I realize I tend to post general stuff late in the day, but can't help it. Too much that I have to jump on in the mornings if it's an editing week.
But I thought I should announce a bit of a life transition: I gave notice at the store. Decided I need to retire after 10 years, and gain more control over my life. I'll miss the place and most of my co-workers and the exercise and the flowers and the good customers. There is other stuff I won't miss, but what job doesn't have that? It's just that I think I've accomplished about all that I can in improving how things are done in my department, and if they don't get how much I have contributed, they'll soon find out. Anyway, I decided to retire at the end of October, so I don't have to wait another year to not have to even leave the house on Black Friday--I've always considered that a barbaric custom. But at the time I really needed a gig and was willing to give up what had to be given up.
It's also an interesting place to have experienced in that it's sort of the crossroads of the world, with every possible ethnicity among the customer base and the associates as well, reflecting the population in the surrounding neighborhoods. Communication can be a challenge, but most of the time we can solve it. A lot of them dress like "furriners" too--but this is a free country and welcome to it, right? The exotic garb doesn't seem that unusual after a while.
Congrats on retiring! There comes a time when it is time (sorry if the sounds Kamala-esque).
Someone at UD took our early retirement this summer, and passed away in the past month; he was in his 70s, and had been here nearly 40 years. Some faculty felt that was cruel, but I'd disagree; if work was fulfilling, why not. I dunno how long I'll last, but I aim to keep at it.
Congratulations and best wishes upon exiting retail and regaining control!
After October 12, we will no longer have connections to retail. No more glitter, crazy hours, Christmas in August, Halloween in....you know what I mean.
Disgus' wants me to log in to do anything at the Mothership, suddenly. It could be a Sign ...
We have heavy rain forecast for tomorrow. A Bible group that some ladies at my church are starting was supposed to meet tomorrow, but it's been put off until next Friday, and the county says most of their services will be closed to focus on emergency needs.
F and his goofball friend Mars may still go to stay with their loopy friend Brian, if the power doesn't go out at Brian's house. His mom will let us know by midday.
Similar issue, I emailed the Mothership. I suggested Disqus is proof they are NeverTrumpers, since Disqus seems Biden-esque in its gaffes and frustrations. We'll learn if they have a since of humor. I logged off of The Dispatch, off of Disqus, then back on just The Dispatch, then back off, then back on both and.....nothing, nada, bupkis.
But it's good to know I'm not the only one....
Good luck with the storms and power outages and loopy friends....
Update: It's letting people in again, finally. I posted comment #2 on Mr. Eeyore's thread. It was a very frank message to the Dispatch people about Disgus. Maybe it will get noticed.
But I was able to look at a thread from yesterday and saw that 8 hours ago that Mr. fishsticks wanted to know why you ask if his comment is relevant to the Oxford comma. You may prefer not to answer. (You may be unable to answer.) I certainly won't answer any of his questions. Maybe he imagined I didn't see his ad hominem about my being a not-sharp pencil before he took it down. Ha. Not the brightest crayon, that one. I do feel a little bit sorry for him in that he doesn't realize you knew about that already because we have a backchannel for "conspiring" and "ganging up" on commenters with a behavior problem. We may not be the only commenters who have a backchannel, though we use ours for good, of course.
I see you were able to post. Good one. Who knows if he'll be able to reply.
I viewed it, but couldn't even like. I must sign in to like a post, I am told. Part of the system thanks me for supporting their original reporting, analysis, and opinion. The rest of the system ignores me. Fie.
Bleepin' Disqus. It was fine and just started acting up on me again. Fie. Authenticate your own flippin' user, you piece of overcoded garbage.
Here's what it's doing now: The "My Account" thing knows me, and the comments display, but I don't have the option to post one or edit my own anymore--I'm only allowed to like. Now, if someone posted a pointed comment about Disqus on some recent thread I still have open in a tab, and I knew the comment was there, I'd give it a like.
Scott Lincicome also wrote about housing today at the Mothership. He mentioned changes in mortgage regulations as another reason for the dearth of new, small houses. The people who want a small, less expensive house can't get a mortgage. He has charts!
I didn't read it, but I know what he's talking about. There is some element in building that parallels automobile mfg., wherein you start with pretty much the same functional foundation/chassis and frame/body (and yes I know about unibody but the metaphor only works for old cars), and you make your money adding fashion masquerading as extras. Like all things, there are builders that contradict what I just said.
I don't care. Fashion achieved through the layering on of extras whether in the form of increased luxury or exterior insulation in a nod to climate change or square footage or whatever...the starter home is not the highest margin operation in an industry with always tightening margins. Until you get into stuff like Horton, Lennar, Pulte, etc. with truly fantastical incomprehensible amounts of money (revenues of $10b-25b+, huge land acquisition, and housing starts >50k) the margins for which I have no understanding.....margins for smaller developers (maybe 10-100 units-ish) doing starter homes is extremely thin ice. Building at smaller scale is a gypsy business....lots of coming and going. I've known lots of starter home builders over 4 decades. I only know a couple still hanging around and they're not doing starter homes.
The government financial regs, sure. There's more to it, though. Folks generally are not fully grasping the disaster that is upon us in lack of housing, from top to bottom it is a system designed and built over decades into a regulatory and building principles, materials, methods and fashion soup of design weirdness, restrictive contradictory localized building codes, various industry regulatory capture, capture of the regulatory industries themselves by organizations like ASTM that promulgate standards, i.e. regulatory regulation of the standards regulators, material scarcity (yeah, I don't care what anyone says, that topic by itself is a book), labor (nonexistent in any appreciable amount), etc., etc.
