A Norway spruce from West Virginia is headed to the US Capitol to be this year's Christmas tree https://t.co/KkwCOPYlEh
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 4, 2023
In her first interview on the Fulton County indictments, Stacey Abrams says, “We have the right to question systems…What we do not have the right to do is manufacture information and manufacture crises in order to achieve political ends.” pic.twitter.com/iSwiWOTlVy
— IT’S TIME FOR JUSTICE (@LiddleSavages) November 3, 2023
Great slogan, IMO:
Anyway, the ONLY poll that matters today is the polling booth.
TODAY is the LAST DAY to vote 🗳 EARLY in OHIO for this Tuesday's election.
Vote YES on Issue 1 to protect reproductive rights.
Find your polling place here:https://t.co/pYlXsadhEY pic.twitter.com/4oEKIqUmmu— KAMALA NATION (@KamalaNation) November 5, 2023
TUESDAY, 11/7 – Virginia voters can defend reproductive freedoms and STOP Extreme Republicans from punishing women and their doctors.
Make calls to Get Out The Vote for VA Democrats!https://t.co/csjyQ5KOR5 pic.twitter.com/LNaECHbecd
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) November 5, 2023
Schedule this week for @VP:
Tues: Joe Madison interview at SiriusXM radio
Wed: Diwali celebration at VP official residence
Thurs: Travel to Boston for apprentice event
Saturday: Join POTUS for Veterans Day observance at Arlington National.— KAMALA NATION (@KamalaNation) November 6, 2023
Trump's lead in the NYT poll is less than the actuarial odds Biden will die of old age before the election and we can nominate someone else, so on balance I'd say we're winning.
— Pinboard (@Pinboard) November 5, 2023
Hey, New York Times:
Remember this? From your own program?
You can take that ridiculous poll next to your stacks of binder files of people who unsubcribe to your paper. https://t.co/aOWbm3LOqC— KAMALA NATION (@KamalaNation) November 5, 2023
Credit where due:
#BREAKING: Bernie Sanders rejects calls for a ceasefire to benefit Hamas.
"I don't know how you can have a permanent cease fire with an organization like Hamas, which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos and destroying the state of Israel.
HAMAS HAS GOT TO GO” pic.twitter.com/IbdBMWprDO
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) November 5, 2023
Sanders on Tlaib's criticisms of Biden: "You can disagree with Joe Biden, but on his worst day he'll be a hundred times better than Trump and right-wing Republicans." pic.twitter.com/iIbKwSjkMH
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2023
Chief Oshkosh
Ms. Abrams ought to be in the middle of her second term as Governor of Georgia. The current chucklehead got there via Stalin’s old dictum: It’s not important who votes; it’s important who COUNTS the votes. The theft of that election should remind us all that there are a lot of people who do not believe in representative government, and some of them are just smart enough to game the system just enough to win. And they are all connected to one another at every level across the nation.
But hey, happy Monday morning, ya’ll!
Scout211
I realize that all Democratic politicians don’t need to agree on everything, but did Senator Fetterman really need to take swipe at Governor Newsom and accuse him of secretly running for president against President Biden?
Sen. John Fetterman swipes at California Gov. Gavin Newsom
But the media focus on Trump’s testimony on his business fraud trial will be a nice distraction today.
NotMax
How soon we forget. Nobody yesterday remembered the 5th of November?
;)
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
New Deal democrat
I just want to take the time to recommend Dan Guild, who goes by the handle dcg1114 on Xitter, for following polls and analysis. Here’s his link on nitter:
https://nitter.net/dcg1114
He’s been published at Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Iowa’s Bleeding Heartland. Back in the day, he was also at the Great Orange Satan (Daily Kos).
He’s excellent at dissecting and reading polls, and resists getting gamed by inferior, motivated, or biased polling, unlike a certain other well known analyst who has gone completely off the rails.
At the moment, he is discounting some of the latest national results that have been poor for Biden. On the other hand, he has been sounding the alarm for months that Biden genuinely is in trouble, especially with voters under 30. He has also been warning that if Democrats try to run on the economy next year, if it remains as it is, they will lose badly. Because a majority of people don’t buy it, regardless of the good news that gets reported on Democratic leaning sites.
Geminid
The picture of Rep. Pelosi and Senator Lucas made me wonder, who could Virginia Republicans have brought in to help their cause? I came up with nothing.
Jeffro
Right on, Senator Sanders!
Unrelated: I just have this funny feeling that by the end of the day today, the orange moron is going to blow a gasket in the worst way. And by ‘worst’, I mean ‘best’. =)
Have a great week peeps!
jonas
It’s not just Democratic-leaning sites reporting good economic news, it’s the financial media and the MSM more generally. People seem to have been traumatized by the 21-22 inflation so badly, that they can’t seem to think rationally even about their own economic situations anymore, or about what SFB, of all people, could possibly do about it. Looking at polls and articles, people are telling reporters we’re on the brink of another depression, but if you look at their own habits, they’re spending money, going on nice vacations, eating out, etc. Not stuff you do if you think the world’s really coming to an end.
The one thing I think really does scare people right now, especially younger workers, is the prospect that they can’t, and probably will never be able to, afford a home anywhere close to any state or city where they’d want to live. The WH actually has put out a pretty detailed position paper on expanding home building and homeownership, but I haven’t seen them actually out there really touting it. They need to get on that, stat.
Jeffro
Btw Peter Wehner gets it: MAGA is a nihilist movement, whipped into endless rage by RW media and pols with nothing else to offer
(this is exactly as Adam Kinzinger described to the audience at the Democracy360 conference I wrote about, btw)
MisterDancer
I remembered.
I also think there’s enough bombs about for everyone’s tastes, at the moment.
Another Scott
@New Deal democrat: My bias is two-fold:
Both of those things make me ignore polling about 2024 right now.
And that’s before one heaps on the other stuff (elections are always a choice between 2 or more people, and TIFG/Burning Plague is not a stronger candidate pairing than Biden/Harris; the other guy is going to prison; etc.).
Fingers crossed for Tuesday!!
Cheers,
Scott.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Where is Kamala!!???!??!??
satby
Small election day here tomorrow for local government. Never got a chance to early vote, so I’m doing the community vote tomorrow.
People in Indiana don’t even know it’s harder to vote here than in Illinois, for instance. Red states suck.
piratedan
For me the issue that is taking place regarding all of this ratfucking and concern trolling that is taking place a year out from elections is the following lack of context.
By this time next year it’s extremely likely that DJT will have been convicted of some crime in some jurisdiction., be it state or federal or maybe both.
If all of the constituencies that the Dems are “in trouble” with use their skills to find out the GOP position on those items that are of the most concern with them, I have a hard time believing that they will find any satisfaction there
MisterDancer
I can’t read the article, so: What they are doing today, is addictive. And as long as there’s hyper-wealth paying into sustaining it, we’ll see more and more of it.
Point-blank, the incentives for nihilism are really, really high right now. Up to, and including, physical violence for calling it out. That’s created a viscous cycle that I don’t know how to break, and I suspect much of the people invested in it, aren’t sure how to control — much less, break away from.
schrodingers_cat
Get involved with your local Democratic party instead of navel gazing and doom scrolling about polls and how Biden is old.
