1 Content!

2 This would be the professor at 132 East Shithole Dumpster at the corner of Crackhouse Street and Meth Lab Avenue?

3

anyone ever notice how poor people often seem to think of THEIR well-being (while not always doing anything themselves to improve it), and have very little empathy for the more well-to-do?  (unless they are athletes, entertainers, etc.) 

Why isn't this a problem?

4 High urban density that turns me into a jaded aggravated worker drone?

No thanks.

5
How many houses does that old battleax Warren own?

A lot.

But as I've heard some braindead liberals say "If you want to live like a Republican, vote Democrat."

6 Just curious....where do these 'academics' live?

7 Makes me want to give up our lovely suburban home and move next door to a crack house.

I feel like such a knuckle-dragging mouth-breather.

8 Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. Shit can the rest of it.

9 Tami, well just look at the Prof. from the beer summit.  Nice shady academic suburb far removed from the inner city.

10 Where's the resident cat lady to tell us how awesome living in a Manhattan closet is?

11

This sounds like the crap that AlGore tried to push on us.

IIRC, he wanted to establish 'zones' where humans could live...and couldn't live.

12 I'm positive none of those academics live anywhere near any poorer urban area.

13 Tami, well just look at the Prof. from the beer summit. Nice shady academic suburb far removed from the inner city.

Posted by: Anna Puma at July 09, 2012 12:51 PM (T9VmS)

================

Yep, he came to mind immediately while reading this.

14 There is a reason I moved 50 miles out of the city center to a 4 acre lot outside a small town. 

15 I've been a suburbanite my whole life. I've been deprived of noise and diesel smoke.

16 So can we safely assume that the Harvard prof author lives in a cardboard box or in the subway, and keeps all of his possessions in a grocery cart?  Because if he doesn't, he's putting social distance between himself and others that live that way, and that's a bad thing. 

17 It is inconceivable to a liberal that bad choices and poverty are somehow connected.

18 None of these academics seems to understand.  Income inequality   can be   a wonderful thing.  It can cause people to try and better themselves so they can have what the higher income people have.  The only downside is that the leeches of society, and their governmental masters, may opt instead to take by force what the producers of society have created without recompense.

19 15 I've been a suburbanite my whole life. I've been deprived of noise and diesel smoke.

Posted by: fluffy at July 09, 2012 12:52 PM (z9HTb

Don't forget the rapin' and murderin'.  And the robbin'.

20

Yeah, there's a pretty good reason why I live in the country.

 

There's something about Commie run school systems, crack houses and cockroaches that give me the heebie jeebies.

 

 

21 I'll say it again: the mortgage interest deduction levels the real estate playing field between individuals and businesses. Do renters really want the interest deduction eliminated for their landlords and in turn pay higher rent?

22 Yes, people in the slums are just the epitome of selflessness and service.  Empathy abounds in inner city Chicago.  Hell, it abounds in inner city Omaha, how could it not in Chicago?!  Or New York, for that matter.


I daresay that these 'researchers' have actually never been to the slums, except for photo ops.

23 Guess I'm barely even human any more. I moved from inner city to suburbs. From suburbs to small town just outside metro area. And now preparing to move to the deep Ozark woods.

Solitude baby!

24 I've been poor (grad school) and I've been comparatively well-off. 

Well-off is better.

25

The rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people.

 

Anyone who doesn't put their self-interests above the interests of other people is, by definition, an idiot.

26 Tami, a modest proposal perhaps.  If the tenured professors of Harvard move into the inner city area of Boston, perhaps they will also let the poor folk who already live there crash at their pads.  Share the house and warmth plus Internet for the People.

Until they put their bodies where their moths tell the rest of us to live, they can be ignored.

27 Early OT, but:

I've been curious to see if the Obama campaign was sandbagging us like in 2008.  They would delay fundraising numbers, getting us worked up, then drop a giant "holy crap" number.

After Romney announce $106M for June, I was waiting for Obama to suddenly announce "Oh that? Pfft. We raised $126M."

Well not so much.  They are tossing out fund raising letters saying they took in $71M in June.  Ouch, that had to leave a mark.

28 Where's the resident cat lady to tell us how awesome living in a Manhattan closet is?

Posted by: Jane D'oh at July 09, 2012 12:51 PM (UOM4

 

 

 

 

And all her enlightened, urbanite friends just love it too, I'm sure.

