9 ms·

Things went off the rails at the end... > Well, the banks are controlled by and in bed with the same cabal buying everything up. You think this will be correct

Things went off the rails at the end... > Well, the banks are controlled by and in bed with the same cabal buying everything up. You think this will be corrected by market forces when it is a financial and political pincher movement pushed by the same cabal that stole the 2020 election & hid COVID Truth? You are fucked. https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402449561864577024 https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402449561864577024 IMO, weakens the entire 'thread' and makes it much less trustworthy, even though I do believe this about institutional real estate investors. 'Feudalism' might be a bit extreme, but this will definitely impact the middle class in a very real way.

duxup 5y ago
Yeah what the heck happened there. "same cabal" Everything is a grand singular conspiracy to someone these days. Happens on HN too, every few bad news type post has some accusation that whatever outcome was because of a conspiracy.
- p_j_w 5y ago
  The crazy thing is that no grand conspiracy is required, this is just a function (and an entirely predictable one) of the ever increasing levels of wealth inequality that we see. No political "pincher" movement required, it's just people with money finding ways to use that money to make more money. As an aside, this isn't a username I expected to ever see again.
  - duxup 5y ago
    Agreed. Most of this is just obvious motivations to do a thing. Recent HN article about the SCOTUS and CFAA ruling was full of folks who felt that CFAA must have been some corporatism-ish conspiracy to pass (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) a law back in 1986 and then criminalize basic policy rules as a serious crime. And yet apparently they just chose not to do that at any sort of scale... Rather, the most logical explanation is that some folks made some bad choices when it came to applying that law, because it was convenient for them. As far as my username, duxup loves you.
  - ceres 5y ago
    >this isn't a username I expected to ever see again Mind if I ask what you mean by this?
    - p_j_w 5y ago
      duxup was a fairly prolific user on kuro5hin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuro5hin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuro5hin).
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge. Often attributed to George Carlin.
- jtdev 5y ago
  Consider that you may be far too trusting if you’re not considering conspiracy as a possibility at this point…
  - duxup 5y ago
    I would argue exactly the opposite.
  - philistine 5y ago
    A conspiracy means that the truth about something is different from what we currently know. JFK, moon landing, flat Earth. Where is the conspiracy with banks buying houses en masse? They intend to turn every middle class family into a permanent renter and take any profit of the housing market for themselves. This is exactly what’s happening. We can simply say that this problem is more important than people believe, or that the media does not talk about it enough because it’s difficult to write about. But there’s no conspiracy here.
    - jtdev 5y ago
      con•spir•a•cy kən-spîr′ə-sē► n. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act. Like, maybe the Fed is conspiring with the gov. and big banks to fleece the American people of their real estate assets…? Have you no ability to question things?
- lliamander 5y ago
  Well, to be fair, there was a self-decribed cabal of sorts that worked to change election laws, curtail protests, and pressure social media companies leading up to the 2020 election. Whether what they did was in any way illicit or undermines the integrity of U.S. elections is of course up for debate, but the fact that a secret coordinated effort of powerful people "conspired" (if you will) to influence the outcome of the election is I think well established. https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
  - duxup 5y ago
    That's not fair, that's just some unrelated thing...
    - cronix 5y ago
      Yeah, different cabal.
      - mkr-hn 5y ago
        Cabals really should coordinate better to avoid confusion.
        booleandilemma 5y ago
        Is it time to disrupt cabals?
        mkr-hn 5y ago
        Where's Y Cabalnator when you need it?
      - lliamander 5y ago
        I didn't claim it was all the same cabal. However, it's very likely there are some actors with membership in both.
    - 5y ago
TheCowboy 5y ago
People using "The Great Reset" as a pejorative tend to have their views deeply rooted in right-leaning garbage conspiracy theories. Surely there's a better source for what Black Rock is doing than this person's Twitter thread. > Only the worlds largest asset manager and the leading proponent of The Great Reset. https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402437638423035906 https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402437638423035906
- paulpauper 5y ago
  I think an objective case can be made that Covid has irrevocably changed the economy in way that has created new winners and losers, without it being part of a grand conspiracy.
  - anthony_romeo 5y ago
    I agree with that. Of course, this does not necessarily imply that a large people will not choose to believe in a grand conspiracy regardless of whether or not such a conspiracy actually exists.
- secondcoming 5y ago
