domain:mattlakeman.org
stav
19hr ago
Another reason housing is so expensive is mass immigration. You think that mass immigration from the whole world to CA has no impact on housing costs? 27% of California is an immigrant.
zeke5123a
19hr ago
I don’t think that’s a fair statement if the belligerents here.
One can support exclusionary zoning and still make building easier compared to the status quo ante (there are a million ways to cut red tape besides allowing multiple family building in single family zones — some of them are indirect). Also one can support ending exclusionary zoning without making building easier (eg 80% of units must be affordable).
Not sure which way it all cuts.
atokenliberal6D_4
Defender of Western Culture
18hr ago
There are two reasons why I think the description is fair
- First, the "war on the suburbs" rhetoric specifically talks about how "your investment and lifestyle may soon come under attack." This isn't just about exclusionary zoning; it's about anything that could significantly depress housing prices
- Second, Republican organizations have been using "war on the suburbs" are rhetorical demagoguery against almost any policy to increase housing supply: see this as another example.
So today there was an assassination attempt on prime minister of my country of Slovakia - Robert Fico. It happened during his tradition of government meetings across the country, in small coal town of Handlová. He went to greet his supporters when a 71 years old man shot him several times, he was then carried away and sent to hospital in critical condition, he undertook complicated surgery and his fate is still not known.
All the leaders sent their condolences from Putin to Macron, Biden and Ursula von der Leyen, all condemning the violence. The same for Slovak political leaders. Of course, Slovak reddit as a bastion of more progressive people could not hold their glee, most upvoted comments for one of the threads were of the like of "JFK from Wish" or "this is what you get from hate". I mention it just as a litmus test of how more progressive people think in Slovakia and to be frank I find it disgusting. As you can gather, Fico is viewed as a populist and Slovak Orban and pro Putin and all that, despite major differences that may take too long to explain. But he definitely is described as archenemy by the strongest opposition party literally called "Progressive Slovakia" here. You probably get the picture.
As for the assassin, to me he seems like an unhinged man that was supporting a lot of fringe movements from right-wing movements to talking against the current government as leaked by one policeman who released a video of the perpetration in custody, where the assassin ranted something about recent law regarding the state broadcasting and overall disagreement with the government.
At this point all I have to say is that I am in shock. Something like that never happened in 40 years history of my country. I see already a lot of spin including Guardian and other foreign press as well as very strong proclamations from parties in government about "political warfare". One thing is apparent, the politics in my country changed and not for the better. I think there will be some ripples also elsewhere, ranging from "stochastic terrorism" by having somebody radicalized by media to just politicians being more alerted to this kind of thing happening. There is also EU parliament elections in couple of weeks and this is something that may have more impact there.
That is all for now, I am not sure if this will be deleted as it is not probably quite a topic for some extra thread, but also not your cookie cutter idea thrown here for discussion. But it is widely relevant on so many levels even outside of Slovak politics so I think there may be some good discussion bellow. I may add some edit and I am willing to anybody else to update bellow if let's say Fico's condition changes in the upcoming hours when I am asleep.
Culture War nexuses
This isn't exactly some thought-out post, more just a culture war observation. Every now and then there happens an event that feels like a CW "nexus" where it is the intersection of like five different hot topics in one moment. I had this thought while walking yesterday and wondered if someone else had any other examples. Here's two of mine:
A couple of weeks ago in Toronto a group of Indian immigrants, presumably in a gang of some sort, robbed a government-owned liquor store. They pulled a knife on an off-duty cop there. When they left, they were pursued by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and regional cops. In a rented van the thieves went the wrong way down the 401, the busiest highway in the world; the OPP stopped pursuit and told the regional cops to do the same, but they continued to follow. The getaway van hit a car going the opposite way. The other car's inhabitants was also a family of Indian immigrants: new parents, a baby, and their newly-arrived grandparents (via family reunification presumably). The getaway driver, the grandparents, and the baby were killed. The getaway driver was out on bail on weapon's charges, had a suspended license, and was under court order not to drive.
