medvezhenok

14 ms·

61.
by medvezhenok 2y ago
No, I think stop signs are a horrible design flaw that we have to live with, and rolling stops are the least bad way to work around that urban design flaw. It is asinine to force arbitrary stops at random intersections that have no time-of-
62.
by medvezhenok 2y ago
Interestingly enough, I lived in a part of Quebec City called Limoilou which is laid out exactly like you describe. Low speed limit, alternating one ways, very few stop signs. I think there are some boroughs in NYC that are like that as wel
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by medvezhenok 2y ago
That works in a well functioning, liquid market. If there are barriers to entry for new competitors (like regulatory hurdles, or zoning), this free-market theory falls flat on its face.
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by medvezhenok 2y ago
Sure, but what matters is what percentage of the apartments with vacancies RealPage controls. Many apartments don't turn over year-to-year, so that 10 percent might or might not be misleading.
65.
by medvezhenok 2y ago
I think GP is pretty clearly implying more akin to Prop 13 but for renters (i.e. Prop 13 locks in increase in property taxes to 2% a year), this policy would do something similar for rent. It benefits existing renters because new entrants (
66.
by medvezhenok 2y ago
They should have some say, but they should not be able to act as a cartel and prevent permitting altogether. And I say that as a new homeowner. General zoning policy should be decided at a state level (or federal) - like in Japan. Otherwise
67.
by medvezhenok 2y ago
To be fair, rich people could theoretically jump start the process by paying people to open businesses in a town. It just takes startup costs. And if the flywheel gets going, you could see a new "popular" town spring up. But it&#x
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by medvezhenok 2y ago
It's probably intentional - securities fraud is a catch-all in the same way that tax evasion is an easy catch-all for all sorts of varied criminal activity which is much harder to prosecute.
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by medvezhenok 2y ago
It was actually both. The accident rate was significantly higher, it was just dwarfed by the other health problems so it didn’t seem so bad in comparison
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by medvezhenok 2y ago
We’re also looking at strong survivor bias. My grandfather played in the fields after WW2 (Eastern Europe) and had friends who died or had limbs blown off by undetonated mines from the war (preschool/school age). You likely never heard
71.
by medvezhenok 2y ago
Yup. Most are for lower income levels but some affect middle class & up as well (electric vehicle credits, financial aid for university, first time homeowner credits, or affordable homeownership breaks... etc)
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by medvezhenok 2y ago
When you're in that tax bracket, there are plenty of tax break/benefit cliffs that are more impactful than tax rates. And they can certainly make your take-home pay go down if you accept a raise. See: https://news.ycomb
73.
by medvezhenok 2y ago
It's a common misconception because there are plenty of situations where making more money actually decreases your take-home pay. It's just not via the bracket system, it's via other incentives in the tax code (and welfare be
74.
by medvezhenok 2y ago
The more correct statement is "you never pay more in taxes by moving up a bracket" - though even that is not correct in all cases. There are a lot of things (IETC for example, or benefits, or health insurance) which have $ cutoffs
75.
by medvezhenok 2y ago
The number of deaths matters, but the distribution of deaths also matters. When you drive, you are in control of the amount of risk you take, and your likelihood of a crash - it’s not the same probability for everyone.
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by medvezhenok 2y ago
If you go to MIT's living wage calculator, they do the math for you. For a family of four living in SF, they estimate ~$15,400/year in food costs (a bit higher than what I said, but still way less than $24K. Same for housing - the
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by medvezhenok 2y ago
The other factor is the drop in teen pregnancy. I think the birth rate for 26-35 hasn’t changed as much as the teen birth rate has dropped (which is correlated with poverty)
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by medvezhenok 2y ago
Those expenses sound quite high, that is the problem. Middle class is still couponing - groceries should be half that at best. Just don’t eat organic or top quality cuts. Even in HCOL it is possible to rent a passable 2-bedroom for 36K a ye
79.
by medvezhenok 3y ago
The problem in the U.S. (independently of everything else) is that value serves as a filtering mechanism. Value of properties in a neighborhood correlates to the crime rate in that neighborhood - and that’s true nationwide, and because of c
80.
by medvezhenok 3y ago
Presupposing infinite resources, there wouldn't be a justification for death per se - since there would always be a better, more humane option. The world, however, does not have infinite resources, so there is always a question of opti
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by medvezhenok 3y ago
Yitzhak Rabin did try to negotiate a reasonable peace deal (with Arafat), and was assassinated because of it. Israel left the West Bank [mostly] alone and that's what allowed the territory to get taken over by Hamas (with some degree o
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by medvezhenok 3y ago
Solving NIMBY-ism and housing speculation would do much more for the poor than taxing the rich would. After all, you can't eat dollars. And more dollars competing for the same goods would just drive inflation higher (the rich do not di
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by medvezhenok 3y ago
Inflation _redistributes_ wealth from those with higher knowledge / ability to avoid it, to those with little ability/knowledge. Alternatively, it redistributes from people with fixed incomes, to workers; or from people with cash
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by medvezhenok 3y ago
This is flat out incorrect. There have been productivity driven deflations in the 1800s that have actually been net good for the average person. It's just that the most salient example of recent deflations (2008 and 1930) happened to c
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by medvezhenok 3y ago
Obviously one can post-hoc rationalize "sensible" as whatever worked best given the circumstances that occurred. Absent government intervention in the functioning of markets, being frugal would have paid off way more than it has.
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by medvezhenok 3y ago
They're not actually getting $42K out of that transaction as someone pointed out in another comment. 30% goes to the brokerage, 20% goes to taxes. Add NAR fees and team split, and the real estate agent is getting maybe 25-30% of the co
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by medvezhenok 3y ago
I think the same way that landowners colluding to keep rents high and keeping units vacant in lieu of renting at a lower price would be considered an anti-trust violation, homeowners voting for exceedingly strict zoning laws for self-benefi
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by medvezhenok 3y ago
The bubonic plague would probably be the classical historical example - cutting the labor supply in ~half increased wages/prices across the board with no increase in profit to capital. In a less somber example, unions in the 20th centu
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by medvezhenok 3y ago
Indeed. One of the things neglected in the cost discussion is opportunity cost of kids. As society gets richer, opportunity cost of kids goes up. 1. Wages not made. If you're making $100K/year and you take a year off for the kids,
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by medvezhenok 3y ago
Which is exactly what happened in industries such as textiles, appliance production etc. The garments made 100 years ago were higher quality than the ones made today, but significantly more expensive. No reason to think that coding (or writ

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