29 >>>Posted by: LauraW

I've got to say, as entertained as I've been by your posts over the last year I had feared that you had given up on serious analysis. This one is a gem, thank you.

30

I'll say it again: the mortgage interest deduction levels the real estate playing field between individuals and businesses. Do renters really want the interest deduction eliminated for their landlords and in turn pay higher rent?

 

It levels it the wrong way. More special clauses, more thousands of pages of tax code, more complexity and more social engineering.

 

I don't think homeowners should pay more in taxes. But there should not be any special deductions for them.

31

My father was born in Newark, NJ.  His family was not rich.

 

They moved to a more rural, suburban area shortly after he started school.   They were still not rich.

 

My parents moved from congested NJ to rural NH in the 1970s.   They are not rich.

 

It's in the nature of all things to try to move from an area of high density to one of low density.  Its the desired state of   things from    the cellular level on up.

 

And     screw    the empathy argument.  I've got fuckloads of empathy.   I'm positively brimming with empathy, you bastards.     But I won't have empathy for worthless crooks and layabouts who demand I support them when they could easily support themselves.

 

This    "academic" has her head up her ass.    She is undoubtedly "rich."   She is also stupider than a bag of rocks.

32 Fuck you, liberals. I'll never apologize for removing my kids from the ghetto urban culture that YOU created and sending them to a great school. Not ever.

And speaking of assholes-there is no greater asshole than an insulated, wealthy, left-wing academic.

33 "Showgirls" is a life lesson.

34 The reasons I don't live in 'the urban environment' are legion

crime
too many people
city governments are usually elected by the stupidest voters
traffic
noise
stink
did I mention people? the fuckers are everywhere

35 When these optimal living conditions exist, the correct response of decent folk is to recognize this is a good thing and to be glad for you. And to want more of it, and to encourage everyone with your good example.

Sorry.  Not angsty enough.  You gotta keep it "Real".

36 I've been a suburbanite my whole life. I've been deprived of noise and diesel smoke.

Not to mention the puking bums, the thug ganstas, and the 6-foot, hairy-legged trannies with knives.

37

New slogan: Life is just great when you're in Section 8!

38 As for what truly breeds empathy is an intact nuclear family with several children. 

39 you don't get it entropy. it's not a special deduction. it's the same one businesses get.

40 >there is no greater asshole than an insulated, wealthy, left-wing academic.


DING DING DING DING DING

41 Pfft! One good pandemic jetted in from some third world sh!thole through Kennedy International will change their view.

42 21 I'll say it again: the mortgage interest deduction levels the real estate playing field between individuals and businesses. Do renters really want the interest deduction eliminated for their landlords and in turn pay higher rent?

Posted by: Ron Swanson at July 09, 2012 12:54 PM (KHo8t)

 

 

Durrrrrr, whaaaa'?

43

6-foot, hairy-legged trannies with knives.

 

 

 

Wasn't that a Roger Corman movie?

44 I knew one of these libs, but she practiced what she preached. She hated "sprawl" and actually chose to live in the heart of an urban center with her hubby and 3 and 1 year old.

Took off to suburbia when there was a shootout on her roof.

Still hates "sprawl".

45 Give them another 50 years...they'll be making the case for Soylent Green and Matrix pods for everyone other than themselves.

46 #41 like the Bird Flu variant that was just gene-engineered by a Dutch research team to be easily transmitted between humans?

47 Here we go people. Pay attention. The middle-income earners are soon to be attacked as 'rich' because they 'own' a house (n/m that the Banks actually own most of them). That didn't take as long as I thought.

48 This is just a ploy to get the tax base back that dem policies drove out of the urban areas over the last 40 years.

49

Segregation from the poor in the suburbs?  Really? 

How about this:

http://tinyurl.com/6rxp9ty

50 We also have a constitutional right to be assholes, if it were illegal all the libs would be in jail.

51 I'd be interested to see how the researchers quantify "empathy." Do they hook up subjects to an empathometer? Weigh them on an empathy scale? Or perhaps, more likely, come up with an arbitrary definition of empathy that takes into account what a leftist academic considers properly empathetic -- say, support for the welfare state? I think probably the latter.

52

you don't get it entropy. it's not a special deduction. it's the same one businesses get.

 

Um, no, you clearly don't get it. It's the same one non-property owners don't get.

