Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

Did you have to go sit on the bench and fill out the forms with the mother rapers and the father stabbers, and the mother stabbers and the father rapers and did they all move to the other side of the bench after they said "Kid, what are you in for?" and you said "obstructing employment?"

I was asked that by meanest nastiest ugliest one, the nastiest father raper of them all looking mean and nasty and ugly and horrible and all kinds of things, and then I told him I also incited a riot and Hank came back and talked to me and shook my hand....

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I was asked that by meanest nastiest ugliest one, the nastiest father raper of them all looking mean and nasty and ugly and horrible and all kinds of things, and then I told him I also incited a riot and Hank came back and talked to me and shook my hand....

AND you had to go pick up the garbage.

When I was a lad, Arlo used to play every summer at Ravinia, a nice little outdoor venue nestled among the mansions and very easy to sneak into. He did that song every year. You haven't heard Alice's Restaurant until you've heard 2000 drunken teenagers and their drunken parent sing "You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant."

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

It's the "Not sure" numbers that are terrifying.

TM

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

It's the "Not sure" numbers that are terrifying.

TM

I vote we do it and just make RT Queen.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

I vote we do it and just make RT Queen.

Can we give some of it back to Mexico? There are some seriously crazy motherfuckers living in that state.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Can we give some of it back to Mexico? There are some seriously crazy motherfuckers living in that state.

I rather like the Hispanic part. It's the whites who are loco.

I say we just open the boarder and let everyone across. It can only help.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Chris Christie embraces jack booted thuggery, worldwide aggression, and alliances with brutal dictatorships. Denounces "civil rights extremists", e.g., people who object to domestic spying recently ruled unconstitutional.

So this is what a moderate Republican looks like?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

A new study by Chang-Tai Hsieh of the University of Chicago and Enrico Moretti of the University of California, Berkeley, calculates that the United States economy would be nearly 10 percent bigger if just three cities — New York, San Jose, and San Francisco — had loosened their constraints on the supply of housing and let more people in during the past few decades. Let that sink in: 10 percent bigger.

New York

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

New York

From the article:

To get that number, the economists imagined a world in which those three cities had average land-use regulations, rather than the highly restrictive ones you see in practice. Over time, millions more workers would have flocked to those cities, becoming more productive and helping the whole economy grow. The average worker would be making $6,000 more a year than they are. Annual economic output would be more than $1 trillion higher as of 2009. We'd all be better off.

I have my doubts. SF and SJ, together, have fewer than 2 million people. Could you really add "millions more" to them, and still expect average wages to be so high? Are personnel costs not subject to the laws of supply and demand? If housing prices were lower, would employers feel the same pressure to pay more to attract talent?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

From the article:



I have my doubts. SF and SJ, together, have fewer than 2 million people. Could you really add "millions more" to them, and still expect average wages to be so high? Are personnel costs not subject to the laws of supply and demand? If housing prices were lower, would employers feel the same pressure to pay more to attract talent?

Mine is the fastest growing city in the country right now (at 4 million) AND I chose to stay here rather than move to the Bay Area mainly because of the ridiculous cost of living compared to here.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Mine is the fastest growing city in the country right now (at 4 million) AND I chose to stay here rather than move to the Bay Area mainly because of the ridiculous cost of living compared to here.

But this underlies the problem with the 10% number. All those people need to come from somewhere. SF's loss was Texas' gain, and Goddess knows Texas needs all the help it can get.

That said, I appreciate any attack on zoning, that mindless machine of homogenization that curses our land.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

I have my doubts. SF and SJ, together, have fewer than 2 million people. Could you really add "millions more" to them, and still expect average wages to be so high? Are personnel costs not subject to the laws of supply and demand? If housing prices were lower, would employers feel the same pressure to pay more to attract talent?

The fundamental observation is that productivity is so much higher in NY, SF and SJ. Wages are higher there not because of the higher costs but in spite of them.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The fundamental observation is that productivity is so much higher in NY, SF and SJ. Wages are higher there not because of the higher costs but in spite of them.

Oh, I think the higher costs have something to do with the high wages, too. I promise you, if housing costs were lower, Silicon Valley Gazillionaires would pay their household help less.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Mine is the fastest growing city in the country right now (at 4 million) AND I chose to stay here rather than move to the Bay Area mainly because of the ridiculous cost of living compared to here.

I definitely agree that the restrictions here, and the costs they've created, are a huge problem. Geography is part of it -- SF could never sprawl out like Houston (though I suppose San Jose could) -- but so are bad policies.

But 10% increase in nationwide growth, from having one large city (NY) and two small ones (SF/San Jose) change their building codes? That seems ridiculous.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The fundamental observation is that productivity is so much higher in NY, SF and SJ. Wages are higher there not because of the higher costs but in spite of them.

You like to assign one reason to this: Wages are higher because productivity is higher here.

Okay. I guess waiters, janitors, and bus drivers here are sooo much more productive than in any other city. And lawyers, I-bankers, and hedge fund managers too. So I'll accept the higher productivity as a reason (even as I contradict its existence by posting here).

But, I tend to believe that there are multiple factors that contribute to most results. So, higher costs are one such factor: You have to offer people higher salaries here, because otherwise they won't come here, where they know that $x doesn't go nearly as far as it goes where they live.

I also believe that the higher costs are a bigger part of this. Perhaps your workplace is one where the powers-that-be think, "We could pay our secretaries $x per year, but they are just so much more productive in the Bay Area that we'll voluntarily pay them 150% of $x." I think most businesses would prefer to pay as little as they can to retain people -- and that "as little as" number moves higher when the cost of living moves higher.