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No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

robkhenderson.com

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Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#331
post #249
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Globally the number of children born peaked in 2013-2017. We'll start seeing it once these people come of age.

That's interesting, and good, I suppose. I knew that the birth rate had peaked but I didn't know that the absolute number of births had peaked. According to https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-births-per-year the highest number of births was 146.05 million in 2012. (But the total number of births per year fell throughout the 1990s ... mainly because of the birth rate falling in China? ... before rising to th…

I always describe it as a range, as estimates differ and the true peak might have happened even outside it.

It's a historical milestone and I'm surprised there's so little awareness of it.

There will most likely never be this many people born in a year ever and we crossed this point without much fanfare.

Personally I think the predictions are overblown - as they assume that the generation "peak" will have 90% the children their parents had. Fertility rates in countries like Niger and Nigeria are already dropping at a faster rate than that and it's these places where the most people are currently born.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was telling my wife about the loss of religion and how that leaves many people without without purpose. Religion is often a precursor to the cultural norms we live, without even being aware of. Sunday is for resting in the west for example. To find a reason to keep living is very hard and may entail an acceptance that all is for nothing and being content with that. Many people cannot walk that path or have deep anx…

Pretty sure its the other way around. Religion co-ops practices that people enjoy into being part of them. Christianity is a great example with its adoption of pagan practices such as Christmas.

The birth of Christ was going to be celebrated with or without any pagan influence. It just so happened that it did.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first statement is flat-out wrong. The supporting citation does not actually support it, though it hints at how institutional housing ownership has contributed to housing price inflation. To wit: it explains how innovations during the GFC turned direct investment into an appealing proposition for investors. These investors helped to backstop housing values that would have fallen even further than they already ha…

Fannie Mae [1], a GSE, and the Federal Reserve [2] also provide data that confirms a housing shortage. I agree Zillow is potentially non biased, they are simply the most recent data point I've come across wrt to total shortage amount vs the slightly stale citations below. [1] https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives... [2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2020044pap... > The actua…

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Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if the investors are willing to warehouse units to keep prices high, rather than lower prices in order to sell. If prices of luxury units are high enough, you're talking a significant percentage of units that can just be held while investors still break even or profit. Why lock in a loss or low profit (and, in doing so, hurt the value of your other holdings)?

More supply is more supply. Eventually the strategy breaks.

I'll be happy to see when it does. We're not there. And, anyway, a break of that strategy probably means that inventory gets flooded to the point that you needn't have overbuilt at all.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#335
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society gives you plenty of goals to achieve. Do you really believe pursuing a relationship is the only real goal you can work toward?

It's a horrible goal, too. Programming is way better than (and mututally exclusive with) being in a relationship!

You can do both!

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Institutional housing ownership in the US is not a material contributor to housing price inflation [1]. With that said , we are approaching a housing shortage of +4.5M [2] units, and in concert with YieldStar's Backpage revenue maximization engine [3] (which is laundering landlord price fixing), renters are being squeezed (because where are you going to go if you can't afford to buy? you will pay, or you will be home…

YIMBY policies just end up with a small number of luxury condos being built. You need SHIMBY policies, social housing in my back yard.

Building more social housing is a noble goal, but attaching stuff like that to zoning approvals is a great way to ensure nothing gets built. Your pet cause might be housing for poor people, someone else's might be housing for LGBT you, undocumented migrants, or drug addicts. All of those are noble causes too, but all make housing less attractive for developers to build. Given that we're already not building enough housing, making it less attractive to build is the last thing we want.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think doctors should be forced to perform procedures they don’t want to perform?

At the very least the doctor should be required to refer the patient to a different doctor who is capable of performing it. This question is kind of similar to "Should pharmacists be able to deny birth control (or other medicine like vaccines) to people because of the pharmacist's personal religious belief?"

Except it’s not a question of the doctor’s personal religious belief or preference, but rather a question of professional judgment.

It is technically possible for a physician to prescribe methamphetamine or fentanyl. Many adults in the United States want to consume methamphetamine or fentanyl. (Sometimes both at the same time!) But it is very hard to find a physician who will write those prescriptions purely on the basis of “the patient asked for it”. Like it or not, some degree of paternalism is an inherent part of the practice of medicine.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#338

This article spells out the incentive structure that leads to low-status men underperforming. > Some of the jobs he can get don’t pay enough to give him the self-respect he feels he needs, and others require him to get along with unpleasant customers and coworkers, and to maintain a submissive attitude toward the boss. > The educated class decides cohabiting partnerships are just as valid and important as marriage. A…

but this is the nature of all employed work: "submissive attitude toward the boss." Even if you're the CEO of a major corporation, you still have a submissive attitude towards shareholders.

Subordination does not equate to submission, it's not really the same thing

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#339
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if the investors are willing to warehouse units to keep prices high, rather than lower prices in order to sell. If prices of luxury units are high enough, you're talking a significant percentage of units that can just be held while investors still break even or profit. Why lock in a loss or low profit (and, in doing so, hurt the value of your other holdings)?

>Not if the investors are willing to warehouse units to keep prices high, rather than lower prices in order to sell. Source this is happening? >Why lock in a loss or low profit (and, in doing so, hurt the value of your other holdings)? Because you have to pay upkeep on those units so they don't fall apart, and repay the bonds you raised to build those luxury condos in the first place?

>Source this is happening?

Here is a conservative think-tank using its existence as the premise for arguing against rent control: https://www.aei.org/op-eds/want-to-end-apartment-warehousing...

>Because you have to pay upkeep on those units so they don't fall apart, and repay the bonds you raised to build those luxury condos in the first place?

If you raise rates on the buyers that do exist, you can cover these expenses.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#340
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Maybe by total wealth. >I think wealth should be measured by how many hours at the median wage do you need to achieve a socially acceptable standard of living. That's a weird definition of "wealth". Wealth is generally understood to mean how much assets you have accumulated, not your free cash flow. What you're describing is properly referred to as discretionary income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_incom…

> Wealth is generally understood to mean how much assets you have accumulated ...by accountants. "Wealth" as used by most people is related to quality of life. It even shows up in the phrase "house poor" where maybe someone has great net assets but cannot live comfortable life due to the drain of the house. Wealth is not money.

"House poor" is an oxymoron. They have the option at any time to sell their house to get liquid. I can have ten gold bars and choose to live like a miser because I don't want to touch my gold, but everybody would call that ridiculous. Just as ridiculous are "house poor" who don't want to touch their real estate wealth. But we can't say that, because everybody reading this has relatives who are "house poor", and we all have to work together to keep up the lie.
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