The MSM has proven time and time again that they have a thumb on the scale for Rs.
Nelle
@jonas: $700 million on pet costumes for Halloween? Billions on decorations, costumes, candy for Halloween? SUVs and ginormous pickups (the hood on my neighbors comes up to my eyebrows) to accompany whining about gas prices?
People are sure behaving as if a recession or depression is coming (not to discount the very real hunger of some. We drive by a community free food shed that has its doors wide open to the street. There’s a lot of activity there – if we can see cans of food when we go one way, it will be gone when we come back an hour later). Seriously, though, there is a lot of superfluous spending. Too much “feeling” and not enough thinking.
lowtechcyclist
@New Deal democrat:
I think that old nickname for Daily Kos no longer works well, given that we’ve had a real ‘Great Orange Satan’ playing havoc with our politics for the past eight years.
John S.
@Jeffro:
I don’t always agree with Bernie, but he’s absolutely right about Biden.
The current path being discussed by Arab Americans is shortsighted. Staying home and either not voting or voting for the orange fartcloud is completely antithetical to their goals.
schrodingers_cat
@piratedan: Reams of newsprint concern trolling about how this or that minority demographic is abandoning Ds but a studied silence on how the default demographic i.e. white people (men and women) votes majority R. Our MSM is biased. No wonder they love the Republican party.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m looking forward to Trump’s testimony today. We’ll see if he can hold it together on the stand.
I mentioned yesterday that two of my nephews ran in the NYC marathon. One of them finished with a 3:09 time, which I think is spectacular. The other got to the 24 mile mark and collapsed. They took him to a med tent, plied him with Gatorade, and massaged the cramps out of his calves. Then they asked if he wanted to finish the race, to which he said (and I’m quoting) “Fuck no.” The yin and the yang of marathon running.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism…hey wait, they’ve got that base covered too.
NotMax
@satby
First definition for Hoosier in a big dictionary from the 1950s hanging about the manse is “an ignorant rustic.”
;)
SFAW
@lowtechcyclist:
But aren’t we jackals still supposed to hate Kos (almost) as much as we hate TFG?
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
This recalls the Dylan lyric I included in last night’s thread:
The man standing next to me, his head was exploding
I was praying the pieces wouldn’t fall on me
Ken
“That was the day he truly became Presidential,” the pundits will sagely intone.
MisterDancer
I just posted on this topic in the “Cold Grey Dawn” thread:
lowtechcyclist
@SFAW:
I don’t hate anyone, but considering that I stopped reading Daily Kos a dozen or so years ago, I’d have no idea why I’m supposed to hate them.
Soprano2
I listened to the October 13th episode of Bill Maher’s show this weekend. It was actually pretty interesting, because for once Bill had someone on who calmly challenged him with facts. I think that person was Matt Duss, who I had never heard of before. He was on with James Kirchick. They were talking about Israel/Palestine, and Duss brought up the fact that Bibi had been financing and supporting Hamas as a way to weaken the Palestinian Authority, and said he wasn’t even secretive about it. After he mentioned it the third or fourth time in the conversation, Maher snapped at him “You’ve said that already”, guess it pissed him off. Also, I think it was Duss who suggested that rather than obsessing about a letter some students and faculty at Harvard had signed (Maher was all over that, of course, because it fits his “everyone hates woke” template) they should talk about the things people in Congress with actual power were saying, like how Lindsey Graham said Israel should flatten Gaza. Maher was like “Uh, yeah no” and went back to his obsession with Harvard students (or as Kay would say, the power of the Oberlin student council). LOL Meanwhile, Kirchick was basically on the side of Lindsey Graham, he sounded almost unhinged in his passionate defense of whatever Israel wanted to do. I think it’s revealing that the supposed “anti-cancel culture” Maher and his audience cheered when it was mentioned that one of the signers of the Harvard letter had their job offer rescinded. Whatever happened to not being “canceled” due to one’s political views? Yeah, right, for Maher and his ilk that only applies one way. He thinks what happened to this person was “consequences” and is justified, while what happens to hateful Nazis and anti-trans activists is “cancellation” and is wrong. Some free speech warrior he is! *rolleyes
p.a.
The title of the article is “Donald Trump Has Closed the Republican Mind”
WTF!?!? Was the author born in 2015? It’s been closed for decades.
Betty Cracker
Yesterday, poor Bill heard an exclamation no one ever wants to hear from their barber: WHOOPS!
I was that barber. I started cutting Bill’s hair (with clippers) during the pandemic even though I have absolutely no skills in that area. He begged me to continue ever since because it’s free and having me do it removes the requirement for him to leave the house and make small talk with a stranger.
He’s got these clippers that have an adjustable (and removeable) length guide that corresponds to a number you punch in, the higher the number, the longer the hair left by the clippers as regulated by the length guide. You remove the length guide to shave stray hair on the neck, trim the neckline and sideburns, etc.
Yesterday, he handed me the clippers and I punched in the number and took a swipe from the neckline in the back and — WHOOPS — realized the length guide wasn’t attached. So basically I shaved a big stripe on the back of his head.
To “fix” it, I gave him a jarhead cut — extremely short everywhere except the top of his head. I thought this accident would get me out of future haircutting duties, but he likes it and now wants me to give him that same haircut from now on. Le sigh.
emmyelle
That white haired old guy defending a Democratic President and chastising others for the crazy idea that that they can get someone better than the Democrats if they just scream loudly about how Democrats suck looks exactly like Bernie Sanders. Who is he?
Pharniel
The big thing driving the polls is something Jackel’s are well aquainted with – The Democrats pushed through safety net enhancements under a republican president, then won the election, then the GOP (and Senima/Manchin) killed the programs, now people are feeling the pain just in time for the GOP to talk about how the Biden Economy is great #’s for the rich, and shitty for the Average American [Man].
Tons of people I know are getting crushed by losing the COVID emergency healthcare, child supplements, increased SNAP benefits, and other programs that should have continued ending, and fucking inflation.
A trip to Aldi was over $100.
And because politics is ~Vibes~ from the average voter, it’s all “Trump economy good, Biden economy bad”
@NotMax:
I meant to post The Poem, but a Bad Brain weekend kinda threw all my plans into the toilet.
(the poll results, accidentally saw pictures of kids in Gaza, my own sprog had her first experience with the corner of a table).
But my buddies in England posted some cool pictures for me to see today, so I didn’t fully miss it.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Good to see Maher still has his sights set squarely on those in the halls of power…
Ken
@Dorothy A. Winsor: After a new marathon record was recently set, I worked out the numbers. The current record time amounts to running a 4.5 minute mile — 26 times in a row. Your nephew’s three hours equates to a 6.8-minute mile. Humans are remarkable.
SFAW
@lowtechcyclist:
Because reasons, OK? Just because!
It sometimes amuses/annoys me when various jackals trash-talk other sites ostensibly on the same side as this place, such as Kos and LGM, because …. something. Because they’re too Lefty? I don’t know.
