My God, you are an idiot.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

My question was more on exurbanites being more subject to "tax" from "congestion" - it seems based on a whole series of assumptions you made that seem quite foreign. Again, I can't help but feel living in the middle of congestion means you are subject to more of the "tax", whatever it is.

You assumption is that most exurbanites either have the luxury of controlling their own work schedule and/or work in the exurbs? I think it is you making the strange assumptions.

Do you think all exurbs are wealthy or something?

ETA: I also find it really hard to believe that you and your wife drive to your parents' homes more than the two of you drive to work.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I don't doubt we all suffer from congestion now and then, but the notion of the idyllic congestion free city dweller doesn't quite jive with my experience.

Nor mine, which is why I didn't suggest cities are congestion free. Obviously, they're much more crowded. But that's already factored into the prices of urban residential real estate, which is generally more expensive than in the suburbs. My point is that the suburbs are growing relatively less attractive because the costs -- money, time -- of driving are growing.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Nor mine, which is why I didn't suggest cities are congestion free. Obviously, they're much more crowded. But that's already factored into the prices of urban residential real estate, which is generally more expensive than in the suburbs. My point is that the suburbs are growing relatively less attractive because the costs -- money, time -- of driving are growing.

I thought your "fuel tax" was the driving, but congestion tax is just another part of it?

I suspect those in the country do log more miles total driving, though am still not sure the total expense of a car in the country exceeds that of a car in the city, and, as you point out, there are lots of other nifty expenses in the city. If your "congestion tax" just means cost of driving, well, ok, great, lovely, probably still wrong, but I understand it.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I thought your "fuel tax" was the driving, but congestion tax is just another part of it?

I suspect those in the country do log more miles total driving, though am still not sure the total expense of a car in the country exceeds that of a car in the city, and, as you point out, there are lots of other nifty expenses in the city. If your "congestion tax" just means cost of driving, well, ok, great, lovely, probably still wrong, but I understand it.

You really don't value your time at all? That is seriously strange for a lawyer.

For me, the cost of the time totally dwarfs the cost of the car.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

You really don't value your time at all? That is seriously strange for a lawyer.

For me, the cost of the time totally dwarfs the cost of the car.

We drive many more places than work. For us, moving farther outside the city will radically reduce total drive time, even if my commute, on the days I commute, is extended 15-20 minutes each way. The added benefit of being somewhere Adder-free is just a bonus.

Not everyone's life is downtown; you'll understand that if you grow up some time.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I thought your "fuel tax" was the driving, but congestion tax is just another part of it?

I suspect those in the country do log more miles total driving, though am still not sure the total expense of a car in the country exceeds that of a car in the city, and, as you point out, there are lots of other nifty expenses in the city. If your "congestion tax" just means cost of driving, well, ok, great, lovely, probably still wrong, but I understand it.

Driving in the suburbs becomes less attractive both because the rising cost of fuel makes a trip of the same time and length more expensive, but also because the increasing congestion of suburban roads makes trips take longer and forces drivers to sit in traffic, which they don't like. You don't see this in older suburbs where the population has been stable, but you do see it a ton in newer ones -- people move in and the roads aren't crowded, but then people keep moving in and that changes. It erodes a selling point.

I'm sure cities are more expensive. That's the point. People are willing to pay more to live there. I'm saying that will grow more true over the next many years -- in the aggregate, people will pay even more to live in a city relative to the burbs. If you're an exception to that rule, you win, I suppose, because you'll be able to buy what you want for less, relatively. But given the choice between investing in urban residential real estate and suburban residential real estate right now, as categories, I'd put my money in cities.

eta: Me, I live in a big suburb, and would love to live somewhere denser.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Driving in the suburbs becomes less attractive both because the rising cost of fuel makes a trip of the same time and length more expensive, but also because the increasing congestion of suburban roads makes trips take longer and forces drivers to sit in traffic, which they don't like. You don't see this in older suburbs where the population has been stable, but you do see it a ton in newer ones -- people move in and the roads aren't crowded, but then people keep moving in and that changes. It erodes a selling point.

This is an enjoyable excerpt from a 1970s urban planning text, but, uh, I was talking about the farther burbs, where, believe it or not, 3,000 people spread over 15 square miles doesn't produce all that much traffic.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

We drive many more places than work. For us, moving farther outside the city will radically reduce total drive time, even if my commute, on the days I commute, is extended 15-20 minutes each way. The added benefit of being somewhere Adder-free is just a bonus.

Not everyone's life is downtown; you'll understand that if you grow up some time.

I find it truly strange that you equate "growing up" with "arranging your life so that you're completely dependent on a car." They aren't the same thing.

Maybe you should try telling little GGG to pedal his own ass to soccer practice while you and the missus hoof it to the Slurp 'n Burp for a beer and burger.

If it's only you who commutes, that obviously changes the balance a lot, but having grown up in the suburbs, I find it really hard to believe that you drive 30-40 minutes or more a day in addition to commuting. Do you like to shop on the other side of town or something?

But again, this works for you. That's great. I don't think it works for most people, who spend the bulk of their driving time going to and from work and whose trips to stores, restaurants, entertainment and kids sporting events are made longer by moving farther out. You'd know this if you knew where my family lives.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Hey, look: It's a free lunch.

BERKELEY – Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers had a good line at the International Monetary Fund meetings this year: governments, he said, are trying to treat a broken ankle when the patient is facing organ failure. Summers was criticizing Europe’s focus on the second-order issue of Greece while far graver imbalances – between the EU’s north and south, and between reckless banks’ creditors and governments that failed to regulate properly – worsen with each passing day.

