abraxas @ abraxas @sh.itjust.works

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2 yr. ago

I mean, legally it is in the US at least. Our age discrimination protections are only for 40+ people. I'm 40+, but I still feel like that's an absolutely unacceptable limitation on protections. I can legally refuse to hire somebody under 30 "because they're stupid millenial kids" but not a gen-X "because they're entitled"

I used to feel the way you do. Now I'm a 40-something feel a lot less that way. You know why?

The same reason I blame "good cops" that watch bad cops murder a black man while politely saying "please stop, aren't you afraid of your dash cam catching it? Just let him go man"... but don't actually intervene.

The generation we're mad at aren't the ones who did this. They're the ones who said "the billionaires are right. None of us are working hard enough for them. I'm going to teach my children to work harder for less". The boomers/silent (even early-X) are the enablers, and enablers are guilty, too.

I'll put it this way. I know a guy who thinks his daughter is lazy because she won't pick up minimum wage work part-time at a factory to supplement her 6-figure salary. "It's not about the money, it's about work ethic". I know another, a small business owner that's mad he can't keep a head chef at his mom&pop restaurant for $18/hr "because this generation is all too lazy". The living wage here is in the $22/hr range. I know a third small business owner (this one technically a millenial) who gives his workers paycuts each year then calls them lazy princesses when they refuse shifts that require them to drive 2 hours at minimum wage.

NONE of them are the real villain. But ALL of them are still responsible.

Makes me cry. The good luck I've had in my life should mean I could retire early. The bad luck I've had in my life means I still have no retirement fund. But at least I haven't gone through foreclosures like a lot of people my generation have.

Factually correct - in many countries steam distillation is illegal because you can also steam distill tasty things that make you feel good.

Around here, it's not really linked. The heat of the apartment market is directly tied to the projected ROI, based on the demand of rental properties and the demand of rent itself. Like Bitcoin mining, sometimes the ROI gets really low or even negative in the short- or medium-term. The friction between the two factors tend to warm or cool one of the markets, but it takes times.

Consider/remember this. Many landlords aren't paying a mortgage, and don't need to tie rent to "a house's value at the time of purchase". They still profit when rent is below the average mortgage, or if rent is well above it. The only thing they care about is maximizing profits regardless of how full/empty their units are. Similarly on the renting side is lifestyle renters. They don't rent "because I can't afford a mortgage". They rent because they don't want to be tied down. They aren't ready to settle and might or might not move 1000 miles next year.

Those two categories are fairly numerous, and both present forces that influence the rental market independently from the purchase market. It means that places with less long-term demand like Detroit, Philly, or Houston have ownership TCO far lower than rent rates. Flip-side, there are just as many cities on the other side of the spectrum. The average rent in Austin is $2000/mo cheaper than mortgage payments on a starter home. In San Francisco, that difference is almost $3000/mo.

It's the free country thing. Typical rental leases renew every year (and typically, renters like that freedom). A landlord can simply decline to renew if you're "too much trouble".

So you could challenge the illegal rent increase in court and win, but then he declines to renew. You could refuse to pay the illegal increase (doing it the right/legal way) and/or even just stop paying rent. But then he eventually evicts you, or just declines to renew.

In the end, rent is supposed to be temporary. And when it is temporary enough that moving out can be your leverage, it works. If you are settling down somewhere, it really should be owned.

One can get place renting for $2k, but can’t get approved for that mortgage amount even with tons of history showing it’s paid

I think the issue there is that there's more risk to mortgage companies than "tons of history showing it's paid". There's a reason they use complicated equations instead of interviews to make decisions related to risk. Questions that don't directly relate to someone being unable to pay mortgage:

1. Will they take action that reduces the property value enough to put them underwater
2. If they choose to walk away for some reason, what percent of our investment do we get back?

And with the rest of the equation, home ownership is higher risk than renting because a tenant isn't responsible for damage and repairs. If, for example, peeling asbestos gets discovered and you have to move out to fix it to the tune of $10,000 or more, will that homeowner be able to afford it? Will they just walk out and start renting somewhere? There's a lot of things not covered by homeowners insurance that can financially devastate a homeowner, and the mortgagee (bank) might notice an income disruption that a renter would not.

And #3 - redundancy so a family member doesn't end up homeless. I have family that does fairly well for itself. When their first kid turned 18, they bought a rental house in case she needed it someday. When their second kid turned 18, they bought a rental house in case he needed it someday.

So they own two buildings "for the purpose of renting it out". Building number 2 is now perma-"rented" to kid number 2 because he needed it.

Also, bullet point #1. The NDQ typical long-term return is approximately 11%. Due to recent bubble bursts, it's down to 10.4%. Importantly, that's almost exactly 1.3mil in 10 years from 500k. Everything I've ever read and learned from investing or investors repeats that rental real-estate is a stable investment, not an aggressive one.

