It's such an absolute dogshit analysis it's barely worth rebutting. The share of wealth for those 35 and under has declined by 70% in 30 years. Who cares if your median income is 10% higher when rent is 3x.
Might cost-of-living increases have eaten all of these gains and then some? No: this is real median income, ie adjusted for inflation. Cost-of-living increases are a type of inflation, so those should be priced in.
I refuse to believe this fuckass is incapable of understanding that prices of some things increase faster than inflation. Housing and healthcare have done this so incredibly much even your dog has to be aware of it by 2025.
Yea, it is like an incredibly basic error i have even seen other of their compatriots point out. Real income going up does not mean real prices universally going down. Inflation is the overall change of prices due to macro pressure, not actually the changing of costs for any given person. Usually things go the other way (inflation goes up, but some prices go down), but real income going up does not mean the average person is able to afford more of everything, just more of an average bundle of goods used to estimate macro changes in pricing.
The CPI also takes into account prices going down or staying flat, so lack of inflation or even relative deflation of cell phones or internet services can offset inflation elsewhere even if the goods subject to inflation are more basic/necessary.
Oh hey fun I get to whinge about the fuckass graph that Scott found as his one source for student loans being on the downswing. That table is student loan debt issued per year by total students enrolled, adjusting for inflation and credit hours. That means it counts all $0 of debt that full ride scholarship recipients and people whose parents mortgaged their houses took on.
Why do all these guys think they are so smart that they can just wing it in other fields full of smart people and well established theory? This is a simply embarrassing attempt at economic analysis that he tries to compensate for with length and glibness. Stay in your lane, clown.
I think if you look at his historical output you'll find that "confidently oversimplifying subjects he doesn't understand and using aesthetic rigor to cover the nonsense" is actually exactly where his lane is.
The one thing that strikes me about this post is that even taken at face value and without even disputing any of its claims it feels completely stale and out of date.
It would have felt extremely topical last year but now the US politics is raising tariffs and therefore prices for no reason in particular, everyone in the government is a corrupt crony and there's a terror police kidnapping people off the streets. But I guess this won't reflect in Scott's stats since wisest human Elon Musk fired the people that were collecting it.
Sometimes these people even beg off on that: "well, it takes a while to polish these posts, therefore they are already out of date when released" (see also: AI 2027).
It's so simple and free to just stay quiet. But no.
It's wild that he acknowledges this fact, that a major cost has risen 100%, and just moves on like it's no big deal. It's so obvious he started with his conclusion and worked backward.
speculative assets increase in price when rich people have too much money. the most effective way to reduce housing prices, therefore, is to separate rich people from their money. you can pick your favorite, but the most effective peaceful method i've seen is taxation. so my conservative pragmatic tax policy is to close the capital gains loopholes by forcing a sale-rebuy of finance securities every year on tax day,. also i would increase taxes. 99% tax rate on every dollar over 700000, and 99.9% on every dollar after 700000000, and 99.99% on every dollar after 700000000000, etc.
next is to decommodify housing. again the legal technologies available are legion, but i like the most this one: that after 1 (one) code violation or failure to maintain the property triggers a forced sale of the property to the tenant. we could compromise and increase it to two code violations if necesary; call it a "second chance" for landlordism. the UK's green party has passed a resolution for this type of policy; they're currently polling at 15%. there is also rent control. rent controlled units lower rent. many detractors say it "increases rent of non-controlled units" but that can be solved by simply controlling those units too, until 100% of rented properties are controlled.
rezoning has been a socialist demand for decades.
public housing, under the vienna model for one example. you can watch new york's upcoming mayor talk about it here. there is so much overhead and middlemen chaff you can eliminate by just having the government own housing instead of private industry, because the government does not demand to earn profit. in addition, the government can have its own development companies, a "public option" developer that will force landlord-developers to actually compete instead of monopolize.
sorry for the sincere post. i also support criminalizing landlordism with capital punishment
This part was a little unclear to me. How would the price of the property be determined? Also, what happens if the tenant cannot (or does not want to) pay that price?
argue it in court, the court will choose the price. no sale if the tenant is ruled to not be negotiating in good faith. no sale if the tenant doesnt want to buy. but, no law exists yet actually implementing this policy, so lots of details are unclear.
Why do these people always bring up Japan? Prices in Tokyo are horrendous recently because their economy is no longer completely stagnant and foreign capital loves buying real estate. They've been consistently rising at a pace in line with the rest of the developed world for years now...
[deleted]
Rarely have so few words effectively communicated such a nauseating worldview.
It's such an absolute dogshit analysis it's barely worth rebutting. The share of wealth for those 35 and under has declined by 70% in 30 years. Who cares if your median income is 10% higher when rent is 3x.
I refuse to believe this fuckass is incapable of understanding that prices of some things increase faster than inflation. Housing and healthcare have done this so incredibly much even your dog has to be aware of it by 2025.