 

Why should your wealth be taxed less or more depending on what you spend it on? That's called social engineering.

53 Took off to suburbia when there was a shootout on her roof.

Still hates "sprawl".

She's keeping it "Real".

54 The rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people.

And liberals are way more likely to force their self-interests on everyone else.

55 Broccoli is good for you why not deductions for broccoli expenditures. We already shove punative taxes on things that are bad, like tobacco.

56 Nothing like the smell of class warfare it the morning.

57 41 Pfft! One good pandemic jetted in from some third world sh!thole through Kennedy International will change their view.

Posted by: boned to the bone at July 09, 2012 12:59 PM (BHM5V)

 

Speaking of which, has anyone found the     macaque with Hepatitis B and a coke addiction that was    imported from Indonesia in 2008  and that escaped from its cage at a research facility in NC yet?

 

No?

 

'Kay.  Just checking.

58 Jeebus.  Put the Time Magazine down.

59 So, the liberal definition of "asshole" is "someone who makes more money than I do."

60

you know what other 'ass****es 'leave urban hell holes  when it is possible,  poor people!

i mean ,come on, ask any poor person if they want to live where they live.

61 I wouldn't live in a city if you gave me a 10,000 square foot penthouse apartment and a helicopter to get around.  I'd sell it, and move to the country.

62

6-foot, hairy-legged trannies with knives.

 

Wasn't that a Roger Corman movie?

 

No, I think it was a Troma Team Production?

63 Funny how they never cite the study of rat life spans in crowded versus uncrowded living spaces.

64 Yeah because urban areas are so inexpensive. I'm sure we can recruit some people on L.A.'s west side (urban, liberal, white) to move to south Los Angeles. Talk to anyone who has lived in hellholes such as this, they tell you they would leave in a minute...and many have.

65

If you use your money the 'right' way (as defined by whoever is calling the shots in government at the moment) you get to keep more of it.

 

Spend it the 'wrong' way and you get less.

 

Can't go around encouraging people to think it's theirs and they earned the right to spend it however they want. What do you think this is, a free country?

66 The rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people.

Anyone who doesn't put their self-interests above the interests of other people is, by definition, an idiot.

First I provide for me and mine. Which includes in order of priority. My Wife and child. My parents. My siblings. Other family that cares enough to keep up a decent relationship. Close friends.

After all those people have what they need, then I consider how much I can spare for you and your'n to help you through some critical rough spot through my selection of an appropriate relief society and charitably giving to them.

67 Ghaa! formating fail.

68 ls the real estate playing field between individuals and businesses. Do renters really want the interest deduction eliminated for their landlords and in turn pay higher rent?Posted by: Ron Swanson

Durrrrrr, whaaaa'? Posted by: Idiot Renters who don't know where their rent goes

Property values would fall as their attractiveness as an investment would be lessened. Fewer buyers -> lower prices -> rents even in the long term.

Real estate like all true markets are dynamic, not static.

Using the tax code to advantage one group is social engineering. If it's wrong for lefties, it's wrong for righties.

69 has anyone found the macaque with Hepatitis B and a coke addiction that was imported from Indonesia in 2008... ?

Polly wanna crack?  Or did this one get to the White House?

70 Gosh. Next they'll start thinking that people without college degrees are not as important.

71

Posted by: MikeTheMoose Lite! 98% Anger Free! at July 09, 2012 01:04 PM (0q2P7)

--

 

Exactly.

72 4 shootings and 1 stabbing within 5 blocks of my house in the past couple weeks. And the schools are going in the crapper because of all the feral kids from the public housing units. The violence centers on the public housing too. We're moving.

73 OTOH, when I lived in the city, no one ever stole my ripe tomatoes right off my patio. 

74 I just love how these left wing assholes claim moral superiority after they move into expensive, gentrified urban areas, send their kids to private schools and gawk at the inner city poor from a distance, like they're viewing animals in a zoo.

75

Yes, a lack of empathy, because the first thing that ghetto dwellers do after making some real coin is move into the same neighborhood, but in a bigger crib.

Right.

76 HeatherRadish, perhaps since the tomatoes were not in a can they failed to recognize them as edible?

77

Well... then according to this 'Logic'... SMALL Towns should be ones who have the most empathy then... as there can be rich and poor within a block of each other...

 

 

Within 3 Blocks of me... we have 750K homes... and right around the block is a rundown 50+ year old home that looks like a disaster area....

