Housing
mikethemadbiologist | September 28, 2008In the midst of the financial crisis, I think we've lost sight of the real victims here--people trapped in a housing debt prison:
...they were counting on increasing income and increasing home prices to finance their lifestyles and their family's future. It isn't going to turn out well for them.
Even if these people get a workout that allows them to stay in their homes, the terms of the workout are not going to leave them much to live on. Any workouts are going to have the highest possible DTI the government thinks you can handle (currently 38%,) and to qualify for the workout, the homeowner…
mikethemadbiologist | August 21, 2008By now, you might have heard about McCain's forgetfulness about how many homes he owns (at least seven). But his campaign's response is utterly absurd (italics mine):
The houses gaffe doesn't matter because ... he was a POW!
"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.
For those of you who haven't kept track, the McCain campaign just recently cited McCain's POW years in explaining away the Miss Buffalo Chip gaffe, and in dealing with the allegation that he broke the rules and listened in on Barack Obama during…
grrlscientist | June 30, 2008I called the landlord's office (again) last Friday to find out what this "rent increase" is about, and the people in the landlord's office had no ideas. As most of you know, I have been trying to find out about this "rent increase" for the past three months, by writing and calling my landlord, but he refuses to explain. Since I live in a rent stabilized apartment, all rent increases must be approved by the city before they are enacted, according to my sources.
One of the office workers suggested this "rent increase" was for fixing up my apartment, not knowing that my apartment bathroom had…
mikethemadbiologist | April 13, 2008I've never understood why so many liberals and progressives think the Democratic field is strong. Yes, the candidates aren't insane, but neither of them are particularly good on economic issues. There is nothing in either Clinton's or Obama's records or speeches that suggests that they will do anything significant to reduce income inequality, other than perhaps letting the Bush tax cuts expire (and Obama has even been waffling on that).
And keep in mind, that income inequality isn't just a matter of economically integrating more people into society. That's not some gushy, "it's not fair"…
mikethemadbiologist | January 30, 2008New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is doing just fine. From The Boston Courant (Jan. 26, 2008):
Tom Brady, the New England Patriots star quarterback, is a winner on and off the field.
Brady has sold his 314 Commonwealth Avenue condominium for $5.3 million, as reported last week by Banker & Tradesman, turning an approximately $1.2 million profit on the sale to a surburban couple.
Brady purchased the three-bedroom condo in the Burrage House, located at the corner of Comm Ave. and Hereford Street, for $4.1 million in 2004. The 10-room, 3,422-square-foot home comes with three-and-a-…
mikethemadbiologist | January 26, 2008It's interesting how we're trained to tolerate or engage in a lot of behaviors that, rationally, don't make much sense. Workers who realize that, in today's job market, loyalty to a company doesn't make much sense, are accused of disloyalty by their employers, even though those same employers will let employees go at the drop of a hat. Another economic morality tale is that letting a bank foreclose on your home is an awful thing, even when foreclosure makes economic sense:
...why should Mr. Lewis be "astonished" that people who can pay their mortgage refuse to do so when the home value is…
mikethemadbiologist | August 20, 2007...to me. Or at least, to the residents of my congressional district. MoveOn.org has a district-by-district list of what your congressional district's contribution to the Iraqi War and Occupation could have bought instead. For me, a resident of Massachusetts' Eight District:
*The cost to Massachusetts taxpayers alone is $12.89 billion.
*Taxpayers in the 8th congressional district are paying $998 million for the Iraq war.
What Citizens of Massachusetts's 8th District Could Have Gotten Instead:
· Health care coverage for 290,837 people--or 363,877 kids, or
· Head Start for 118,751…
mikethemadbiologist | August 5, 2007(from here)
While reading this NY Times article about houses in Newport, RI, I saw the above picture and thought, "That would be a really nice house to live in." Then my head exploded as I read the caption:
Topsy Taylor uses her stone bungalow at a former fishing club on Gooseberry Island, R.I. as a place to entertain and take naps.
Some people have a 'nap chair' or a 'nap sofa' that they like to take naps on. Some people even have a nap room. But Topsy has a fucking nap house.
A house for napping.
Tax her.
mikethemadbiologist | July 30, 2007Romney has been so good for Massachusetts. Imagine what he can do for the country. From the Boston Globe:
On all key labor market measures, the state not only lagged behind the country as a whole, but often ranked at or near the bottom of the state distribution. Formal payroll employment in the state in 2006 was still 16,000 or 0.5 percent below its average level in 2002, the year immediately prior to the start of the Romney administration. Massachusetts ranked third lowest on this key job generation measure and would have ranked second lowest if Hurricane Katrina had not devastated the…
mikethemadbiologist | July 26, 2007I don't mean that as snark. It's a serious question. Suburbanization has to be one of the greatest human influences on the environment. So I was intrigued by this statement by Ross Douthat about suburbanization (bold Douthat, italics mine):
But I don't think we should make "rebalancing in the direction of urbanism," as Matt puts it later in his post, a major policy goal; I think suburbia is a great (maybe the great) American socioeconomic achievement, whose virtues far outweigh its vices, and that using the levers of government to encourage families to leave the suburbs would represent a…
mikethemadbiologist | June 27, 2007More ridiculous budget cuts in Massachusetts at the local level. This time it's schools, not libraries. According to the Boston Globe, Shoreham, MA has failed to approve a property tax override leading to the following educational budget cuts:
*shutting down the sixth-grade wing of the middle school and sending those students back to elementary school to save money.
*All athletic programs.
*Physical education classes.
*Elementary and middle school fine arts classes.
*Laying off an assistant high school principal.
And what's behind this? Homeowners, particularly retirees:
Override…
mikethemadbiologist | May 8, 2007Or socialist. Or maybe just Swedish. By way of Ezra Klein, I came across these polling data collected by Ruy Teixeira:
If you hold both of these views (and arguably, even just one), you are an economic liberal. Not a moderate, but a liberal. I realize many people don't want to be called liberals, but these positions have historically been identified as liberal. And guess what? Liberals hold liberal positions. If you want to call yourself Martian, that's fine, but you're a liberal Martian.
There seems to be more of us too (liberals, not Martians): the majority--not a plurality, a…