EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 2546
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
KwarK
United States42017 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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KwarK
United States42017 Posts
On November 21 2015 01:50 Plansix wrote: The only problem with that is when landlords jack rent due to a economic bubble(tech, real estate) and it guts the area of its previous population. Then when the bubble burst, the city is left a gap in its tax base and population. Plus urban blight if there are repossessions of homes. Stability for its population long term is a city's a goal and can be more important than obeying the whims of a free market. In theory the bubble should inflate all areas. Rent goes up, the wages of the grocery store employees go up because otherwise they quit/leave, the prices at the store goes up. the tech workers who are making all that money can still afford it. Obviously the market isn't perfectly efficient and it'll take a while for price signals to move throughout the cycle but the alternative is that tech employees whose skills would allow them to leverage very high salaries are unable to use those salaries to get somewhere to live near their job because the market has been artificially saturated by government intervention. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21390 Posts
On November 21 2015 02:00 KwarK wrote: In theory the bubble should inflate all areas. Rent goes up, the wages of the grocery store employees go up because otherwise they quit/leave, the prices at the store goes up. the tech workers who are making all that money can still afford it. Obviously the market isn't perfectly efficient and it'll take a while for price signals to move throughout the cycle but the alternative is that tech employees whose skills would allow them to leverage very high salaries are unable to use those salaries to get somewhere to live near their job because the market has been artificially saturated by government intervention. I feel like the "wages at the grocery store go up because otherwise they leave" is the part that tends to not happen in these situations. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
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DES MOINES — The hearts of many evangelical voters, polls suggest, are with Ben Carson. But increasingly, their leaders’ heads are with Ted Cruz. While the Texas senator trails the retired pediatric neurosurgeon by double digits in national surveys, prominent evangelical leaders and political operatives who work with the Christian conservative movement say it's the well-funded Cruz who has made the bigger organizational effort with politically active church goers. He’s rounding up the very grass-roots leaders who wield influence with this crucial Republican voting bloc. And here in Iowa, where endorsements have often predicted caucus winners, that matters. "Cruz has got a lot of people on the ground who can historically move numbers," said Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent and still unaligned conservative in Iowa who is hosting a major cattle-call for Republican presidential candidates on Friday night. Vander Plaats in previous cycles attached his endorsement to the candidate who ultimately won the Iowa caucuses, and this time, he is thought to be leaning toward Cruz. Meanwhile, Carson, a newcomer to politics, is running an untraditional campaign in every sense — including in how he courts the religious faithful. Carson, who speaks particularly openly about his personal faith, approaches voters here with a heart-on-his sleeve style, but he hasn’t made engaging their political leaders a priority. Source | ||
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KwarK
United States42017 Posts
On November 21 2015 01:51 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: So if they can't afford the rent where they currently live they will somehow be able to afford to move and commute maybe even further back and forth from work? No. If your job doesn't pay enough for you to live on then you either increase income or reduce costs. Increasing the commute does neither. That'd be a very bad solution. They should move to a city where they are not trying to outbid people far richer than them for housing. I'm not rich enough to live in London. However I do have one neat trick I use to get around the inevitable poverty this fact would cause. It's called "not living in London" and so far it's working out pretty well. I combine it with "not working in London" for maximum effectiveness. When enough people use this trick jobs in London start struggling to get applicants because people would much rather live and work somewhere where they get more money in their pocket after living costs. Lack of supply forced employers to offer a London wage, roughly 12% higher than comparable positions outside of London. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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KwarK
United States42017 Posts
On November 21 2015 02:03 Gorsameth wrote: I feel like the "wages at the grocery store go up because otherwise they leave" is the part that tends to not happen in these situations. Because the market is not perfectly efficient unfortunately. People do not respond to the price signals by selling the house they grew up in or whatever. Humans are not very good at rational economic behaviour, if they even notice the price signals that is. But unfortunately price signals and efficient behaviour is the best method we've found at allocating limited resources. If this problem were how to feed 8 people with 10 indivisible apples then government intervention would be great, we could reallocate the apples to make sure everyone had at least one. But it's not. The problem is how to feed 10 people with 8 indivisible apples, government intervention cannot create something from nothing, 2 people will have to go hungry. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On November 21 2015 02:00 KwarK wrote: In theory the bubble should inflate all areas. Rent goes up, the wages of the grocery store employees go up because otherwise they quit/leave, the prices at the store goes up. the tech workers who are making all that money can still afford it. Obviously the market isn't perfectly efficient and it'll take a while for price signals to move throughout the cycle but the alternative is that tech employees whose skills would allow them to leverage very high salaries are unable to use those salaries to get somewhere to live near their job because the market has been artificially saturated by government intervention. Having worked in debt collection during the crisis of 2007 forward, I can tell you that it doesn't often work that way. Some people can't move. They have family members they need to care for, can't sell their assets or one of the millions of other reasons they can't relocate. Economic theory is fine, but cities deal in the reality that the majority of people can't just pull of stakes and move the instant rent goes up. At the end of the day, cities exist to serve the people in them. | ||
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KwarK
United States42017 Posts
On November 21 2015 02:04 Nyxisto wrote: In practice it's a soft form of ethnic cleansing that greatly reinforces existing inequalities and leads to segregation. I don't understand why this should be supported. Ethnic cleansing? I'm not sure you understand what ethnic cleansing means. It means you're purging an area of people from a certain ethnicity. In the case of London the propensity of immigrants to work harder for longer hours at lower pages has led to huge ethnic immigration into London as they take the jobs that the English were priced out of. I guess you could argue that the English have been ethnically cleansed from London by housing prices but they're still a majority and still have the higher paying jobs. What you're doing is comparable to accusing vast tracts of farmland of ethnically cleansing out deep sea fishermen. Firstly, the people being forced out aren't of any one ethnicity and secondly, they're being forced out by their own inability to contribute to the local economy. If they were generating sufficient value to afford the housing then they would be able to afford the housing. Unfortunately either the grocery store clerk or the programmer has to go without a house, they can't both have one, and one contributes to the economy more than the other. Ethnic cleansing? Seriously? Working class isn't an ethnicity. Being poor is not a protected class that entitles you to things you cannot afford. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
Bison roaming Yellowstone National Park that are controversially earmarked for slaughter could be spared, with the park looking at implementing a plan next year that will see members of the famed herd relocated to other areas rather than culled. Yellowstone this week laid out plans to cull 1,000 of the bison this winter by delivering them to Native American tribes for slaughter. The annual cull is aimed at reducing the risk of bison passing brucellosis on to cattle in Montana. The bacterial disease can cause miscarriage in animals. The cull is aimed at cutting Yellowstone’s bison numbers to 3,000, which is a figure set out by a plan agreed by Montana and the federal government in 2000. But the annual slaughter has provoked dismay given that Yellowstone’s bison are the last significant herd of wild, purebred buffalo in the US. They help draw millions of tourists each year to the vast park, which spans areas of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Yellowstone National Park has now revealed to the Guardian that it will look to adopt a new strategy next year that will see bison placed in quarantine and relocated, rather than killed. A spokeswoman for the park said the new plan was “not viable” for this winter’s cull and that there are legal challenges in transporting bison across state lines but that the relocation plan should be in place for 2016. Source | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On November 21 2015 02:29 KwarK wrote: Ethnic cleansing? I'm not sure you understand what ethnic cleansing means. It means you're purging an area of people from a certain ethnicity. In the case of London the propensity of immigrants to work harder for longer hours at lower pages has led to huge ethnic immigration into London as they take the jobs that the English were priced out of. I guess you could argue that the English have been ethnically cleansed from London by housing prices but they're still a majority and still have the higher paying jobs. What you're doing is comparable to accusing vast tracts of farmland of ethnically cleansing out deep sea fishermen. Firstly, the people being forced out aren't of any one ethnicity and secondly, they're being forced out by their own inability to contribute to the local economy. If they were generating sufficient value to afford the housing then they would be able to afford the housing. Unfortunately either the grocery store clerk or the programmer has to go without a house, they can't both have one, and one contributes to the economy more than the other. Ethnic cleansing? Seriously? Working class isn't an ethnicity. Being poor is not a protected class that entitles you to things you cannot afford. Don't act like social class and race are unrelated. If a disproportionate amount of blue collar work is done by immigrants or minorities and you push them out of the city you have de-facto segregation, the fact that it happens through market forces doesn't change a thing. It's another version of "if you're poor just stop being poor" and the exact same reasoning people use when they want to dismantle say healthcare or any other public service that they don't consider to be a right. The people that are forced out of those cities will end up in cities that have even less opportunities and you're going to get a vicious circle. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On November 21 2015 02:40 Nyxisto wrote: Don't act like social class and race are unrelated. If a disproportionate amount of blue collar work is done by immigrants or minorities and you push them out of the city you have de-facto segregation, the fact that it happens through market forces doesn't change a thing. It's another version of "if you're poor just stop being poor" and the exact same reasoning people use when they want to dismantle say healthcare or any other public service that they don't consider to be a right. But that isn't ethnic cleansing. That is a violent, targeted, specific act by people done out of malice. That isn't the rising cost of housing in a specific area. Maybe pick a different phrase. | ||
