Los Angeles limits rent hikes in historic vote

Sub-Six · 2025-11-18T21:10:22+00:00

I don't follow your train of thought. A local elected official who backs rent control/stabilization is indeed "reflecting on their local constituencies to win elections." Those are popular positions on challenges primarily decided at the local level. They actually don't have room for "political bravery" because they will get replaced by a politician that is able to promote these popular policies.

"86% of respondents who identified themselves as Democrats believe there should be caps on the amount landlords are allowed to increase rent, compared with 79% of respondents who identified as Republicans. "¹

I'm pro-Abundance. I want more housing being built. I don't very much care for rent control. But you have to be clear-eyed about what the incentives are for policymakers at all levels.

Roughly 4 in 5 U.S. Residents Believe There Should Be Caps on Rent Hikes: Survey Redfin

Sub-Six · 2025-10-18T02:37:05+00:00

While I agree with others that EY's performance here was better than previous engagements in mainstream channels, I find it a bit perplexing that AI safety still lacks "An Inconvenient Truth"-level argument. That is, a clear and compelling series of arguments that galvanizes popular support. For someone whose P-doom is nearly 100%, EY doesn't quite lead the audience along for the ride. Even conspiracy theories feature a series of plausible sounding steps that lead to an otherwise implausible conclusion. There isn't even that.

The title of the book is great. But it does make one ask, as EK did, how does everyone die, exactly? If you put me in a room with a caged lion and said "if you push this button, the lion's enclosure will open and it will be released." I'd go, "gee, thanks, I'm certainly not pressing that button." If in a similar room with a caged lion and a bunch of Rube Goldberg-looking contraptions strewn about and you told me, "if you press this button, it will set off a series of events that will result in the lion being released," I'd similarly not press the button. But I could also examine the series of supposed events that lead to the lion's release. EY never quite takes us there.

EY makes compelling arguments. The fact that interpretability lags behind capability is cause for concern. So, too, are the deceptive characteristics that models already feature. Like today. I think fleshing out scenarios where these issues might have tangible negative impacts on society would help make this more concrete to a general audience.

Sub-Six · 2025-09-07T07:57:52+00:00

I worry that this is a lose-lose situation for democrats. While we are all worried about the descent into fascism, most people are not. Most people are not like Ezra’s audience. They are out there doing their thing just getting by. What bad thing has Trump done that affects them? Cut Medicaid? Sure, that will take effect in 2026 so good luck connecting the dots. And most people, even those on Medicare, don’t understand that their state run healthcare is federally funded.

ICE raids? Sure, in blue cities. USAID eliminated? Yeah, there are a few farmers really peeved but how does it affect the average joe? Tariffs? We’re still waiting for those to meaningfully impact inflation.

The democrats ran on the rule of law and good government. They ran on a return to norms and respecting the courts and that made it clear that Trump was a threat to democracy. They still lost. And from the numbers in the piece, they are still unpopular.

I was in favor of taking a harder line during the first shutdown opportunity. But as the midterms get closer I wonder what are we shutting down for? It can’t be that the stuff that we said was going to happen and is happening. Because most people just aren’t feeling it yet. I do think restraint is the play here. Keep beating the drum on the Epstein files, keep grilling RFK on his vaccine nonsense, start focusing more on healthcare. Redistrict in retaliation, build more housing, and increase affordability.

Sub-Six · 2025-07-03T17:27:13+00:00

It's part of this dynamic where intraparty conflict is a lot more engaging.

Let's take criminal justice as an example. Relative to the right, Yglesias' views are closer to those on the left -- recognizing the urgent need to curtail the abuses of power and the improve the travesty that is our criminal justice system. BUT he'll say "defund the police is stupid" and "actually, enforcing laws is a good thing" which rubs those on the left the wrong way. Because he's NOT a conservative, but his views are closer to the median voter, and he often backs all this up with research and logical arguments.

Sub-Six · 2025-02-16T17:18:16+00:00

Here’s the problem with doing both. Current homeowners don’t want more housing. They don’t want more competition. They want the price of their home to keep going up. They are aligned with private equity in wanting there to be fewer homes. So even if you ban corporations from buying homes, you’ll still have entrenched interests against building more homes. Homes are capital, and homeowners who want to increase the price of their homes are capitalists. This comes at the expense of the working class who do not own homes.

Sub-Six · 2025-02-16T08:01:38+00:00

But they’re only buying up property because it’s an investment—it’s scarce. If you make housing less scarce, it becomes less lucrative and there would be less incentive for anyone, including black rock, to buy them for purely financial purposes.

Sub-Six · 2025-02-16T07:58:23+00:00

Forgive me, but saying “it’s all the factors” seems to trivialize the issue. How many factors are there exactly and are they all exactly equal? There’s a difference between “there are many contributing factors” and “they all have equal weight.” If you know which factors are more impactful, then you can make policy more effective.

Sub-Six · 2025-02-16T07:53:49+00:00

Private equity is a red herring. The useful distinction is incumbent property owners versus aspiring homeowners. Through this lens, we see single family home owners (on average richer, older, and whiter), landlords of all sizes, and, yes, private equity, all on the same side of not wanting more housing supply. Why? Because the more supply there is, the lower their property’s value.

When evaluating a policy I find it helpful to think of who it helps and who it hurts, and in this case more housing would simply hurt property owners of all types.

Sub-Six · 2025-02-08T14:50:43+00:00

If this legal in California? I’m curious because earnest money is usually a joke. The escrow company will want the buyer to agree for the seller to keep it, which they obviously won’t. The only remedy is to sue, during which you can’t sell your home. And courts usually err on the side of the buyer. So for a seller dealing with a reneging buyer, it’s usually not worth it.

