SkepticalButOpenMinded @ SkepticalButOpenMinded @lemmy.ca

Posts

2

Comments

506

Joined

2 yr. ago

A concerning way to read this is that trust in institutions, not just religion but all of our institutions, is falling amongst the younger generation. But the best functioning societies enjoy high trust in their institutions. I am genuinely concerned about the falling levels of social cohesion.

They just had an election and the government flipped from centre-left to centre-right. It could just be the classic conservative “our position is whatever is the opposite of the left!”

To say “they’re all trash” is to minimize the horrible behavior as commonplace, and the party committing it as not especially worthy of scorn. For example: “Germany shouldn’t have committed genocide, but what country hasn’t committed genocide?” This is a statement that minimizes the seriousness of genocide. It is a shitty thing to say.

Speaking of gaslighting! “Who hasn’t done x” is a construction whose only purpose is to minimize how horrible x is.

The average annual income in India is apparently 2 lakhs, so 21 lakhs is definitely significant. After accounting for purchasing power parity, I’d reckon it “feels like” hundreds of thousands USD.

Agree on being skeptical, not because it’s not plausible, but because we should be skeptical of the firehouse of misinformation going on right now. There’s no journalistic source attached to this, as far as I can see.

But strong disagree on the whataboutism of “name a military that hasn’t done x”, as a way to justify horrible behavior. That’s just depraved.

But there’s no exit strategy. What changes in two months?

The provinces across Canada have been surprisingly conservative for a while. Even supposedly left leaning BC went through 16 years of a conservative government until just relatively recently in 2017. All while conservative governments have endured scandals, mismanagement, limp economies, and chronic underfunding of healthcare and housing.

It’s clear that labels are acting as gatekeepers, but are they productive gatekeepers? Or just skimming off of the top — that is, rent seeking, profiting even when they provide little value themselves. It seems like there’s a lot of the latter going on.

The quick upshot: upzoning worked to lower prices. But there's been a political backlash against the most ambitious country wide reforms, and a lot of forward thinking policies are now at risk of being reversed.

BC is the only province that has been doing similar things, especially recently with province wide zoning reforms. (Not coincidentally, BC is one of the only provinces with a progressive government in the country.) There's a lot of political buy in at the moment in BC, including municipal government support, but I'm worried about how the homeowner class will react when the policies actually start taking effect.

I don’t think it’s the money, it’s the apology. It’s a real “sex slaves learned skills, some of which were to their benefit” Florida education system vibe.

The 16 victims filed the suit in 2016, seeking 200 million won ($155,000) each in compensation.

Wait, so this long simmering international dispute can be settled for just $2.48 million? Sheesh, just pay it.

Do you feel that way about K-12 education too? Because that is also highly subsidized. In other developed countries, paying for university is just an extension of public education.

Agreed “win” is too simplistic. Still good shot at forming government though. I’m not familiar with the Dutch system, but, even in systems with proportional representation, the plurality winner usually gets first shot at forming government, and by convention usually does form government. They need 76 seats to govern and are more than halfway there with 37.

I was not the one to claim that “That's basically the requirements in my state for a cpl”. If it isn’t really relevant, I’m not sure why you brought it up.

Super low property taxes, besides starving government services and causing renters to make up the difference in fees, is precisely one of the reasons why places like Vancouver have one of the worst housing crises in the world. Economists agree that profiting from the increase in land value is a kind of theft from society, called “economic rent”. (This is why a land value tax has the nickname “the perfect tax”.) That theft is at the heart of our dysfunctional housing market.

You have a lot of concern for the hypothetical possibility of increases in property taxes forcing homeowners to sell. But in reality, annual property taxes on a $3 million house isn’t even the average single months rent on a 1BR. They should be taxed properly, and that money should help renters! We desperately need public housing and co-ops. This is absolutely a class struggle, but you seem to only see the harms of the homeowner class, not renters.

The goal absolutely should not be to subsidize homeowners. That is precisely the problem! When you subsidize a group, non-members pay the cost. That means non-homeowners pay for homeowners! It is precisely this mindset, that homeowners deserve even more from society despite their incredible privilege, that is causing our housing problems. More to the point, institutional investors inevitably benefit from many of these policies, perpetuating the housing crisis.

Sure, but that’s a different claim than the one you made.

A lot of people in this thread are claiming that homeowners are not really rich. A bunch are citing some Marxist definition of “rich” or raising the bar to “never having to work again”. OK, fine: they’re “rich enough” to be a problem, then.

The truth is, homeowners in Canada have enormous power, both economic and political, and they have been advocating for policies at every level of government that have both exacerbated the housing crisis and grown their own wealth.

“But they’re working class because they can’t enjoy their wealth without selling their home!”

That’s just not true. Homeowners enjoy enormous privileges at the cost of renters, most notably blocking new developments, which homeowners do with passion. Their mortgages are guaranteed by the government, subsidized effectively at the cost of taxes by non-homeowners, i.e. renters. And homeowners have enormous generational wealth to pass on, which if we don’t address, will cause an economic caste system to permanently root itself. Yes, this is real wealth, causing real social problems. This article is right to call it out!

No where in the article does it say that homeowners should effectively be forced to move out.

We absolutely coddle homeowners, with preferential tax treatment, subsidized street parking, super low property taxes in places like Vancouver, and, most importantly, outsized power to prevent new development at the cost of renters, young people, and the poor. This is zero sum: homeowners maintain and grow their wealth, in part, at the cost of renters and actual poor people.

I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. Poe’s Law.

If you own a $3.5 million home in Vancouver, or you’re complaining about not being able to rent out four condos on AirBnb like one woman in the article, then, no, you’re not middle class.