Soprano2
This isn’t surprising to me, because it’s easy for everyone to remember what prices were before Covid, so they know everything is a lot more expensive, and in spite of the good job market not everyone’s wages kept up with inflation. Plus, rents are out of sight in a lot of places. I notice in Wal Mart when prices are going down because they point it out to you, but a lot of people don’t notice because I get a lot of skepticism when I mention it even though there are signs big as day that say “rollback” on them! What people want are the 2019 prices they remember from when TFG was president and the wages they have now. Somehow some people seem to think that if they bring TFG back, the 2019 prices will come back too. That’s definitely not how it works.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: I took a big chunk out of one side of my beard in that exact way a few months ago. Just trimmed the whole thing relatively short and waited for it to grow back in.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: LOL. Good job, Betty!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ken: I was amazed at his time. But then, I’m amazed if someone walks the distance of a marathon.
MisterDancer
I think, for Daily Kos, that was it. BJ was originally a right-leaning blog, and Cole’s Road to Damascus wasn’t an mad race to the Left. I can dimly recall debates about if Kos’ work was too far to the Left here, back in the day, even if I don’t recall how the GOS moniker came about, or Cole’s own opinions on the site back then.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
“WHOOPS!” happens, glad he was OK with it.
Mrs. SFAW has been cutting my hair — well, what’s left of it — for more than 10 years. She generally does a good job. But she always insists that I check it before she puts the clippers away. So I walk to the bathroom — nearest mirror — and then walk back and tell her it’s fine.
Of course, I rarely look at it, I just walk to the bathroom for show. Because, no matter what she does, I can’t look any worse than I already do, so what do I care?
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Quasi–obligatory?
:)
Soprano2
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: It’s bizarre, he seems to believe people at Harvard who signed a letter have more significance than actual people in Congress. I agree that the letter was boneheaded and tone-deaf, but in the long run what does it actually do? Nothing! While people who are actually in Congress cause actual things to happen or not happen, so it’s important to know what they are saying.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: I’m just glad I didn’t randomly start on the top of his head. The choice then would have been tonsure or bald!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NotMax: Never seen that one before! So, thank you?
Yarrow
@Soprano2:
Interesting considering that Maher was literally canceled (his show was, anyway) after he said something people didn’t like after 9/11.
New Deal democrat
@lowtechcyclist: Just in case anyone didn’t get it, “Great Orange Satan” was a tongue-in-cheek nickname invented by Atrios (iirc).
narya
Dems will run on Dobbs, and I wouldn’t be suprised if Maga Mike Johnson provides additional fodder. I’ll also note that, a year from now, even more infrastructure-act-funded projects will be up and running.
Soprano2
@MisterDancer: Well I didn’t see that, or I don’t remember it if I did (think I would remember that though). I don’t spend much time online on the weekend. It’s a horrible sentiment, that anyone would say “just kill them all”. I think part of this worrying about voters is that people are seeing the numbers for Biden right now aren’t particularly good, and panic when there’s any report that any part of the Democratic coalition might turn against him, because we all know what a horror a second TFG administration would be. Plus what satby said, the press has an interest in setting us all against each other. I don’t know why it’s hard for people to say “The Israelis should be able to defend themselves against a horrible attack like what happened on October 7th, but it’s also wrong when they’re bombing U.N. schools where people are sheltering and then claiming that there are Hamas tunnels underneath it as a way to justify that”. It seems that for many people this is a black and white issue, when the truth is that there are few situations that are wholly black and white.
SFAW
@New Deal democrat:
I had forgotten that, thanks for the history update.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Soprano2: That has been Maher’s bugaboo for 30 years. He really started leaning into it shortly after Trump’s election and other generalized anti-youth BS.
I stopped watching his show after a rant on adults who read comic books. I blocked him on Youtube after months of it feeding me some variation of “Bill Maher slams woke student council for statement against guest speaker” while Republican legislatures were out there actively banning books and limiting people’s ability to live as themselves in public life.
Soprano2
Again, it’s so foolish for people to think the 2019 prices are going to come back if they elect TFG, but I hear some of that too.
lowtechcyclist
@narya:
Hopefully by a bit less than a year! A year from today is the day after the 2024 election.
New Deal democrat
@jonas:
That, and the cost of cars, are both big deals (in addition to the exasperation at prices I have heard more than once spontaneously at the grocery store). It doesn’t do any good to tell people that their wages (or Soc Sec checks) have probably gone up at least as much.
I’ve seen vehicles on dealer lots on sale for as much as $10,000 over the MSRP given on sites like Edmunds and Car and Driver.
In re housing: spot on. One program that was a big success back in the 1970s and 1980s was discounted mortgage rates for first time buyers, financed by state bond issuances. A similar program would probably be very helpful now (e.g., mortgage rates 2% under market), but I don’t know if it could be implemented on a Federal, vs. State, level.
Soprano2
@Yarrow: Well, apparently he only cares about “cancellation” of people who he agrees or sympathizes with. He doesn’t seem to care about Republican book bannings either, whenever someone brings that up he dismisses it as unimportant.
gene108
You know who else has an election tomorrow?
NEW JERSEY!!!
Get no attention, no attention, I tell youse guys. What’s a state gotta do to get a mention in this place? Even an X? No respect, no respect…
Soprano2
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: That’s what gets me the most, he’s the most overwrought about the people who have the least amount of power, and almost dismissive of those who have actual power in a lot of cases. He seems to believe that Harvard and Yale pumping out “woke” people is one of the biggest crises in our country. Top listen to him speak you’d think 90% of all college students go there. A few weeks ago he went off on a rant about how no one should attend college anymore because it’s useless and doesn’t actually teach you anything useful. I think his obsession over this is partly because college students don’t find him funny anymore.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
A small gem from way back .
Lurve the rhyming scheme.
Charles A. Lindbergh, tons of confetti
Dempsey-Tunney, Sacco and Vanzetti
.
Oh, not to mention,
Fornication on tape, instant happiness
So we keep on dancing, dancing, we can’t rest
;)
Soprano2
Yeah, because they want their pay to go up while prices stay the same. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Our customers are going to get a shock when our new menus come out in the next month or two, because it’s been over a year since we last reworked our prices. Some things are going to go up $3 or $4, because that’s what the market is and it’s what we need to charge to make money.
narya
@New Deal democrat: After the 2008 debacle, there was a one-time federal tax credit for first-time buyers–of which I was able to take advantage. Unfortunately, with the Angry Children’s Caucus (h/t Pierce) running things in the House, getting anything that actually helps people through the House is well nigh impossible.
Ken
You doubt his ability to crash the economy again?
lowtechcyclist
@Ken:
There needs to be an “I find your lack of faith disturbing” in there. ;-)
Suzanne
@jonas:
THANK YOU.
I have brought this up before: the reason people think that the economy sucks is because rent is ludicrous, exorbitant, life-alteringly expensive. And homeownership is a fantasy for millions of people. And this is not just a monthly-expenses issue. This is an arc-of-one’s-whole-life issue.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Ken: No, but I’m really upset that Biden can’t rescue the economy as fast as Trump can trash it. This leads me to the obvious conclusion that trashing the economy by electing Trump is the easiest way to effect change.
jonas
@Soprano2: The thing is, the economy in 2016-19 *was* pretty good. Because it was Obama’s. Trump left us the 20-21 shitshow.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
…and media training.
