all the bond packages passed

[AntonioGG]

You guys are all great reasonable people to discuss this stuff with!  BTW, TAF, I'll take the "youngster" thing as a compliment.

As far as private business employee affordability goes, this is where I think the free market is failing, and we as citizens are failing them.

AB, I agree with you on businesses taking more responsibility.  We'll all pay for that eventually just in a different way, maybe a more equitable way.  I was just reading about the per-head tax that was implemented in the bay area to help deal with homelessness.  This is for the tech companies that are creating the issue in the first place.  What do you think about that?  Interestingly, my company supported this even though it's going to cost us.

 

[crazyt]

the free market is not failing, the issue for affordability is # of units (supply). The bottleneck for supply is the city. 

1) zoning which prevents density

2) neighborhoods able to block more dense use of property (NIMBY)

3) extremely long permit times (e.g. 6 months) which increase cost of development

4) lots of environmental regulations that add significantly to the cost of development

If the city would define areas where density was allowed, rules could be relaxed, and add staff to process permits faster, you would immediately see inventory go up. Amazingly it would cost taxpayers almost nothing

The nimbys blocked code next because they dont want *any* multifamily in their neighborhoods.

[AustinBike]

20 hours ago, AntonioGG said:

You guys are all great reasonable people to discuss this stuff with!  BTW, TAF, I'll take the "youngster" thing as a compliment.

As far as private business employee affordability goes, this is where I think the free market is failing, and we as citizens are failing them.

AB, I agree with you on businesses taking more responsibility.  We'll all pay for that eventually just in a different way, maybe a more equitable way.  I was just reading about the per-head tax that was implemented in the bay area to help deal with homelessness.  This is for the tech companies that are creating the issue in the first place.  What do you think about that?  Interestingly, my company supported this even though it's going to cost us.

 

Disclaimer: I was in the tech business for ~30 years before retiring.

There are a couple things wrong with what the Bay Area is doing:

1. Taxing people will not solve homelessness

2. The tech industry did not cause homelessness

Homelessness comes from a variety of places, but it is primarily tied to drug/alcohol use or mental issues. The number of people who are homeless and could be helped by affordable housing is really, really small (from the reading that I have done.) Taxes and money help alleviate SOME of the problems for SOME of the people, but by and far, that is just money wasted because they are not helping to fix the underlying problems.

Tech is responsible for the fact that an 800sqft shack in San Francisco is $2M, but here's a tip: if you cannot afford to live there, you are free to live somewhere else. If you were able to bring the price of that shack down by 50%, would a $1M house now be "affordable"? If we believe in the idea that markets can adjust for these things then we should just leave it alone. Eventually those that cannot afford to live there will leave and housing pressure will relax.

I just don't see how taxing tech companies helps. That is just a "feel good, stick it to the man" action that is disconnected from reality. 

Also, I would love to have one of those houses on lake Austin, one of the really cool expensive ones. But I cannot afford it. What is the city doing to help me? Where are they drawing the line on "affordable" housing? Why is that line arbitrary. 

When people say density drives affordability, then you have to do that EVERYWHERE. Don't f--- with my neighborhood to make it more dense because it is "good for the city" and then exempt Tarrytown, Pemberton Heights and all of the other wealthy neighborhoods. If you are going to screw my neighborhood then screw all of them equally, don't pick and choose.

 

[throet]

1 hour ago, AustinBike said:

Homelessness comes from a variety of places, but it is primarily tied to drug/alcohol use or mental issues. The number of people who are homeless and could be helped by affordable housing is really, really small (from the reading that I have done.)