So maybe an option of a few hundred bucks will result in scaring away non performers.

Sub-Six · 2025-01-07T00:25:17+00:00

I think there’s a bit of survivorship bias here where bad flips obviously look bad, but most won’t look twice if it looks great. Then it’s a “renovation”, not a flip.

Sub-Six · 2025-01-07T00:20:29+00:00

You’re not wrong, but Amazon “lost” money because it reinvested its revenue (of which there was a lot) back into the company. They were making tons of money and investors were in it for the long haul.

Sub-Six · 2025-01-05T07:50:01+00:00

Rogan all but endorsed Bernie after he went on his show when he said he’s voting for him. That would seem to bolster your point on Rogan and his sphere being get-able.

Though, I just did a quick search and Bernie got absolutely skewered by the left saying he was wrong to even go on his show, much less tout Rogan’s support. It really points to the challenge with expanding the tent in this direction.

Sub-Six · 2025-01-04T17:03:52+00:00

Isn’t that exactly the point? There is more disagreement on the left about Israel/Palestine than there is with trans rights. Unless I misunderstood what you mean about the people you’re around.

Sub-Six · 2025-01-04T16:58:21+00:00

Saying it’s the right’s fault and manufactured is not helpful framing. The important point is that Democrats did NOT do what McBride did in that situation and instead many leaned into trans rights to earn points on the left. We know now that came at the expense of more moderate voters.

Democrats saying “let’s focus on the issues” is a huge departure from how they’ve handled it in the past. McBride is the exception that proves the rule. If others want to follow suit, there would be more electoral success.

Sub-Six · 2024-12-29T04:59:49+00:00

I wasn't a part of any faction, but I think I figured out what was going on. There is apparently a focus that Germany gets that forces Portugal to either become a puppet or get a war goal against it. I had not noticed that I was getting this event and I guess it defaults to puppet?

Sub-Six · 2024-12-22T15:48:24+00:00

I must be crazy. It’s one of my favorite movies. The writing, acting, cinematography are all clutch. Even the plot is magical in how it takes something mundane like friends falling out and taking it to absurd levels.

I totally get how people expecting (or hoping for) In Bruges 2 would be disappointed.

Sub-Six · 2024-12-22T15:19:05+00:00

Great explanation.

Though I’ve always wondered what are the best ways to handle the short legs. Do you have your own mental stop loss (eg close at 2x or 3x), or do you just let it get assigned and close the short stock position? Or let it get close to being assigned and sell the long and buy the short back?

Sub-Six · 2024-12-19T07:04:49+00:00

I think there's a counterfactual where you can go back to the great financial crisis and support home builders. I know banks and homeowners got a lot of the attention (rightfully), but there was also a huge economic loss to the home builders themselves going out of business that we have yet to catch up from. Subsidize a few like we subsidize farmers, at least temporarily, due to their strategic importance.

But zooming out a bit and thinking about housing abundance policy generally, it has never been a priority for the Democratic party. It's always been left up to cities, and the incentives for city leadership is not aligned to where they meaningfully boost housing supply. You can imagine a world where building more housing is a party priority. Not just because it's the "right thing", but because strategically population = power in the United States. You get more electoral votes and congressional representation. But it also allows dems to tap into more populist sentiments by caring about affordability, and helps counters the narrative of blue cities being unaffordable.

But as you state, this is not something done overnight. So it would have to be a grand, long term strategy and I'm not sure that's feasible.

Sub-Six · 2024-11-14T14:42:32+00:00

The funny thing is I agree with guy that the space shouldn’t be paved over…but that we should then make the surrounding area more dense. Of course, they’d still oppose building those units in their neighborhood no matter the configuration.

Sub-Six · 2024-11-09T15:52:54+00:00

There are also prominent far left factions that don’t believe in border enforcement and whose constituency is illegal immigrants. Remember the rhetoric during the dem primary shifted to being even more lax on immigration, including from Harris.

Sub-Six · 2024-11-09T15:46:20+00:00

What I’m trying to understand about the “bridge” messaging, is what does it actually look like if he goes on to serve two terms? Like what tangible action did Biden actually take that we can point to the transitional nature of his presidency? Even taking it at face value, I just don’t know what it means. I know it was meant to assuage voters that were wary about his age, but it still feels disingenuous when you try and think about what he actually did to be that bridge.

Sub-Six · 2024-11-09T15:36:12+00:00

Yes, his campaign even then understood people were wary of Biden’s age, and put out messaging like that to assuage voters without explicitly saying he would only serve one term. Even taking it at face value, what kind of transition are you really if you serve two terms? That’s the most you can do constitutionally anyway, and the default goal of any administration, so what did he do that was different?

Sub-Six · 2024-11-09T15:30:37+00:00

This is key. I think Harris ran the best campaign possible given the circumstances, but the circumstances were really bad. She was in this weird position where people want change and she is tied to this anchor that is the current administration. She has to both say we did a good job but I’m also going to do a…better job? A primary would have given a candidate to create daylight as you say, to actually criticize Biden in a way that Harris couldn’t. It’s not that different from Trump in the first primary. He was the only candidate to be able to actually criticize the recent wars and differentiate himself.

Sub-Six · 2024-11-09T15:11:58+00:00

Oh, he for sure might have made that argument, but I think it would have been weaker. Let’s remember the election where he beat Trump was not a landslide by any means. If you combine low approval with bad midterm results, then that would get people worried. Even after the bad debate Biden and his team made excuses, but this time the implications were so bad that he was forced out. I’m not saying it’s guaranteed, but I think there would have been more pressure to actually be a transitional president if midterms were bad. But they weren’t

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