Bryan Caplan has a thought-provoking post that the reason Americans and Europeans misunderstand each other stems from the difference between experiencing another country as a tourist and as a resident. Where American tourists go wrong: 1. In European countries, historic downtowns of the premiere cities like Paris or Stockholm are by far the best places [...]
Archive for the ‘Housing Policy’ Category
Strangers in Familiar Lands
Posted in Foreigners, Health Care, Housing Policy, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Transportation Policy on August 25, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Killing Fannie
Posted in Corruption, Housing Crisis, Housing Policy on August 19, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Mike Konczal has been writing at Rortybomb and now Baseline about structural fixes to the housing market. I thought of his work when reading this Times article on the real estate appraisal business: On May 1, a sweeping change took effect that was meant to reduce the conflicts of interest in home appraisals while safeguarding [...]
American Bantustan
Posted in Food, Housing Policy, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Obama on August 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Over at Daily Kos, Johnny Gunn has a story of a bicycle trip he took in 2005 through Navajo Nation and the reservations of northern New Mexico. The story builds to the allegation that “There are reasons why there are no Whole Foods stores in any of these places – reasons that go beyond population [...]
Westchester Lies
Posted in Architecture, Housing Policy on August 11, 2009 | 19 Comments »
I am struggling to make sense of the news that Westchester County was sued for lying on an affordable housing grant application and settled with the agreement to: [S]pend more than $50 million of its own money, in addition to other funds, to build or acquire 750 homes or apartments, 630 of which must be [...]
Criminal Poverty
Posted in Corruption, Drugs, Health Care, Housing Policy, Labor Policy on August 10, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Barbara Ehrenreich has a thought-provoking article in the New York Times about the criminalization of poverty: City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the ’80s and ’90s. “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless [...]
Right to Rent?
Posted in Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Meltdown on August 5, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Via Rortybomb, Dean Baker’s proposal in the Guardian to address foreclosures: In recognition of the extraordinary situation created by the housing bubble and its collapse, Congress could approve a temporary change to the rules governing the foreclosure process. This change would give homeowners facing foreclosure the right to stay in their homes, paying the market [...]
Fancy Fast Food
Posted in Food, Housing Policy on July 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Thank you Freakanomics, for showing me a website dedicated to rearranging fast food items. Yes, this really is a Big Mac, fries, and Coke:
Control of the Narrative
Posted in Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Meltdown on July 22, 2009 | 4 Comments »
On July 3, 1863, the Army of Northern Virginia was defeated at Gettysburg by the Army of the Potomac. As was fitting for a conflict in which each side simultaneously advocated the right of the minority to be free from the majority and the majority’s right to dominate the minority, the South attacked from the [...]
Texas Real Estate
Posted in Housing Policy on April 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Been meaning to write about real estate for a few weeks now, but somehow haven’t gotten around to it. Was on Rortybomb today – great site, worth checking out – and Mike had a post about the peculiar lack of a housing bubble in Texas. Here is Dallas real estate compared with Phoenix on Case-Shiller:
Full Stewart-Cramer Throwdown
Posted in Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Meltdown, Television on March 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
So Jim Cramer when on the Daily Show last night, and the good people at Viacom are sufficiently pleased with the response that they have decided to post the full, unedited interview. So, in three parts, watch out for some naughty words: It’s fun to pick on Cramer. He is a jerk, and he did [...]