If you've been paying attention to any political issues in Canada you can see how this neatly ties together a bunch of hot topics into one incident. I have another:
In late 2022 a cement mixer in Berlin hit a female cyclist. The driver got out of his truck to check on the cyclist and was stabbed by a mentally ill homeless refugee. An ambulance arrived to transport the critically injured woman to the hospital, but on the way was stopped by climate protestors who had glued themselves to the road. The cyclist died but the truck driver survived.
zeke5123a
18hr ago
The honest rhetoric is “you don’t want a bunch of poors (largely black) underclass to move into your neighborhood making it crime ridden, destroying the schools, and crushing property values.”
That is different from “my home value decreased a little because there is more inventory because there is more building.”
The first thing is a catastrophe as it kills your investment and lifestyle. The second is a minor nuisance that on balance may be positive to you.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
17hr ago
I don't want my neighborhood torn down to make 5-over-ones packed full of 300 square foot apartments for NEETs even if they don't cause crime and make property values go up.
Tomato
23hr ago
House prices are high because of policies that people like your parents voted for. Hispanics, Asians, and Indians aren’t voting for zoning restrictions and fighting tooth and nail for Prop 13 and similar policies. At least guys like Newsom are wielding power at the state level to force lazy freeloaders (65 year old whites) to make California livable for normal hardworking people (30 year old Hispanics).
stav
22hr ago
You're straight up wrong if you think wealthy Indians and Asians are voting to bring low income housing into their neighborhoods. Also, prop 13 was passed when my parents were in high school so that law was passed by the Greatest Generation and Silent Generation. And those 30 year old Hispanics are net takers. Whites pay significantly more in than they take over their lifetimes. Can't say the same for Hispanics and especially blacks.
I'm sorry, but this is just sloppy demagoguery. If you're being priced out because supply is artificially restricted to such brutal extremes as housing in California, you don't blame the other people who are similarly being screwed over, you blame the people causing the artificial restriction! Anyone telling you otherwise is probably manipulating you.
guajalote
19hr ago
Houston, TX is about 25% foreign born and has way cheaper housing than any major city in CA. There's plenty of space in CA to house everyone even if the population doubled or tripled. The problem is regulations that restrict supply.
atokenliberal6D_4
Defender of Western Culture
20hr ago
Wow, does sideswiping an entire group of people as an "infestation" not count as being overly antagonistic here?
stav
18hr ago
Houston has unlimited land. Where in LA or the Bay Area is there open land to start building? Point to it on a map for me.
stav
18hr ago
It’s both. If you have mass immigration and restricted supply then you get massive prices increases. But the Bay Area and LA are full. You can’t build anymore in either except up. Where in LA or the Bay Area is the free space to build these houses to fix the housing crisis? Where is the open land in Fremont or San Jose or San Francisco that can fix the housing crisis there? You have to tear down old buildings and start building massive multi family units.
BurdensomeCount
Singapore is the only country that learned the correct lessons from the British Empire.
20hr ago
· Edited 18hr ago
Whites pay significantly more in than they take over their lifetimes
Is this before or after you include the imputed damages of tens of thousands of dollars each year they cause by hogging desirable accommodation near jobs after they retire and forcing actually productive working age people to live further away and waste time on commutes (or alternatively pay through the nose to live a pretty shitty life centrally)?
Tomato
16hr ago
If that’s a priority for you there are tons of places in the country where demand is low enough to allow that. It’s totally crazy for us as a society to empower someone to prevent his neighbor from doing what he wants to do with his own land in the most productive, in demand location on the planet.
atokenliberal6D_4
Defender of Western Culture
18hr ago
You have to tear down old buildings and start building massive multi family units
This is putting way too high of a standard. Buildings are demolished and replaced all the time! If you don't allow this, you get nonsense like the "historic laundromat" in San Francisco. Putting all the cases like this together, there's a ridiculous amount of space in San Francisco itself for more housing when so much of the city looks like this.
jeroboam
21hr ago
Anyone ever try the Shangri-La diet? It didn't work for Yud but apparently nothing works for him, even Ozempic. Other people report near-miraculous results.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BD4oExxQguTgpESdm/the-unfinished-mystery-of-the-shangri-la-diet
The concept is that your body's "set point" is controlled by access to familiar, flavorful food that your body associates with caloric intake. Your set point goes higher when you consume familiar high flavor/high calorie food. In the ancestral environment it made sense to take on extra fat when berries and nuts were plentiful.
