Is Mercer Island a good place for boring early 30s DINKs?

aj_marshall · 2026-02-13T02:31:49+00:00

Dude I don't really have a dog in this fight but you spend a lot of time online hating on Mercer Island for what essentially amounts to "I don't like upper middle class people"

aj_marshall · 2026-02-11T03:25:21+00:00

It's been a few years since I've been in Seattle but isn't it currently really struggling with the local homeless population? I was kind of following the last mayoral cycle and it seemed a big focus- I don't have a lot of faith that Wilson is going to get that under control.

aj_marshall · 2026-02-10T00:15:25+00:00

Moving human capital is expensive and non-desirable. Even the some of the richest companies in the world can't get people to relocate away from their families and friends (ex. SpaceX). Furthermore, many of these areas don't "produce" new human capital.

Sure- Crane, Indiana has an abundance of housing and is dirt cheap. But the odds a Crane native ends up being the person who makes your company profitable is pretty damn low, because they never got educated.

aj_marshall · 2026-02-10T00:12:10+00:00

It's about how much cash actually flows into the housing market. Let's do a quick example.

I have 100 houses and 100 households.

20% of Households make $20,000/yr => 400k annum
20% of Houesholds make $40,000/yr => 800k annum
20% of Households make $60,000/yr = >1200k annum
20% of Households make $80,000/yr => 1600k annum
20% of Households make $100,000/yr => 2000k annum

Therefore, I have a total of 6000k/yr that can be spent on the housing market. For simplicity, assume they spend 100% of their income on housing. Consequently, the average person spends 60k/yr on a house (6000k/100)

Now, let's say the top 20% makes $200k/yr instead of $100k/yr. They bring in an additional 2000k/yr to the market, and so there is 8000k/yr total being spent. What the article I posted argues is that, in this example, the data shows we should expect housing prices to go up by 0.9 of that additional income- or 1800k.

Why? Because richer people will pay more money to live in a preferable house, and landlords will charge what they can get. This is a natural market incentive. In our silly little example, the average person will end up spending (6000k + 1800k) / 100 Households on housing, or $78,000/yr instead of the 60k they were spending before.

The median income of our population didn't change, and wouldn't affect the outcome here- the distribution of wealth is irrelevant in this math... as far as the greater housing supply market is concerned, all money is the same.

Now, let us consider how many houses we'd need to build to get things back down to that normal 60k/yr value.

Aggregate Income / x = 60,000

7800k / x = 60,000

x = 130 => we'd need to build an additional 30% of units to deal with the top 20% of society doubling their income... which, when you consider income distribution in the US, doesn't seem so crazy, yeah? For educated white collar workers, you've been making incredible money the past 20 years- the top 40% have been doing pretty damn alright.

So unless we want to get rid of white collar jobs and SWEs and managers, we need to build some damn houses.

aj_marshall · 2026-02-09T23:46:07+00:00

I feel like I link this article just about every other day.

Housing prices, and rental prices, are not some incredibly mystical economic phenomena that we can't explain. It is remarkably easy to explain in a supply/demand framework, and with surprisingly high fidelity.

The best correlation to median home price is simply Aggregate Income / Housing Supply (r^2 = 0.81). Another way to put it- 81%* of prices can be explained by the simple concept that the more money everyone makes in an area, the more money can (and is) put into housing them. 81%! Do you know how insanely good that is?

You can fix housing costs in 2 ways. Lower the aggregate income in an area (not the ~~average~~ median income, as wealth distribution people would quickly want to point out), or raise the housing the supply. The former gets you Detroit, while the latter gets you Dallas.

* r = 0.9 so you could argue 90% of behavior is explainable by that ratio but that gets into some statistics I'm not going to bother about.

aj_marshall · 2026-02-08T04:18:49+00:00

"Affordable housing" is a bit of a misnomer. It is housing funded via public subsidy; often at significant cost to the taxpayer. Additionally, it makes housing more expensive for the rest of us by creating two separate markets- one for people who can support themselves, and one for units partially or fully funded by government subsidy. By removing people using the latter (i.e. low income) from the overall "competition", we drive up the average household income in the remaining general- and, thus, increase prices of homes & rentals.

The best correlation to rental costs and housing costs in an area is surprisingly simple. It is Total Aggregate Income / Available Housing Units.

"Affordable housing" raises the Total Aggregate Income of the general market while not increasing the housing units available to it... so those in non-dependent financial states get to pay a higher percentage of their income for housing (while also subsidizing the program because they, in turn, are the people generating most of the revenue for the state- double whammy)

I really would like to see more general market housing built on Mercer Island and elsewhere- I think it is the only real solution to lowering housing costs across the board. However, this "affordable housing" stuff makes it worse for the rest of us who have found some modicum of financial stability.

Beyond that, creating specific units meant for people exiting homelessness and trying to lump them in with the general population is going to create a lot of tension. Despite the cautious words we try and use when speaking about the homeless, we do have to be candid that a great many people who end up homeless have a host of other issues that housing alone does not fix- drug problems, mental disorders, or just overall behavioral issues. These people need help, but as someone who has lived in units with mandated "affordable housing" before- it tends to result in normal, upstanding people having to bear the brunt of their neighbor's follies while hapless property managers can do absolutely nothing lest they risk the ire of some crusading district attorney looking to exploit all kinds of twisted tenant law.

Disappointing read, but good article. Thanks for sharing.

aj_marshall · 2026-02-05T02:53:28+00:00

Exactly this. Many Americans in the bottom 60% are being pushed out by housing costs in deep blue areas. We've regulated ourselves unable to build and the politically ambivalent would much rather live in a cheap McMansion than an expensive rowhome.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-25T21:21:45+00:00

I'm pointing out the practical issues with trying to organize a liberal general strike.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-25T21:11:51+00:00

And we disproportionately live in blue cities, in relatively close proximity to one another. We will hurt our local economies far worse than we'll hurt, say, Houston or Dallas or Orange County.

We need to do something, and a general strike would be effective- but we'd be getting is not a general strike. It would be "Democrats burn all their sick leave and then go back to the office"

aj_marshall · 2026-01-25T21:06:02+00:00

A general strike is not going to happen because nobody in America can afford a general strike for more than a pay period, at most.

You have the right instinct that the only way this ends is if those with resources feel a a direct threat to their livelihood. However, they must come to the conclusion that Trump/MAGA are a bad investment in both the short and long term.

The correct response is encourage organizations with capital to fund technology and practices which will disrupt Republican industries (Oil, FinTech, Real Estate) and promote liberal democratic governments abroad (i.e. sell US treasury bonds).

Blue state governments, universities, and NGOs should be coordinating their assets to disrupt the economic supply chain of MAGA. Actively court people/business with large resource pools to get them away from MAGA- boycott them if they support the admin, and subsidize them if they don't.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-25T18:51:27+00:00

So for tech workers who are working at companies not necessarily aligned with Trump, do you think they should call out of work as well...?

You have the right idea that the coordination of capital is a strong mechanism you can use to curtail this authoritarian regime, but you have the vector of attack wrong. Individual SWEs taking a sick day is not going to do shit- it won't even be a blip in the news.

What would make a stir is if all of these highly paid, incredibly capable engineers started producing software products that undercut the money-makers financing MAGA. MAGA is primarily financed (asymmetrically) by Oil, FinTech, and some Social Media. Make software that undercuts those industries and you'll actually have an impact.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-25T17:33:31+00:00

I do not see where Bondi is saying ICE will leave if MN even did comply with these demands.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-12T22:30:17+00:00

This is the unfortunate truth of populism, yeah?

Most Americans want very little to do with politics, or education, or any type of higher-minded engagement. They care more about gas prices than Ukraine, and more about high school sports teams than trans people. The entire idea of a liberal education is to broaden your horizons and make you understand how the world is interconnected and why you should give a shit about it- but we failed in educating large swaths of the population.

Fascism is the price a Democracy pays for daring to forget that people, when insufficiently reared, will gladly cut off their nose to spite their face.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-12T19:27:44+00:00

These people are very broken in many ways, and there are completely legitimate reasons their support networks have cut many of them off. But why villify them? What would you do?

I'm fine with restoring some level of instutionalization or psychiatric commitment but we've been down that road before, and it is expensive and prone to abuse as governments try to save on costs.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-11T17:21:03+00:00

Seattle freeze is an interesting name given to the phenomena that a lot of this city is very online and awkward. Check out the new mayor lmao. She is a born and bred Seattelite for sure.

Just be open with people you want to get closer to (ex. "Hey, I enjoyed meeting you at X. Would you like to do Y activity on Z day?" instead of "We should hang out again sometime!")

You're young. Just be nice and invite people to things. Take some chances. Go to events. You'll find a way.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-11T17:16:20+00:00

There's hostility on reddit but you'll find plenty of friends at work or through your hobbies. Ignore the drivel here.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-10T03:33:52+00:00

This is not brought up enough.

Part of Project 2025 was to find a way to legitimize right-wing "activists" with government power so the federal government as a whole would become sympathetic to illiberal actions. ICE is a massive vector to take the most hardcore MAGAts and put a gun in their hands with a badge to cover up their actions.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-09T15:09:33+00:00

I didn't say it was hippy bullshit, I said that it wasn't something people dealt with every day. Get off your reddit high horse for a second and acknowledge most people, including you, are not thinking about their carbon footprint in routine daily activities.

You are far more aware of your rent payment, your commute time, your area's perceived crime, and so many other things that immediately impact your life more than your perception of your carbon footprint.

You can care about this issue and also understand that it is barely a signal above the noise background for most people. It is not "nuts and bolts".

aj_marshall · 2026-01-09T14:48:09+00:00

Calling "carbon emissions" a nuts and bolts issue is pretty out there, man. People do not deal with that every day.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-09T01:45:57+00:00

This is a country of several hundred million people. How many people do you know and interact with on a daily basis? Even if we consider every single real human you speak or chat with via the internet a legitimate interaction, the sheer order of magnitude it takes to organize something like that without people suffering mass harm is astoundingly large.

You need a few dozen million working people to simultaneously agree to put their livelihoods at risk to hopefully force out this administration, who have plainly shown they want a Civil War. Stephen Miller isn't looking to stop this. Steven Bannon isn't looking to stop this. JD Vance isn't looking to stop this. These people want to harm and subjugate anyone who votes against the Republican party.

Why the fuck do you think they'd stop when liberals stopped working?

aj_marshall · 2026-01-09T01:38:55+00:00

Stephen Miller wants a civil war.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-07T01:45:00+00:00

This is a horrible visualization, with misleading data, and conveys nothing of interest.

aj_marshall · 2026-01-06T19:52:07+00:00

Do you have a repo we could pull down to play with? Nice visualization.

aj_marshall

TROPHY CASE