It is a supply and demand problem. Man, I’m pretty left, but it always appalls me the way many on the left do not understand basic economics. California’s population was 23 million in the 80s. It has effectively doubled today without a meaningful increase in the supply of housing. No amount of price controls will get you more housing to put people in.

If there are five homes and two families that need a place to live. Those landlords are going to compete with each other to incentivize the families to move in to their property by lowering prices. If there are two homes and five families, whichever families are willing to pay the most are the ones who will get to have housing.

Do you even live here? It’s the same attitude that’s gotten us into this mess. All the same arguments that they give at the community meetings where they prevent housing from being built. California is run by democrats with a super majority. People on the left make all the same arguments as you. We still have a massive problem. The people who benefit from the paralysis this creates are those who bought their homes for $80,000 in the 80s and now watch their $2 million home become a $4 million home.

Here’s the story. Housing is already really expensive and already something only the wealthy can afford. Normal people are either splitting rent 10 ways or living in cars and RVs on the streets. The situation can hardly get worse.

Developers need to be able to build, and they need to be able to build a lot. The housing crisis is a supply and demand problem. And, we need a megaton of supply. Let the developers build “luxury” apartments. That’s stupid marketing anyway and when they’ve all built “luxury” apartments to the point where there is a glut of them housing prices will moderate. In the interim, the people paying high prices for old housing stock will move into these newer nicer buildings, freeing up the old housing stock. And, due to regulations the newer buildings must include some percentage of affordable units. You’ll probably like that, though I don’t think it’s a great system as the income limits are rock bottom to get in and you have to win a lottery to be chosen. People wait 20 years for it, but ok.

By the way, the status quo doesn’t have to defend itself under CEQA. And, what are the environmental impacts of that? The same law is used to block projects good for the environment, like high speed rail and public transit. The cost has blown up in part because they’re fighting all these lawsuits.

Why? The law has been weaponized by nimbys. California is a mess because of it. Shitty rundown houses from the 70s cost $3 million.

It’s not going to solve the problem alone, but it’s going to unblock the basic construction of housing in urban areas.

Elon Musk and DOGE are mass murderers

Best he could do is get them to pass a continuing resolution. But, he really just wants them to cut the shit out of federal spending. We aren’t going to be able to do that fully. We might cut some spots, but it’ll never be enough. We have to raise taxes.

We just need to join Canada. California alone will double the size of Canada. New York is another 25M. You have a new country that is ~140M. Add Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota and it’s even bigger.

Now factor in that most GDP is generated in these states and you’ve got a kick ass new country. California grows a lot of food too, but you’ll be missing some from the Midwest unfortunately. At least we won’t have their toxic politics.

Do people really see like the 7th or 8th in a film franchise? I personally have antibodies against any franchise that is more than a trilogy.

iPhone should run MacOS. You should be able to plug it in to a monitor with mouse and keyboard and use it as a computer.

This article is about ScaleAI, not Llama

Idiot

This — if capitalism could be contained by government it would do nicely, but it ends up corrupting government so that it cannot function.

Billionaires trying to buy elections