Soprano2
@Ken: No, but that still doesn’t mean 2019 prices are going to come back! Remember, under a crashed economy a lot of those people who are complaining now won’t have jobs. Gas might be $1.50/gal, but they won’t have a job to earn money to pay for it, but at least gas is cheap. *rolleyes
NotMax
@jonas
IMHO, grocery and sundries prices would be the same. Thing is they were essentially static during the height of COVID so rather than shoppers experiencing a gradual slope upward such commodities seemingly jumped overnight.
Soprano2
@jonas: True, but to be totally fair Covid would have crashed the economy temporarily no matter who was president. If it had been Hillary, I doubt Republicans would have allowed any of the Covid aid bills to pass.
Anyway
@gene108:
Also Kentucky Governor, right? Or am I mistaken…
Yarrow
@narya:
The Joe Biden Infrastructure Act, you mean. Okay, that’s not the real name of it but we might as well give him credit for it. Let Republicans explain why they voted against the money to fix the bridge in their district or against funding to bring in high speed internet.
UncleEbeneezer
@MisterDancer: The problem is that there is a tension between two truths, imo:
1.) Trump’s re-election will be a potential genocide for Transgender People, National Abortion Ban, Expanded Muslim Ban 2.0, complete rollback of LGBTQ/Civil Rights, an even more radical SCOTUS and possibly the end of Democracy in America, etc.
These are not hyperbole. We are constantly being reminded of these stakes, and the only way to stop them is to re-elect Biden and Dems.
2.) Any group that signals that they are willing to refuse to vote for Biden is saying they are okay with throwing everyone else under the bus.
Every group can do this. I’ve seen Immigrants Rights groups doing it. I’ve seen Transgender people do it over the Title IX proposed wording. Groups have threatened it because of the failures on BBB, Student Loans, Medicare For All etc. Groups are threatening to do it because they want an immediate end to our support of Ukraine. In 2016 we had the EarnThisVote campaign by hardcore critics of policing.
I’m a firm believer of listening to marginalized groups and trying to center their concerns and needs in our coalition. But at times it feels like we are playing a never-ending game of Who’s Threatening to Kneecap The Dem Coalition Today? and it is exhausting, it harms the unity of an already fragile/complicated coalition and it forever keeps us talking about all the ways Biden/Dems are lacking, while the threat of GOP Fascism keeps trudging along like the T-1000 Terminator. It’s especially frustrating when the subject/policy (in this case Israel/Palestine) is incredibly complex but the groups yelling the loudest and threatening the most are pretending it’s not.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Thanks for the update. Great story, well told.
Betty Cracker
@Soprano2: You’re right — it’s complicated. I agree with the point you made about the relative importance of what student groups at Harvard and other institutions say vs. what people with political power do. Maher is a giant hypocrite who beats the same drum incessantly, as usual.
That said, the response at academic institutions matters on one level, particularly administrator responses, because there are a lot of scared, anguished people at those institutions (students and professors) with personal and cultural connections to each side who are looking at these signals and assessing their safety and inclusion as members of those academic communities.
It shouldn’t be hard to condemn atrocities committed against civilians by a terrorist organization with a genocidal charter. It shouldn’t be controversial to question a military response that is killing and traumatizing a trapped civilian population, nor should discussions of the context of the conflict be off limits.
It also shouldn’t be out of bounds to expect political leaders to behave in ways that are productive rather than to enflame and divide. It may be unreasonable to expect everyone to act rationally under these circumstances, but for leaders, that’s part of their job.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: A couple weeks ago I found that there is still money from the American Recovery Act. A local Harrisonburg radio reporter told about the groudbreaking for a new center that would assist homeless people. The project would cost $5 million dollars, he said, and was paid for with funds from the American Recovery Act.
The last Congress passed four big spending bills last year: the ARA, Infrastructure bill, CHIPS+ Act, and the “Inflation Reduction Act.” The last two provide some direct federal spending, but their biggest impact will be the investment by private companies taking advantage of various subsidies and tax credits. Just two examples: two electrolyser manufacturing facilities, one already operating in a Minneapolis suburb and one announced to be built in Michigan by a Norwegion com These investments were spurred by the IRA.
The Minnesota operation was added to a Cummins Engines in Fridley. Several Minnesota politicians were at the opening this May. One was Representative Ihlan Omar, who spoke of the good jobs made available to local people including the immigrant community.
I sometimes search the area of clean energy and I find a lot of stories about factories started because of incentives in the IRA. I also read about multi-billion dollar computer chip manufacture facilities begun by companies incentivised by the CHIPS+ Act.
These stories typically do not rise to the atrention of “national” news sites, but they are well covered by local and state media as well as the many news sites specializing in the clean energy transition. Democrats can help in this area by finding and propagating these stories..
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You just answered your own question; collage students can’t fight back so they are a safe target.
Yarrow
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Punching down instead of punching up. It’s part of why he’s not funny. Punching up is funny. Punching down is just mean and bullying.
MisterDancer
I don’t understand how what you say is just a more elaborate way of saying “vote Dem OR ELSE”. Which, as I just pointed out, is kinda a toxic message in this moment.
A massive reason we keep ending up in these debates, with members of these groups having these reactions to the Democratic Party, is that those groups do feel dis-empowered. And the way to solve that is to listen harder, to open doors and keep them open — not to only listen when they are under threat, and then “remind” them of the stakes if they don’t align with us.
I get you’re tired. so am I, which is why I didn’t engage yesterday. it’s also why I’ve not posted a lot, front page, of late.
But imagine how tiring is it to be Trans. Or Jewish-American. Or Palestinian-American. Or Ukrainian-American.
To me: these people aren’t kneecapping. This isn’t a drumbeat of faux anger ala “Rose Twitter”; we don’t need to fall back to accusing them of being radicalized by social media when so many are dead! These are people in pain, and I just cannot, will not, sacrifice my own discomfort to demand they fall back in line and make me feel better.
The risks are real, and being part of a coalition, from what I understand? Is to actually acknowledge each other’s pain. We do more of that? We get fewer results like this. But it is hard, and it takes actually being aware of things well before they explode — figuratively or otherwise. It’s why I already had Jewish and Palestinian voices in my social media mix before this, and as brutal as some have been about America in this moment, it’s better I know and understand their POVs than to avoid and demand they stop expressing their fears and angers while they are living a nightmare my cushy American ass can’t ever imagine.
You’re welcome to chose different. That’s how I stand in this moment.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: oh my god!
Bill must be really good natured, because if that happened to me I would be really distressed.
Do you like the new haircut?
zhena gogolia
@MisterDancer: The message is Vote Dem or else. That is the naked truth.
Or else: authoritarianism, Muslim ban, trans ban, abortion criminalized, we never have a free election again, etc., etc., etc.
Vote Dem or else. God’s truth. We all need to recognize it for what it is.
...now I try to be amused
@Ken:
Early humans hunted by running down their prey. We can’t run faster than most critters, but we can keep running after they collapse from exhaustion. Wolves hunt the same way.
zhena gogolia
Everyone needs to read a little Russian history.
