This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
People who own houses often have it as their primary asset. Reducing the value of real estate is, in a very real sense, making them poorer. And people who own homes vote.
The American Dream is basically 'what if everyone was part of the land-owning class?' and then people are surprised that as a newly endowed member of that class, they are opposed to the renting class and new buyers. Well, no shit! You've spent a great amount of government subsidy to align their interests in that way.
Trump is just being honest in that he is siding with the landowners. Anyone who is an advocate for reducing the price of housing but isn't for building new construction is a liar who is a part of the problem. Their best ideas for reducing the price are to subsidize the demand and this is why structural reform is impossible.
No it is literally not making them poorer unless their income is housing speculation.
If you make $10k per month and have a $3k/month mortgage you consumption basket does not change if the value of the house is $1 or $10 million. Either way you have $7k/m for other consumption.
That is not how wealth works.
If only we had infinite inflation. Then I can be a wealthy trillionaire.
Do you see the problem with your logic here?
The problem isn't with my logic, it's with your lack of math. If you make $10k per month and have a $3k mortgage, and inflation results in everything going up evenly by 10x, you will be making $100k per month... and still have a $3k mortgage, for a gain of $2700 for other consumption (in old dollars). Inflation straightforwardly helps those with dollar-denominated debt. But that's cash flow, not wealth.
How are you getting poorer if you make the same income but we invented some housing tech where housing has a lower asset value? Now you have an existing mortgage. Your job is very secure. You love your job. You love your community an never plan to leave.
Literally nothing changes in your consumption before or after we invented this new tech that causes massive asset value deflation in housing. It’s just that the new person buying a house pays less. You can actually not increase your consumption basket and buy a second home because they are much cheaper.
This happened with televisions. I am watching television right now on a 15 year old tv. It was expensive then. Now I could buy a 3x larger tv at 20% of the price. I still enjoy watching television on my old tv that is now cheap.
I am obviously wealthier today because we invented cheap tv technology. In my Milton Friedman permanent income hypothesis I likely thought I would spend $10k during the rest of my life on televisions. Now I expect to spend maybe $3k.
That you have to put those conditions on it demonstrates I am getting poorer in fact.
Suppose I just bought a $1M house and have an $800,000 mortgage on it (I'm in a recourse state). Housing value drops to $400,000 thanks to your new magic. Now I want to move to another similar house in another area for some reason. OK, that house is $400,000... but I need to somehow come up with $100,000 just to get out of my current mortgage, as well as the down payment for the new house. Whereas if nothing had changed I'd have just had to sell the old house and buy the new (aside from transaction fees).
Cash flow is not wealth.
And yes, the same is true with TVs. If you buy a TV for $10,000 and the price drops to $2,000 the next day, your wealth has dropped -- not by $8,000, because no one's buying even a one-day-used TV for new TV prices, but by something. We just don't notice because we don't track the asset value of things like TVs, because we don't expect to resell them.
Assume your debt is like credit card debt and transferable. You would still have zero loss and be richer in terms of what you can buy.
What exactly do you mean by this? The 800-k$ mortgage would be, not secured by the 1-M$ house, but unsecured (and therefore carrying a vastly higher interest rate)?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link