 

 

And note, he says the empathy is here IF they see the Poor OF THE SAME RACE!  As most cities have neighborhoods who Self Segregate?  How does that then apply...

78 *Ask a hundred ex-urbanites why they left- it's a safe bet that 'bad schools' and 'high crime' are in the top few reasons.*

Bingo.

I just moved from midtown Baton Rouge to a suburb with the best public schools in the state because I have kids and had a choice between either moving out and putting them in public schools or staying in town and paying for private schools.

The cost of putting them in private schools would have been around as much as the mortgage I now have.

79 entropy, non-property owners do get the benefit of the mortgage interest deduction indirectly. giving businesses the deduction (because it's a legitimate business expense) and denying it to individuals would distort the real estate market.

80

Urban gentrification.  See:  Chicago's Hyde Park, NYC's SOHO, etc. 

81 Our puffy little masters are better than Eloi, aren't they? They would HAPPILY offer themselves, their lives, their non-existent children's lives! And if you want to be "good" - you'd better do it also. Oh wait, they don't actually do it in reality, do they? Hmmm.

82 >>>"he rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people." Stupid argument. How can I worry about other people If I can't take care of myself first? Or even from a family standpoint: How can I keep my child alive if I can't keep myself alive? "empathy" = spending someone else's $$$

83 I will gladly pay you Tuesday for LauraW's twitter handle today. I MUST follow her - she brings a smile to my face with her dead-pan snideness.

84

30....I don't think homeowners should pay more in taxes. But there should not be any special deductions for them.

Posted by: entropy at July 09, 2012 12:56 PM (TULs6)

 

We used to be able to deduct all consumer interest from out tax returns.

Yes....all of it.

Credit card interest...car loan interest...charge acct interest.....all of it was a deduction.

It was a Dem controlled Congress that took it away.

 

The economy worked a lot better when that deduction was there.

It provided an incentive for working hard to have a good credit score.

It was a reward for the hard working middle class....not just the homeowners....everyone.

 

85

Citing the work of economist Erzo F. P. Luttmer, who found that support for redistributionist policies  was greater among those who live near poor people of the same race

 

A conclusion in search of a hypothesis. 

86 How do they even define urban vs. suburban vs rural? I grew up in a rural area (no houses to my right or left), now I guess I live in a suburb (60000 pop.) It sounds like they're just trying to gain some exclusivity.

87 7 Makes me want to give up our lovely suburban home and move next door to a crack house.

_____

We did this^^^.  At the time, it seemed like a good idea.  Moved downtown and converted an old Victorian apt house we owned to a single family.  Great neighborhood, up and coming back from decades of decline.  Walk to work, walk to the grocery store, walk for shopping.  Reduced our carbon footprint as our oh- so smug liberal friends espouse but rarely act upon.

enter 2012:  Heroin/meth house 4  doors down took 6 mos to eradicate, culminating in a Swat team raid, and death threats for us from the addict. 

Home invasion attempt last week.  Guy was sleeping in our front garden!!!) saw hubby leave with dogs for their  morning constitutional, tried to break in while I was sleeping, hubby came home to him jumping the back 10' fence.  Tried to knife his way into the back door.

Last night, 1/2 a block down, two heroin sluts, Pebbles and Star, stabbed a homeless guy in the park.   (bet they were lookers...)

The parade of the lowest dregs of society shuffling past our house this spring and summer is unprecedented hope and change. I have never seen it this bad. 


So I'm a freak for wanting to admit we've made a major mistake, and for our personal well being we'd be better off  getting out as soon as we can.  We're freaks because we actually bought into this drivel of re-urbanization. Fuck that noise.  We're poised to head for the hills of a different state, 100 miles from the nearest city over 100k.

  That is called a rational reaction to the steady onslaught of beggars, theives and hopped up psychos who've been goaded into attacking the producers.
It will only get worse.

88 you guys wanna laugh - lately the Inky has been running "whine stories" about yupsters who bought into Center City Philadelphia when the city was handing out 10 year property tax abatements - which have since expired. Ruh roh! suddenly these sainted types are desperately trying to sell their city homes . . . funny that. you'd think they'd be happy to pay. support the city, what what?

89 I'm finding it rather pleasant to be living like a conservative, selfish, uncaring, capitalist running-dog.  Wish  all those people living in the  inner cities could  afford to do  the same.  Everyone knows they would if they could.