Yea, it is like an incredibly basic error i have even seen other of their compatriots point out. Real income going up does not mean real prices universally going down. Inflation is the overall change of prices due to macro pressure, not actually the changing of costs for any given person. Usually things go the other way (inflation goes up, but some prices go down), but real income going up does not mean the average person is able to afford more of everything, just more of an average bundle of goods used to estimate macro changes in pricing.
The CPI also takes into account prices going down or staying flat, so lack of inflation or even relative deflation of cell phones or internet services can offset inflation elsewhere even if the goods subject to inflation are more basic/necessary.
Oh hey fun I get to whinge about the fuckass graph that Scott found as his one source for student loans being on the downswing. That table is student loan debt issued per year by total students enrolled, adjusting for inflation and credit hours. That means it counts all $0 of debt that full ride scholarship recipients and people whose parents mortgaged their houses took on.
Figure 3 in this pdf is inflation adjusted cost of tuition, which was on the rise during the 2010-2016 period. Meanwhile percentage of students borrowing declined from 2010 onwards, even as total average student loan debt at graduation increased.
Why do all these guys think they are so smart that they can just wing it in other fields full of smart people and well established theory? This is a simply embarrassing attempt at economic analysis that he tries to compensate for with length and glibness. Stay in your lane, clown.
I think if you look at his historical output you'll find that "confidently oversimplifying subjects he doesn't understand and using aesthetic rigor to cover the nonsense" is actually exactly where his lane is.
Aesthetic Rigor is my new band name.
aesthetic rigor mortis
Tech bros and talking about thing they don't understand, name a more iconic duo
The one thing that strikes me about this post is that even taken at face value and without even disputing any of its claims it feels completely stale and out of date.
It would have felt extremely topical last year but now the US politics is raising tariffs and therefore prices for no reason in particular, everyone in the government is a corrupt crony and there's a terror police kidnapping people off the streets. But I guess this won't reflect in Scott's stats since wisest human Elon Musk fired the people that were collecting it.
Sometimes these people even beg off on that: "well, it takes a while to polish these posts, therefore they are already out of date when released" (see also: AI 2027).
It's so simple and free to just stay quiet. But no.
I find this pattern amusing, that these people who think they’re so intelligent demonstrating repeatedly that they don’t know how the world works.
It's wild that he acknowledges this fact, that a major cost has risen 100%, and just moves on like it's no big deal. It's so obvious he started with his conclusion and worked backward.
For a second I thought that this was going to be about Ozy Brennan.
What’re they up to these days?
Typical neoliberal horse shit from someone who doesn't even know the meaning of the word "struggle".
many redditors seem to have picked up this one is a bit too vapid and incurious, particularly as it relates to inequality. however, they're stuck yimby-pilled and can't imagine a solution other than "build more houses and make sure developers and landlords get to siphon off a massive profit as middlemen"
Out of curiosity, what is your preferred solution to housing affordability?
I'd say build more affordable housing, not necessarily more houses.
speculative assets increase in price when rich people have too much money. the most effective way to reduce housing prices, therefore, is to separate rich people from their money. you can pick your favorite, but the most effective peaceful method i've seen is taxation. so my conservative pragmatic tax policy is to close the capital gains loopholes by forcing a sale-rebuy of finance securities every year on tax day,. also i would increase taxes. 99% tax rate on every dollar over 700000, and 99.9% on every dollar after 700000000, and 99.99% on every dollar after 700000000000, etc.
next is to decommodify housing. again the legal technologies available are legion, but i like the most this one: that after 1 (one) code violation or failure to maintain the property triggers a forced sale of the property to the tenant. we could compromise and increase it to two code violations if necesary; call it a "second chance" for landlordism. the UK's green party has passed a resolution for this type of policy; they're currently polling at 15%. there is also rent control. rent controlled units lower rent. many detractors say it "increases rent of non-controlled units" but that can be solved by simply controlling those units too, until 100% of rented properties are controlled.
rezoning has been a socialist demand for decades.
public housing, under the vienna model for one example. you can watch new york's upcoming mayor talk about it here. there is so much overhead and middlemen chaff you can eliminate by just having the government own housing instead of private industry, because the government does not demand to earn profit. in addition, the government can have its own development companies, a "public option" developer that will force landlord-developers to actually compete instead of monopolize.
sorry for the sincere post. i also support criminalizing landlordism with capital punishment
This part was a little unclear to me. How would the price of the property be determined? Also, what happens if the tenant cannot (or does not want to) pay that price?
argue it in court, the court will choose the price. no sale if the tenant is ruled to not be negotiating in good faith. no sale if the tenant doesnt want to buy. but, no law exists yet actually implementing this policy, so lots of details are unclear.
I appreciate it (and mostly agree w/ your take).
Why do these people always bring up Japan? Prices in Tokyo are horrendous recently because their economy is no longer completely stagnant and foreign capital loves buying real estate. They've been consistently rising at a pace in line with the rest of the developed world for years now...
As Land Prices Soar in Tokyo, Prospective Homebuyers Head to Neighboring Prefectures to Find Place to Settle Down - The Japan News
fuck I don't want to read what the Very Smart People think on this topic but I"m curious. What's the TLDR?