I have not seen the studies, but would guess that this is very true. My dad was homeless for periods of his adult life and would have likely remained that way on a permanent basis had his bipolar disorder not been designated as 100% service connected. That kept him closely connected to VA social workers who worked with my grandmother to keep him institutionalized. When the related violence became too much for my grandmother, I took over the role of legal guardian and the unpleasant task of keeping him locked up. He had $90K in the bank at the time from his disability checks piling up, but was not capable of independent living. When he was given access to his cash, he blew it on who knows what. There is no doubt at all that he preferred the streets over institutionalized living, especially during his manic states. I hated having to keep him locked up, sometimes in really horrid places that were extremely unpleasant to visit. Despite feeling guilty, I knew it was the right thing to do, especially given his propensity towards violence. I did my best to make things as bearable as possible for him, plenty of Kools, chocolates, clothing updates, portable radios, etc. Had the VA not arranged for and financed his lock ups, I'm really not sure that I would have intervened in the same way. In the end, he died a withered-up shell of the young man barely out of adolescence who was ushered onto the battlefront in Korea. I was with him at the VA hospital in San Antonio when he took his final breath, sadly feeling a huge sigh of relief myself knowing that he would finally find the solitude that had escaped him for the past fifty years. Even then it was only through the DNR under my hand that his wicked disease was conquered, with sepsis serving as the ultimate killer. As others have stated, homelessness will not go away until we as a society figure out how to cope with mental illness and substance abuse. It's not going to be an easy problem to solve, especially considering that funding for mental illness pales in comparison to heart disease, cancer, etc. 

 

[Sluggo]

at least he had a good son

[AntonioGG]

@crazyt I meant the free market is failing with respect to wages for non-skilled labor.

On 11/10/2018 at 6:44 AM, AustinBike said:

Disclaimer: I was in the tech business for ~30 years before retiring.

I'm still in tech for the past 22 years.

On 11/10/2018 at 6:44 AM, AustinBike said:

Tech is responsible for the fact that an 800sqft shack in San Francisco is $2M, but here's a tip: if you cannot afford to live there, you are free to live somewhere else. If you were able to bring the price of that shack down by 50%, would a $1M house now be "affordable"? If we believe in the idea that markets can adjust for these things then we should just leave it alone. Eventually those that cannot afford to live there will leave and housing pressure will relax.

I think I've been fairly consistent in my arguments for why the "live somewhere else" is a problem--and an expensive problem at that.  What are commutes in the bay area like?  What about from Pfluggerville to downtown Austin?  The people that are being driven out by the gentrification of Austin, where should they go?  Should they move their jobs too so they don't clog up the roads commuting?  

Also, I fully agree with crazyt's points above.  And in California the NIMBY and permit process is a huge part of the problem.

On 11/10/2018 at 6:44 AM, AustinBike said:

Also, I would love to have one of those houses on lake Austin, one of the really cool expensive ones. But I cannot afford it. What is the city doing to help me? Where are they drawing the line on "affordable" housing? Why is that line arbitrary. 

Strawman alert!

 

On 11/10/2018 at 6:44 AM, AustinBike said:

When people say density drives affordability, then you have to do that EVERYWHERE. Don't f--- with my neighborhood to make it more dense because it is "good for the city" and then exempt Tarrytown, Pemberton Heights and all of the other wealthy neighborhoods. If you are going to screw my neighborhood then screw all of them equally, don't pick and choose.

 

OK, so NIMBYUIYBYT I can understand that.  

[The Tip]

Not a "Strawman alert."  His point was pertinent to the conversation. Where is the line drawn as to who is poor and needs help? 

I've made the point before about the "poor" people that only have 63 channels on their cable service. And why doesn't everyone have a car? That's just not right or just.

These who-gets-what decisions should be made by the free market. Not someone pulling levers and pulleys somewhere.

[throet]

4 hours ago, The Tip said:

These who-gets-what decisions should be made by the free market. Not someone pulling levers and pulleys somewhere.

This works well when industrial leaders are well principled. Unfortunately greed has gotten in the way of that over the years and it isn't working so well anymore. When I worked for a catholic health system, one of the founding Daughters of Charity told me that the original leaders had a self-imposed rule that the top pay in the organization could only be 20 times that of the lowest pay, e.g. if the housekeepers made $25K per year, the CEO could only make $500K. That seemed fair to me, but at that time our system-wide CEO made 250 times that of a housekeeper. And that was in a not-for-profit, faith-based organization! A for-profit health insurance CEO makes 700 times what a claims examiner makes. I'm all for rewarding talent, hard work, results, etc, but free enterprise has become more about greed and corruption than about building the strength of our nation in my opinion. Even the CEOs and other top executives who fail miserably end up leaving companies with enough money to retire on. Where's the equity in that, and how is that helping the vast majority of Americans who struggle to just make ends meet? The era of the 1%ers, who by the way control 38% of the nation's wealth, is going to get worse, not better, unless something changes.