90 Can we pass a law that requires the relocation of all college professors who teach a "study" to live in Detroit? You know those studies like gender studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies....make them all live in Detroit!

91 Get off my lawn!

92

entropy, non-property owners do get the benefit of the mortgage interest deduction indirectly.

 

Irrelevant.

93 Edward Glaeser was raised in a Manhattan high rise flat with his wealthy parents. He has always lived well and is a champagne economist. That having been said, he is a fine intellect and an all around decent person. He very much opposes public housing style projects and tends to believe in the individuality of buildings and there relationship to the residents within. A bit of a dreamer. As was his father. His mother's passion was preserving architecturally unique or otherwise historical buildings in NYC area. She was an MBA and an accountant.

94 >>Anyone who doesn't put their self-interests above the interests of other people is, by definition, an idiot.

95

I live in a blue collar nieghborhood 35mile NE of the big city, therefore I am a selfish, hate monger. 

***

OK.

 

96 Oh, this reminds me of the study by one of the radical enviro groups -- maybe Sierra Club -- that postulated that EVERYBODY could live at density levels higher than those of midtown Manhattan and be just happy as clams. Then The Earth would return to its natural state, birds would sing, worms would rejoice, and so on.

How everybody would be forced into midtown Manhattan-level living arrangements was apparently left as an exercise for the reader.

97

One question:   Will someone please tell me what the fuck a "money-empathy researcher" is?  

 

Caveat:  If your response doesn't include a variation on the theme, "Progressive douchenozzle with weak wrists and bleached hair," you're doing it wrong.

98

I could say if the government gives me $1B I will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on frivolous crap which will create jobs, thus, benefiting everyone and not just me.

99 "Glaeser argues that “f proximity breeds empathy … then distance may reduce that empathy.""

I think it has a whole lot more to do with apathy and empathy. There is no solitude in a city. One is always in a rush and feeling the crush of millions of other people. All that matters is holding the correct socially approved views on social matters so you can get on with your day. I don't know what world he lives in that he thinks the wealthy are so empathetic toward the poor in the cities.

We will hear so much about empathy and tolerance of those in the cities, because they've actually had gay friends or knew really poor people and/or black people and/or their doorman. But it's the laziest self-serving brand of "empathy" you can imagine. It's Bill Maher empathy.

100 Why do professors live in gated communities, tony condos, or hipster co-ops?

When the hoi-polloi deign to live with the other half, then they can flap their yaps

101 >>>"he rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people."

...and the person giving that insipid interview was doing so purely out of their own self-interest.  Saying stupid shit totalitarian collectivists like to hear = career advancement, federal gravy train, tenure, etc.

102 http://tinyurl.com/8zyb28 Here's a study that proves it makes you stupider. Which would explain why most cities vote Democrat. "Researchers believe they have proved that just living in modern cities is messing up our brains. They conducted an experiment that required half of the subjects to walk through a busy city and the other half to walk through a park. Afterward, the researchers performed some tests and found that those who had gone through the city had worse memory, poor attention and learning problems. And the most insane part? Even seeing pictures of a city brings out these symptoms."

103 I wonder if Rush Lindbaugh realizes the feed from WABC radio is playing the hannity intro over and over and his show isn't coming up.

104 like I said, you don't get it. doesn't make it not so.

105

Posted by: wheatie at July 09, 2012 01:10 PM (MbB0O)

 

Uh.... Why?  Why is subsidizing DEBT, through the Tax Code... a GOOD idea?

 

Or to paraphrase, why should I pay more Taxes, because I am NOT in debt... than someone who IS in debt???

106

Using the tax code to advantage one group is social engineering. If it's wrong for lefties, it's wrong for righties.


That is the absolute pinnacle of absurdity.

We shouldn't use the law to favor stable, productive citizens and pursuits?

Why not?

Aside from some vague notion of "fairness" or "consistency," that is.

If two-parent opposite sex families living in single family dwellings on at least a 5,000 square foot lot produce the most productive, intelligent, and well-balanced children, there is nothing wrong whatsoever to using a power expressly granted in the law (damned 16th amendment) to encourage such behavior.

The purpose of government is to create a flourishing society.  Don't allow some ridiculous notion of false equivalences force you down the path of treating dissimilar things alike.

That is EXACTLY what this liberal douchenozzle is doing.

