nickles

I would typically use “crosswalk” in preference to “pedestrian crossing”. The two terms are slightly different, but functionally equivalent. Is there something similar in German?

And this is a part of why it should be administered by governments and not just let loose to market forces... There's no real financial incentive to build 100,000 houses in the middle of nowhere

That's exactly what the Chinese government did, only at a larger scale. It hasn't worked out well.

They actually suggested recently to offer multi-generational mortgages... That's how crazy the market is getting.

I saw that, it's absolutely wild.

Those are risks your landlord should have insurance for. In a world where property isn't such a commodity, those risks don't really have the same meaning or value.

There are risks that can't be insured against. Suppose my employer relocates to another region, and I have the choice of following or finding a new job. If I own a house, I now have to sell it (incurring a 3-6% transaction cost and lots of headache). I can only sell it if there's a willing buyer, and there's no guarantee there will be any.

My rent is covering the building's mortgage, taxes, and maintenance, which I would be paying if I owned the property. It may be marginally higher than the cost of ownership, but I have a strong preference for flexibility. That flexibility is worth the liquidity premium to me.

What happens to people that are 'undesirable' to landlords

In the US, there’s legislation that prohibits discrimination across a variety of protected classes (race, religion, sex, etc.) Does the UK have similar legislation? Putting aside ethics for a moment — discrimination is inefficient. It’s in everyone’s best interest to eliminate such behavior, whether through market forces or legislation.

people who want to be housed are having to stretch their funds as far as they possibly can to keep up with the market currently being made by investors and landlords.

I'm sympathetic to the difficulties people are facing right now, and I've seen the stories about housing being purchased by investors. The issue is that the data doesn't seem to indicate a structural change in ownership [0]. Home ownership appears to have peaked at 69.4% in 2004 and now sits at 65.4%, the same level as in 1980.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSAHORUSQ156S

It's obvious that in the absence of state funding there would be non-state funding. It won't be the same and it won't be zero.

From an economic perspective, it's likely the level of funding would be less than the optimal level of funding. If the goal is to maximize public welfare, government funding is necessary.

Why does the committee's judgement take precedent?

Ultimately someone needs to make decisions on resource allocation. Is a committee necessarily the best way? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not qualified to tell NIH how to operate.

You can use utilitarian arguments to force people to do things that they otherwise would refuse

Agreed entirely, it's a very difficult issue to grapple with.

If we're going to dismiss every quality and strategy of a country because of its moral crimes

My primary intention wasn't to refer directly to the morality of the USSR. Economically speaking, the USSR was a disaster, so I'm skeptical that we should implement the policies that quite literally destroyed a nation.

But yes, the USSR was a murderous state led by men who were happy to kill tens of millions of people for personal gain. I find that morally reprehensible.

More importantly, try arguing that it is morally correct that a hard-working laborer ought to fund a Webb telescope by non-optional taxes, when he sees no direct value in it. Why even 1 penny? Because his betters in a grant agency know better what to do with the fruits of his labor than he does?

There is an optimal level of spending on basic research for society, and it's not 0. Was it a bad idea to launch unproven satellites into space in the 1970s? Your laborer didn't see the immediate benefit, but now that worker has GPS, which almost certainly improved the worker's life. In fact, the technologies enabled by GPS were unimaginable at the onset of the project. Should the project have been scrapped entirely?

It's impossible to say whether research will produce valuable results a priori. But it's not true that your laborer doesn't see benefit. The price we pay to live in organized society is taxation. Should that same laborer argue that he shouldn't pay taxes for highways built 400 miles away? Is it possible that this laborer may not know what's best 100% of the time?

The reality is more like 600k for less than 2,000 square feet.

"In June 2022, Detroit home prices were up 32.3% compared to last year, selling for a median price of $99K. On average, homes in Detroit sell after 27 days on the market compared to 23 days last year. There were 463 homes sold in June this year, down from 512 last year."

[0] https://www.redfin.com/city/5665/MI/Detroit/housing-market

No amount of building will help if the value of the property is not intrinsically linked to the supply and demand

Building new houses is intrinsically linked to supply. When you build a house, that increases the supply of housing. NIMBYs oppose new construction precisely to prevent the value of their properties from decreasing.

