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Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

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Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#351

Post by throwaway2037 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #124
singpolyma3 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ideal if you're a landlord, but hell if you're a tenant.

The courts should be speedy at forcing landlords to rectify problems just as the courts should be speedy at forcing out squatters. There is no reason either should take 6 months+ to litigate (real world example). I even had an email from the tenant stating they would start paying again if we would reduce the rent. No damage, no question about the facts, just someone who knew that worst case scenario is 6 months free…

    > The courts should be speedy at forcing landlords to rectify problems just as the courts should be speedy at forcing out squatters.
This raises an interesting point. In the United States, in the last 30 years, many states have introduced a voluntary "family court" system. If both sides opt-in during divorce proceedings, then the process can be much faster, cheaper, and lower friction. What if there was something similar for renters and landlords? I think it is worth a try.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#352

Post by int_19h »

consteval wrote: post #241
rayiner wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet "tangled up in social issues" remains a popular misconception. Why? It’s not a “misconception.” Democrats choose to spend their political capital changing the status quo on social issues. For example, Americans overwhelmingly oppose affirmative action: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/16/americans... Affirmative action was banned in California in 1996. Which party tried to repeal the ban in 2020?…

I hardly think most (any?) democrats or their constituents are talking about affirmative action in this day and age. It’s pretty shocking that this extremely fringe issue is the only thing you can find to support the narrative that dems are “spearheading” radical social change. Whats actually happening is that conservative fear monger about random various minority groups, as they have for all of time, and then enact…

> I hardly think most (any?) democrats or their constituents are talking about affirmative action in this day and age.

In my state - WA - there's a prohibition on affirmative action written into the constitution (originally passed in a referendum in the 90s). Democrats have been talking of repealing or otherwise constraining it for ages, and in 2019, it culminated in another referendum:

https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Initiative_1000,_Affirmat...

You can see who supported it in the linked article. It was an indirect initiative so it went to the legislature first, which voted it in as law along party lines. A veto referendum was then held, in which it was repealed:

https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Referendum_88,_Vote_on_I-...

Again, you can look at the article for details on who supported and opposed it.

I can assure you that many people do remember this whole brouhaha and the names associated with it, at least the most prominent ones (like the Dem governor).

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#353

Post by Braxton1980 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #340
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also seen this happen in NYS. Tenants do the craziest shit (selling showers to crackheads and discovering a near thousand dollar water bill was one of the tamer tales), fight tooth and nail to stay, and leave the place uninhabitable when they finally are forced to go. Unfortunately the local mom and pop landlords get wrecked by this while only the big corporate landlords have the resources and scale to weather t…

The key thing would be the government finally go and improve the situation around mental health care accessibility and a proper social safety net. People don't fall for drugs on their own - the utter, utter majority fall for drugs to self-medicate for whatever crisis they're facing. Be it perspectivelessness, losing a family member or one's job - across the Western world, governments have completely given up supporti…

>The key thing would be the government finally go and improve the situation around mental health care accessibility and a proper social safety net.

You're right but we are so far from this now I can't imagine it being possible until one or two full generations of people die out and we start teaching empathy

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#354

Post by Braxton1980 »

ReptileMan wrote: post #263
ethersteeds wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this completely elides the point the gp was making about the edge cases being the hardest part. As siblings have pointed out, even establishing "no damage to the property beyond normal wear and tear" is frequently contentious and not self-evident. Rights (and courts) exist precisely because parties frequently represent the facts of a situation to their maximal benefit. Also, while reasonable people can agree…

It works wonders for utilities and telcos. You stop paying your bills - your phone is dead, you have no internet and electricity in X days after skipping an invoice. Why should be leasing real estate any different?