Be glad and thankful if you are in a house and it is reasonably operable and affordable.
"the starter home is not the highest margin operation in an industry with always tightening margins"
He mentioned that once a builder has bought land and paid all the squeeze to government and regulators, putting a small house on the lot is risky, if it's even allowed, because there might not be a buyer able to get a mortgage for a small house. There are disincentives for banks to make small mortgage loans.
It's the "there's always someone who'll pay more money for a big house, so why would you put a small house there? " conundrum.
Which possibly more accurately describes scarcity of dirt. The dirt where folks wanna be has been tightly parceled for several decades with a few breakouts here and there.
The "even allowed" part points at zoning. Lots of places have minimal square footage requirements or other restrictive covenants within a development.
Good recommendation, Marque. I’m always up for a new podcast, and I always wonder why some people are more attracted to this kind of thing than others. I think part of it has to do with wanting to have our beliefs confirmed. I have a friend, and her husband, who stick very closely to political hacks who mainly spend time throwing out opinions that have nothing to do with reality. My friend has repeated things that make me want to say, do you ever listen to anything else? Do you have any sense of curiosity, and does that even make sense? I start wondering how it is that people who have so many good qualities, and who are “educated,” are so easily persuaded to believe some truly wacky stuff.
"I distrust all dead and mechanical formulas for expressing anything connected with human affairs and human personalities. Putting human affairs in exact formulas shows in itself a lack of sense of humor and therefore a lack of wisdom."
....Lin Yutang
....which is what I "hear" when talk of journalism and thought leaders is brought up. Who are these young people imagining they understand the world and can explain it to everyone? All those folks over at The Mothership...do I really need these folks clogging up my neural pathways? And the podcast thing... I hate lousy writing and those unscripted podcasts where mopes are rambling and riffing off each other are like REALLY lousy writing. Who's got the time for that? Even if I had the time, I wouldn't enjoy it because I could feel my brain leaking out of my ears.
Tonight we are attending our first “real” concert since Covid. “Lucius” first, then “The War on Drugs” followed by “The National” at an outdoor venue. I’ll be there for “The War on Drugs.” The lead singer is a bit reminiscent of Bob Dylan.
My husband and I pose “What if you were stranded on a desert island?”questions to each other often. Just this week the question was “What album would you take with you if you were stranded on a desert island?” “Avalon” was my choice. His was “Absolute Torch and Twang.” I gotta say that that’s a good one too.
I managed to make it to the end, but only because I saw the thing not long after it came out over 30 years ago. And way back then in my younger days I had a whole lot more patience for annoying people than I do now. 🙄
Just yesterday I saw an ad he’s coming to this same venue next year. So talented and weird! Weird is good. The media “powers that be” were off their game when they chose that adjective to describe JD.
I just saw something about him on YouTube. Did I get the link here? I forget how I come across things because there is so much. Anyway, it was about him walking to one of his concerts, and getting picked up by the local police as a vagrant. His response was, he would have done the same thing if he’d been in their place! Nice surprise.
Katie had a girls night out yesterday. She drove to Bloomington (Indiana) to visit with her sister, her best friend drove down from Indy. They went to see Les Miserables. IDK, they could have gone to youtube for debates if they wanted to see something miserable, but okay. She stayed over with her sister, and is coming home this morning. She works tomorrow, then is driving to the farm so that she can attend a family reunion, "the Cheesewright reunion". Not to be confused with a Green Bay Packer gathering "The Cheesehead reunion".
My voice is sore. We had our "study abroad" fair, which many Frat Bros wanted to attend until he learned that is two words, not three. I spent time talking up our program, chatting at students, answering questions. We had 12 people give their names. Before the event started we had 6 students fill out an initial application. So the program might run. The UD office that manages this was pleased I am manipulating the UD system on their behalf. UD owns about 140 houses, which are considered dorms. They are highly desirable, so they offer "housing points" to students who engage in extra curricular activities presented by the school (extracurriculars provided by the bars don't count). So I am offering one on "don't put your resume on a diet; advice on activities which employers like to see". I'll talk about study abroad (and how to present it) as one of five things (volunteer work, a retail job, an internship, club leadership). The housing incentive program is called AVIATE. This session is for Freshman only, since we're offering a course in Rome that current sophomores have already taken.
I run an AVIATE event each week, discussing various news events, and then how they apply to student life. I have one for upperclassmen called "Career lessons from the Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor". By the way, one thing I hate about the Hunger Games is that there is a beautiful name from the 1850s, Euphemia, where the nickname is Effie. But by using it for a clownish character they killed any desire of anyone to use it today. 😡 Oh well, Lydia hasn't been ruined yet.
Hey, Jay, I need some insight into the expectations of online assignments in college. I was wondering if you'd mind if I sent an email to your university account.
" ... as housing pressures build, older, smaller, and affordable single-family homes are increasingly being replaced with larger (averaging 4,800 sq. ft.) and significantly more expensive (averaging $3.2 million in 2022) houses."
The economic rationale is based on the limited supply of land for building, modified by zoning rules that allow only stand-alone houses to be built in many areas. It is economically sub-optimal to leave a smaller, older, cheaper house in place when one has the opportunity to build a large, new, expensive one.
The proposed remedy is to allow more dwelling units per lot. Research suggests that, given the option, builders will put in four units instead of one. This, of course, has effects on the surrounding area. Charlotte is proposing a similar option, and my son-in-law's father is not pleased with the idea of multi-family dwellings on their street.