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KwarK
United States42017 Posts
On November 21 2015 02:40 Nyxisto wrote: Don't act like social class and race are unrelated. If a disproportionate amount of blue collar work is done by immigrants or minorities and you push them out of the city you have de-facto segregation, the fact that it happens through market forces doesn't change a thing. It's another version of "if you're poor just stop being poor" and the exact same reasoning people use when they want to dismantle say healthcare or any other public service that they don't consider to be a right. The people that are forced out of those cities will end up in cities that have even less opportunities and you're going to get a vicious circle. In London the people priced out were predominantly white and the people who took their jobs were predominantly not. You're creating a racial narrative in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. By far the greatest beneficiaries of this were poor immigrants from ethnic minorities. Where the English working class (who I guess you would call a race?) left due to being unable to make ends meet on a 40 hour week unskilled labour job with a wife at home a Pakistani immigrant was happy to take his job on 60 hours a week with his wife helping too. But again, working class, not actually a race. The exodus from London was predominantly white but that was not their distinguishing factor, they were an economic group, not a racial group. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
Given all the political correctness talk over the last few pages in high profile colleges, Silicon Valley ought to be the most diverse place on the earth while in fact it has a huge diversity problem in regards to blacks and Hispanics. | ||
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KwarK
United States42017 Posts
On November 21 2015 02:54 Nyxisto wrote: But there you're talking about the already low-cost neighborhoods right? Poor immigrants in London haven't started to replace the predominantly rich and white population in the well-off parts of the city? That would honestly surprise me. That there is conflict inside the working class along the lines of "immigrants take our jerbs" is a different issue. Your argument was that demographic change due to economic pressure somehow amounts to a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing because working class is an ethnicity and economic reality is a sinister plot. It so happened that I was already using London as an example and London beautifully illustrates that the economics are colourblind, the people pushed out were not a disadvantaged racial group but a disadvantaged economic group, the chief beneficiaries were a disadvantaged racial group. Ethnic cleansing was a completely inapplicable term which not only requires a deliberate policy rather than economic reality but also completely mischaracterizes the groups who benefited and lost. You might as well have called it literally the Holocaust for all your interest in factual accuracy over shock value. Where supply is elastic and intervention to increase or redistribute the supply can be effective I think the government has a part to play in helping. That works well in healthcare, in guaranteeing a basic income for food, in creating jobs and so forth. But in densely populated cities housing supply is inelastic. We could nationalize the houses and attempt to distribute them out fairly but even then, some people will be forced out of London. Due to the inherent problems with nationalizing the housing we have chosen to use the free market as a tool to decide who gets the greatest value from having a given house. A person for whom the house offers the potential of a $15k/year job will be outbid by someone for whom the same house gives them the potential of a $50k/year job. It's not ideal and it's not perfectly efficient but the government cannot create houses from air. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
But that isn’t ethnic cleansing. That is just tech bros being tech bros. | ||
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RuiBarbO
United States1340 Posts
On November 21 2015 02:43 Plansix wrote: But that isn't ethnic cleansing. That is a violent, targeted, specific act by people done out of malice. That isn't the rising cost of housing in a specific area. Maybe pick a different phrase. Yeah, it's not necessarily the best phrase to use since the relationship between class and race is complicated and "ethnic cleansing" is pretty loaded. But it does get at an important consideration. Many do argue that violence in the 21st century has taken on exactly the kind of invisibility that Nyx is kind of implicitly bringing up - things that you could compare, imperfectly but maybe productively, with the targeted mass movement of population that constitute "ethnic cleansing," but which are accomplished as consequences of non-governmental economic action. If you assume that an economic action was "necessary" (rational actors behaving rationally) or "inevitable" (neo-Marxist economic determinism), it makes it seem like no one is to blame for what happens. One counterargument is that this is actually a form of negligence on the part of the economically empowered actors toward impoverished or otherwise disempowered groups. | ||
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