But, on the other side of the Atlantic, Americans have no reason to feel smug. Summers could have used the same metaphor to criticize the United States, where the continued focus on the long-run funding dilemmas of social insurance is sucking all of the oxygen out of efforts to deal with America’s macroeconomic and unemployment crisis.

The US government can currently borrow for 30 years at a real (inflation-adjusted) interest rate of 1% per year. Suppose that the US government were to borrow an extra $500 billion over the next two years and spend it on infrastructure – even unproductively, on projects for which the social rate of return is a measly 25% per year. Suppose that – as seems to be the case – the simple Keynesian government-expenditure multiplier on this spending is only two.

In that case, the $500 billion of extra federal infrastructure spending over the next two years would produce $1 trillion of extra output of goods and services, generate approximately seven million person-years of extra employment, and push down the unemployment rate by two percentage points in each of those years. And, with tighter labor-force attachment on the part of those who have jobs, the unemployment rate thereafter would likely be about 0.1 percentage points lower in the indefinite future.

The impressive gains don’t stop there. Better infrastructure would mean an extra $20 billion a year of income and social welfare. A lower unemployment rate into the future would mean another $20 billion a year in higher production. And half of the extra $1 trillion of goods and services would show up as consumption goods and services for American households.

In sum, on the benefits side of the equation: more jobs now, $500 billion of additional consumption of goods and services over the next two years, and then a $40 billion a year flow of higher incomes and production each year thereafter. So, what are the likely costs of an extra $500 billion in infrastructure spending over the next two years?

For starters, the $500 billion of extra government spending would likely be offset by $300 billion of increased tax collections from higher economic activity. So the net result would be a $200 billion increase in the national debt. American taxpayers would then have to pay $2 billion a year in real interest on that extra national debt over the next 30 years, and then pay off or roll over the entire $200 billion.

The $40 billion a year of higher economic activity would, however, generate roughly $10 billion a year in additional tax revenue. Using some of it to pay the real interest on the debt and saving the rest would mean that when the bill comes due, the tax-financed reserves generated by the healthier economy would be more than enough to pay off the additional national debt.

In other words, taxpayers win, because the benefits from the healthier economy would more than compensate for the costs of servicing the higher national debt, enabling the government to provide more services without raising tax rates. Households win, too, because they get to buy more and nicer things with their incomes. Companies win, because goods and workers get to use the improved infrastructure. The unemployed win, because some of them get jobs. And even bond investors win, because they get their money back, with the interest for which they contracted.

So what is not to like? Nothing.

How, you might ask, can I say this? I am an economist – a professor of the Dismal Science, in which there are no free lunches, in which benefits are always balanced by costs, and in which stories that sound too good to be true almost inevitably are.

But there are two things different about today. First, the US labor market is failing so badly that expanded government spending carries no resource cost to society as a whole. Second, bond investors are being really stupid. In a world in which the S&P 500 has a 7% annual earnings yield, nobody should be happy holding a US government 30-year inflation-adjusted bond that yields 1% per year. That six-percentage-point difference in anticipated real yield is a measure of bond investors’ extraordinary and irrational panic. They are willing to pay 6% per year for “safety.”

Right now, however, the US government can manufacture “safety” out of thin air merely by printing bonds. The government, too, would then win by pocketing that 6% per year of value – though 30 years from now, bondholders who feel like winners now would most likely look at their portfolios’ extraordinarily poor performance of over 2011-2041 and rue their strategy."

Delong

Would be curious to hear club or Hank respond to the substance (as opposed to the politics) of this.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

This is an enjoyable excerpt from a 1970s urban planning text, but, uh, I was talking about the farther burbs, where, believe it or not, 3,000 people spread over 15 square miles doesn't produce all that much traffic.

I'm really having a hard time figuring out where you do all this driving to if it's just in idyllic, sparsely populated, exurbs. You just go around to each other's houses, without ever venturing near the entrance to the parking lot for a big box store?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

This is an enjoyable excerpt from a 1970s urban planning text, but, uh, I was talking about the farther burbs, where, believe it or not, 3,000 people spread over 15 square miles doesn't produce all that much traffic.

I believe that. But most people who are in the position to move to the farther burbs would have to drive quite a distance to get to work, and that has been getting less attractive for the reasons I said. Which is why, as I said, prices came down farther in the far burbs or exurbs or whatever you want to call them, at least in the markets I know best.

If you're in a position to live where there is lots of land and little work, it won't cost you very much.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

But again, this works for you. That's great. I don't think it works for most people, who spend the bulk of their driving time going to and from work and whose trips to stores, restaurants, entertainment and kids sporting events are made longer by moving farther out. You'd know this if you knew where my family lives.

GGG can avoid rush hour. Obviously, an awful lot of people can't.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Adder

But again, this works for you. That's great. I don't think it works for most people, who spend the bulk of their driving time going to and from work and whose trips to stores, restaurants, entertainment and kids sporting events are made longer by moving farther out. You'd know this if you knew where my family lives.

And then the stores, restaurants, and entertainment all suck.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

And then the stores, restaurants, and entertainment all suck.

The kids sporting events do too, but the parents like them. So just like the Slurp 'n Burp.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

And then the stores, restaurants, and entertainment all suck.

The reason they suck is that the population of potential customers they can serve is much smaller, so you only get the sort of places that serve the lowest common denominator. With more population density, you get more variety and differentiation and you are more likely to find something that goes to your particular tastes.

Or you can be independently wealthy and live in a rural college town where everyone else has your taste. More than one way to skin a cat.