Political Economy

Compulsion

Chill Political Economy

Housing is a terrible investment, by the way. Real returns of around ~2% a year. And no, the recent run-up does not change that much at all. People only perceive it as a good investment as it’s forced savings.

But I don’t need that. I save without being compelled to do so.

We only bought a house when its expected investment “returns” could be in the sharp negative and we’d still financially be ok. That’s not the only time you should buy a house. That is up to you and depends on your risk tolerance and financial status. But you won’t even beat a money market fund with housing unless you get really, really lucky.

Housing as an investment is BS in all sorts of ways.

Skimming

Chill Political Economy

Crazy to think that the majority of the money I used to buy the house I’m currently living in I made doing low-risk and perfectly-legal stock market shenanigans with play money1.

What I did shouldn’t be legal. Some companies do it at massive scale. And not (just) to praise myself, but it takes a big brain to do what I did. That is a good example of a de facto power imbalance that the left refuses to talk about ever. It is a real blind spot for them. Not to belabor the point, but the age gap crap they incessantly bang on about absolutely fucking pales in comparison to cognitive inequality.

  1. Meaning money that was not for retirement, not for anything specific and if I’d lost it all I would’ve gone, “Oh well! Such is life. Let’s get some dinner.”

Driving Housing

Chill Lying Liars, Political Economy

Charles Hugh Smith: Unaffordable Housing and Homeless Encampments: How Did It Get This Bad?

Charles is one of the few (maybe a few dozen?) in the country who actually understand how housing prices currently work in the United States. Basically no one in the press does. None of the real estate “analysts” except maybe one or two do. Zero real estate agents do, of course, because they know nearly nothing.

It’s insane that something so important and that is the repository of vast wealth is so poorly understood by so many. I think that is deliberate, though — if people actually comprehended how it works and why it works that way, far more of them would rebel against it and demand change.

Hence, all the propaganda is designed to lead one down the wrong epistemic path.

Lacking Smacking

Chill Clowns, Political Economy, Politics

A good sign that most people are in fact clown-ass dipshits (whether on the right or the left) is that their opinion on the health of economy undergoes a 180 degree shift the minute someone of the opposite political party become president. And that is with no changes in the economy itself, of course.

Critical thinking altogether lacking. How do people live like that?

‘Lectric

Chill Political Economy, Politics, War

We are planning now what electronics and imported stuff we are going to buy in the next few weeks and months because those sorts of goods are going to get radically more expensive soon or just become unavailable altogether.

So get your gettin’ on from the gettin’ place, people. Soon all of that will be much more expensive or just not available at all, depending on the exact timing of tariffs and war.

Flate

Chill Political Economy, Politics

Laughing at all these explanations that Trump won because someone called Latinos “Latinx” or some shit like that. Or DEI. Or that we let a trans girl play field hockey or whatever.

No. It was inflation and the gaslighting around it. That’s it, that’s all.

And the US is fucked for a generation because of it, thanks to us electing Trump. And the world, too.

The Lash

Chill Clowns, Political Economy

Inflation pain helped secure Trump win but his policies mean higher prices.

The pain of inflation and Americans being lied to about it was 80% of the reason Trump won, if not more. Trump actually won’t do jack shit to help with this (quite the opposite), but the Dems largely caused this through their arrogance and inaction.

Trump’s initiatives will lead to higher prices and very likely a crashed economy, but the average voter is not very smart and not very analytical so they are just lashing out like an incel. And will do about as much good.

Economic Hinges

Chill Clowns, Political Economy, Politics

A large share of the responsibility for the Democrats losing the election is on the Dems themselves since they and their myrmidons spent more than three years gaslighting people about inflation. It was almost a religious quest for them. This certainly pissed me off and I barely give a fuck what anything costs. For someone where a price increase actually has consequences, this must’ve been actively infuriating.

“Don’t believe your lying eyes and your declining bank balance” is not a winning proposition. Now they and all of us are going to pay for that 3+ years of pettifogging and obliviousness.

And the sad thing is, it was all an unforced error. Clowns like Paul Krugman and all the others spent so many unnecessary hours writing a vast number of articles about how the rising cost of goods and services is all in your head and that no, those shelves aren’t empty — why, they are quite full in my Park Slope supermarket, how could they be empty anywhere?!?!? They could have just not done that. But no, they had to get those jabs in at the basket of deplorables who could no longer fill their baskets.

In large part, the Democrats did this to themselves. And they deserve much vitriol for that.