Question though... why, exactly does that have to be the case? Especially with something like housing where say there is mostly a fixed supply at any point and you can't just turn a machine on/off to produce more.

Supply/demand is a basic tenet of economics. You can visualize the model with supply/demand graphs [0], which help make the model more intuitive.

The issue of the fixed supply is known as 'stickiness'. Most things in the economy lag policy, and data that we use to observe the economy also tends to lag. This is why it's really bad to have poorly designed policy; course correction is difficult, and people are hurt in the meantime.

Every word of what you said is based on greed and squeezing the most you possibly can from people. Please realize that.

It could be fun to channel Gordon Gecko, but I disagree that this is about greed. I care about well designed economic policy because I care about people's well-being.

[0] https://www.edrawmax.com/article/supply-and-demand-graph.htm...

Here in the UK our housing is in major crisis because people simply cannot afford the insane price increases. Pretty much everyone I know shares their living situation, on their own they would not be able to afford basic amenities.

The housing in UK is in crisis because there have not been enough homes built. My rent has gone up too, but it's not because my landlord is greedy. The cost of maintaining the building has gone up thanks to inflation (plumbers/electricians/superintendent/etc.) all have to be paid higher wages. Replacing broken fixtures is more expensive. If the landlord has a floating rate mortgage, the cost of paying the mortgage went up. For commercial apartment rentals, those companies have debt that now needs to be rolled over at higher rates.

By your logic there should be an incentive for builders to increase the housing stock, but private enterprise aren't building anymore homes now than they were 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.

So is it a problem that they aren't building more or not? If we agree that more housing needs to be built, then the proper incentives must be in place. And a proper incentive may actually be as simple as eliminating a disincentive (e.g. 4 years of environmental review prior to the project's approval).

Available rental stock is down 25%, with demand up 5%. It's great for property speculators, buy-to-let landlords and property developers, people are offering above asking prices simply to secure a home.

It's great until it isn't. Interest rates are rising, and mortgages in the UK are much shorter term than in the US. That means the impact of rate hikes is more immediate on housing prices. And if available stock being down is a problem (which it is), the obvious solution is to produce more. Alternatively, I have a modest proposal [0] that would also solve the problem.

Ultimately there shouldn't be 'risk', this mindset is a big problem.

Risk is omnipresent. If I purchase property, I have all sorts of risk. My building may burn down. My neighborhood may become undesirable to live in. I might not be able to take a job in a new location. I tried to pick examples that aren't about investment. These are risks that the landlord assumes for me.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

I didn't say that government runs the bussiness. The public hoosuing buildings have space at ground level that is rented for businesses.

I misunderstood what you meant as to who would choose which services to provide. Completely agree with you about mixed zoning, it's really beneficial to have the businesses near residents.

IDK if it's a very socialist solution, provided that it aims to increase disposable income and savings

Socialism is a left-wing political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. [0]

Government ownership of housing, as opposed to private ownership, is unambiguously socialist policy, regardless of policy intentions.

specially if you're smart enough to provide your tenants with supermarkets, bars, etc, which isn't difficult if you pack enough people and provide space for bussiness in the ground floors.

Here's the issue with central planning. How does the government know which services residents will find desirable? This difficulty is known as the local knowledge problem. I don't drink alcohol; why should I be forced to pay for a bar I don't use? And more importantly, why is the government encouraging an activity that causes the death of 140k Americans a year?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Free market advocates always find the next culprit why the market can't deliver.

I advocate for the free market because it's been the most reliable way of elevating humans from subsistence levels of consumption and improving their quality of life. It's been the driving force in elevating billions of people from poverty over recent decades. I'd wager that most people, free market advocates or otherwise, would consider that a good thing.