In Chicago, having a coach house (for in-laws or tenants) at the back of the lot makes sense, and people are fine with it. The city is starting to do things to make it easier to build or upgrade one.
I thought we were finally getting past that McMansion thing. However, I still see them going up around here. Then again, we are suddenly seeing a number of multi-family dwellings being built near our Walmart. Apparently, even our area needs more affordable housing, and we’re a far cry from being a metropolitan community.
If there is institutionalized racism in America...which I do believe exists in various forms, unfortunately... Then zoning is the ne plus ultra institutionalized racism, and it has morphed out of its obvious racist origins and is now socio-economic discrimination.
I bailed out of the market a while back and put the dough into a 100 year old apartment building in which I inhabit unit 3W. As a retirement option, it's superb cash flow. Pretty much my entire life is structured as a tax deductible expense, IRS approved. I'm the only apartment building on the block. Everything else is expensive single family. I'd never lived in an apartment before; I was always a SFR guy. It's an education. You get used to other people in close proximity, a decidedly un-American condition. The neighbors are getting used to my front yard being used to grow vegetables.
The fundamental base of the problem... Apartment buildings are decidedly declassé amongst the single family hard liners. The other base problem is square footage. When I started in the biz, 2500sf was considered a huge new home. Now, that's a 3 BR apartment.
Another counter intuitive reality.....In America, housing is a fashion industry. I got clients utterly obsessed with their kitchen countertop options to the exclusion of all other considerations.
The increase in the size of houses has coincided with a decline in household size. I remember when real estate agents and the building association were saying a house should have 1,000 sqft per permanent resident.
Good morning. Cloudy with highs in the 70s. we are supposed to get the remnants of Helene Friday afternoon.
The mothership is reporting the latest kicking of the can down the road -- the continuing resolution to fund the government until December 20. Congress will no doubt have a merry Christmas!
"something about their political inclinations, to the extent it that it bears on their reporting"
One reason the journalistical industry has lost so much credibility is that the persons proceed (and posture) as if their intensely-held beliefs about politics - which means about the world - had no influence on their reporting. It does, guys, and everyone can see it.
There's also the part about them all being youngsters, with youngsters by definition lacking wisdom. Take that part and couple it to the fact that we have J schools cranking out a few ten thousands of new journalists every year with no particular career path that will pay off their student debt. How does one differentiate themselves from everyone else?
There is a clue in the renaming of the NU McGill School of Journalism to now be "NU McGill School For Journalism, Media & Integrated Marketing Communications".
Newspapers of the 1800s were openly partisan. Many cities had at least two: one for conservatives, and one for liberals. Comics were one of the few items that largely could appear in both. It's not that a town with two baseball teams couldn't cover both, but rather, one was emphasized by the conversative paper, one by the liberal paper.
We're moving back to that, except people seem ashamed to admit they are partisan. Even the Mothership, which claims to be center-right, features work that would benefit from admitting the writer's bias.
It worked fine for centuries, so why not bring it back?
Sometimes, it's the "fish don't know they're wet" thing. They're surrounded by so many like-minded people, they're confused that any other view can even exist. And if they acknowledge it, it's as a the exotic other. The insular view dings their credibility, of course. But they ignore any criticism as coming from the "others."
I'm not sure it matters. Most early 21st century Americans are much like their mid-19th century counterparts in that they only want to hear news from people whose views support their own. Everything else is dismissed -- often in their social circles, churches, entertainment choices. It goes on and on.
I wonder if that sort of thought segregation is as dangerous as its racial equivalent a century ago.
"Most early 21st century Americans are much like their mid-19th century counterparts in that they only want to hear news from people whose views support their own."
It seems so, and 20th century Americans were probably the same, but the market was in transition. If all the journalism persons would say, "I am a biased reporter. This [specifics] is my bias," it would be honest.
I don't have to have that disclaimer. Generally, a few stories in they reveal it anyway -- unless they have a decent editor. There aren't enough editors generally anymore, and that's part of the problem. The market doesn't support it.
And it may be that the market is always in transition.
So, like so many aspects of life, we're left to be our own advocates for news consumption. And thus the Great Sort rolls on...
I have the inclination to fault the j-schools—much like I fault the schools of education for the similar problem in teacher training. I wonder if that inclination is fair or not, to be honest, even while I think it’s the correct view.
Falling into a place of viewpoint monotony is, in my experience, a very normal condition. I have tried the alternative, and I’m not sure it necessarily changes one’s mind as much as it can have the contrary effect: One may just as easily find oneself becoming more ardent that the other viewpoint is not just wrong, but brutally and stubbornly so against all the evidence it refuses to take into consideration.
I think a lot depends on how a counter argument is presented. Too often IMO, the opposing side comes across as “we know better than you,” when something more along the lines of “I can understand how you feel, but have you considered…?” Or, “here’s what worries me about that point of view.” I guess I’m saying that too often “the other side” comes off as confrontational, and who wants to listen to that.
The difference is you *try.* Many journalists, especially young ones, wouldn't give an opposing view any consideration.
When I was a wire editor for a Great Big newspaper conglomerate, one of the things I noticed was that the opposing view was buried so far down in the main stories that the likelihood of it getting cut was very high. So, I moved them up. They didn't have to be part of the lead, but I wanted the reader to be aware that any *reasonable opposing viewpoint was worth acknowledging.
*--Sorry, Tucker. I'm not re-litigating how good a guy Hitler was.
No, I've been charging him rent for quite a while. I gave him the option to move back into the room with his brothers, but he found he could afford the rent for his private room.
