see a lot of Chinese ICE cars lately, those cars are good enough and with the latest cars price increase, a lot of people prefer them over the Japanese/US/EU manufactures
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What is about HackerNews and the obesession with the decision to remove Nuclear Power, which was only a minority component at it's peak, from the German energy mix, as somehow being the dominant factor in the entire German society and economy? A while back someone unironically described Germany's nuclear power policy as "the single most catastrophic decision ever made by any government in peacetime".
There is a good deal of misinformation, astro turfing, and I think also nerdy love for fancy toys. And there is also the problematic trend of the right wing to demonize environment- and green politics. It seems it has reached a level of conspiracy theories now.
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What is about HackerNews and the obesession with the decision to remove Nuclear Power, which was only a minority component at it's peak, from the German energy mix, as somehow being the dominant factor in the entire German society and economy? A while back someone unironically described Germany's nuclear power policy as "the single most catastrophic decision ever made by any government in peacetime".
> A while back someone unironically described Germany's nuclear power policy as "the single most catastrophic decision ever made by any government in peacetime". German here. Accurate description if you ask me. It's one of the dumbest and most irrational decisions ever made in energy politics. It's completely inexcusable.