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.... it's not free though. You think they just write it off and nothing is lost? I'm sure it amounts of billions and billions of lost tax revenue.
Only if you look at it from the perspective that all the money rightfully belongs to the government and anything they let you keep is "lost".
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The whole point of this thread is: suburbia wouldn't be so popular or even affordable if people paid its true costs to live there.
Yeah, that $50,000 check the government sends me every year because I don't live in Newark is great! No, wait, I don't actually get such a check.
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Not everyone needs a house. This whole apartment/shared-housing phobia is just ridiculous.
Check out the regular city forums, and read about the issues. Shared walls can be a problem for noise, a shared floor/ceiling is often a major one. Typical complaint is the downstairs tenant complains that upstairs tenant walking around (or kids running or whatever) makes too much noise. It's not a phobia.
However, it's separate from the issue of ownership; one can own an apartment as a condo or co-op, and one can rent a house.
When I factored in that I really wanted a two-bedroom as I work from home and that allows me to have a separate, defined space as an office which I find very helpful in getting in work mentality, that rose to $800 a month. The house I'm renting is $950 a month for a 3bd. The 3bd units in that apartment complex were $1000 a month. Now, I pay some extra expenses (water, trash) that are sometimes included in your rent at an apartment although certainly not always.
I thought California was expensive. There are many 3 bedrooms going for $950/month here, certainly not in my town. A skim a craigslist shows for many of those at those range ad "Housing Vouchers, OK!" Many if not most apartments aren't in complexes, but houses with 2-3 units like this one. $1000 /month but not so good neighborhood.
On Long Island, 2 bedrooms start around $1400, though a found a 4 bedroom for $1200/month considering its price and location it probably has hurricane damage. I assume the Bay Area is similar or worse?
Typical complaint is the downstairs tenant complains that upstairs tenant walking around (or kids running or whatever) makes too much noise. It's not a phobia.
I can hear a person walking upstairs right now as I type. Fine except for the occasional foot stomping party.
I thought California was expensive. There are many 3 bedrooms going for $950/month here, certainly not in my town. A skim a craigslist shows for many of those at those range ad "Housing Vouchers, OK!" Many if not most apartments aren't in complexes, but houses with 2-3 units like this one. $1000 /month but not so good neighborhood.
On Long Island, 2 bedrooms start around $1400, though a found a 4 bedroom for $1200/month considering its price and location it probably has hurricane damage. I assume the Bay Area is similar or worse?
Welcome to the Central Valley =)
House missing roof, very pleasant for looking up and watching stars as you drift gently to sleep covered in a soft, warm pillow of slushy snow.
Bay Area a 2bd apartment is around $2,000. More in desirable areas, less in less desirable ones. San Francisco proper is around $3,000, and for a generally much smaller apartment.
The narrowing of the consumer loan interest deduction to the mortgage interest deduction happened in 1986. Trying to tie that to events in 2002 is bizarre.
You just keep beating your anti-suburban anti-car drum over and over, as if repetition will substitute for actual evidence. And you have none.
Yes, quite so. The anti-suburban, anti-car sentiment is basically like a religion. In religion, certain things are defined by dogma as being good and evil. Facts and rational argument don't really enter into the matter. Thus by dogma, suburbia is evil and cars are evil. The idea that people should be free to choose their lifestyles is anathema to the shower temperature regulators, who fail to realize that many things are ultimately self-regulating. Here are two examples of things that are self-regulating:
When traffic congestion gets worse and worse, people have options when they get sick of the congestion. They can move closer to work, look into public transit (provided it would save time, which it often doesn't), change jobs, etc. This is already happening.
When gasoline becomes too expense and people don't feel they can afford it, they have options similar to the ones in the above paragraph. They can move, car-pool, take public transit (provided it is cheaper, which is isn't always), try bicycling (not always practical, but it works for some). They can also make better choices of vehicles - a Prius versus an SUV, for example. This also is already happening.
Yes, quite so. The anti-suburban, anti-car sentiment is basically like a religion. In religion, certain things are defined by dogma as being good and evil. Facts and rational argument don't really enter into the matter. Thus by dogma, suburbia is evil and cars are evil. The idea that people should be free to choose their lifestyles is anathema to the shower temperature regulators, who fail to realize that many things are ultimately self-regulating. Here are two examples of things that are self-regulating:
When traffic congestion gets worse and worse, people have options when they get sick of the congestion. They can move closer to work, look into public transit (provided it would save time, which it often doesn't), change jobs, etc. This is already happening.
When gasoline becomes too expense and people don't feel they can afford it, they have options similar to the ones in the above paragraph. They can move, car-pool, take public transit (provided it is cheaper, which is isn't always), try bicycling (not always practical, but it works for some). They can also make better choices of vehicles - a Prius versus an SUV, for example. This also is already happening.
Well, I would say the opposite:
"The suburban, car-dependent sentiment is basically like a religion."
One that is toxic for those who have it, and also for those who don't have it:
As THEY burn through a limited resource, and channel US wealth offshore, they maintain a sense of superiority, while living in denial.
Please answer my repeated questions:
1/ What do you think gives America the right, with only 5% of the World's population to use 20-25% of the world's annual oil production?
(this seems like a moral question at first, but it becomes an economic question, when you look at it more deeply.)
Obviously, this outsize spending was permitted in the past because of America's status as the world's largest economy. But now the country is losing its relative wealth position fast, as BRICS and other countries catch up, adding new drivers in those countries fast. (China now sells more new cars per annum to its population than the US does.) So the US is able to sustain its outsized spending on oil, not though exports, but by printing money and spending its fiat currency on imported oil. Further, the credibility of its currency is partly engineered by the US maintain a massive global military presence - which is another very expensive proposition, that the country can no longer afford.