  While I don't know what the tweeter understands by 'The Great Reset', it actually is a thing [0]. What's your understanding of it? [0] https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/ https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/
- samizdis 5y ago
  There was this in the FT [1] just over two weeks ago, "BlackRock bets on UK retirement housing", but it's about investing in building for defined sectors (retirement, student accommodation etc) and also shared ownership: Separately, BlackRock Real Assets is funding the £362m purchase of 3,000 shared-ownership homes by landlord Heylo Housing. The article was archived shortly after publication [2]. I've not seen anything about buying up existing private homes at a big mark-up, though. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/0d965c11-936e-4467-b98f-f4d34fae2e64 https://www.ft.com/content/0d965c11-936e-4467-b98f-f4d34fae2... [2] https://archive.is/AgiIg https://archive.is/AgiIg
rbg246 5y ago
The whole thread is off the rails, just conspiracy and rumour
cortesoft 5y ago
If you think that was disturbing, check out the substack linked to the twitter account. Full on nut job.
- world_peace42 5y ago
  I clicked it. Looks like he's a Republican and a Christian (and has pretty standard opinions for that intersection) who likes to write long political essays. Are you sure he's a nut job, or could you possibly just be a bigot?
  - chki 5y ago
    These are literally two out of the first four paragraphs I read when clicking on that link: >Dearest Friends & Fellow Americans, The eminent trial of our Age is upon us. Those whose courage fails them now, who shrink from the fight, and sit idly while the very foundations of our nation collapse should sit in shame; but those that stand boldly by the Constitution deserve the eternal thanks of all mankind. Malignant tyranny, like other pogroms of the past, are no simple feat to overcome; Yet we know also through the trials of history that the greater the force of evil, the more august the achievement. > The Malignant States, the Federal Government, and the Tech Politburo have avowed to create and enforce a progressive establishment that places Marxist Race Doctrine, Anti-American Sentiment, and Western-averse Cultural and Governmental Practices at the forefront of legal and social policy and have declared that they will fully enchain the American populace to this destructive course. Edit: I hope that nobody thinks that's still "Christian and Republican", right? Even if you're extremely critical of current developments it's certainly crazy to call those a "pogrom".
    - cosmojg 5y ago
      And? Honestly, these are pretty damn tame. I don't understand the point you're trying to make. While I personally disagree with at least one of the statements you quoted and some other ideas held by the author, many of the ideas presented in the posted Twitter thread still stand. Ad hominem attacks are worthless in a discussion of ideas.
tootie 5y ago
It went off the rails at the beginning. After the WSJ article about how pension fund managers are buying homes as investment vehicles, he immediately veered into fantasyland citing only blogs or his imagination. The Great Reset has a homepage and it has nothing to do with anything he's ranting about. https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/ https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/
bplatta 5y ago
Ok, cabal is a strong word and the election stealing/truth hiding is certainly off the rails in my opinion as well. But here's some perhaps interesting information on top 5 shareholders of largest US banks [1]: JP Morgan Chase: Blackrock 6.4 Vanguard 4.7 State Street 4.5 Blackrock 2.7 Blackrock 2.5 Bank of America: Berkshire 6.9 Blackrock 5.3 Vanguard 4.5 state street 4.3 Fidelity 2.1 Citigroup: Blackrock 6.1 Vanguard 4.5 State Street 4.2 Fidelity 3.6 Capital world Inv 2.4 Wells Fargo: Berkshire 8.8 Blackrock 5.4 Vanguard 4.5 State street 4.0 Fidelity 3.5 US Bank: Blackrock 7.4 Vanguard 4.5 Fidelity 4.4 State Street 4.4 Berkshire 4.3 So although yes this does go off the rails a bit, not unreasonable to question the (possibly perverse) incentives banks face given their ownership. Book by Eric Posner and Glen Weyl called Radical Markets explores those incentives a bit. [1] Jose Azar et. al. Ultimate ownership and Bank competition https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers/cfm?abstract_id=2710252 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers/cfm?abstract_id=2710252
- kasey_junk 5y ago
  It’s worth noting those Black Rock holdings are almost certainly through indexed mutual funds and ETFs. If you calculated the ownership across all banks in the US Blackrock would not own nearly so high a percentage.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    Also worth noting they have similar ownership stakes in other public companies for the same reason, and somewhat limited leverage over any of them because they can't threaten to pull their investment
    - selectodude 5y ago
      Blackrock also owns over 6 percent of Apple. I wonder if this "great reset" includes buying everybody's iPhones.
- beforeolives 5y ago
  Aren't most of these holdings through funds? It's not Blackrock, Vanguard or Fidelity that's holding those shares, it's people and institutions who are investing in their funds.
II2II 5y ago
I was going to say, people need to learn how to make a point and leave out extraneous claims since those extraneous claims usually attack the credibility of their legitimate points ... ... but the urge to ignore my own advice is too strong since the extraneous claim is a huge head-scratcher. Doesn't this person realize the person who lost the election is a real estate developer? I realize this isn't the same thing as an investor, but it is close enough in this case.