"I'd like to move out some day!" he said last night, and I said we would like that, too ... not that we find him an intolerable resident, like some of his siblings who were pushed out, but that we want all our children to be independent adults, eventually, for their own good.
I cannot imagine you not having nice children. I remember what I was like at that age, and I had good manners, paid my bills, etc., but in many ways, I was pretty immature!
I think I was 19, maybe pushing 20. But, my parents also charged rent. Another friend told her children that they could leave when they were ready, but they were then not moving back. For whatever reason, that seemed to work. This was never an issue when I was growing up, and maybe it was because we were more willing to find roommates? I don’t have kids, so I’m only guessing.
My first apartment, when I was maybe 23 and 1 year into my first full time job, was a 3-bedroom in the city. I was tired of the commute downtown from my parents' house in the burbs. I got sent by a roommate referral service, and the two who had a place in a suitable neighborhood and needed a new roomie decided I was OK. My share was very reasonable. Only difficulty was my parents wanted me to be careful about what was in the lease. The head of the accounting department where I worked did me a favor and had the company lawyer write me a paragraph. Parents were happy, I moved out on my own. After 4 years (with more roommate turnover, including my sister moving in) everybody moved on and I got my own place too.
It's hard to get into the rental market in many places. Most landlords won't consider anyone under 21, and they need a credit rating and a rental history. How are you supposed to have a rental history when you've lived in your parents' house all your life? The only reason Son C could move into the slum apartment was that he was the 4th sibling to go through there.
My roommates wanted to move from the apartment they were renting, so maybe that made it easier for me. It’s been so long ago that I’ve forgotten. Personally, I would hate dealing with rental property; people can be very careless, and it’s not just young people. I think we always had to pay the first two months right away. I also remember that the fun of being with roommates got old quickly!
I look forward to giving that podcast a listen! I'm fascinated by conspiracy theorists. It's my understanding that, generally speaking, when one delves into conspiratorial thinking on a single topic, lurching into others becomes more likely. Thus QAnon and pizza parlor shootings and more.
When I think of conspiracies, I recall one of my favorite late-night forms of entertainment, listening to Art Bell on my drive home from work. One night, a caller pointed out the obvious conclusion about the night skies out west(and I paraphrase): "Art, the thing that scares me most about Area 51 is the other 50 areas we don't know nothing about." In classic form, Art responded, "Oh. My. God."
Thought Area 52 was the overflow facility for Area 51, where illegal aliens from space are kept until their immigration court cases can be heard. Not sure whether RFK Jr. escaped, or if they let him out on purpose.
Not that I'm a believer in conspiracy theories or anything like that, but I'm pretty sure those guys are up to some kind of malign societal experiment, maybe to test Americans' acceptance of alternative life forms to go along with all those alternative facts out there.
I think I'll try and make y'all feel a bit better today. Re comments and disgus (my (c) term actually ☺️)
It was 81 overnight. Finally hit 69 at 5am. High today, 106, breaking the day record for the last 125 years. We will have 100F until October..gawllee
Hurricanes, humidity, heat, torrential rain absent hurricane conditions, humidity, humidity.
But I'll take than over 100 F until October. Stay cool!
My friend in Utah is happy. She loves the heat.
Until August 2025?
I realize I tend to post general stuff late in the day, but can't help it. Too much that I have to jump on in the mornings if it's an editing week.
But I thought I should announce a bit of a life transition: I gave notice at the store. Decided I need to retire after 10 years, and gain more control over my life. I'll miss the place and most of my co-workers and the exercise and the flowers and the good customers. There is other stuff I won't miss, but what job doesn't have that? It's just that I think I've accomplished about all that I can in improving how things are done in my department, and if they don't get how much I have contributed, they'll soon find out. Anyway, I decided to retire at the end of October, so I don't have to wait another year to not have to even leave the house on Black Friday--I've always considered that a barbaric custom. But at the time I really needed a gig and was willing to give up what had to be given up.
It's also an interesting place to have experienced in that it's sort of the crossroads of the world, with every possible ethnicity among the customer base and the associates as well, reflecting the population in the surrounding neighborhoods. Communication can be a challenge, but most of the time we can solve it. A lot of them dress like "furriners" too--but this is a free country and welcome to it, right? The exotic garb doesn't seem that unusual after a while.
Congratulations 🎉.
Congratulations!
Congrats on retiring! There comes a time when it is time (sorry if the sounds Kamala-esque).
Someone at UD took our early retirement this summer, and passed away in the past month; he was in his 70s, and had been here nearly 40 years. Some faculty felt that was cruel, but I'd disagree; if work was fulfilling, why not. I dunno how long I'll last, but I aim to keep at it.
I'm the never wanna be bored at 70 guy. Give me a challenge of new, exciting!!
Oh, I have a lot of stuff on my to-do list. And my side hustle of copyediting continues and will maybe expand a bit.
Congratulations and best wishes upon exiting retail and regaining control!
After October 12, we will no longer have connections to retail. No more glitter, crazy hours, Christmas in August, Halloween in....you know what I mean.
Disgus' wants me to log in to do anything at the Mothership, suddenly. It could be a Sign ...
We have heavy rain forecast for tomorrow. A Bible group that some ladies at my church are starting was supposed to meet tomorrow, but it's been put off until next Friday, and the county says most of their services will be closed to focus on emergency needs.
F and his goofball friend Mars may still go to stay with their loopy friend Brian, if the power doesn't go out at Brian's house. His mom will let us know by midday.