 

Edited November 11, 2018 by throet

[AustinBike]

5 hours ago, AntonioGG said:

 

OK, so NIMBYUIYBYT I can understand that.  

 

In simple terms: In EVERYONE'S backyard or NOBODY'S backyard. Every morning (including the weekend) I hear the construction start at the Grove at 7am. It is in my backyard. Adler, the developer, and his cohorts all said density was great and that we needed to do this "for the good of Austin." I would be fine with that position if all of Austin was pushing density, but density conveniently skips many neighborhoods. It literally is about wealth and political clout.

Either we're all in it together or we're not. When we start targeting certain areas and bypassing others, it all falls apart.

[ATXZJ]

5 hours ago, throet said:

This works well when industrial leaders are well principled. Unfortunately greed has gotten in the way of that over the years and it isn't working so well anymore. When I worked for a catholic health system, one of the founding Daughters of Charity told me that the original leaders had a self-imposed rule that the top pay in the organization could only be 20 times that of the lowest pay, e.g. if the housekeepers made $25K per year, the CEO could only make $500K. That seemed fair to me, but at that time our system-wide CEO made 250 times that of a housekeeper. And that was in a not-for-profit, faith-based organization! A for-profit health insurance CEO makes 700 times what a claims examiner makes. I'm all for rewarding talent, hard work, results, etc, but free enterprise has become more about greed and corruption than about building the strength of our nation in my opinion. Even the CEOs and other top executives who fail miserably end up leaving companies with enough money to retire on. Where's the equity in that, and how is that helping the vast majority of Americans who struggle to just make ends meet? The era of the 1%ers, who by the way control 38% of the nation's wealth, is going to get worse, not better, unless something changes.

 

this 1000x

 

You must have a balance of socialism and capitalism to keep each other in check. They both have their place in society and our "leaders" are failing to provide that balance and are instead shifting us towards a corporatocracy. We apparantly like being under someones thumb and being told what to think and feel. The rising resurgence of nationalism and fascism across the globe is alarming and i think is a result of a feeling of hopeless and fear. People are either deluisional about their plight or have given up hope because the ship has sailed and they're not on it.  

Those homeless people in downtown austin passed out on the sidewalk are a reflection of our society whether we like it or not.  We rely on non-profits to carry the burden and nobody i know wants to hire a mentally ill person. The whole "get a job" attitude can go f@ck itself. Even Salt Lake is doing something productive about its homeless population and Utah is a super-red state.  

Since you touched on health insurance and big business ill add my 2c. The insurance companies are in business to earn a profit and continue to increase earnings every f@cking quarter to satisfy their shareholders. That means all sorts of underhanded practices that results in innocent people dying through rejected coverage, or at best having to declare bankrupcy. Meanwhile I'm told to be afraid of a migrant caravan. I'd bet not one of those people seeking asylum denied any of my claims or pushed opioids over treatment, foreclosed on a houses after getting bailed out, used loopholes to cheat pensioners or declared an illegal war to enrich themselves and their buddies.  

 

Rant/Off

Edited November 12, 2018 by ATXZJ

[AustinBike]

1 hour ago, ATXZJ said:

You must have a balance of socialism and capitalism to keep each other in check. They both have their place in society and our "leaders" are failing to provide that balance and are instead shifting us towards a corporatocracy.

Yes.

Over and over again.

There is no pure capitalism, there is no pure socialism. These two concepts are on a continuum and every country fits somewhere along that line.

You would not want to live in a country of pure capitalism because capitalists are for shit when it comes to doing things for the public good. Roads. Yeah, everything is a toll road. Hope you paid your police monthly service fee because if you are robbed they won't answer your call. And for all that is holy, do...not...get...sick. Now, on the other end of things you would not want to live in a pure socialism environment. Yeah, everything is provided by the government, but you'd never be able to get what you need. Don't crap a lot, toilet paper might have been mis forecasted. Don't bother trying to go out to dinner, you won't find good restaurants.

Every country is somewhere on the continuum. And there is no "free market". That thing that people love so much does not exist as long as businesses can lobby the government to write laws that favor their business and hurt their competitors.