Scientist
Beer Drinker
Advocate for distributed / user-supported communities and media
I wish that I was skinnier but I love beverages.
If they’re going to get the same suspension either way, they might as well…
Is your mind on your money?
Damn, I like The Smiths, Radiohead, Joy Division, Nine Inch Nails, Pavement, and Weezer. Somehow I managed to cover the whole board.
People aren’t pulling and storing tens of thousands of lbs of load every day.
Hey, speak for yourself ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Yes it sounds like everything worked out great for you. Good job on timing your investment! But this is a perfect example of the type of financialization of the housing market that I’m against. You used leverage to buy an expensive, risky asset and sold it for a profit just a few years later. This doesn’t always work out so well (ask anyone who bought a house in 2007) and I don’t want to put essentially all my savings into a wallstreetbets style gamble just so I can have somewhere to sleep at night.
I’m not saying mortgages should completely go away. I’m sure a mortgage is the right decision for many people’s situations. It’s just the way that people talk about buying a house, a mortgage seems to be assumed. If it wasn’t just assumed then maybe people would put more thought into whether they want to save for a larger down payment (or the full price) or whether they want to pay $750,000 for a $400,000 house.
I don’t know, maybe people see these numbers and think its a great deal. All I see is a bank making a huge amount of money from me that I would rather keep for myself. Also, if people stopped stretching their budget to the absolute limit with financing nonsense (3% down, variable rate loans, rate buydowns), in aggregate there would be less demand for houses at these high prices and sellers would have to start accepting lower offers.
Your partner wants to finance a house someday. I know I’m on the losing side of this battle but I really wish people would stop associating BUYING a house with taking out a LOAN from a bank.
It just feels like people are only deceiving themselves by saying “I need good credit to buy a house” when what they really mean is “I need good credit so I can take on a lot of debt and pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest over the next 30 years.”
Could you please elaborate on the claim that loans are essentially required for modern life in the US? You might be able to make the argument for a mortgage but even that is not absolutely required. Possibly student loans could be seen as required but those are largely government subsidized/administered and typically given out to younger people who haven’t yet gone through a bankruptcy.
It’s probably bad form to bring this type of comment over from reddit but in this case I can’t help myself.
Username checks out.
I don’t think the term media literacy was used but we did learn literary criticism and how to formulate arguments in formal debate. We covered The Onion and adbusters, and we talked about identifying bias. In history class we learned the difference between primary and secondary sources and my history teacher was the first person I ever heard say "follow the money " to understand a person’s motivations. We also had a theory of knowledge class which taught some basics of philosophy.
Good points, I just wanted to mention another database that is useful for finding information about supplements based on actual research studies. Unfortunately it requires a subscription but some Universities and Libraries can provide access.
You make a good point that people who believe these conspiracies often have an underlying reason making them want to believe. Dan Olson came to the same conclusion in his video about flat earthers which I would recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
“Flat Earthers are not otherwise-empty vessels who believe one kooky thing. They believe that thing because it suits their purposes. […] it says something they already believe about the nature of the social world. Flat Earth is a thing people want to believe because if it were true it would be irrefutable proof of everything else they believe.”
Folding Ideas, In Search of a Flat Earth ~29 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
As for the soy thing, Hbomerguy covered the topic pretty thoroughly.
Is the purpose of these subsidies to maintain oil and gas infrastructure so that the military can also use it?
If the infrastructure is necessary for defense but not necessary for civilian use then it sounds like it should be paid for via tax, be maintained by the government, and counted as defense spending.
This would increase the military’s fuel cost (to the true cost) and higher gas prices brought about by ending the subsidies would incentivize lower carbon transportation methods for civilians.
Some other publications have commented on the original more recently. For example: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-11-nations-of-the-united-states-2015-7
I thought I had seen one with some more in depth historical analysis from The Atlantic or Bloomberg or something but I can’t seem to find it again.
If you’re using Chrome you can use this plugin to bypass paywalls
There are probably similar plugins for other browsers.
I’m sorry to be pedantic but this is a pet peeve of mine. If you bought a house you would not have any mortgage payment. You (and everyone else usually) are talking about financing a house.
Maybe I’m the crazy one but when I buy something I like to look at the total amount that I’m paying for it.
If I wanted a house listed for $300,000 5-years ago and I wanted to finance it, the rate might have been 3% so the total amount I would be paying would be $455,332.36 over 30yrs. Therefore I would only finance if I thought ~$450,000 was a fair price. If I thought the house was only worth $300,000 then I would need to pay in cash.
Today rates are at 7% so a house listed at $300,000 actually costs $718,526.69 when financed. Do I think the houses I see listed for $300,000 are worth over $700,000? No. Do I have more than $300,000 needed to afford to pay in cash? Also no. Therefore, I’m not buying.
*These calculations are ignoring the down payment but the principle is still valid.