Similar issue, I emailed the Mothership. I suggested Disqus is proof they are NeverTrumpers, since Disqus seems Biden-esque in its gaffes and frustrations. We'll learn if they have a since of humor. I logged off of The Dispatch, off of Disqus, then back on just The Dispatch, then back off, then back on both and.....nothing, nada, bupkis.
But it's good to know I'm not the only one....
Good luck with the storms and power outages and loopy friends....
F's friends make him seem really normal.
I remember as a young parent seeing a parody "stress quiz".
-10 points if your child is hanging out with known troublemakers
-100 points if your child is the known troublemaker .
I suppose if they update it that getting facial tattoos will be many negative points.
Mr. Eeyore's newsletter posted a few hours ago is showing zero comments. I presume the Dispatch people know by now that something is the matter.
Oh, bother!
Update: It's letting people in again, finally. I posted comment #2 on Mr. Eeyore's thread. It was a very frank message to the Dispatch people about Disgus. Maybe it will get noticed.
🤪
But I was able to look at a thread from yesterday and saw that 8 hours ago that Mr. fishsticks wanted to know why you ask if his comment is relevant to the Oxford comma. You may prefer not to answer. (You may be unable to answer.) I certainly won't answer any of his questions. Maybe he imagined I didn't see his ad hominem about my being a not-sharp pencil before he took it down. Ha. Not the brightest crayon, that one. I do feel a little bit sorry for him in that he doesn't realize you knew about that already because we have a backchannel for "conspiring" and "ganging up" on commenters with a behavior problem. We may not be the only commenters who have a backchannel, though we use ours for good, of course.
I told him "curiosity." If he replies, I won't know, 'cause Disgus.
He hasn't yet. I'll check again from time to time, now that the system is currently not down .
I see you were able to post. Good one. Who knows if he'll be able to reply.
I viewed it, but couldn't even like. I must sign in to like a post, I am told. Part of the system thanks me for supporting their original reporting, analysis, and opinion. The rest of the system ignores me. Fie.
Bleepin' Disqus. It was fine and just started acting up on me again. Fie. Authenticate your own flippin' user, you piece of overcoded garbage.
Here's what it's doing now: The "My Account" thing knows me, and the comments display, but I don't have the option to post one or edit my own anymore--I'm only allowed to like. Now, if someone posted a pointed comment about Disqus on some recent thread I still have open in a tab, and I knew the comment was there, I'd give it a like.
I had some difficulty with Disqus earlier today. It finally cleared up.
Same here. TD comment x Disgus = Ykes !
I hear your pain! 😡 Happening to me too!
Misery is served in good company ☺️
Scott Lincicome also wrote about housing today at the Mothership. He mentioned changes in mortgage regulations as another reason for the dearth of new, small houses. The people who want a small, less expensive house can't get a mortgage. He has charts!
I didn't read it, but I know what he's talking about. There is some element in building that parallels automobile mfg., wherein you start with pretty much the same functional foundation/chassis and frame/body (and yes I know about unibody but the metaphor only works for old cars), and you make your money adding fashion masquerading as extras. Like all things, there are builders that contradict what I just said.
I don't care. Fashion achieved through the layering on of extras whether in the form of increased luxury or exterior insulation in a nod to climate change or square footage or whatever...the starter home is not the highest margin operation in an industry with always tightening margins. Until you get into stuff like Horton, Lennar, Pulte, etc. with truly fantastical incomprehensible amounts of money (revenues of $10b-25b+, huge land acquisition, and housing starts >50k) the margins for which I have no understanding.....margins for smaller developers (maybe 10-100 units-ish) doing starter homes is extremely thin ice. Building at smaller scale is a gypsy business....lots of coming and going. I've known lots of starter home builders over 4 decades. I only know a couple still hanging around and they're not doing starter homes.
The government financial regs, sure. There's more to it, though. Folks generally are not fully grasping the disaster that is upon us in lack of housing, from top to bottom it is a system designed and built over decades into a regulatory and building principles, materials, methods and fashion soup of design weirdness, restrictive contradictory localized building codes, various industry regulatory capture, capture of the regulatory industries themselves by organizations like ASTM that promulgate standards, i.e. regulatory regulation of the standards regulators, material scarcity (yeah, I don't care what anyone says, that topic by itself is a book), labor (nonexistent in any appreciable amount), etc., etc.
Be glad and thankful if you are in a house and it is reasonably operable and affordable.
"the starter home is not the highest margin operation in an industry with always tightening margins"
He mentioned that once a builder has bought land and paid all the squeeze to government and regulators, putting a small house on the lot is risky, if it's even allowed, because there might not be a buyer able to get a mortgage for a small house. There are disincentives for banks to make small mortgage loans.
It's the "there's always someone who'll pay more money for a big house, so why would you put a small house there? " conundrum.
Which possibly more accurately describes scarcity of dirt. The dirt where folks wanna be has been tightly parceled for several decades with a few breakouts here and there.
The "even allowed" part points at zoning. Lots of places have minimal square footage requirements or other restrictive covenants within a development.
It's all part of the soup.
Yep.
Good recommendation, Marque. I’m always up for a new podcast, and I always wonder why some people are more attracted to this kind of thing than others. I think part of it has to do with wanting to have our beliefs confirmed. I have a friend, and her husband, who stick very closely to political hacks who mainly spend time throwing out opinions that have nothing to do with reality. My friend has repeated things that make me want to say, do you ever listen to anything else? Do you have any sense of curiosity, and does that even make sense? I start wondering how it is that people who have so many good qualities, and who are “educated,” are so easily persuaded to believe some truly wacky stuff.