WaterGirl
@Soprano2: Interesting recap!
WaterGirl
Ohio and Virginia peeps – what time can we expect to start seeing results on Tuesday in your respective states? If you answer, eastern time, please, since I suck at time zones.
cain
@New Deal democrat:
Yeah I’m not sure I buy it either. It’s pretty expensive out there. I’m ok with being expensive provided that we know why it is. Right now I’m not sure of all the forces.
If it is because labor is getting paid what they should be earning then that’s good .. eg there is equity in the supply chain.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Yarrow: Says a lot about his audience doesn’t it?
WaterGirl
@New Deal democrat: Wondering if you happened to see my reply to you in a thread toward the end of last week?
lowtechcyclist
@jonas:
@Suzanne:
Seconded! I don’t know why this is the moment when the slack finally evaporated from most housing markets, but that’s what’s happened. I’ve been watching sale prices of houses go crazy in two unrelated markets – one being Plant City, FL, which didn’t used to be an exurb of Tampa but is fast becoming one, and the other being my own neighborhood in northern Calvert County, MD.
And it sure looks like it’s happening in more places than not, where it used to be just a few cities like NYC, San Francisco, and Los Angeles where housing prices were insane.
I’ll have to read this position paper to see what it recommends. It’s tough to have a national housing policy because every jurisdiction has its own zoning laws and its own NIMBY people to deal with, but we’ve got to do something. The one idea I’ve had for a while is that in those urban areas that have fixed rail transit, the Federal government could say that the only way to get funds for maintenance or expansion is to get rid of the zoning laws within walking distance – say a half-mile – of each new and existing train stop.
Let each subway stop become the center of a mini-city; make cities walkable by the simple expedient of having no cap on how many stores, how many apartments, can be built within walking distance of each stop, thereby vastly increasing the number of people that need to drive rarely if ever.
But I expect a lot more would need to be done than just that.
WaterGirl
@gene108: What’s up for grabs in NJ in this election?
Yarrow
@zhena gogolia:
Yes. This. While I appreciate all the groups who are angry, hurt, scared etc and don’t feel like the Biden administration/Dems are doing enough/doing what they want, if they vote for Republicans it’s not going to be better for them. It will be a lot worse for them and for others here in the US and around the world.
The stakes are high for them as they’re high for me and countless others. I might wish Dems/Biden were doing more or different things but NOTHING will sway me from voting for Democrats. It’s existential. Anyone who doesn’t recognize that is just being obtuse.
Scream and shout all you want, then get up and get back to work electing Democrats including Biden.
Captain C
@John S.: Kind of like the Suicide Squad from Life of Brian.
Omnes Omnibus
@MisterDancer:
Where was this “bomb them all” comment?
Sean
@Another Scott:
You really don’t count the world as it is right now as full of extraordinary events? I think public sentiment is very sour, and many of the things that are bad Biden has no control over, but that has never stopped a voter from punishing an incumbent before.
Polls this far out, who knows, but they can certainly be instructive of where Biden is today, and that is…not in a good place.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: It looks pretty good, considering! I’ve sometimes thought I’d attempt a “high and tight” cut on him if I had the skills, but since I don’t, I just cut it to one length because I was afraid I’d mess up. The accidental shaving forced me figure out how to do that more complicated cut on the spot.
If something like that happened to me, I’d probably curl up and die, but Bill doesn’t care about his hair. Before I started cutting it, he had a pattern of growing it out too long (for his liking) and then cutting it too short. He also shaved his head one time, just for the hell of it. He’s the opposite of vain.
Captain C
@lowtechcyclist: I wonder how much of the housing crisis is private equity funds buying up homes by pricing everyone else out of the market, and also how to ban such a practice.
Alison Rose
@Scout211: You know what, I like Fetterman, but he can shove this take up his ass. For God’s sake, it isn’t just that Newsom “has said he fully supports Biden’s reelection bid” — he’s on Biden’s reelection team! Just a few weeks ago, he sent an email from his PAC soliciting donations to Biden’s campaign! This is a bullshit take from Fetterman and he ought to apologize.
lowtechcyclist
@MisterDancer:
I’m sure it is. But none of these groups should be of the “I never dreamed the leopards would eat MY face” mindset, it’s pretty damn clear that the leopards have their faces in mind from the get-go. (Well, not Ukrainian-Americans, ‘just’ Ukraine itself. Close enough.)
And on our side, we’ve got an Administration (and really an entire Democratic Party at this point) that’s doing its level best to throw none of them under the bus.
I can understand that each group may feel like the Dems aren’t doing enough for them. But if they need legislation, they’ve got to elect Dems. If there are things the Administration itself could be doing for them but isn’t, it’s hard to imagine that they couldn’t get a chance to make their case.
But right now, they remind me a lot of Cleavon Little holding the pistol to his own head and saying, “one false move and the [deleted] gets it!”
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: I agree that it matters to the people at Harvard what the professors and other students say. People like Maher give it much more weight and importance that it merits, because it allows to them to say “See how all of the left is” when the truth is that they don’t represent the views of “the left” at all. That’s why he doesn’t want to talk about what elected people say, because it contradicts his favored narrative.
cain
@Soprano2:
That’s exactly the problem isn’t it? Wages haven’t kept up – imagine living in LA with only $60k a year. My daughter is living with her high school friends in a condo. Everything is carefully budgeted. If you have a great relationship with your family – then you get a lot of help there as well. But if you’re by yourself. I’m not sure how it pans out.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sean: I would rather be in his position right now than Trump’s. He is apparently melting down on stand in the Trump Org trial as we speak.
lowtechcyclist
@Captain C:
I wonder how much of the housing crisis is private equity funds buying up homes by pricing everyone else out of the market, and also how to ban such a practice.
Hadn’t thought of that, but yeah, TALOMSAATT* in action again.
Some jurisdictions are taxing unoccupied single-family homes at a much higher rate than occupied homes.
There doesn’t seem to be a liberal equivalent of ALEC, but we could use one, to draft and push for policies like this in lots of places at once.
*There’s A Lot Of Money Sloshing Around At The Top
TerryC
@Betty Cracker: That is what I have fixed on as my haircut during Covid!
Captain C
@lowtechcyclist:
I think this is also a good idea for storefronts/commercial property that’s being held vacant so the landlord can either get five times market value or a tax writeoff.
cain
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
I think CNN covered that. I saw that it was Maher and I rolled my eyes and walked away.
Sean
@Omnes Omnibus:
No argument there, but I was just generally of the mind that if the position is “it takes something extraordinary to take down an incumbent president,” well, that doesn’t make me feel better about Biden’s chances. There are quite a few extraordinary somethings going on in the world right now, and I imagine in 10 months those will be under a pile of new ones. Trend lines can change. A bad poll today might be a good poll tomorrow, but the trend isn’t what you would hope to see at the moment. Trump is on trial, melting down, as you say and he’s leading in the polls. I don’t care where we are in the timeline, that is demoralizing. That’s all I’ll say. Can’t worry only about things that haven’t happened, and I don’t want to be a doomer. That shit just sucks, the end.