To be clear, there are cases where markets fail. In those cases, government intervention can actually produce more efficient outcomes. Consider the case of basic research. Private enterprises would have be foolish to pay for glowing worms and shrimp treadmills; there's just no clear payoff. But this seemingly silly research is critical to progress. For example, the research on glowing worms (GFP added to C. Elegans) ended up winning the Nobel Prize and is crucial for observing biological processes in living organisms.

new construction is coming in at 4x than 10 years ago... I don't see how the market is really solving anything here.

It sounds like high prices incentivized builders to increase construction by 400% over 10 years? That seems like the price mechanism is driving an increase in housing supply, exactly as one would want when there's a shortage of housing.

The bubble mostly affects new home buyers, which are the ones who need the least protection.

So now you (or more generally the government) get to decide who is more deserving of appropriately priced housing? Why do new home buyers need less protection?

Rent is inflation-adjusted and can't be raised at will, so there is a very long delay between market prices increasing and most tenants actually bearing the cost.

This is precisely the problem with this policy. When price doesn’t feed through to the market, the market can’t adjust. People simultaneously argue that the free market doesn’t work while endorsing policies that prevent the market from working.

it seems to demonstrate that the simple supply-demand model does not reflect reality

The population dropped from its peak by 1.2mm people. Prices subsequently fell so much that it was possible to buy houses for $500. That’s exactly what the supply/demand model would predict.

I've read somewhere that in the USSR paying more than 4% of your income to housing was considered criminal

Fortunately that was the only criminal activity in the shining beacon of freedom and prosperity that was the USSR.

Supply is always less than demand in dense cities/countries, leaving it for the 'invisible hand' only ensures that the whole market is unaffordable and/or gentrified

Is that the case in Detroit? I’d wager there’s substantially more supply than demand.

It isn't perfect (massive bubble right now) but seems to work well enough.

If there’s a massive bubble then it seems like that system didn’t control prices.

The "let the free market take care of it; government intervention can only make it unaffordable" view is standing on extremely shaky legs today.

The term “NIMBY” is commonly used to describe people who prevent new construction of housing. They typically use legal maneuvers (like requiring years of environmental review) to do this. By allowing this to continue, government intervention supports unaffordable housing.

Of course this does not work if building new housing is illegal, in which case you might as well have the rent control.

Or make it possible to build new housing. Rent control is a subsidy to existing residents to the detriment of people who would otherwise move to the area.

I don't want price control directly onto the private sector but the adminsitration controlling a big chunk of the offer.

If the government sets prices for 40% of the market, it’s price control by definition.

Ahh yes, walking around in NY seeing building projects to increase the supply of housing in the 4th dimension where land is plentiful and the rivers are clean /s

Have you tried obtaining building permits in NYC? My understanding is that it’s not easy. If you don’t allow builders to construct new housing then you won’t get new housing, regardless of price level.

should be heavy state intervention on it, preferably by doing the same as Vienna, which is holding >40% of the renting stock and charging according to income

This is great policy if you want to make housing unaffordable. When supply is less than demand, prices go up. Those price increases incentivize builders to increase the housing stock (which subsequently lowers prices). Capping prices prevents the price mechanism from working, leaving a shortage of housing.

Rent is the main detractor of disposable income which hurts the rest of the economy

I’m happy (perhaps not quite the right word…) to pay rent. I don’t want to own property. It’s a large, illiquid investment with high transaction fees, carry costs, and concentration risk. My landlord takes all the risk of owning the property (prices don’t always go up after all).

But luckily, a lot of suits on Wall Street are making tons of money, so everything will be fine, right?

Look at risk assets, and consider whether that supports your assertion.

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output. -- Milton Friedman

I doubt this is monetary inflation. It's price inflation due to a supply crunch brought on by the pandemic shutdowns

Take a look at M2 money supply [0]. Pumping huge amounts of fiscal stimulus into the global economy caused this. Inflation has been driven by poor policy decisions.

Then throw in other factors like housing undersupply in developed countries

There has been a housing stock shortage for over a decade, that's not new, so it's hard to argue that's a proximate cause [1].

continuing depletion of "easy" oil

There's plenty of oil available [2]. New technology (hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling, etc.) allows for accessing reserves that were too expensive previously. There has been structural underinvestment in O&G thanks to misguided green/ESG policy.