2/
Next question: Do you think it is sustainable for the US to be so massively dependent on imported oil (7-8 mn bpd), when it has a huge balance of payments deficit, and foreigners are beginning to lose their "appetite" for US debt?
An important thing that drove the figure so negative was the rising cost of oil,
and also rising foreign military costs
3/ If the US is likely to be faced with a big future jump in Dollar oil prices, does it not make sense to beginning addressing the unsustainable addiction to oil now, while the currency still has some spending power?
4/ If the country's leadership has failed to address the oil imports issue, is it not essential for individuals, who do not want to wake up to an oil price shock, to address it themselves, by downsizing their car dependency, and maybe living somewhere that they do not require a car in sustain their day-to-day lives?
From those who are car-dependent, I would really like to have an answer to these questions, which I believe to be fundamental and pressing. If you have no answer, then I think you are sleep-walking towards the precipice.
1) The same thing that gives Canada or Luxembourg or any of a dozen other nations the right to consume more oil per capita than we do. They're willing to.
2) Yes.
3) Yes although there's a lot of stupid knee-jerk terminology in there. Exploring domestic energy production, investing in natural gas infrastructure, and sustainable energy (solar, nuclear, wind, biomass, geothermic) all make sense. Natural gas should be the priority for the short term (5-10 years) with nuclear and solar both taking many decades to build. Wind, biomass, and geothermic don't really have the potential to provide significant amounts of power but just because they don't doesn't mean they aren't worth pursuing as a piece of a larger comprehensive energy plan.
4) Oil imports aren't an issue, so no, not really. It's good for the economy, but our Canadian neighbors, who are energy exporters, pay the same for oil products we do once adjusting for taxes. Good to have that extra production in the country, but domestic production doesn't make it any less expensive. It's the individual's responsibility to address his concerns as he sees fit which could mean a myriad of things including living car-free. That's not going to be the solution for an appreciable number, but may well be a great solution for a few. Not that it has much to do with gas prices. I went car-free in 2008 when the gas prices were under $2/gallon. The motivator for me was insurance and parking. I was spending less than $30 a month on gas anyway.
1) The same thing that gives Canada or Luxembourg or any of a dozen other nations the right to consume more oil per capita than we do. They're willing to.
2) Yes.
3) Yes although there's a lot of stupid knee-jerk terminology in there. Exploring domestic energy production, investing in natural gas infrastructure, and sustainable energy (solar, nuclear, biomass, geothermic) all make sense.
4) Oil imports aren't an issue, so no, not really. It's the individuals' responsibility to address their concerns as they see fit which could mean a myriad of things including living car-free. That's not going to be the solution for an appreciable number, but may well be a great solution for a few. Not that it has much to do with gas prices. I went car-free in 2008 when the gas prices were under $2/gallon. The motivator for me was insurance and parking. I was spending less than $30 a month on gas anyway.
2=Yes?
How can this situation be sustainable?
US dollars are piling up in the hands of foreigners - this is a ticking time bomb.
The fact that it has not exploded yet, is certainly not a guarantee it will not explode
3=Yes
Sure, a few things are being done. Oil imports are down by 20-30%, thanks to the boom in oil fracking. But despite the nonsense headlines you may read in the MS news, the problem is far from solved. Money is draining away a little more slowly, but it is still draining away very fast. Do you not see the US economy is damaged? I have lived overseas for years, and when I go back the weakened state is obvious to me. Are you denying the problems all around you? CAn you not see how the problems are caused by the ongoing cash drains: Oil, Defense, Inefficient healthcare, and predatory banking?
4/
HOW can you say: "Oil imports aren't an issue"?
To me that's the same as saying: "Well, I will just deny that this is important." Someone who does so is closing their eyes, but this will not make the problem go away.
Going car-free or car-light will help. as you say you have done. And so have I. Of course that will not remove the risk. When the car-addicted economy around us is collapsing, if/when that happens, we may be less hit by it. But we will all be impacted, directly or indirectly.
I do what I can to minimise MY OWN risk, but do not want to see a total crash, and I want others to think more about this risk, so the society as a whole can cope better than it is coping now.
When people get used to "living with an Elephant in the room", after a while no one actually sees the elephant any more - That's where America seems to be with its huge oil dependency.
2/
Next question: Do you think it is sustainable for the US to be so massively dependent on imported oil (7-8 mn bpd), when it has a huge balance of payments deficit, and foreigners are beginning to lose their "appetite" for US debt?
This is a loaded question. US Treasury yields remain at historically low levels, which indicates that demand for US debt is high. (During the crisis, debt was being sold at zero yield, and even at negative yield on secondary markets)
And how much will those little puddle-jumpers weigh? And how safe will they be in the event of a collision with an SUV or heavyweight pickup, let alone an 18-wheel mastodon weighing 40 tons (combinations weighing more than that are allowed on some toll roads).
This is an issue with regard to which the public media have yet to as much as scratch the surface, and of which the typical white-collar suburbanite is woefully ignorant. It's true that we have the heaviest and best-maintained rail system in the world to carry our heavy, high-volume freight, but is not geared to local pickup-and delivery, and abandoned any pretense of such a generation or more ago.
There is no possibility of running a rail spur into your local mall or Wal-Mart; in most cases local freight movement remains tied to the 53-foot standard trailer van agreed upon about twenty years ago. If the powers that be insist upon forcing us into smalller, boxier, less-crashworthy vehicles, then the issue is somply going to fester unless a series of tragedies launch a MADD-type grass-roots movement. And the most such an advicay could hope for would be to limit the highways used and/or the hours of operation for a component of our infrastucture we can't function without.
They will, necessarily, weigh much less than today's vehicles, maybe only 500 kg. They will have enough crash protection to be safe.
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Fine except for the occasional foot stomping party.
Dogma and self-regulation