Apartment valuation is calculated on operations not on the market

Apartment valuation in my area spiked until the ROI crossed 10+ years. People stopped buying apartment buildings for a while except as owner-occupied with renters to assist. But in my area, none of those reach anywhere near a net-zero mortgage. The market absolutely still has an effect on valuation in most areas.

But two towns over, people are selling apartment buildings with 2-3 year ROIs, and they're being swept up by one of a small handful of investors. Building maintenance is terrible, and there's very little interest in the legal risk of being slumlords except those who are already slumlords over 40-50 buildings or more.

That's interesting. In my state, rental rates are just plain higher than mortgage rates. Maybe that's why I've never heard of buy to let mortgages.

since some people are not in a position to buy land and need to borrow it.

Some people have no desire to buy land, and want to borrow it. More than half the people I know (and I'm in my 40s now) have no desire to hold the liability of needing to sell a property to be able to move halfway across the country or world. They don't "own" their, so they see having to literally own it as a problem. And they are willing to pay more in rent than a mortgage (which happens regularly in some areas around me).

There are shit landlords, and there are decent landlords. I think half the problem is that while some areas have great protection for poor renters, they often don't have great holistic renter protections. In my state, for example, government-subsidized rentals have the most apartment quality regulations. But after that, you're expected to leverage your rent to force action... without actually withholding it in any way somehow. And small business rentals? Even worse. I have a buddy who runs a breakfast joint. The heating system in the building died, so the landlord said "well if you want to stay open in the winter you should fix that". So he installed a minisplit and the other business in the building had to close for the winter. Ultimately, both businesses started withholding rent (against lawyer's advice) and he finally caved and called his renters "cheap bastards" as he got heating installed (and it was like a comedy that the heating company walked out on him twice for his after-contract renegotiations).

I'm ok with someone owning and renting out a building. But it should be somewhere near the level of quality the renter would maintain the place if they owned it.

Exactly. I cannot stand how interested I am in soulsborne storylines because I'm simply not willing to put myself through playing that shit any longer.

The only soulsborne I've beaten is an "easy mode" modded Elden Ring. Nothing worse than watching a game LP on youtube because I really want to play it but don't enjoy it. (Bloodborne, lookin at you)

Yeah, I can agree with that. Horse speed is pretty lackluster. I think part of that is valid, and part of that is how fast the character normally moves (since they move a lot faster than a real human would)

Considering the way they responded to ESPN football back when I was younger, I cheer on every time I hear bad things about EA Sports.

For those too young or who don't recall... ESPN (or I should say, a company who licensed ESPN) came out with a budget football game 2000ish. They charged $20 for it, and it blew that year's Madden game out of the water in terms of quality and reviews. It was situated to force the industry to pivot from AAA to lovingly-crafted AA titles by teams that clearly cared about the product being fun.

So EA gave the NFL a metric fuckton of money for exclusivity to murder the competition.

The end.

And it actually REALLY had serious potential that gets to drown like most Netflix shows.

The Quest For Glory games are a real genre-bender there, but one could say an RPG is defined by a feel and not just a specific subset of the RPG mechanics.

Some of the KQ games had choices, but no character progression (one of the last ones if I recall, but it sucked). The QFG games had character progression and more choices than most RPGs.

, I think he did it.

At this point, we're way past that line of the narcissist's prayer

Just being honest here, I don't care what you think.

This empty answer just leads me to believe it’s based on a gut feeling

I said it was a gut feeling that they got more light sentences than we would like AND that I don't (entirely, I do a little) blame the judges for that. So you're right to believe what I said was a gut feeling was a gut feeling. (being quite literal, since you seem to need that, I used the words "I'd guess"). This is largely how court works. Here's a quick high-level on mitigating circumstances, in case you think for some reason I'm making that part up, too.

rather than any objective, educated analysis.

Not exactly sure why you would come to that conclusion. Are you having reddit flashbacks or something?

I don’t mean it as an attack, just expressing how it should be interpreted by an objective, rational observer.

With all due respect, demanding evidence or proof from everything anyone says in a civil discourse is absolutely an attack. I said absolutely nothing that was inflammatory or problematic, or that might lead one to question the ernestnest of my testimony.

Are you acquianted philosophical principles of credulity (Swinburg, Reid?)? It is entirely reasonable to expect one's testimony to be treated as credible if:

1. They have nothing personal to gain
2. They and you have no direct stake in the discussion
3. Nothing they said directly contradicts reality as you know it.

Solipsism is absurd. Incredulity towards everything is absurd.

So why exactly do you find my explanation of my experiences incredible? What do I have to gain? What do you have to lose?

EDIT: The irony is that you seem to agree with much of what I said anyway. So why are you hitting me with over-the-top cynicism?

One part a family obsession with streaming court recordings. The other part things I'd rather not answer.