4 ms·

Time to bring back penny auctions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_auction_(foreclosure) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_auction_(foreclosure)

klyrs 6y ago
> The neighbors would gather in large numbers at the auction of the farm and bid very low prices on the farm and its contents while intimidating other bidders. Emphasis added. The world has changed. Today, if folks attempted intimidation, such auctions would be attended by hoards of cops in riot gear. They'd be there to protect the rich, who will be happy to outbid the locals and sell the property back to them at twice the price.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  I think you overestimate the ratio of riot cops to renters. By a few orders of magnitude. Also, everything else failing, there is really nothing stopping someone from throwing a molotov at a rental property. There would be essentially no way to find who did it, following the principles of stochastic direct action. This happened in history a few times. For better or for worse, the stability of civilization is a lot shakier than it seems.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    > I think you overestimate the ratio of riot cops to renters. Nope, I watched the conflict between the WTO protesters and cops first hand, and got caught out during the beer riot of the SLC Olympics. Crowd control is scary effective, and it's backed by lethal force including rooftop snipers. Folks will need to come with gas masks, body armor and armor-piercing rounds to overtake the riot cops. The folks willing and prepared for that aren't nearly as populous as "renters." But then what happens? Is the auction "legitimate" after this escalation? The aggressors would need to overthrow the courts as well. Not saying it can't / hasn't happened, but it's quite a leap. > There would be essentially no way to find who did it, following the principles of stochastic direct action. The surveillance state is pretty bad too. > For better or for worse, the stability of civilization is a lot shakier than it seems. Here, we agree. A second civil war has seemed like an obvious eventuality to me since circa Bush II.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      I've been to a few protests first hand too. The behaviour of cops in small protests with a few thousand people is not, I think, representative of a wide-scale revolt. When I've been to small/medium protests the cops were a lot more willing to use force. But in truly massive protests, (>500 000), the cops are a lot less willing to use force. Because they know they will likely lose. Seriously, seeing cops rushing to dismantle barricades before they get caught by the march was surprising. Also, you don't need armor-piercing rounds to defeat a riot cop, any rifle round will do. As for gas masks, yes, but there are only so many rounds that can be fired, and eventually people learn how to defeat them or throw them back. And honestly I don't think the surveillance state is anywhere close to what's needed to catch someone that did unprompted arson. There's a reason why pretty much the majority of homicides don't even end up in an arrest, much less a conviction. In any case, the point of this escalation isn't to justify the auction, it's to scare off anyone else from bidding.
projektfu 6y ago
Banks can also bid. So when a property goes into foreclosure, the bank will often buy it at auction if there's nothing but lowball bids and resell it through the normal market.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Part of how penny auctions work is by preventing banks from having any return on their investments, using either force or rent striking the bank.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
moneytide1 6y ago
This is somewhat unrelated, but when I see "penny" I now think of zinc. After 1982, American pennies were minted as >95% zinc. I normally perform brick and mortar store purchases with plastic, but during the recent furlough I would make small local purchases at random cash registers and calculate my subtotal such that I could absorb as many pennies from the register that I could (not sure of price per pound of zinc currently, but perhaps there will be a convergence point where the weight of the penny is worth more for its zinc than its Federal Reserve declared value). The reason for this is that I want to build a small backyard sheds worth of zinc bromide batteries. HDPE is a common plastic (milk jugs, oil containers, etc) and I've found lots of it scattered around my city (lazy, disenchanted citizens dumping illegally, but you and I know that no one is going to catch them - which is advantageous to me since I need this easily recyclable material). HDPE does not react with a bromine solution. I need this material to house my electrodes suspended in a bromine based electrolyte (zinc electroplating gravity battery lasts "indefinately"). Even beyond that - HDPE is useful to mold into whatever sturdy shape you need (for some reason Youtubers are making slingshot hilt molds). The reason your comment prompted my tangent is because I'm listening to the audio of "Capitalism: A Love Story" and simultaneously parsing HN output and I am so bored with all of these beat-around-the-bush definitions of wealth, money, equity, derivatives, etc when the people peddling these terms are going into your grocery stores to spend your labor on individually packaged (not HDPE, probably PETE) baked and seasoned treats, or worse fast food prepped by bored&athletic young people who have sentenced themselves to spending months or years of their capable lives slapping together cheaply sourced ingredients using probably natural gas heating elements. In the 2030s, the people coming to power will have spent thousands of hours on the internet and playing video games where they learned how to operate (regardless of parental lethargy and ignorance). They will be annoyed with the inefficient world they were bred into.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Hopefully. Another unrelated thought is that History is really waking up. It's crazy seeing things finally happening, hundred year old books becoming relevant again, and true unpredictability come back. As one said a bit over a hundred years ago, there are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen.

