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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   30494 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

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New homes and end to price-gouging: Harris sets economic goals

The Democratic presidential nominee's plans build on ideas from the Biden administration and aim at addressing voter concerns after a surge in prices since 2021.

The campaign's proposals include a "first-ever" tax credit for builders of homes sold to first-time buyers, as well as up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance for "eligible" first time buyers, a move that her campaign estimated could reach four million households over four years.

She has also called for capping the monthly price of diabetes-drug insulin at $35 for everyone, finding ways to cancel medical debt, and giving families a $6,000 tax credit the year they have a new child.

She is supporting a federal law banning firms from charging excessive prices on groceries and urged action on a bill in Congress that would bar property owners from using services that "coordinate" rents.

Though analysts say some of Harris's proposals, such as the ban on price-gouging, are likely to be popular, they have also sparked criticism from some economists. Bans on price-gouging already exist in many states, applied during emergencies such as hurricanes. But economists say the term is difficult to define and widening such rules could end up backfiring, by discouraging firms from making more at times of short supply.

Everyone likes free money, right? Building houses is good, having kids is good, paying less for life saving medications is good, taking power out of large landlords hands is good. But maybe trying to apply emergency price gouging laws to non-emergency situations is not so good. Maybe write a law that you have to lower prices when things are good as quickly as you raised them when they weren't so good. What are Trump's plans?

With populism ascendant in both parties, that cost has not dissuaded Trump's choice for vice president, JD Vance, from backing an even bigger tax credit expansion.

Economists predict that increased drilling would have limited impact given the global nature of energy markets and have warned that Trump's pledge to impose a tax of 10% or more on imports would drive up prices.

We're already producing a boatload of oil, but with russia somewhat out of the picture our european friends might appreciate it. Not sure about bringing down prices though.

What can she promise to boost the supply of housing instead of subsidizing demand? As long as cities have downtowns, you are limited by the driving distance and the quantity of roads and parking downtown.

She can't promise to raze and rebuild the cities with decentralized offices.

She can't promise to found new cities to allow first-time buyers to buy new homes cheaply.

She can't promise to upzone existing suburbs.

Even if she can somehow double the supply of housing, this will destroy housing as an investment. Which is also something people very vocally do not want. It's not like Trump can do anything about housing either. Maybe when the US population finally starts to dip...

Let's say you are grandma who bought a good sized house for 200k. You are about to retire and all the kids are gone so you sell the house.

Situation 1, the price of your house rose to 1 mil, you net 800,000. You spend a third to buy a condo in an old person condominium, and now you have 700,000 on top of your 401k and SS to spend in your dotage.

Situation 2, the price of your home went back down to 300k. You net 100k. The price of the condo also fell, now it's 100k. You only have 200k extra to add to your nest egg. Assuming other costs stayed the same, you are worse off.

There are lots of people who would be better off too. But it's the Baby Boomers who are retiring, and they are such a huge voting block no one wants to mess with it for now. Maybe when Gen X retires.

Maybe when Gen X retires.

Gen X doesn't get to retire, because once the Boomers start dying off, the Millennials will vote to take all we've saved and all the more foolish of us believed we were promised.

God, I hope so.

Boomers as a voting block are too formidable but millennials outnumber genx so it might be the first opportunity in a generation to actually smash that Ponzi scheme to a million pieces.

Someone’s got to take the hit when we draw the line, and millennials got mega fucked economically by a combination the vagaries of history and poor public policy.

How much sharper than a serpent's tooth....

(ha, good thing I didn't have kids)

I’m a millennial with young kids so it’s do or die for me at this point.

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