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

inpractice.yimbyaction.org

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

#501

Post by mrguyorama »

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.

I do agree, but I am so sick and tired of people who insist "Her platform was X" when what they actually mean is "I made no attempt to find out what they offered and instead when Fox News or Twitter or 4chan told me that she wanted to ban being a cis white male I just took that at face value and made no attempt to find out if this was even remotely close to reality, and just started repeating that claim unprompted to other people instead"

I'm so sick of people saying "I have curated an information diet that explicitly excludes anything from a democrat or a liberal or anyone who is even kind of empathetic to their causes and beliefs, but I'm angry that I didn't hear about all the things democrats claimed they were offering" as if they didn't fucking do this to themselves?

Like, at any point, google "Harris platform" and it would have been first link. Ballotpedia has been around for a decade and makes this utterly trivial, even in local elections.

Americans ignore anything a democrat says, while taking blatant lies from a second trump admin at face value. What the actual fuck is the democrat party supposed to do about that? They have no editorial control over Fox News, and certainly don't have any power in Musk's Twitter

"The democrats didn't do good outreach" say people who consistently turn off and ignore any media that even repeats a democrat campaign promise, and have scientifically demonstrated that they will INHERENTLY distrust anything coming from someone with a (D).

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

#502

Post by worik »

throw4847285 wrote: post #199
PaulHoule wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who owns a second house on a farm that has two rental units in it, I’m skeptical of attempts to expand ‘tenant rights’ in New York. I had a tenant who decided that he did not have to pay the rent, it took months of trying to reason with him, we hired a lawyer and went through the process which took several months, in the end the tenant stayed on a few months past what would have been the eviction date but…

I've been a renter since I was born, and I have rented from both mom and pop landlords and bigger corporations, and I can tell you that whether or not the "small landlords" were good people or not, our financial interests were diametrically opposed. If I did not live in cities with good tenant protections, there would be no incentive whatsoever for the people who owned the place where I lived from providing basic ser…

This.

In New Zealand the only accessible way for the moderately wealthy to save is property (a failed financial system)

So there is a proliferation of "mum and dad" landlords who have huge political power, two "investment" properties, and they make life hell and insecure for renters

I rented until I was in my forties, and that is what it was like. They are not all bad, but many cannot believe that their tennents own their home, if not the property it is in. A landlord can not "drop by" for any reason, legally, but most importantly, morally

Being a landlord should be a business. Nobody should have tenants in an "investment" property. It is a conflict of interest and a power imbalance that immiserates the tenants

On top of that the poorest 60% are handing over the lion's share of their income to the richest 15%

So much needs to change....

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

#503

Post by worik »

baskinator wrote: post #320
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'd love to rent out my current home but I hear horror stories of how hard it is to evict non paying tenants in my town. The big players are diversified and can eat the cost but an owner landlord with one property can be bankrupted by a bad tenant. It's a regulatory moat as much as it is tenant protections.

> I'd love to rent out my current home

Sell it

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

#504

Post by worik »

robertlagrant wrote: post #458
hylaride wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in strong tenants rights - IF you pay your rent on time and are not damaging property or otherwise misbehaving. If you stop paying, you should be out within 60 days that your security deposit should cover. There should be mechanisms where through a process tenants can legally withhold rent if basic repairs or maintenance aren't being done. If a landlord can't or won't do it, they shouldn't be a landlord. Ev…

> I have mixed feelings around rent controls, though. In a healthy, competitive market they should be unnecessary over the long term, but if cities are going to restrict housing construction... They're a (terrible-outcome-causing) band aid over a combination of too many people and not enough construction.

Rent controls work in many cities around the world

A simple cap on rent does not work, true. But comprehensive policies to keep rent down and local people housed, can work

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

#505

Post by BrenBarn »

steveBK123 wrote: post #497
BrenBarn wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As soon as you get into "different laws apply to different people" you run into problems. But when you don't do that, you run into different problems, which is what we have run into already.

The reflex to make complex laws/tax structures more complex usually accrues benefits to the bigger players more able to parse, navigate and arbitrage those structures. Every time US tax code gets more complicated, it usually doesn't help the bottom 50%.

That's true to an extent, and overall I agree that things should be simplified, but I think there's a special case when the "complication" is something like "if you are bigger and more able to navigate this, you must therefore pay more". Create a feedback loop where increasing resources automatically result in higher fees and fines.

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

#506

Post by cake_robot »

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…

Maybe it's not the bulk of the cost but site development fees for a new ADU in Portland are like $40k, to say nothing of the cost of actually getting approval checked off.

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

#507

Post by baskinator »

worik wrote: post #503
baskinator wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to rent out my current home but I hear horror stories of how hard it is to evict non paying tenants in my town. The big players are diversified and can eat the cost but an owner landlord with one property can be bankrupted by a bad tenant. It's a regulatory moat as much as it is tenant protections.

> I'd love to rent out my current home Sell it

It would be nice to have some cash flow positive investment income. The mortgage payment is low compared to the rent it would bring in.

I'll probably end up selling it. Then it will get torn down and replaced with 4-6 units at US $800k+ each. It's hard to walk away from $4.8 million in development potential. I would be lucky to clear $900k selling it.

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

#508

Post by biophysboy »

huvarda wrote: post #437
biophysboy wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The basic thesis is that big government is bad when the gears are gummed by excessive participation/procedure, but good when it provides fast grants to pressing issues.

wouldnt the fastest possible grant be no requirement for grant at all?

generally you use grants when there isn't money

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

#509

Post by hayst4ck »

noisy_boy wrote: post #438
hayst4ck wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Then you get sad, because you realize there is no way to get actual representation for the issues you care about other than to run yourself, but if you ran explicitly to challenge those in power, those in power would fund your opposition. So then you realize that it's hard to get into power without expressing loyalty to those who grant power, and then you have a cogent explanation for why things are the way they ar…

Can you say Bernie is in power? I think he proves my point, especially in regards to the presidential primaries, or maybe that's the point you're making.

He was giving a speech to some super privileged college kids not too long ago when one of them asked something like "why should we work against a system that benefits us" and he said change likely isn't going to come from the government/rich kids so he's working on organizing unions because that's where meaningful change will come from.

Solidarity/Collective bargaining is how you challenge power.

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

#510

Post by hayst4ck »

Bhilai wrote: post #466
hayst4ck wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Corporate power funds both of them, but Trump offered a better deal (no law to restrict them).

So democrats find themselves abandoned and powerless at the most important time to have power -- the ability to do something when someone does something you don't like and says "what are you going to do about it?"

The worst part is how much this parallels 1930's German history.

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