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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

#461

Post by ryandrake »

jhonof wrote: post #427
phil21 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have total opposite experiences from renting most of my life. I can't think of a mom and pop landlord I had a poor experience with. Financial incentives generally aligned fairly well for me. I was an extremely low-maintenance tenant, only calling for major repairs like mechanicals or outright dead appliances. I handled all basic maintenance and minor wear and tear myself at every property I rented from a small time…

I (and most of the people I know), have had the opposite experience as you. Essentially everyone I know has moved into corp landlord situations because the downside risk is a lot lower and there is a paper trail if you need to dispute anything. I have like a 50% hit rate on mom and pop landlords being awful, I can give three examples off the top of my head: 1. New landlords bought a place I was living in and wanted t…

I think all we are learning from this thread is that there is a non-trivial number of tenants who are terrible and there is a non-trivial number of landlords who are terrible. The activity of renting a home is fraught with risk that your counterparty is terrible. The two parties' financial interests are often opposed, and state and local law tends to incentivize at least one and sometimes both parties towards being terrible.

I would never want to be a renter again, and I also have no interest in becoming a landlord.

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

#462

Post by robertlagrant »

anon7000 wrote: post #245
tsimionescu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where exactly did you get the idea that Kamala was running on this? Where was she advocating for, say, Medicare for all? Or fighting vested interests by running on campaign finance reform, to get money out of politics? She was running on an abstract, classical centrist non-program of "we've done great under Biden and we're going to keep doing the same". That is the exact opposite of what GP was suggesting.

She wasn’t running on an abstract program, people just weren’t paying fucking attention. For just one example: https://www.kamalaharris.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Poli...

That's still pretty abstract. "Everyone wins" is not a concrete proposal. Also, while I'm not one, I think some American voters noticed that the problems that appeared (or appeared to appear) 2020-2024 happened while she was the VP.

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

#463

Post by [deleted] »

marcellus23 wrote: post #452
mrguyorama wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you look up her platform at all? Or do you insist this because it wasn't spoon fed to you? There was a platform document pretty early on in her campaign. Meanwhile Trump in 2020 did not have a platform at all and yet the voters didn't give a shit.

Platform documents don't win elections.

[deleted]

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

#464

Post by some_random »

CivBase wrote: post #201
knowknow wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing that this gets upvoted while it is completely uninformed about what liberal politicians actually run on. This is what the Kamala campaign ran on, it didn’t work. People love getting tangled on social issues as it’s the most provocative. This conception that most people actually care about rational policies is false and has been false for at least the past decade.

Is that what she ran on? My perception was that she ran on "more of the same but also different... nevermind, look at all these celebrities telling you to vote for me!" and something vague about protecting women's rights. It's almost like you need more than a couple months to run a serious presidential campaign. Despite being the VP for 4 years, most people didn't know what to expect from her. Almost nobody was enthu…

One of her campaign promises was to tax unrealized gains at 25%, it was definitely more than just status quo.

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

#465

Post by ShrimpHawk »

MostlyStable wrote: post #456
silverlake wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a great podcast that delves into the Big Dig. It was an exceedingly difficult giant construction project. The original cost estimate was a made up number for political expediency. They lied knowing once they dug a big hole the sunk-cost fallacy would pull them over the finish line.

>lied knowing once they dug a big hold the sunk-cost fallacy would pull them over the finish line. That's essentially what the CA high speed rail folks did. It remains to be seen if it ends up working out for them.

[flagged]

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

#466

Post by Bhilai »

hayst4ck wrote: post #216
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #4

Instead of getting tangled up in social issues, liberal politicians should be prioritizing housing, infrastructure and government services supporting people's economic activity of all kinds. Delivering better lives for people, and having the courage to stand up to vested interests, from house owners to corporations, would create a huge and lasting political win across a broad section of the electorate.

Democrats are largely controlled opposition. If you ask where democratic power comes from, it comes from campaign donations by America's richest and most powerful people. Bloomberg ran for president under their banner, think about that. At minimum it communicates that the democratic platform is compatible with oligarchs. How are they supposed to wrangle corporate power, when that is exactly where their power comes fr…

> How are they supposed to wrangle corporate power, when that is exactly where their power comes from?

I chuckled at this since Trump himself and entire squad of people he has surrounded himself with are the literal definition of "elites" and "corporate power."

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

#467

Post by Bhilai »

I have been hearing about the idea of Abundance a bit and it appeals to me more than tearing down (DOGE) philosophy. I dont buy the Republican argument of tearing everything down because government doesn't work. At the state level Republicans are doing exactly the opposite and so its hypocritical for them to claim that while they consolidate all kinds of power, expand government and do things quite opposite to what they stand for including the principles of individual freedom.

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

#468

Post by robertlagrant »

keepamovin wrote: post #363

I have a theory that echoes the surprising premise of the well known HN-famous article "The optimum amount of fraud is not zero" that states "The optimum amount of poverty, to governments, is not zero." It seems to me that if governments deliver too well for their citizens, if the citizens because too wealthy, if they are too well off, then they will begin to demand even more. This would cause problems for government…

> I have a theory that echoes the surprising premise of the well known HN-famous article "The optimum amount of fraud is not zero" that states "The optimum amount of poverty, to governments, is not zero."

> It seems to me that if governments deliver too well for their citizens, if the citizens because too wealthy, if they are too well off, then they will begin to demand even more.

The more fundamental question is: what is poverty? 100 years ago the answer would be very different to today. The definition of poverty itself is what keeps poverty alive, as it continues to increase to keep up with new products and services that are available.

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

#469

Post by morsecodist »

legitster wrote: post #46

I've grown a little bit more skeptical of what can realistically be achieved by the passive nature of YIMBY-ism. In Portland, they passed some radical new zoning laws a few years ago that allowed anyone, anywhere the ability to zone ADUs on their property. And the cost to get permits is almost nothing. I have lots of friends and family in the area with property. But not a single one has added an ADU. It seems like it…

I am a big fan of YIMBY-ism but I think your points here are fair. This is a controversial take among YIMBYs but I think the benefits of ADUs are oversold. Of course I am all for allowing them if that is all we can do but the idea of the ADU only exists because it is supposed to allow building more housing while preserving the overall "character" of single family neighborhoods. Subdividing a lot and building a new home is better in every way for both the homeowner and the resident of the eventual structure. ADUs seem like they could provide a lot of housing because it is a huge increase in what is theoretically allowed but it is not a huge increase in what people will realistically build in the United States in 2025 in single family neighborhoods. This is true for the reasons you state and also many other reasons because it is the opposite of economies of scale that typically brings costs down.

We have an answer to building more housing at a lower cost and it's apartment buildings. We need more apartment buildings. We don't need them everywhere, there will still be plenty of places with predominantly single family homes, but we need them in more places than they are today. They don't have to be big high rises but there needs to be a enough number of units in a single building to make projects pencil.

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

#470

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #230
leptons wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Harris graduated from Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law." So dumb.. she has a degree in law and was a very successful prosecutor. > "Harris was elected attorney general of California in 2010, becoming the first woman, African American, and South Asian American to hold the office in the state's history.[56] She took office on January 3, 2011, and was reelected in 2014.[…

Dan Quayle also had a law degree, but he was also dumb. And he passed the bar the first try, unlike Harris.

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