Because they don't cut those off right away, especially electricity.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#355

Post by schnitzelstoat »

ReptileMan wrote: post #81
e40 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* There's a general fear of being a landlord. Tenants have a lot of legal rights, and the risk of inviting someone onto your property who could start squatting or doing drugs and not being able to evict them is beyond the pale for most families.* This is a big problem in a lot of places. It's really hard for cities to strike a good balance between renters and owners, and I think few do it well. Especially for the ed…

The balance simple - renters have total rights as long as they pay on time and there is no damage on the property except normal wear and tear and 0 when when not paying. You as landlord can't say anything as long as the property is not damaged for the duration of the contract. You always renegotiate at market rates. There is no concept of squatting and evictions are fast. That's it. Works like a charm. No bullshits l…

I agree, but most of the tenants' rights and left-wing groups reject this.

They seem to want the landlord to take on the government's role to provide social housing and therefore you shouldn't be able to kick them out for non-payment, contracts should be very long (>5 years, or even indefinite), there should be rent control instead of market rates etc.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#356

Post by int_19h »

huijzer wrote: post #275
TulliusCicero wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that voters don't seem to actually reward parties for getting stuff done, or for basic good governance in general. Trump accomplished relatively little of his agenda in his first term, and tried to overthrow the government at the end, and people decided to reelect him four years later anyway.

> and people decided to reelect him four years later anyway. Underlying to your sentence seems to be the idea that “people” are dumb, which is also a widespread belief in some political circles. I think this idea is very unhelpful. Maybe some civilians are making bad decisions. Yes that’s probably true. But it’s still better than having some select few decide what is best for us. Politicians have to listen to and res…

> Maybe some civilians are making bad decisions. Yes that’s probably true. But it’s still better than having some select few decide what is best for us.

So then what do you call it when people make bad decisions that are specifically about putting the charismatic "select few" in charge to decide what's best for us? Cuz that's kinda what the 2024 Republican platform basically is...

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#357

Post by pjc50 »

veltas wrote: post #322

You don't want more immigrants, you want more skilled and young immigrants. This is an important calculation that's missing from public discourse, instead most people will say "yes immigrants" or "no immigrants" but the right policy is more nuanced than that. If you want to solve aging population and add to the economy then you can't just have unrestricted immigration.

It's been something like a century since the US had unrestricted immigration.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#358

Post by loglog »

ReptileMan wrote: post #81
e40 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* There's a general fear of being a landlord. Tenants have a lot of legal rights, and the risk of inviting someone onto your property who could start squatting or doing drugs and not being able to evict them is beyond the pale for most families.* This is a big problem in a lot of places. It's really hard for cities to strike a good balance between renters and owners, and I think few do it well. Especially for the ed…

The balance simple - renters have total rights as long as they pay on time and there is no damage on the property except normal wear and tear and 0 when when not paying. You as landlord can't say anything as long as the property is not damaged for the duration of the contract. You always renegotiate at market rates. There is no concept of squatting and evictions are fast. That's it. Works like a charm. No bullshits l…

"renegotiate at market rates" is extremely tenant-punishing, because the cost of moving for the tenant is much higher than the cost of finding a new tenant for a landlord. It becomes better if you remove the "renegotiate" part and couple the allowed rent increase to some index.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#359

Post by lwansbrough »

Strongly encourage anyone in this thread to read Abundance. It is required reading. It's basically a survey of many of the contributing factors to why your particular pet solution is likely naive. It is excellent context for anyone who wishes to theory craft solutions on internet forums.

There is so much going on with why we can't govern, it isn't as easy to distill into a single comment as many HN commentators would have you believe.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#360

Post by watwut »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #316
dragonwriter wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not talk about one of the civil rights that they openly oppose? They openly oppose black civil rights; that's what the war on “Woke"/”DEI” is about, its what the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act protections (also through the courts, but gets less attention than dismantling of abortion rights) is about, and there are many other aspects of it.

Being anti woke/DEI does not mean you oppose civil rights. Plenty of African Americans and other minorities dislike woke/DEI. They don’t want to be thought of as a diversity hire but still enjoy their rights to vote and use the same bathrooms as their white peers.

Republicans use "being anti woke" as a comfortable excuse to be anti women in general and anti minorities in general. They complain about diversity hires in institutions that have no such policy - just seeing a woman on good position makes them assume it was DEI.

There could theoretically be anti-DEI political party that is pro-equality, republicans are not that.

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