POLITICS SCHMALITICS

[Jim Cowan]

I bought a car in November 2020 and it now has 5,000 miles on it because I work almost exclusively from home.  The price of gasoline has not affected me and I am not really aware of the changes.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

a  'hockey' turn in recent years.

of course that should say 'hockey stick' but editing has timed out.

[buddha]

16 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

I have never paid much attention to it, especially now that I work at home most of the time.  I don't know how much particular items of food cost either.  I notice that the total price has gone up, but it would have anyway because I have switched to Instacart which means there is a service fee and a tip.   I notice how much things that I don't need cost more than things that I need to survive.  

food prices have gone up quite a bit.

[pfife]

18 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

I bought a car in November 2020 and it now has 5,000 miles on it because I work almost exclusively from home.  The price of gasoline has not affected me and I am not really aware of the changes.

my 2017 has 23k miles.   LOL.   

[VegasTiger]

Onstar says I drove 641 miles last year.

[Crazy Cat Gentleman]

I think I drive more since the pandemic started. I'm lazy, so I drive half a mile to food trucks for lunch instead of making something at home or walking, and I work at home, so I can no longer stop off at the grocery store while taking the bus/train home from the office (never took my car to the office, always transit).

[Motown Bombers]

Thread

 

[shabba4detroit]

On 2/1/2022 at 10:12 AM, chasfh said:

Bunker doesn’t like Trump tho

I doubt that he gets the reference.  It's 50 years old.  And the show remains relevant.   The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

[oblong]

 

[Tigerbomb13]

28 minutes ago, oblong said:

 

More if the GOP’s “legitimate political discourse”, I’m sure. 

[smr-nj]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

 

That’s truly disgusting 

[buddha]

almost 80% of san francisco voters vote to recall three of their city school board members.  the big issues being their support for changing the names of schools named after lincoln, jefferson, washington, and diane feinstein because they werent sufficiently anti-racist enough, their re-doing of the admissions standards for selective public schools to eliminate "academic ability" as a criteria because it was racist, and their inability to re-open the public schools after covid when everyone else in the country had done so.

next up on the recall block is their ultra progressive "thou shall not charge anyone with a crime" prosecutor.

if san francisco voters are getting fed up with left wing messaging on crime and covid, will that be what republicans run on nationally?  i imagine it will be.  and its probably why democrats and progressives seem to be moving a bit toward the center on those issues.

[gehringer_2]

24 minutes ago, buddha said:

almost 80% of san francisco voters vote to recall three of their city school board members.  the big issues being their support for changing the names of schools named after lincoln, jefferson, washington, and diane feinstein because they werent sufficiently anti-racist enough, their re-doing of the admissions standards for selective public schools to eliminate "academic ability" as a criteria because it was racist, and their inability to re-open the public schools after covid when everyone else in the country had done so.

next up on the recall block is their ultra progressive "thou shall not charge anyone with a crime" prosecutor.

if san francisco voters are getting fed up with left wing messaging on crime and covid, will that be what republicans run on nationally?  i imagine it will be.  and its probably why democrats and progressives seem to be moving a bit toward the center on those issues.

there aren't really many Dems where where those folks were. I imagine most Dems see their recall as a positive development for their party.

[buddha]

12 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

there aren't really many Dems where where those folks were. I imagine most Dems see their recall as a positive development for their party.

there arent really many democrats in san francisco?

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, buddha said:

there arent really many democrats in san francisco?

no-no - ambiguious syntax on my part. I meant not that many Dems are 'where those folks' are at in terms of their politics. 

 

[buddha]

14 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

no-no - ambiguious syntax on my part. I meant not that many Dems are 'where those folks' are at in terms of their politics. 

 

i agree.

the twitter outrage machine tends to focus on the extremes of both parties.  but only one party has gone ahead and made their extreme a president of the country.

fortunately i dont see the democrats going down that same path, as they now seem to be distancing themselves from them in a lot of their major urban bases.

[Tiger337]

 

 

[1984Echoes]

Well...

I knew god was a fabrication at the age of 11 which is... quite a long while ago.

"Man created god in his own image in order to make sense of all the shit that goes on in this world."

Glad to see America finally starting to catch up.

Europe already has, for the most part, quite a long time ago...

[gehringer_2]

34 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

 

 

LOL - if that number was 68% in 1993 it was only because half the people were lying. I don't doubt there has been a great cultural shift, but I would guess it's more about people dropping their pretensions about they think they believe but didn't really.

In any case, one somewhat odd bit is that according to Pew Research, income inequality in a society generally correlates to increases in religiosity, to the US would be going against form in that regard, though inequality in the US may be too recent so show up in  deeper cultural trends like religious belief.

Edited February 18, 2022 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

The wording is a little funny to me. If you “know God really exists” then I question whether what you claim to have can be called faith. I once wrote a paper in college on faith vs reason and to know something is to not have faith. I know water will freeze at 25 degrees. That’s not faith. 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

The wording is a little funny to me. If you “know God really exists” then I question whether what you claim to have can be called faith. I once wrote a paper in college on faith vs reason and to know something is to not have faith. I know water will freeze at 25 degrees. That’s not faith. 