Frankensteinbeck
@Omnes Omnibus:
Wow. I’m not sure which is worse, Trump pissing off the judge by giving speeches when told to shut up, or when he does answer questions saying “Yes I did it, but properties are worth whatever I say they are because I’m so great.” This is the civil rape trial deposition all over again. He literally can’t help himself.
For anyone wanting crypto schadenfreude, there was a Bored Ape NFT convention and the attendees were blinded, maybe permanently, because industrial UV lights were used on the stage.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Win-win! You got skills and Bill got a good haircut.
Even more important, you’ve got a keeper there with Bill. Not sure if that makes it win-win-win-win or win-win squared.
Soprano2
@MisterDancer: I think in this country it’s tiring to be in any group other than white people, although white men have been trying to make the case that they’re the most oppressed group ever in the history of the world. *rolleyes
I’m trying to understand where you and these other people are coming from, I really am. It’s got to be horrifying to watch people in your homeland fighting and dying and then hear politicians on TV and in the press here casually debating whether or not we should help them. I cannot say I understand what that feels like. What I can understand is what it feels like to think about a second TFG term, and how catastrophic it would be for everyone who isn’t a straight white Christian conservative. That’s why they get this reaction, because we’re all terrified of what the result would be if several of these groups were upset because they felt unheard and just didn’t vote. We all know it would be worse for them than it is now, and wonder if they can understand that through their pain. I’m not sure what people like me are supposed to say – “I know you’re in pain, and if you want to not vote for the people who are more likely to listen to you and try to help you because you’re upset with something they’re doing right now I guess that’s OK, because…..?” I know they’re in pain, but a Palestinian American saying “I’ll never vote for a Democrat again because Joe Biden won’t take my side unequivocally” is unrealistic and seems like nothing more than a blackmail threat to me.
lowtechcyclist
@Alison Rose:
This. Newsom is clearly running – for the 2028 nomination, not 2024.
Besides, filing deadlines are happening. Nevada’s and NH’s have already passed; Alabama’s is this Friday; Arkansas’ is a week from tomorrow. The fact that Newsom doesn’t have teams of operatives out there trying to collect the signatures needed to file, pretty much proves that he’s not running for 2024.
cain
@zhena gogolia:
I have because history is fascinating. Russian history is pretty brutal. I’ve never seen so much death. It seems like every new chapter is prefaced with death.
Soprano2
@cain: I will say that when I was single I never lived by myself – I always lived with one or two roommates in order to make life livable, and that’s in a city where the cost of housing relative to income is better than in most places, so the whining about not being able to live by themselves falls kind of flat on my ears. I was never able to live by myself!
Frankensteinbeck
By the way, I suspected this before, but now I’m sure: When Trump goes into criminal court, he is going to doom himself. He is going to go up on the stand and confess to every crime and use the defense that he actually won the election and Biden cheated, so he had a right to overturn it. This is now his pattern.
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: I was determined that I would not sell my mother’s house to any investment company. Lucky for me I was able to sell it to a nice couple in their late 20’s. Made me feel good to do that.
narya
@lowtechcyclist:
This times infinity. My understanding is that there’s a lot of foreign money of various sorts involved in this as well. When some equity fund or other high-dollar buyer can pay cash, that immediately prices out everyone else.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: J. Michael Hittle FTW.
Matt McIrvin
@Sean: I was just reading Teri Kanefield’s big essay on the outrage/misinformation pipeline again, and at one point she mentioned that most normies weren’t and probably still aren’t really aware that Trump has even been charged with anything. They’re not paying attention to it (yet)
(The thing that strikes me now is the big disconnect between her law/Justice perspective and Adam Silverman’s notion that we are in “non-kinetic warfare”. War and justice fundamentally don’t mix.)
trollhattan
@narya:
In our region that was a big thing during the Great Recession, and lots of those investors are still sitting on their acquisitions–residential and commercial (we have a LOT of ghost malls and office complexes).
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Betty, just sent you a note about your post about Trump, hoping you will want to pair it with the pet calendar post instead of waiting.
geg6
@SFAW:
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I have no problems with DKOS. I don’t read community stuff, so I probably miss a lot there that would piss me off.
As for LGM, I quit going there because Loomis is a fucking asshole I wouldn’t piss on if he was on fire and most of the commenters are too. Too many there are entirely too enthralled with themselves. Not my kind of people.
JCJ
@Betty Cracker: Easy solution. My wife cut my hair once during the pandemic with clippers as you described. She was full of anxiety and dread. Like your husband I was pleased with the results. Now I just go out in the driveway with the clippers and clip away. (It helps that I am already pretty goofy looking.)
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: LGM is very cynical/doomer/”do something”. I come across as a depressing catastrophizer here and a cringe Pollyanna there.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
We are hugely supply-constrained. We are short of houses of every type…. Condos, single-family, the “missing middle” types like duplexes and ADUs and garden apartments. We are short of homes at every price point. One estimate I read was that the US was short 75 million housing units, if we genuinely wanted to have enough supply in the market to make it easy for people to upsize, downsize, or relocate.
Part of the story is that many areas have made so many zoning restrictions on things like lot size and setbacks and lot coverage and height restriction and “character”, etc etc etc…. that it is literally unprofitable to build anything that isn’t big and “luxury”. I have dealt with some supremely bad zoning bullshit in my career. One municipality dictated architectural style… limited it to three, mind you. Another required public art. One required approval of the residents on an adjacent property to cut down a tree with a disease and replace it. Another overlay district required planting a shit-ton of citrus trees in the parking lot as an homage to the area’s former identity as orange groves, never mind that no one was going to actually pick the fruit, so they used some hybrid that doesn’t actually produce fruit (but uses tons of water, in the desert).
We need more more more. Lots more.
Jeffro
@lowtechcyclist:
@narya:
It certainly seems to be the case. I feel like I see those “Berkshire Hathaway Properties” signs most every place that we go (whether to visit family or while on vacation). I’m sure there are others.
I like the idea of localities taxing non-primary-residences or owner-unoccupied residences more. I also like it when states and localities either mandate X% of new housing developments are to be affordable or below-market-rate or whatever.
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker: Your Bill sounds exactly like my husband as far as hair goes (he’s also a very good musician too). One time he was in an extended van life trip as he headed to Alaska to climb Denali, was trimming his beard and thought “I wonder if I could deal with my hair? OOPS!”. When I met him in Seattle 4 weeks later I had to shave it all off again because he’s missed so many patches in the back. He thought the whole thing was funny.
Sure Lurkalot
@jonas:
Contrarily, if you expect things are going down a shithole, might as well enjoy yourself while you can.
My nephew and partner have an offer in on a house in Denver…while it has some nice enough features, has a boatload of oddities and red flags…offer is at $590K. That is a ridiculous number. They are banking on upside (huge lot, across from park, can move in without needing immediate work)…and no downside. As someone who bought a house in the 80’s at a peak with high interest rates only to see it lose 25% of its value within months, there’s always a downside. For me, it was having to stay there for 12 years when I wanted to move after 5.
StringOnAStick
@Captain C: That’s a huge part of it. One of Oregon’s Senators (Wyden or Merkley) has a bill to address this, but the House….