"I distrust all dead and mechanical formulas for expressing anything connected with human affairs and human personalities. Putting human affairs in exact formulas shows in itself a lack of sense of humor and therefore a lack of wisdom."
....Lin Yutang
....which is what I "hear" when talk of journalism and thought leaders is brought up. Who are these young people imagining they understand the world and can explain it to everyone? All those folks over at The Mothership...do I really need these folks clogging up my neural pathways? And the podcast thing... I hate lousy writing and those unscripted podcasts where mopes are rambling and riffing off each other are like REALLY lousy writing. Who's got the time for that? Even if I had the time, I wouldn't enjoy it because I could feel my brain leaking out of my ears.
我不相信所有与人类事务和人格有关的无聊的机械公式。 将人类事务放在精确的公式中本身就表明缺乏幽默感，因此缺乏智慧。
……林玉堂
Kinematics !
Strong words!
I'm kinda like that. It's part of my charm.
Tonight we are attending our first “real” concert since Covid. “Lucius” first, then “The War on Drugs” followed by “The National” at an outdoor venue. I’ll be there for “The War on Drugs.” The lead singer is a bit reminiscent of Bob Dylan.
I've heard The War on Drugs on the radio.
https://youtu.be/vkLOg252KRE?feature=shared
Puts me in mind of Roxy Music.
My husband and I pose “What if you were stranded on a desert island?”questions to each other often. Just this week the question was “What album would you take with you if you were stranded on a desert island?” “Avalon” was my choice. His was “Absolute Torch and Twang.” I gotta say that that’s a good one too.
Abbey Road.
Carole King's "Tapestry," off the top of my head.
I'd pick something from Paul Simon. Or the Charlie Daniels Band.
Paul Simon...he holds up.
Avalon would be a worthy choice.
Have you heard about Bob?
https://youtu.be/eIty7RqbF9o?si=6E_POtTkNdOiahZe
That made me laugh...love it.
No, I haven't. Do tell, (coughs, clears throat), what about Bob?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pKymngWgJw
About the Weird Al thing... who'd have thought a Trump speech set to music would be so much fun?
That is my brother’s favorite movie! I’ve never watched the entire thing because even I found him annoying! 😂
Favorite...no. But, I really liked it in some weird way.
I managed to make it to the end, but only because I saw the thing not long after it came out over 30 years ago. And way back then in my younger days I had a whole lot more patience for annoying people than I do now. 🙄
That’s it!! “Bob” is sooo clinging and oblivious. I kept feeling Richard Dreyfus’s pain! Dig a hole, push him in, and quickly cover it! 🤪
Baby steps... They were both aggravatingly self centered individuals but it was still funny.
Just yesterday I saw an ad he’s coming to this same venue next year. So talented and weird! Weird is good. The media “powers that be” were off their game when they chose that adjective to describe JD.
I just saw something about him on YouTube. Did I get the link here? I forget how I come across things because there is so much. Anyway, it was about him walking to one of his concerts, and getting picked up by the local police as a vagrant. His response was, he would have done the same thing if he’d been in their place! Nice surprise.
I can’t even edit this! I thought we were talking about Bob Dylan, not Weird Al!!! I got to see Al some years ago, and he was wonderful! 😂
Katie had a girls night out yesterday. She drove to Bloomington (Indiana) to visit with her sister, her best friend drove down from Indy. They went to see Les Miserables. IDK, they could have gone to youtube for debates if they wanted to see something miserable, but okay. She stayed over with her sister, and is coming home this morning. She works tomorrow, then is driving to the farm so that she can attend a family reunion, "the Cheesewright reunion". Not to be confused with a Green Bay Packer gathering "The Cheesehead reunion".
My voice is sore. We had our "study abroad" fair, which many Frat Bros wanted to attend until he learned that is two words, not three. I spent time talking up our program, chatting at students, answering questions. We had 12 people give their names. Before the event started we had 6 students fill out an initial application. So the program might run. The UD office that manages this was pleased I am manipulating the UD system on their behalf. UD owns about 140 houses, which are considered dorms. They are highly desirable, so they offer "housing points" to students who engage in extra curricular activities presented by the school (extracurriculars provided by the bars don't count). So I am offering one on "don't put your resume on a diet; advice on activities which employers like to see". I'll talk about study abroad (and how to present it) as one of five things (volunteer work, a retail job, an internship, club leadership). The housing incentive program is called AVIATE. This session is for Freshman only, since we're offering a course in Rome that current sophomores have already taken.
I run an AVIATE event each week, discussing various news events, and then how they apply to student life. I have one for upperclassmen called "Career lessons from the Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor". By the way, one thing I hate about the Hunger Games is that there is a beautiful name from the 1850s, Euphemia, where the nickname is Effie. But by using it for a clownish character they killed any desire of anyone to use it today. 😡 Oh well, Lydia hasn't been ruined yet.
Hey, Jay, I need some insight into the expectations of online assignments in college. I was wondering if you'd mind if I sent an email to your university account.
I'm happy to help! Go ahead and email me!
Thank you! Look for an email from Kathy.
I checked my inbox a few times today, didn't see it. Just an fyi, I didn't want you to think I was ignoring it.
Thanks for checking . I got interrupted today. It takes me a while to edit down to something bref and to the point. :-/
Euphemia ... "good speaking," like "euphemism."
AEI has a new article about housing, a topic of perennial interest:
https://www.aei.org/articles/the-opportunity-cost-of-mcmansionization-in-the-los-angeles-metro/
" ... as housing pressures build, older, smaller, and affordable single-family homes are increasingly being replaced with larger (averaging 4,800 sq. ft.) and significantly more expensive (averaging $3.2 million in 2022) houses."
