in a sense even NIMBY homeowners are prisoners of the stupid system we’ve built. they’re just responding rationally to policy that encouraged them to put their savings in real estate. but the end result is a bunch of inflated assets nobody can afford to buy, and then a crash. that happened in 2008
the reason why they tend to go up is massive demand subsides from the 30 year mortgage policy, mortgage interest deduction, etc, plus supply restrictions from NIMBY building codes
it’s economically insane for home prices to go up everywhere all the time. homes do not increase in productivity to provide more housing services. they just slowly fall apart
writing a book on this at the moment, but in short: I’m fine with homeownership. the problem is home price inflation, which is a product of government policy and actually reduces homeownership over the long term
it’s all about the business incentive id say. if you’re Facebook selling ads against free accounts then the incentive is to boost genocidal racism because it turns out that keeps people on platform. but if your money comes from users instead (or some of it anyway) you need to cater to them
I find it particularly sickening in that it turns out there is a way to sell nicotine that is I dunno 90 percent? less deadly with those pouch things and Big Tobacco just didn’t bother trying to figure that out for hundreds of years
the actual problem is not ownership per se but endless home price appreciation, which is eventually bad for home buying!!
in terms of benefit programs means testing is stupid. a better rule of thumb is categorical or universal eligibility (ie disability benefits or national health insurance) and then you “means test” everything at once with progressive taxation
hell yeah
I don’t think it’s quite true to say small farms are necessarily unviable. more like the heavily subsidized commodity monocrop style of farming is not, at least not without the subsidies. plenty of fruit, veg, nut etc guys making bank on a modest operation
I’m not saying it isn’t important. I’m saying “I want” makes no sense in this context
imagine deciding who is American on this criterion. or hell, French/German/English etc
100 percent legal fiction
yep. I got dogpiled for DAYS back on Olde Twitter for mentioning I had done anti smoking activism in high school. on the one hand you have big corporations killing like a billion people, mostly in the global south, but on the other hand trying to stop that is cringe and lib
I mean I’m not losing any sleep over it. I’m just thinking of a certain burrito taxi poster who was later complaining bitterly about having maxed out their IRA
New: A Houston woman is suing Tesla in Harris County, alleging that her Cybertruck, while using Tesla's "Full Self-Driving mode" tried to drive the car off of a bridge. Here is the dashcam footage provided by her lawyers: www.chron.com/culture/arti...
in the case of estates though, you aren’t giving anyone money, you’re dead. you’re writing down words and saying everyone should do what you say even though you don’t exist anymore. why?
I am once again asking @toni.bsky.team, give me a way to pay. I will pay for a sub even if it doesn’t give me anything at first. I would like to be the customer rather than the product
I strongly agree with this bsky.app/profile/star...
Toni had a role at WordPress a few years ago and I recall did quite a good job FWIW.
fresh @leftanchor.bsky.social bonus episode, we have Jase Short on to talk about Iran: www.patreon.com/posts/trumps...
from what I read it was a bunch of cryptocurrency libertarians who wanted to do a crypto-style social media network and accidentally fell ass backwards into becoming lib truth social (laudatory)
so? that's because the right wing frauds on SCOTUS decided they wanted to restrict abortion rights, the constitution didn't enter into it one way or another. a couple years after that they deleted basically all of Section 2
FWIW the guy seems alright as far as VCs go. and the Bluesky project was not intended as what is has become, to put it mildly toni.org/2026/03/09/c...
a lot of people have deeply internalized classic American "selfish asshole libertarian" politics but left coded because they liked Bernie in 2016
I would have done but I remember him just completely refusing to acknowledge reality about housing market dynamics awhile back. that classic social media compulsive digging in dynamic
yeah, but you also don't need a constitutional amendment. the document is not at all clear on this point. just replace the reactionary majority and get your people to overturn the bullshit precedent, that's what Republicans do
saw that coming lol
ruh roh