Suzanne
@narya:
But the root cause of why housing is profitable to do this with is because it’s scarce. It’s scarce because it’s hard to build it. It’s hard to build it because it needs to be done at large scale to be profitable for mass-market production housing, or it needs to be high-end and bespoke.
I read recently that NYC issues fewer permits today for construction of housing units than they did in 1960. That is fucking bonkers. That is a societal decision to gatekeep.
New Deal democrat
@WaterGirl: Eventually I did go back and see it.
Understood. Thanks
Geminid
@StringOnAStick: A man sits down in a barber chair.
Barber: What would you like, Fred?
Fred: Joe, I want you to cut my hair one length on one side, another length on the other, and take a gouge out my scalp.
Barber: I can’t do that!
Fred: Well, you did it last week.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: There is a huge fight going on here right now about a developer who wants to build an upscale apartment complex with businesses on the bottom floor at one of the busiest corners in Springfield. The houses there now are old “mansions” on large lots. Cool-looking but not practical for how the intersection is now. The people in the housing development behind it are fighting the new zoning with everything they’ve got; they’ve pulled out all the stops to keep those properties zoned single family. Mind you, this is at an intersection where the other three corners are a) the largest hospital in the city, b) a medical clinic for the other hospital in the city, and c) a retail development. These people act like if this property is developed in this way their whole subdivision will be immediately razed to make way for more of the same. To me it’s insane, because what the developer wants to do is the sanest use for that land now. The homeowners behind the development are terrified, though, and they have a lot of political clout, so it will probably be tied up in the courts for years while the land just sits there.
Suzanne
@Jeffro:
Some cities and states are moving to tax AirBNB’s like hotels, which I think is wise. I think we need to heavily (like, really heavily) tax homes apart from the first, unless they are in an apartment complex.
But really, we just need more. We should be constantly building in almost every city, even if just to replace older buildings.
New Deal democrat
@lowtechcyclist:
There are basically two entirely separate housing markets going on right now:
1. Existing homes, where most current owners are frozen in place by 3% mortgages. They are not selling. Inventory is slim, and prices remains very high and are even heading higher.
2. New home construction, where housing under construction is near an all-time record. It is mainly apartments and condos. Builders are trimming the sizes and/or amenities to lower prices, and /or are offering other incentives like rebates on mortgage payments for the first few years. Prices have come down about 10% or more on average.
Ironically, because the way that housing is measured in the CPI, Fed rate hikes, by perversely keeping existing home resale prices high, are keeping “official” inflation elevated as well. Not much Biden can do about that, unless there is a way he can go around Congress and offer regulatory relief.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: My city just started doing that in the past year. They said it was unfair that hotels had to pay a special tax but Air B&B’s didn’t. I don’t know how easy enforcement will be, though.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: What you just described is essentially taking place in every city in which anyone wants to live in this country, right now.
I remember building an expansion to an existing behavioral hospital (replacing a shitty building). Hospital had been on that site since 1975. A dude bought his house down the street in 2015, then went all the way to the mayor to oppose the replacement because he didn’t feel safe with psychiatric patients down the street.
Fuck, my own city and neighborhood does it. There’s a site a few blocks away that’s supposed to become some sort of subsidized housing (formerly a school for the Deaf), and a bunch of my neighbors don’t want to have “those people” nearby. A wealthy neighborhood (Squirrel Hill) just got an eight-story high-end housing project defeated because apparently high-rises can’t abut a park…. which I’m sure is news to everyone who’s ever been to Central Park. So we can’t build dense housing — in a city — for poor people. We can’t build it for rich people, either.
Anoniminous
@Suzanne:
Real estate companies and banks have monopoly control over local rent and housing prices. And – surprise! surprise! – they are parasitic scum, keeping prices as high as possible. There are many ways around the fuckers but they all involve some kind of Co-operation: association between two or more people in which all equally benefit. One way to lower residential prices that I know works is for a group to buy an apartment building.
MisterDancer
Gang.
I’m trying to be level-headed in a reply on the coalition voting issues, and I find I cannot. Esp. as the discussion has viscerally reminded me of other discussions on here, over the last few years.
So consider this my last word on this topic, for at least today.
Suzanne
@New Deal democrat: Looking at the starts for new privately-owned housing of all types, we are down a lot from the highs of the70s and 80s. We lost so much ground in 2008 and the subsequent years, right when millennials were coming of homebuying age, that we have years of supply that we didn’t build and we haven’t made up for it.
There’s definitely lots of apartment construction, but that doesn’t help wannabe homeowners.
Suzanne
@Anoniminous: Sure. But again, it’s profitable because we don’t have enough. The population grew and our housing barely did, for years. Take a look at that chart I linked. It’s bonkers.
Anoniminous
@Suzanne:
Despite the decades of propaganda being a home owner is not necessarily financially wise. Especially now buying is not sustainable because the house cost to wages is not sustainable.
artem1s
@New Deal democrat:
Federal low interest, low down payment programs still exist. But the prices are so much higher they almost don’t make a difference. $20-$30K down is less than 10% these days – unless you are buying a fixer-upper and then you don’t have any money to fix it up. And lending since the 2008 collapse is still tight. Especially if you are in the lower tax brackets. Buyers can’t compete with cash up front, out-of-state speculators who have inflated the base prices by sometimes 1000% over the purchase prices of just 5-10 years ago. It’s crazy. Good news/bad news is those group buyers are going to start dumping and defaulting on their inventory if the interest rates continue at this level. They are looking at adjustments of 5-6% in the next year. So there will be more properties on the market, but at greatly inflated prices.
lowtechcyclist
@New Deal democrat:
Is that really happening? Because usually it works the opposite way. If you can spend $X/month on your potential house payments, and interest rates go up, then they’re taking a larger bite of that $X you can afford, so the purchase price has to come down so that the higher interest is computed from a lower base in order for it to come out even for the buyer.
Unless the buyer faces no limits or constraints, but even now that’s pretty rare.
Yarrow
@Suzanne:
This may be true but as I drive around I see lots of for sale signs that go up but don’t go down. The houses aren’t moving. I just chatted with a neighbor last night about this issue. They put their house on the market a month ago and have had only one person look at it. She said houses in their price point just aren’t moving.
Suzanne
@Anoniminous: Owning a home is the only appreciating asset that most Americans will ever have. And there are hundreds of thousands of people who want to do it and cannot. (I agree that it isn’t the right answer for some.) It provides a lot of financial security just to lock in a monthly payment that won’t increase. It encourages people to rehab/update/replace older property and to build tighter communities.
Again, I don’t know why anyone is surprised that people think the economy is bad. Homeownership is a major milestone for people and they increasingly can’t reach it. Their parents could.
Ken
Speaking of house affordability, I take it that since Jordan (or was is Scalise) was not elected Speaker, the proposal to adjust SALT exemptions is no longer under consideration?
Assuming of course it ever was anything more than an attempt to buy NY Republican votes, to vanish into the mists after Scalise (or was it Jordan) was elected.
trollhattan
@Yarrow:
Buying power has taken a huge hit in the form of higher interest rates and here anyway, house prices have not dropped commensurately. They’ve softened, to be sure, but there’s a gap that has not closed.