On the other hand, the set point can go down when these familiar foods aren't available. Many people experience weight loss when traveling to an unfamiliar country and eating unfamiliar food. Seth Roberts, inventor of the diet, experienced this weight loss when traveling and drinking unfamiliar sugary beverages, not exactly a health food.
So here's the Shangri-La diet. Every day, drink one tablespoon of extra light olive oil (extra light flavor) mixed with water. Plug your nose so you don't taste it at all. This should happen during a window where you don't consume any flavors for one hour before or after.
Having calories but no flavor breaks the association between flavorful foods and caloric availability and lowers your set point. Or something.
I'm skeptical but I'm willing to give it a try.
Keto worked great for me but unfortunately I'm a cholesterol hyper responder and my levels shot up to over 400. That's probably fine, but I'm conservative so I gave up. Unfortunately, the weight all came back over the next 6 months. So now I'm trying this. Hope it works!
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
15hr ago
If that’s a priority for you there are tons of places in the country where demand is low enough to allow that.
I'm already living in my home. Let the NEETs have their pods elsewhere.
stav
18hr ago
Well yes but the point is it’s not like Texas where there’s tons of free land. You’re talking about taking places like Berkeley and Fremont and tearing down homes and building really tall residential buildings. That’s the scale of what needs to be done to get housing under control there.
remzem
14hr ago
It's surprising how radicalized people have become by the western empire / media / ngo complex. Seems like this also involves efforts to limit foreign NGO influence https://www.politico.eu/article/commissioner-upbraids-slovakia-on-changes-to-ngo-public-media-laws-robert-fico/ and is a similar situation to the bill causing all the riots in Georgia and of course a few years ago Hungary... attempted? or actually passed? I don't remember, a similar bill to label and monitor NGOs with significant foreign funding among other attempts to rid their local media of foreign influence. Are these people just NPCs that listen to too much Slovakian NPR? Or people that see themselves as members of the borderless global professional (laptop) class? Seems strange to me that labeling foreign funding for NGOs would be controversial and bad. The US and EU response to these laws is very telling as well.
atokenliberal6D_4
Defender of Western Culture
18hr ago
You guys are allowed to mod however you want---it's your website. It's just dishonest to pretend to be a neutral "place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases" when there's a pretty clear bias in which groups you're allowed to use this kind of antagonistic language against and which you aren't.
Whatever you guys might claim to be, this seems to be a place where it's ok to call an immigrant group an infestation but not to say that the antebellum south was an execrable culture.
Skibboleth
20hr ago
it's why the Democratic party is now the party of the old, upper middle class whites.
That seems doubtful. Trump won the >$100k/yr vote in 2020* and his electoral coalition was significantly whiter and older than Biden's.
*not by a huge margin, admittedly, but the divides aren't huge in any income group; either major party trying to position themselves as the party of the poor/working class is typical American posturing where everyone wants to be rich but no one wants to be Rich.
It's pretty commonly accepted that the housing issue is caused by restrictions on building new housing. It's been Democratic leaders like Scott Weiner and Gavin Newsom that have been pushing hard to remove these restrictions. Trump's party on the other hand has been actively fighting against this, calling it some kind of war on the suburbs.
However, I get the impression that being priced out isn't what you (or the original poster) are mainly focused on here, rather this demographic change. Well, that's easy to address---contrary to what you might think if you spend a lot of time in places like this forum, most Americans and definitely most Californians care that people have similar values and ideals as them rather than that they look superficially similar. "Why aren't more people being radicalized because my personal and unpopular aesthetic preference isn't being satisfied?"---that question answers itself.
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