RIMR 5y ago
It really was a bad end. Pretty much describes how capitalism's natural end will fuck us over, and then decides to throw in some support for the billionaire landlord president he liked...
- ghostwriter 5y ago
  > capitalism's natural end where's Capitalism and where's Federal Reserve funded institutions that represent the big deep state aiming at controlling all aspects of your life.
kristopolous 5y ago
Conspiracy theories are the new urban folklore. They get disconnected from their origins, repackaged and repurposed like a durable material. "Cabal" traditionally is a dog-whistle for the antisemitism conspiracy about why the Nazis claim they lost WW1. It's been durable. Lots of uses of cabal these days shed those nazi roots and repurpose it to just mean "those corrupted by wealth and power". It's still really, extremely close to a very dangerous form of anti-semitism, but it's possible for one to exist without the other. It's really fascinating how transitive these lies are and how they can be composited like higher level programming objects to form essentially different flavors of insanity. I wish humans weren't like this but eh, don't know how to change it
lettergram 5y ago
The main reason the homes are being bought up is the lumber and steal costs. Right now, it would cost me $500k to build a house that last year would cost me $190k. Real quotes I got for a possible build. More details on what I’m seeing here: https://austingwalters.com/stagflation-is-here-monetary-inflation-economic-depression/ https://austingwalters.com/stagflation-is-here-monetary-infl... With that being the case and the dollar appearing to be weakening, it makes since for them to buy anything they can. Those homes they are buying for $300k would cost $500-$600k to build... Regarding the great reset - here’s a Bloomberg article on how to navigate it: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-31/how-to-navigate-the-great-reset https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-31/how-to... It’s real and it’s here.
- duderific 5y ago
  The point about lumber is accurate. We are getting a fence built for our house, and our contractor says the lumber has gone from $12 a board to $28 a board over the last few months. He's had to revise his estimates upward lest he lose money on the job.
- mgarfias 5y ago
  We are refraining from building a deck due to lumber prices. Maybe next year. Or I buy a mill and cut my own lumber. I’ve got plenty of trees I can take down and use.
- nradov 5y ago
  Your numbers are off for most areas. There has been inflation in construction material prices, but that's only one part of the total price of building homes. The other major components include land prices, labor, and permits. So costs could have only doubled from $300k to $600k in areas with very cheap land and permits where materials make up the dominant share of the total cost.
dang 5y ago
This comment refers to the original URL, https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402434266970140676 https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402434266970140676, which we've since replaced with the article it points to (in keeping with the site guidelines).
- maxwell 5y ago
  And that guideline often results in confusing, disjointed comment threads. Enforcing banal, insigificant titles diminishes meaningful discussion hinged on the actual point of the submission. Strangely, but anecdotally, the titles that I see getting changed are ones involving race, state actors, or corporations. What these moves feel like is censorship of story title that mention, for instance, Black people, the Chinese Communist Party, or multinationals like BlackRock.
  - dang 5y ago
    > often results in confusing, disjointed comment threads It can, which is why I posted replies to the relevant comments in this thread. It's still usually a net win, though, to replace a secondary/derived source with the article it's derived from, especially when the secondary/derived source is adding sensational spin. > Strangely, but anecdotally, the titles that I see getting changed are I think you may be getting bit by what I call the notice-dislike bias [1]. You (i.e. all of us) are much more likely to see, and to put emphasis on, the changes that you dislike or disagree with, and to de-emphasize, or simply not notice in the first place, the ones that seem normal or ok. This leads to false feelings of generality [2]. Your comment is well above the median in quality because you at least said "anecdotally"; most users who post general claims about HN don't seem to consider that there may be any bias in such perceptions at all! From a moderation perspective I can tell you for sure that there's no singling out of any topics over others when it comes to applying the title guideline. Of course, titles on divisive topics are more likely to be inflammatory and therefore linkbaity, and thus 'hit' the guideline, but that's a skew in the data, not the moderators. As for "censorship", that word has gotten diluted to the point that it seems to just mean "change I disapprove of". You can use it to describe HN title edits if you like, but I think it's a bit of a stretch. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20dislike%20notice&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... - it would be great to find a less lame name for this, but it's the best I've found so far [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20false%20feelings%20of%20generality&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