OTOH our metroplex seems to be a California outlier in not having a net buyer exodus.
Sounds like somebody doesn’t want to shovel any more snow.
New Deal democrat
@Suzanne: I took your graph and added total housing units under construction to it:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1b3d5
With the exception of 1973, they are at an all time high.
Hope that is helpful.
Citizen Alan
@cain: I’m in Fresno, and the locality pay is exactly the same as it was in Tupelo, Mississippi for the exact same job. It probably should be as high as it is in LA or SF, but the applying the “Rest of the United States” pay scale to any job in a metro area of CA is just ridiculous. If I’d gotten the Newark job I applied for, my pay would be around $25k higher. (And I say that as someone who freely admits I’m probably overpaid for a job that has absolutely no physical demands and allows me to come in at 9, leave at 4, and telework 2 days a week.)
Suzanne
@Yarrow: Nationally, that is not the story. Supply of resale homes is not quite historically low, but it’s very low. And the average time on the market is very low, too. Of course every housing market has its own quirks.
The overall national trend is that job growth is largely concentrating in cities and that those cities started falling behind in the last recession with new housing starts and have never caught up. Some cities fell behind long before that.
What this works out to is that new would-be homeowners cannot afford to buy where they want to live/work. Again, this is an overall trend and specific places have lots of other factors.
New Deal democrat
@lowtechcyclist:
It’s a quirk of how the CPI is constructed. Housing inflation for owners is constructed by the imaginary measure of “owners equivalent rent” which very closely follows the trajectory of the average of rent prices over then entire last 12 month period. As a result, it lags current prices usually by 12 to 16 months.
Since the YoY% change housing prices first peaked about 18 months ago, the CPI measure for housing is just now coming off its 8.1% YoY peak. Even though new rents, for example, are slightly lower than they were a year ago.
Suzanne
@New Deal democrat: We had approx. 200 million Americans in 1970, and we have over 330 million today. Even if just to keep pace with that kind of population growth, our new home starts would be something like double where they are now, and would have been that way for many years.
Yarrow
@Suzanne: I believe you. It’s just interesting to read one thing and observe something different. My neighbor’s real estate agent told them interest rates are an issue. Doesn’t surprise me.
I saw a tv commercial for some new suburban/exurban development. One thing they were promoting was offering mortgages to buyers at 2% less than the current mortgage interest rate. From what I could tell these homes looked like average new suburban homes. Not ones with huge plots of land or really big properties or anything.
WhatsMyNym
@Suzanne:
Can they ever?? All the people I know had to settle for living in cheaper areas or a much smaller unit, for their first house/condo. Then eat cheaply and no more going out to lunch.
Another Scott
@WhatsMyNym: My MIL came to DC in early 1941 to get a government job. She, and a bunch of her friends who joined her from small-town Minnesota, lived in a room in a boarding house on P Street for quite a while. (Last time I drove by it, it seemed to be very, very nice condos in the same building.)
We have forgotten what housing used to be like in cities and when suburbs didn’t really exist. Zoning needs to catch up with the times again.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, yeah, baby.
...now I try to be amused
@Frankensteinbeck:
Trump is already doomed, based on the facts. Twitter scuttlebutt (Twitterbutt?) is that Trump is attempting a Chicago 7 defense: Troll the hell out of the judge and hope they overreact, then appeal based on that.
wjca
Is that true, those are the stakes? Sure. Absolutely.
Is that a campaign message that will win over the voters needed to elect Democrats? Almost certainly not. It may be good for motivating election workers. But it’s not what will attract voters.
Suzanne
@WhatsMyNym:
Mr. Suzanne (born 1980) grew up in Menlo Park, CA. His parents, neither of whom had college degrees, bought a house there. His dad was a salesman (mostly). His mom was a cashier at Safeway.
Do you think that is possible today?
wjca
Of course, back then Menlo Park wasn’t in the middle of Silicon Valley — because there wasn’t (yet) a Silicon Valley. So, perhaps not an entirely fair comparison.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@jonas:
Yes. This is very true. My wife would never vote for Trump and doesn’t blame Biden for the economy, but still gets shellshocked going to the grocery store. Mentally, she hasn’t yet adjusted to those higher prices. Maybe if they stay the same for the next year or so, she won’t be quite so disturbed, but this is a serious issue. And yes, housing is a big problem. They need to get out front and loud about it.
H-Bob
@Soprano2: “I think his obsession over this is partly because college students don’t find him funny anymore.” And he’s furious that he’s no longer considered cool!
Origuy
@Dorothy A. Winsor: One of my co-workers is a 54 year old marathon runner. She finished NY yesterday in 3:30:51. She’s done Boston, London, and even the Antarctic Marathon.
Origuy
@wjca: I moved to California in 1978. Silicon Valley was already a thing. Housing prices were starting to climb, but were still affordable.
Suzanne
@wjca: Here’s a graph of housing prices relative to income over time. The authors note that, historically, the average house in the US cost 5x the average household income. We’re currently at over 7x and climbing.
According to other data, the average renter spends 30% of their income on rent, which is an all-time high. And some staggering portion of renters are “rent-burdened”.
Yes, it is (much) more difficult for young people to buy property than it used to be. Yes, they are spending more on rent. This isn’t a secret. I don’t know why there’s so much skepticism.
Paul in KY
@MisterDancer: The only other option is TFG…and he’s no option.
Paul in KY
@wjca: It is the God’s fuckin truth, though.
trollhattan
@Suzanne: Rents here have gone batshit crazy and only recently have finally stopped climbing. Dropping to within the target range for low-income earners (80% of adjusted county median) is a long, long way off.
“average of $1,953 a month across all apartment types and sizes in the four county area”
evodevo
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
One of the many reasons I quit watching him in 2020, after following the program since the Bush years…SO thin-skinned – mocked his own studio audience if anyone made noises he interpreted as critical of a comment he had made. Plus the ongoing anti-vaxx boosting and other nonsense …
wjca
@Suzanne: I’m not doubting that house prices are up pretty much everywhere. At least outside the rural areas where young people are leaving in droves. And I totally agree that zoning restrictions are a big part of the problem.
All I’m saying is that holding up an extreme case (and I think Menlo Park qualifies) doesn’t help focus the discussion. Especially since new housing, even back in the 1950s, when it was being built like crazy (by, among other people, my father), regularly gets built away from those desirable urban areas.
The town where I grew up (and where I’m back living) was over an hour, on two lane roads, from the nearest city. And from the nearest hospital. Basically ranch land. Today, the population is over 20 times what it was, thanks to massive building. And, thanks to a couple Interstates, it’s under half an hour from the same cities — which we generally don’t visit, since everything is available here now. My point is, objecting that there isn’t housing any more in desirable areas shows the same grip on how it was then as the reactionaries nostalgic view of culture and morality then. Mostly, it wasn’t a matter of building more housing in desirable areas. It was building housing in areas which then became desirable.
Do we need more housing? Certainly. Do we need more high density housing? Also certainly. Will we need changes to zoning laws (and to how much appeals we tolerate) to make that happen? Yup. But let’s not lose our grip on how that will necessary happen.