True enough. You also have be careful about whether you are measuring change in belief or just change in the language - in the way people understand and use certain syntax. Especially around religion because people use a lot language wrt religion for which they don't really have very fixed definitions/understanding.

Of course on a more abstract basis one can argue (and many philosophers have over the centuries) that there is no certainty for any empirical knowledge which was gained by induction/experience/science, but in the modern world we tend to have tossed that argument into the 'how many angels can dance on the head of pin' class of irrelevances. 🤔

Edited February 18, 2022 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

This can't be a good trend, can it?

Data: Redfin; Chart: Jared Whalen/Axios

Investors are draining an increasingly large share of American homes from the market, leaving traditional homebuyers with fewer options, at higher prices, Matt writes.

Why it matters: Homeownership is the single most important way Americans build wealth. Families are now increasingly facing off with cash-rich institutional investors bidding for houses, as they try to climb onto the property ladder.

Driving the news: The share of American homes sold to investors hit a record high of 18.4% in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to a recent report from real estate firm Redfin.

• These investors bought roughly 80,000 homes worth $50 billion during the last three months of the year.

Worth noting: Investors are an especially heavy presence in markets that have seen some of the highest price spikes in the country.

• In Las Vegas and Phoenix, where prices are were up 28% and 25% last year, investors bought roughly 30% of the houses sold in the fourth quarter, Redfin found.

What they're saying: "Ordinary folks are feeling the pinch," says Redfin economist Sheharyar Bokhari, who decided to research the role of investors after hearing anecdotes about individual house hunters increasingly losing out to them.

Context: The highly symbolic — politically sensitive — American housing market has transformed in the years since the financial crisis of 2008.

• Large institutional investors have been pumping cash into a market that used to be highly localized and dominated by owner-occupiers and small-time landlords.

• At the same time, a decade's dearth of homebuilding in the aftermath of the housing bust has created a structural shortage of houses.

State of play: Over the last two years, the pandemic triggered a home-buying boom amid record-low mortgage rates and house-bound families' desires for home offices and more space. Affordability has fallen sharply, as prices have surged.

What we're watching: Homebuilding. While the surge of investors into the market is adding to the strains on housing affordability, the fundamental problem is a shortage of supply, especially in the denser markets where the best jobs are.

Yes, but: These markets — often in the affluent, liberal-leaning suburbs surrounding big cities — are also the toughest ones in which to build, amid restrictive zoning and endemic NIMBYism.

[gehringer_2]

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

This can't be a good trend, can it?

 

Data: Redfin; Chart: Jared Whalen/Axios

 

Investors are draining an increasingly large share of American homes from the market, leaving traditional homebuyers with fewer options, at higher prices, Matt writes.

 

Why it matters: Homeownership is the single most important way Americans build wealth. Families are now increasingly facing off with cash-rich institutional investors bidding for houses, as they try to climb onto the property ladder.

 

Driving the news: The share of American homes sold to investors hit a record high of 18.4% in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to a recent report from real estate firm Redfin.

 

• These investors bought roughly 80,000 homes worth $50 billion during the last three months of the year.

   

Worth noting: Investors are an especially heavy presence in markets that have seen some of the highest price spikes in the country.

 

• In Las Vegas and Phoenix, where prices are were up 28% and 25% last year, investors bought roughly 30% of the houses sold in the fourth quarter, Redfin found.

   

What they're saying: "Ordinary folks are feeling the pinch," says Redfin economist Sheharyar Bokhari, who decided to research the role of investors after hearing anecdotes about individual house hunters increasingly losing out to them.

 

Context: The highly symbolic — politically sensitive — American housing market has transformed in the years since the financial crisis of 2008.

 

• Large institutional investors have been pumping cash into a market that used to be highly localized and dominated by owner-occupiers and small-time landlords.

   

• At the same time, a decade's dearth of homebuilding in the aftermath of the housing bust has created a structural shortage of houses.

   

State of play: Over the last two years, the pandemic triggered a home-buying boom amid record-low mortgage rates and house-bound families' desires for home offices and more space. Affordability has fallen sharply, as prices have surged.

 

What we're watching: Homebuilding. While the surge of investors into the market is adding to the strains on housing affordability, the fundamental problem is a shortage of supply, especially in the denser markets where the best jobs are.

 

Yes, but: These markets — often in the affluent, liberal-leaning suburbs surrounding big cities — are also the toughest ones in which to build, amid restrictive zoning and endemic NIMBYism.

looks like a good investment to me....

US POPULATION GROWTH

[buddha]

that's what happens when you've been giving away money for free for 20 years.  large investors have more cash than they know what to do with, so they spread out their portfolios and get into property ownership.

cant put your money in bonds, no growth there.

plus newly rich chinese companies are getting into the us property market, buying everything up.  i know a guy who was trying to buy an investment property and everytime they would look at something, a big investment firm came in and overbid and paid cash up front.  driving up prices everywhere.  you cant get anything worth a damn for a family in chicago for less than 500-600k now.

[Motown Bombers]

I bought my house in 2009 during the housing crash. Most of the bank owned foreclosures were being snatched up by investors paying cash. I was able to buy mine through HUD since HUD offers the homes to people who will homestead it vs investors.