The economic rationale is based on the limited supply of land for building, modified by zoning rules that allow only stand-alone houses to be built in many areas. It is economically sub-optimal to leave a smaller, older, cheaper house in place when one has the opportunity to build a large, new, expensive one.
The proposed remedy is to allow more dwelling units per lot. Research suggests that, given the option, builders will put in four units instead of one. This, of course, has effects on the surrounding area. Charlotte is proposing a similar option, and my son-in-law's father is not pleased with the idea of multi-family dwellings on their street.
In Chicago, having a coach house (for in-laws or tenants) at the back of the lot makes sense, and people are fine with it. The city is starting to do things to make it easier to build or upgrade one.
Good idea. One of my neighbors built on the back of his house and told the HOA to go fish. He had a permit from the county.
I thought we were finally getting past that McMansion thing. However, I still see them going up around here. Then again, we are suddenly seeing a number of multi-family dwellings being built near our Walmart. Apparently, even our area needs more affordable housing, and we’re a far cry from being a metropolitan community.
If there is institutionalized racism in America...which I do believe exists in various forms, unfortunately... Then zoning is the ne plus ultra institutionalized racism, and it has morphed out of its obvious racist origins and is now socio-economic discrimination.
I bailed out of the market a while back and put the dough into a 100 year old apartment building in which I inhabit unit 3W. As a retirement option, it's superb cash flow. Pretty much my entire life is structured as a tax deductible expense, IRS approved. I'm the only apartment building on the block. Everything else is expensive single family. I'd never lived in an apartment before; I was always a SFR guy. It's an education. You get used to other people in close proximity, a decidedly un-American condition. The neighbors are getting used to my front yard being used to grow vegetables.
The fundamental base of the problem... Apartment buildings are decidedly declassé amongst the single family hard liners. The other base problem is square footage. When I started in the biz, 2500sf was considered a huge new home. Now, that's a 3 BR apartment.
Another counter intuitive reality.....In America, housing is a fashion industry. I got clients utterly obsessed with their kitchen countertop options to the exclusion of all other considerations.
Size and fashion....what could go wrong?
The increase in the size of houses has coincided with a decline in household size. I remember when real estate agents and the building association were saying a house should have 1,000 sqft per permanent resident.
And that wasn't all that long ago.
No, it wasn't. Early 2000s?
Roughly.
Good morning. Cloudy with highs in the 70s. we are supposed to get the remnants of Helene Friday afternoon.
The mothership is reporting the latest kicking of the can down the road -- the continuing resolution to fund the government until December 20. Congress will no doubt have a merry Christmas!
I find myself skimming a lot of the main stories lately. It’s not that I don’t care at all, but as you said, they continue to do the same thing.
It was COLD here this morning!! It really feels like autumn now.
"something about their political inclinations, to the extent it that it bears on their reporting"
One reason the journalistical industry has lost so much credibility is that the persons proceed (and posture) as if their intensely-held beliefs about politics - which means about the world - had no influence on their reporting. It does, guys, and everyone can see it.
There's also the part about them all being youngsters, with youngsters by definition lacking wisdom. Take that part and couple it to the fact that we have J schools cranking out a few ten thousands of new journalists every year with no particular career path that will pay off their student debt. How does one differentiate themselves from everyone else?
There is a clue in the renaming of the NU McGill School of Journalism to now be "NU McGill School For Journalism, Media & Integrated Marketing Communications".
Newspapers of the 1800s were openly partisan. Many cities had at least two: one for conservatives, and one for liberals. Comics were one of the few items that largely could appear in both. It's not that a town with two baseball teams couldn't cover both, but rather, one was emphasized by the conversative paper, one by the liberal paper.
We're moving back to that, except people seem ashamed to admit they are partisan. Even the Mothership, which claims to be center-right, features work that would benefit from admitting the writer's bias.
It worked fine for centuries, so why not bring it back?
Did you read "These Truths"...Jill Lepore? She dissects a bunch of these considerations.
Look what I found: https://youtu.be/7A5hZT42Udo?si=hY0bPZJtMjptYdzX
I haven’t, but I’m going to look that up.
I did. It was good.
Sometimes, it's the "fish don't know they're wet" thing. They're surrounded by so many like-minded people, they're confused that any other view can even exist. And if they acknowledge it, it's as a the exotic other. The insular view dings their credibility, of course. But they ignore any criticism as coming from the "others."
I'm not sure it matters. Most early 21st century Americans are much like their mid-19th century counterparts in that they only want to hear news from people whose views support their own. Everything else is dismissed -- often in their social circles, churches, entertainment choices. It goes on and on.
I wonder if that sort of thought segregation is as dangerous as its racial equivalent a century ago.
"Most early 21st century Americans are much like their mid-19th century counterparts in that they only want to hear news from people whose views support their own."
It seems so, and 20th century Americans were probably the same, but the market was in transition. If all the journalism persons would say, "I am a biased reporter. This [specifics] is my bias," it would be honest.
I don't have to have that disclaimer. Generally, a few stories in they reveal it anyway -- unless they have a decent editor. There aren't enough editors generally anymore, and that's part of the problem. The market doesn't support it.
And it may be that the market is always in transition.
So, like so many aspects of life, we're left to be our own advocates for news consumption. And thus the Great Sort rolls on...