klyrs 6y ago

> The neighbors would gather in large numbers at the auction of the farm and bid very low prices on the farm and its contents while intimidating other bidders. Emphasis added. The world has changed. Today, if folks attempted intimidation, such auctions would be attended by hoards of cops in riot gear. They'd be there to protect the rich, who will be happy to outbid the locals and sell the property back to them at twice the price.

sudosysgen 6y ago
I think you overestimate the ratio of riot cops to renters. By a few orders of magnitude. Also, everything else failing, there is really nothing stopping someone from throwing a molotov at a rental property. There would be essentially no way to find who did it, following the principles of stochastic direct action. This happened in history a few times. For better or for worse, the stability of civilization is a lot shakier than it seems.
- klyrs 6y ago
  > I think you overestimate the ratio of riot cops to renters. Nope, I watched the conflict between the WTO protesters and cops first hand, and got caught out during the beer riot of the SLC Olympics. Crowd control is scary effective, and it's backed by lethal force including rooftop snipers. Folks will need to come with gas masks, body armor and armor-piercing rounds to overtake the riot cops. The folks willing and prepared for that aren't nearly as populous as "renters." But then what happens? Is the auction "legitimate" after this escalation? The aggressors would need to overthrow the courts as well. Not saying it can't / hasn't happened, but it's quite a leap. > There would be essentially no way to find who did it, following the principles of stochastic direct action. The surveillance state is pretty bad too. > For better or for worse, the stability of civilization is a lot shakier than it seems. Here, we agree. A second civil war has seemed like an obvious eventuality to me since circa Bush II.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    I've been to a few protests first hand too. The behaviour of cops in small protests with a few thousand people is not, I think, representative of a wide-scale revolt. When I've been to small/medium protests the cops were a lot more willing to use force. But in truly massive protests, (>500 000), the cops are a lot less willing to use force. Because they know they will likely lose. Seriously, seeing cops rushing to dismantle barricades before they get caught by the march was surprising. Also, you don't need armor-piercing rounds to defeat a riot cop, any rifle round will do. As for gas masks, yes, but there are only so many rounds that can be fired, and eventually people learn how to defeat them or throw them back. And honestly I don't think the surveillance state is anywhere close to what's needed to catch someone that did unprompted arson. There's a reason why pretty much the majority of homicides don't even end up in an arrest, much less a conviction. In any case, the point of this escalation isn't to justify the auction, it's to scare off anyone else from bidding.

projektfu 6y ago

Banks can also bid. So when a property goes into foreclosure, the bank will often buy it at auction if there's nothing but lowball bids and resell it through the normal market.

sudosysgen 6y ago
Part of how penny auctions work is by preventing banks from having any return on their investments, using either force or rent striking the bank.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

moneytide1 6y ago

This is somewhat unrelated, but when I see "penny" I now think of zinc. After 1982, American pennies were minted as >95% zinc. I normally perform brick and mortar store purchases with plastic, but during the recent furlough I would make small local purchases at random cash registers and calculate my subtotal such that I could absorb as many pennies from the register that I could (not sure of price per pound of zinc currently, but perhaps there will be a convergence point where the weight of the penny is worth more for its zinc than its Federal Reserve declared value). The reason for this is that I want to build a small backyard sheds worth of zinc bromide batteries. HDPE is a common plastic (milk jugs, oil containers, etc) and I've found lots of it scattered around my city (lazy, disenchanted citizens dumping illegally, but you and I know that no one is going to catch them - which is advantageous to me since I need this easily recyclable material). HDPE does not react with a bromine solution. I need this material to house my electrodes suspended in a bromine based electrolyte (zinc electroplating gravity battery lasts "indefinately"). Even beyond that - HDPE is useful to mold into whatever sturdy shape you need (for some reason Youtubers are making slingshot hilt molds). The reason your comment prompted my tangent is because I'm listening to the audio of "Capitalism: A Love Story" and simultaneously parsing HN output and I am so bored with all of these beat-around-the-bush definitions of wealth, money, equity, derivatives, etc when the people peddling these terms are going into your grocery stores to spend your labor on individually packaged (not HDPE, probably PETE) baked and seasoned treats, or worse fast food prepped by bored&athletic young people who have sentenced themselves to spending months or years of their capable lives slapping together cheaply sourced ingredients using probably natural gas heating elements. In the 2030s, the people coming to power will have spent thousands of hours on the internet and playing video games where they learned how to operate (regardless of parental lethargy and ignorance). They will be annoyed with the inefficient world they were bred into.

sudosysgen 6y ago
Hopefully. Another unrelated thought is that History is really waking up. It's crazy seeing things finally happening, hundred year old books becoming relevant again, and true unpredictability come back. As one said a bit over a hundred years ago, there are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen.