Boot straps for thee, too big to fail for me.
Hampton, VA
Joined December 2021
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You're just gonna skip over existential threat at your front door?
Per Paul Morland, Israel and Palestine are the only two modern, developed, well educated “nation-states” with significantly positive, above replacement TFRs. It’s a bit of a mystery but may involve some combination of ultra high solidarity and purpose.
It’s probably not just the small-c conservatism or religiosity, because in most of the rest of the ME and across the developing world, TFR tends to fall as wealth and options for women rise, the crash out being most acute in those societies that develop really fast while the men kind of don’t (much of Eastern Europe, East Asia). He notes that more liberal societies where women have more rights, like France, Sweden, and the U.S. can still have higher TFR in the face of modernity. But Palestine and Israel seem have hit the sweet spot - developed, with educated women, and higher TFR.
This all makes me wonder what becoming a little bit more like Israel and Palestine might look like, and I suspect it looks like recreating the kind of conditions we had during the New Deal/Cold War era. Lots of trade offs - stronger borders, wage compression, pressure to conform, a near constant war footing, maybe more ethnic homogeneity than I’d want, etc. But something to think about.
The Former NYCT Director of Bus Planning being totally car-brained perfectly encapsulates everything that's gone wrong with municipal government for the past 60 years.
Travis Adams retweeted
Workers are overtaxed and 'double-billed': they pay tax on income, which funds public goods that raise their rent.
The late economist Fred Foldvary said this is a major cause of income inequality and why we should tax land instead of wages.
Bot account or bad faith ragebait?
Well, that’s probably why they get divorced, isn’t it?
It’s extremely weird to take such an important decision and be so casual about it.
‘Who cares that guy looks fine just marry him and have kids with him and never leave.’
Like if that’s the type of commitment you’re making you need to make sure that you’re compatible with that person!
It’s weird how we want people to rush into marriage with those whom they don’t know, but then you wanna make divorce almost impossible.
Seems like it should be the opposite!😬
Travis Adams retweeted
In 1978 boomers became the majority voting bloc in the country. The first 18 year olds to be able to vote. They held this title until 2016. They were the majority in the house until last year, and the majority of the senate until 2023.
In that time they have radically changed the demographics of America by supporting immigration policies. They were the first generation to embrace no fault divorce and half of them broke their children’s homes. One third of my generation was aborted. They created a legal and corporate system hostile to their sons. But the worst thing they did is destroy the economy.
They were handed one of the most prosperous economies the world has ever seen, and they created untold levels of debt. The modest expansions in gdp are overshadowed by the ballooning debt. Their social programs were all paid for by the taxes of their children and grand children. 50x fold increase in debt, 60x increase in unfunded liabilities, 30x increase in interest payments which now exceeds national defense. Less than a 1/3 of boomers plan to leave an inheritance. The belief that the young should sacrifice even a dime more to pay for their retirements is absurd.
But hey, at least they’re apologetic and conciliatory about it.
The inability to explain baumol's cost disease should be disqualifying for public office.
Not knowing that it exists shows a lack of curiosity to learn about how the world actually works.
This is a huge mischaracterization of what the article actually said and it's funny to me that no one read the article. Don't we have LLMs now that do the reading for us?
negatively polarized against the left because of things like this - if you're going to block me, go ahead, but don't get the last word and then run away
Once again it's just land. 40% of agricultural land is leased.
Tax land. Just please tax land.
I can't tell if people post this stuff as rage bait or are serious?
Farmers don't make lots of money. Its an industry that is active in low income/high unemployment areas and gives people actual jobs and it is literally making the stuff we eat and drink.
That steak you get can't be produced at the price you want to pay without incentives. Even so it needs farm land which means it needs to be away from a city which means its going to be in a rural area without many jobs besides farming. Supporting farmers is a good thing for everyone.
Does everyone just have AI psychosis at this point?
Travis Adams retweeted
This is the ultimate midwit healthcare take.
No, 32 countries have not “figured out” universal healthcare.
The UK has “free” healthcare, and roughly 1 in 3 cancer patients in England still fail to start treatment within 62 days of urgent referral.
Canada has “free” healthcare, and the median wait for neurosurgical treatment is around a year.
Australia has “free” healthcare, and over half the country still buys private insurance despite paying for a public universal system with their taxes.
Switzerland has universal coverage, because residents are required to buy private insurance. There is no government system where benevolent bureaucrats tuck you in at night with a warm blanket and an MRI appointment.
The actual lesson from other wealthy countries is not “they figured it out.”
America’s system has huge problems. Our prices are insane, insurance markets are distorted, and hospital systems are cartelized. Our regulations make care more expensive than it needs to be.
Yet we still guarantee access to even the 8% who don’t have coverage. We give easy routes to qualify for medicaid for those with disabilities.
Pretending the rest of the world solved healthcare because they slapped the word “universal” on a rationing scheme is not analysis.
It is bumper sticker policy for people who think access means having a card in your wallet while you wait a year to see the doctor you need.
Travis Adams retweeted
Discovering there’s an actual technique to tuck a shirt explains a lot
xitter.cf/vixen_8001/status/2023…
Travis Adams retweeted
It’s important that you understand what happened last night.
Last night, Stephen Colbert interviewed Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, a candidate who, by all accounts, is on track in the polls to flip Texas blue.
In response, Trump’s FCC reportedly threatened CBS if the interview aired.
CBS caved and pulled the segment, citing “financial reasons.”
In modern American history, no president has been more hostile to free speech than Donald Trump.
But censorship always backfires.
Here’s the full segment Trump didn’t want you to see.
Travis Adams retweeted
This form is effectively blocked at every turn in the U.S.
Let’s ignore zoning, code for now and just talk about development finance. For most projects that is 2 conversations - the construction loan that gets you to a filled building & “perm” debt that gets you to an acceptable yield.
Construction loans are riskier. So the interest rate (and fees) reflect that. Meanwhile many lenders have a niche in what they mostly lend one. This one does a lot of medical. That one multifamily. This one strip centers. And so on. Know what niche no construction lenders like? Small mixed use buildings. Not one.
So the only option for this type is a local oriented bank. Which means your list of possible lenders has shrunk to (maybe) 3 that will actually look at this kind of deal with any real interest. And since it’s an “atypical product” expect especially conservative underwriting and a heftier than normal amount of equity (cash) being required.
What this means practically is you need a unicorn property that shows positive cash flow after getting the rent assumption beaten to death. Or to throw an obscene amount of equity into the project. Probably both. And of course if you’re doing small development it’s because you have tons of capital, right?
Now - let’s say you find a unicorn lender. The next obstacle is the permanent financing. Because you won’t really make any money (or get some of that obscene equity amount back) until you can get out of that construction loan via refinance.
Except there is no product for long amortization loans on something like this. If it’s multifamily you have a robust capital market via the GSEs offering low rate, 30 year loans. Often with long interest only periods, attractive debt ratio requirements, and all non-recourse. So we’re back to a short list of area banks with 20 year amortizations, higher debt coverage requirements, less of your own money back plus a personal guaranty that puts your home & all your assets on the hook.
Once you understand how this works in practice it’s no wonder these don’t get built. You basically need to be a non-pragmatic wealthy person doing this as a vanity project with some potential upside. Far easier to just go build garden apartments wherever the land becomes cheap enough while still being a viable commute. They’ll lend you money on those easy.
Travis Adams retweeted
Social Security is running out of money, and the consequences will be severe:
By 2032, “more than 70 million beneficiaries will face a 24% benefit cut.
For a typical newly retired couple, that’s an $18,400 annual benefit cut.”
Travis Adams retweeted
“The problem with Total Boomer Luxury Communism is that at some point you run out of Millennials’ money.”
— Mecha-Thatcher, probably
Social Security is running out of money, and the consequences will be severe:
By 2032, “more than 70 million beneficiaries will face a 24% benefit cut.
For a typical newly retired couple, that’s an $18,400 annual benefit cut.”
Travis Adams retweeted
Mr Beast lined up one person from each age 1-100 and had them race to a finish line, and the overhead camera is an oddly beautiful data visualization of speed by age.
Look I don't want to be one of those guys, these is super impressive and cool, but there is no game here.
The people taking the bait on this are the same people who get blown away by demo trailers and then disappointed when they play the real game.
Google latest AI makes you generate games in a couple of minutes, that's insane.
This dude just made a Greenland version of GTA 6.
Gaming studios are cooked big time.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The video shown, depicting a "GTA 6" game set in Greenland, was created using Mago Studio AI, not Google's Genie 3.
youtube.com/watch?v=pXEVLa…
app.mago.studio