Chinese threats against Taiwan

How does this drive inflation? If anything, China has reduced inflationary pressures by decimating economic activity with Covid lockdowns.

Gold tends to be (but is not guaranteed to be) a hedge against monetary inflation

Gold has been a great hedge against inflation in the long run. When measured in gold, a soldier today earns a similar salary to a Roman soldier 2000 years ago [3]. However, gold is not a good hedge against inflation in the short term. When inflation goes up, interest rates go up. When interest rates go up, the opportunity cost of owning gold increases. It should be noted that interest rates have steadily declined throughout history.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2REAL

[1] https://smile.amazon.com/Shut-Out-Shortage-Recession-Univers...

[2] https://bettermeetsreality.com/how-much-oil-is-left-in-the-w...

[3] https://www.mining.com/what-a-roman-centurions-pay-says-abou...

However, much of this proposed capacity will not ultimately be built. Among a subset of queues for which data are available, only 23% of the projects seeking connection from 2000 to 2016 have subsequently been built. Completion percentages appear to be declining, and are even lower for wind and solar than other resources.

You can say "x = 1 if expr else 2", but you cannot say "x = 1 if expr". You do a two line

This one liner works:

    if expr: x = 1

This can be helpful under certain circumstances (e.g. memoization) [1]. The linked article also points out that it can be useful for rebinding global names in optimized code.

[0] https://stackoverflow.com/a/1145781

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200221224620id_/http://effbot....

Credit card numbers aren’t entirely random

[0] https://medium.com/@ma.juber/mathematics-behind-credit-debit...

No one. No one is seriously looking at the Russell 3000 and comparing it to the Wilshire 5000.

People compare indices all the time to assess relative performance (e.g. Russell to NASDAQ) or HY credit to IG.

Response to edits:

I'm talking about two total market indices, apples to apples, and you're talking about apples to oranges. NASDAQ is a stock exchange, not an index.

NASDAQ composite is one of the most commonly referenced indices. There's also NASDAQ 100, on which one of the largest ETFs in the world (QQQ) is based.

Further still, even if you were talking about the NASDAQ composite, they're two entirely different indices. They do not have the same goals.

That's why people compare indices -- they're interested in evaluating different aspects of the market.

There isn't much meaning between comparing two or more indices that have the same goals and constituents. You're only tracking the differences between constituents at that point, and you wouldn't need beta to do that. You could just calculate the difference between the constituents that are not a part of the total set.

Weightings? An equal weighted index will reflect increased contribution from smaller companies versus a market cap weighting (compare ETFs SPY/RSP). Same constituents, different emphasis.

It's a concept that fits nicely in the category of technical analysis, but not one that allows you to find any particular market insights.

It's useful for hedging risk

The only broadly meaningful concept you can get out of anti correlation with the market would be bonds because interest rates increasing push down the estimated future cash flows of publicly traded companies, affecting their valuations.

This is wrong. Consider pair trading or long/short strategies, both of which rely on estimating correlations.

If you took one company and compared it against the total US market, then you have something at least.

This is a common metric referred to as market beta.

If you take the market itself and compare it against itself, it makes no sense.

S&P 500 and Russell 2000 are both broad market indices, but they perform differently. Even using the same index constituents with different weightings (e.g. equal vs cap weighted) can produce meaningfully different results. It makes plenty of sense to compare them.

reducing carbon emissions is something we already understand we desperately need to do

The USA emits roughly the same amount of C02 as it did in the mid-1970s. On a per capita basis, the emissions are the lowest since at least the 1960s. This has been achieved largely due to the cost effective production of natural gas using fracking.

At the same time, US environmental regulations lead to lower emissions during production than in other nations. In other words, fossil fuels produced in the US produce less carbon than those produced in other nations.

Advocating against utilizing these energy resources has created massive geopolitical instability, harmed efforts to reduce carbon emissions globally, and inflated costs of all economic activity. Such policy is inconsistent with environmental concerns but is entirely consistent with anti-consumption ideologies.

[0] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/carb...