duxup 5y ago

Yeah what the heck happened there. "same cabal" Everything is a grand singular conspiracy to someone these days. Happens on HN too, every few bad news type post has some accusation that whatever outcome was because of a conspiracy.

p_j_w 5y ago
The crazy thing is that no grand conspiracy is required, this is just a function (and an entirely predictable one) of the ever increasing levels of wealth inequality that we see. No political "pincher" movement required, it's just people with money finding ways to use that money to make more money. As an aside, this isn't a username I expected to ever see again.
- duxup 5y ago
  Agreed. Most of this is just obvious motivations to do a thing. Recent HN article about the SCOTUS and CFAA ruling was full of folks who felt that CFAA must have been some corporatism-ish conspiracy to pass (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) a law back in 1986 and then criminalize basic policy rules as a serious crime. And yet apparently they just chose not to do that at any sort of scale... Rather, the most logical explanation is that some folks made some bad choices when it came to applying that law, because it was convenient for them. As far as my username, duxup loves you.
- ceres 5y ago
  >this isn't a username I expected to ever see again Mind if I ask what you mean by this?
  - p_j_w 5y ago
    duxup was a fairly prolific user on kuro5hin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuro5hin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuro5hin).
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge. Often attributed to George Carlin.
jtdev 5y ago
Consider that you may be far too trusting if you’re not considering conspiracy as a possibility at this point…
- duxup 5y ago
  I would argue exactly the opposite.
- philistine 5y ago
  A conspiracy means that the truth about something is different from what we currently know. JFK, moon landing, flat Earth. Where is the conspiracy with banks buying houses en masse? They intend to turn every middle class family into a permanent renter and take any profit of the housing market for themselves. This is exactly what’s happening. We can simply say that this problem is more important than people believe, or that the media does not talk about it enough because it’s difficult to write about. But there’s no conspiracy here.
  - jtdev 5y ago
    con•spir•a•cy kən-spîr′ə-sē► n. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act. Like, maybe the Fed is conspiring with the gov. and big banks to fleece the American people of their real estate assets…? Have you no ability to question things?
lliamander 5y ago
Well, to be fair, there was a self-decribed cabal of sorts that worked to change election laws, curtail protests, and pressure social media companies leading up to the 2020 election. Whether what they did was in any way illicit or undermines the integrity of U.S. elections is of course up for debate, but the fact that a secret coordinated effort of powerful people "conspired" (if you will) to influence the outcome of the election is I think well established. https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
- duxup 5y ago
  That's not fair, that's just some unrelated thing...
  - cronix 5y ago
    Yeah, different cabal.
    - mkr-hn 5y ago
      Cabals really should coordinate better to avoid confusion.
      - booleandilemma 5y ago
        Is it time to disrupt cabals?
        mkr-hn 5y ago
        Where's Y Cabalnator when you need it?
    - lliamander 5y ago
      I didn't claim it was all the same cabal. However, it's very likely there are some actors with membership in both.
  - 5y ago

TheCowboy 5y ago

People using "The Great Reset" as a pejorative tend to have their views deeply rooted in right-leaning garbage conspiracy theories. Surely there's a better source for what Black Rock is doing than this person's Twitter thread. > Only the worlds largest asset manager and the leading proponent of The Great Reset. https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402437638423035906 https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402437638423035906

paulpauper 5y ago
I think an objective case can be made that Covid has irrevocably changed the economy in way that has created new winners and losers, without it being part of a grand conspiracy.
- anthony_romeo 5y ago
  I agree with that. Of course, this does not necessarily imply that a large people will not choose to believe in a grand conspiracy regardless of whether or not such a conspiracy actually exists.
secondcoming 5y ago
While I don't know what the tweeter understands by 'The Great Reset', it actually is a thing [0]. What's your understanding of it? [0] https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/ https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/
samizdis 5y ago
There was this in the FT [1] just over two weeks ago, "BlackRock bets on UK retirement housing", but it's about investing in building for defined sectors (retirement, student accommodation etc) and also shared ownership: Separately, BlackRock Real Assets is funding the £362m purchase of 3,000 shared-ownership homes by landlord Heylo Housing. The article was archived shortly after publication [2]. I've not seen anything about buying up existing private homes at a big mark-up, though. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/0d965c11-936e-4467-b98f-f4d34fae2e64 https://www.ft.com/content/0d965c11-936e-4467-b98f-f4d34fae2... [2] https://archive.is/AgiIg https://archive.is/AgiIg

rbg246 5y ago

The whole thread is off the rails, just conspiracy and rumour

cortesoft 5y ago

If you think that was disturbing, check out the substack linked to the twitter account. Full on nut job.