I have the inclination to fault the j-schools—much like I fault the schools of education for the similar problem in teacher training. I wonder if that inclination is fair or not, to be honest, even while I think it’s the correct view.
Falling into a place of viewpoint monotony is, in my experience, a very normal condition. I have tried the alternative, and I’m not sure it necessarily changes one’s mind as much as it can have the contrary effect: One may just as easily find oneself becoming more ardent that the other viewpoint is not just wrong, but brutally and stubbornly so against all the evidence it refuses to take into consideration.
I think a lot depends on how a counter argument is presented. Too often IMO, the opposing side comes across as “we know better than you,” when something more along the lines of “I can understand how you feel, but have you considered…?” Or, “here’s what worries me about that point of view.” I guess I’m saying that too often “the other side” comes off as confrontational, and who wants to listen to that.
The difference is you *try.* Many journalists, especially young ones, wouldn't give an opposing view any consideration.
When I was a wire editor for a Great Big newspaper conglomerate, one of the things I noticed was that the opposing view was buried so far down in the main stories that the likelihood of it getting cut was very high. So, I moved them up. They didn't have to be part of the lead, but I wanted the reader to be aware that any *reasonable opposing viewpoint was worth acknowledging.
*--Sorry, Tucker. I'm not re-litigating how good a guy Hitler was.
Good morning, everyone. Happy Thorsday!
Fang has suddenly taken a notion to make a real effort at finding a full time job!
Wonderful! I know that feels good.
I just hope he doesn't lose the gumption before he gets some applications done.
There's that. I hope he finds something that fits - quickly!
Did his landlady suddenly start charging him rent? 🙂
No, I've been charging him rent for quite a while. I gave him the option to move back into the room with his brothers, but he found he could afford the rent for his private room.
"I'd like to move out some day!" he said last night, and I said we would like that, too ... not that we find him an intolerable resident, like some of his siblings who were pushed out, but that we want all our children to be independent adults, eventually, for their own good.
That was a very kind response, Cynthia. Nice way of making him feel loved and wanting the best for him.
He's a nice boy. Kind of a slacker, but not destructive, and very trustworthy.
I cannot imagine you not having nice children. I remember what I was like at that age, and I had good manners, paid my bills, etc., but in many ways, I was pretty immature!
There's a good reason for kids to move out when they're 18.
Yeah. It's called their parents' sanity.
I think I was 19, maybe pushing 20. But, my parents also charged rent. Another friend told her children that they could leave when they were ready, but they were then not moving back. For whatever reason, that seemed to work. This was never an issue when I was growing up, and maybe it was because we were more willing to find roommates? I don’t have kids, so I’m only guessing.
My first apartment, when I was maybe 23 and 1 year into my first full time job, was a 3-bedroom in the city. I was tired of the commute downtown from my parents' house in the burbs. I got sent by a roommate referral service, and the two who had a place in a suitable neighborhood and needed a new roomie decided I was OK. My share was very reasonable. Only difficulty was my parents wanted me to be careful about what was in the lease. The head of the accounting department where I worked did me a favor and had the company lawyer write me a paragraph. Parents were happy, I moved out on my own. After 4 years (with more roommate turnover, including my sister moving in) everybody moved on and I got my own place too.
It's hard to get into the rental market in many places. Most landlords won't consider anyone under 21, and they need a credit rating and a rental history. How are you supposed to have a rental history when you've lived in your parents' house all your life? The only reason Son C could move into the slum apartment was that he was the 4th sibling to go through there.
My roommates wanted to move from the apartment they were renting, so maybe that made it easier for me. It’s been so long ago that I’ve forgotten. Personally, I would hate dealing with rental property; people can be very careless, and it’s not just young people. I think we always had to pay the first two months right away. I also remember that the fun of being with roommates got old quickly!
On an unrelated topic, a Zurich newspaper offers up a handy tool: The Build Your Own Majority calculator for the Electoral College.
https://www.nzz.ch/english/interactive-graphic-explore-us-election-scenarios-ld.1849378?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-09-26&utm_campaign=2024-09-25%20Wednesday%20Article&utm_content=%20Interactive%20graphic%20Explore%20US%20election%20scenarios
The bad news? A tie isn't as unlikely as you probably think. (Talk about a conspiracy theories!)
That paper is good. It's supposed to be free-market-classical-liberal in outlook.
I like what they do. I have the unpaid subscription. It's worth it!
I’m not crying, *you’re* crying!
I look forward to giving that podcast a listen! I'm fascinated by conspiracy theorists. It's my understanding that, generally speaking, when one delves into conspiratorial thinking on a single topic, lurching into others becomes more likely. Thus QAnon and pizza parlor shootings and more.
When I think of conspiracies, I recall one of my favorite late-night forms of entertainment, listening to Art Bell on my drive home from work. One night, a caller pointed out the obvious conclusion about the night skies out west(and I paraphrase): "Art, the thing that scares me most about Area 51 is the other 50 areas we don't know nothing about." In classic form, Art responded, "Oh. My. God."
I almost drove off the road giggling.
Then, of course, there's Area 52! 🤣
Isn’t that the official designation for the space between RFK, Jr’s, ears?
Thought Area 52 was the overflow facility for Area 51, where illegal aliens from space are kept until their immigration court cases can be heard. Not sure whether RFK Jr. escaped, or if they let him out on purpose.
Not that I'm a believer in conspiracy theories or anything like that, but I'm pretty sure those guys are up to some kind of malign societal experiment, maybe to test Americans' acceptance of alternative life forms to go along with all those alternative facts out there.
Isn't area 52 designated a place for endangered species; in this case brainworms?