world_peace42 5y ago
I clicked it. Looks like he's a Republican and a Christian (and has pretty standard opinions for that intersection) who likes to write long political essays. Are you sure he's a nut job, or could you possibly just be a bigot?
- chki 5y ago
  These are literally two out of the first four paragraphs I read when clicking on that link: >Dearest Friends & Fellow Americans, The eminent trial of our Age is upon us. Those whose courage fails them now, who shrink from the fight, and sit idly while the very foundations of our nation collapse should sit in shame; but those that stand boldly by the Constitution deserve the eternal thanks of all mankind. Malignant tyranny, like other pogroms of the past, are no simple feat to overcome; Yet we know also through the trials of history that the greater the force of evil, the more august the achievement. > The Malignant States, the Federal Government, and the Tech Politburo have avowed to create and enforce a progressive establishment that places Marxist Race Doctrine, Anti-American Sentiment, and Western-averse Cultural and Governmental Practices at the forefront of legal and social policy and have declared that they will fully enchain the American populace to this destructive course. Edit: I hope that nobody thinks that's still "Christian and Republican", right? Even if you're extremely critical of current developments it's certainly crazy to call those a "pogrom".
  - cosmojg 5y ago
    And? Honestly, these are pretty damn tame. I don't understand the point you're trying to make. While I personally disagree with at least one of the statements you quoted and some other ideas held by the author, many of the ideas presented in the posted Twitter thread still stand. Ad hominem attacks are worthless in a discussion of ideas.

tootie 5y ago

It went off the rails at the beginning. After the WSJ article about how pension fund managers are buying homes as investment vehicles, he immediately veered into fantasyland citing only blogs or his imagination. The Great Reset has a homepage and it has nothing to do with anything he's ranting about. https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/ https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/

bplatta 5y ago

Ok, cabal is a strong word and the election stealing/truth hiding is certainly off the rails in my opinion as well. But here's some perhaps interesting information on top 5 shareholders of largest US banks [1]: JP Morgan Chase: Blackrock 6.4 Vanguard 4.7 State Street 4.5 Blackrock 2.7 Blackrock 2.5 Bank of America: Berkshire 6.9 Blackrock 5.3 Vanguard 4.5 state street 4.3 Fidelity 2.1 Citigroup: Blackrock 6.1 Vanguard 4.5 State Street 4.2 Fidelity 3.6 Capital world Inv 2.4 Wells Fargo: Berkshire 8.8 Blackrock 5.4 Vanguard 4.5 State street 4.0 Fidelity 3.5 US Bank: Blackrock 7.4 Vanguard 4.5 Fidelity 4.4 State Street 4.4 Berkshire 4.3 So although yes this does go off the rails a bit, not unreasonable to question the (possibly perverse) incentives banks face given their ownership. Book by Eric Posner and Glen Weyl called Radical Markets explores those incentives a bit. [1] Jose Azar et. al. Ultimate ownership and Bank competition https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers/cfm?abstract_id=2710252 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers/cfm?abstract_id=2710252

kasey_junk 5y ago
It’s worth noting those Black Rock holdings are almost certainly through indexed mutual funds and ETFs. If you calculated the ownership across all banks in the US Blackrock would not own nearly so high a percentage.
- notahacker 5y ago
  Also worth noting they have similar ownership stakes in other public companies for the same reason, and somewhat limited leverage over any of them because they can't threaten to pull their investment
  - selectodude 5y ago
    Blackrock also owns over 6 percent of Apple. I wonder if this "great reset" includes buying everybody's iPhones.
beforeolives 5y ago
Aren't most of these holdings through funds? It's not Blackrock, Vanguard or Fidelity that's holding those shares, it's people and institutions who are investing in their funds.

II2II 5y ago

I was going to say, people need to learn how to make a point and leave out extraneous claims since those extraneous claims usually attack the credibility of their legitimate points ... ... but the urge to ignore my own advice is too strong since the extraneous claim is a huge head-scratcher. Doesn't this person realize the person who lost the election is a real estate developer? I realize this isn't the same thing as an investor, but it is close enough in this case.

RIMR 5y ago

It really was a bad end. Pretty much describes how capitalism's natural end will fuck us over, and then decides to throw in some support for the billionaire landlord president he liked...

ghostwriter 5y ago
> capitalism's natural end where's Capitalism and where's Federal Reserve funded institutions that represent the big deep state aiming at controlling all aspects of your life.

kristopolous 5y ago

Conspiracy theories are the new urban folklore. They get disconnected from their origins, repackaged and repurposed like a durable material. "Cabal" traditionally is a dog-whistle for the antisemitism conspiracy about why the Nazis claim they lost WW1. It's been durable. Lots of uses of cabal these days shed those nazi roots and repurpose it to just mean "those corrupted by wealth and power". It's still really, extremely close to a very dangerous form of anti-semitism, but it's possible for one to exist without the other. It's really fascinating how transitive these lies are and how they can be composited like higher level programming objects to form essentially different flavors of insanity. I wish humans weren't like this but eh, don't know how to change it

lettergram 5y ago

The main reason the homes are being bought up is the lumber and steal costs. Right now, it would cost me $500k to build a house that last year would cost me $190k. Real quotes I got for a possible build. More details on what I’m seeing here: https://austingwalters.com/stagflation-is-here-monetary-inflation-economic-depression/ https://austingwalters.com/stagflation-is-here-monetary-infl... With that being the case and the dollar appearing to be weakening, it makes since for them to buy anything they can. Those homes they are buying for $300k would cost $500-$600k to build... Regarding the great reset - here’s a Bloomberg article on how to navigate it: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-31/how-to-navigate-the-great-reset https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-31/how-to... It’s real and it’s here.

duderific 5y ago
The point about lumber is accurate. We are getting a fence built for our house, and our contractor says the lumber has gone from $12 a board to $28 a board over the last few months. He's had to revise his estimates upward lest he lose money on the job.
mgarfias 5y ago
We are refraining from building a deck due to lumber prices. Maybe next year. Or I buy a mill and cut my own lumber. I’ve got plenty of trees I can take down and use.
nradov 5y ago
Your numbers are off for most areas. There has been inflation in construction material prices, but that's only one part of the total price of building homes. The other major components include land prices, labor, and permits. So costs could have only doubled from $300k to $600k in areas with very cheap land and permits where materials make up the dominant share of the total cost.

dang 5y ago

This comment refers to the original URL, https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402434266970140676 https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402434266970140676, which we've since replaced with the article it points to (in keeping with the site guidelines).

maxwell 5y ago
And that guideline often results in confusing, disjointed comment threads. Enforcing banal, insigificant titles diminishes meaningful discussion hinged on the actual point of the submission. Strangely, but anecdotally, the titles that I see getting changed are ones involving race, state actors, or corporations. What these moves feel like is censorship of story title that mention, for instance, Black people, the Chinese Communist Party, or multinationals like BlackRock.
- dang 5y ago
  > often results in confusing, disjointed comment threads It can, which is why I posted replies to the relevant comments in this thread. It's still usually a net win, though, to replace a secondary/derived source with the article it's derived from, especially when the secondary/derived source is adding sensational spin. > Strangely, but anecdotally, the titles that I see getting changed are I think you may be getting bit by what I call the notice-dislike bias [1]. You (i.e. all of us) are much more likely to see, and to put emphasis on, the changes that you dislike or disagree with, and to de-emphasize, or simply not notice in the first place, the ones that seem normal or ok. This leads to false feelings of generality [2]. Your comment is well above the median in quality because you at least said "anecdotally"; most users who post general claims about HN don't seem to consider that there may be any bias in such perceptions at all! From a moderation perspective I can tell you for sure that there's no singling out of any topics over others when it comes to applying the title guideline. Of course, titles on divisive topics are more likely to be inflammatory and therefore linkbaity, and thus 'hit' the guideline, but that's a skew in the data, not the moderators. As for "censorship", that word has gotten diluted to the point that it seems to just mean "change I disapprove of". You can use it to describe HN title edits if you like, but I think it's a bit of a stretch. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20dislike%20notice&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... - it would be great to find a less lame name for this, but it's the best I've found so far [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20false%20feelings%20of%20generality&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...