107 Don't pin this whack shit on me, Glaeser.

108 Of course, the people who are decrying the 'greedy' are the same people with their eyes on other people's money to be applied to their select causes.

109

"Warning to the Morons: what you are about to read is so witless, so laughably off the mark, you may literally be stupefied by it. AOSHQ cares about its readers and suggests you view this profoundly retarded article through a pinhole camera."

 

 

 

 

Both clever and witty Laura. I chuckled.

110 This is just another excuse in the long line of leftist excuses for their social engineering failures. It's either not enough was spent or it was undermined by rich people, unless they are dem donors. This really should be job#3 for Romney. Obamacare/economy and cutting off the govt gravy train for these idiot professors through student loans.

111 Whatever happened to the saying, "Distance makes the heart grow fonder" ? I grew up in the Bronx and now live in the suburbs, it would take an act of Congress to make me move back..

112 Duh. Why do you think i put all the joos into concentration camps. So they'd stop being a**holes.

113

I wouldn't live in a city if you gave me a 10,000 square foot penthouse apartment and a helicopter to get around. I'd sell it, and move to the country.

 

 

Posted by: huerfano

 

 

 

That's just it. If you want to have a nice life "in the city", it is MUCH more expensive.

 

1) a nice place to live is much more expensive

 

2) Since in most big cities the public education system is crap, you also have to pay more for your kid's education.

 

My wife used to work for a big time corporate lawyer, who lived in the city.  When it came time for the big time corporate lawyer (Democrat) oldest child to go to school, of course it was all about a private school, because the public schools were crap.  So then they up and moved to a suburb which has very good public schools.

 

That there is straight up racism.

114 We should live like the urban Japanese.

115

I worked in Boyle Heights in the mid-80s. It was an industrial area between the fourth and seventh street bridge. The local retail stores would close at 3:30 PM, and they all had bars on the windows and doors.

I aked the owner of a diner that we'd get takeout from why they closed so early, and he told me that the local school got out a 3:00-3:15 PM.

116 >>How everybody would be forced into midtown Manhattan-level living arrangements was apparently left as an exercise for the reader.

It's a tax!

117 he rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people.



Yes because when I think of a bastions of generosity I think of Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago. HBO's The Wire was full of heart warming tales of great helpful people.

118 "This sounds like the crap that AlGore tried to push on us.
IIRC, he wanted to establish 'zones' where humans could live...and couldn't live."

Posted by: wheatie at July 09, 2012 12:52 PM (MbB0O)

 

 

 

 

Hunger Games!

119

Posted by: Crispian at July 09, 2012 01:12 PM (uBMtY)

 

 

Yeah... beacause we in small town rural America don't have gay people... excpet the one who live on the next block over.... and don't know any Minorities, except for the ones Mexican living just over my back fence, and the Black Ret. Col. from the Air Force who live down the street...

120 Once again, its time to remind people of the time diversity-aware, enlightened Harvard Progressives realized real people deigned to cram themselves into their posh, urban, welcoming Cambridge enclave. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1989/10/6/race-and-politics-mingle-in-day/ http://tinyurl.com/6urfk9m

121 The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that none of the people advocating this position grew up in an "urban" environment.

122 Lol... Cat piss..... Chime in on this????

123 btw this idea is very European. no residential zoning allowed outside of towns and cities. I mean maybe for party elites, possibly. but everywhere else it's, close-together, small, expensive housing in town centers, surrounded by prettiness. I guess it works for them, but all the Germans I know who moved here to work for SAP went for the giant McMansions in the rolling hills, and not Philly or downtown Media . . . funny that

124 I couldn't be among my people because the selfish Cherokee insist on living on reservations in the middle of nowhere instead of Boston

125 103 I wonder if Rush Lindbaugh realizes the feed from WABC radio is playing the hannity intro over and over and his show isn't coming up.

Posted by: lybor tee at July 09, 2012 01:13 PM (oZfic

Speaking of urban living, it's curious right on cue.

126

It was a reward for the hard working middle class

 

Well that sounds more fair and level handed then the status quo, however - it is not the purpose of the tax code to reward people.

 

If you are rewarding people, you are a social engineer.

127 >>Aside from some vague notion of "fairness" or "consistency," that is.

That whole "all are equal under the law" nonsense...just silly bullshit to you.

128

They will not stop until we are all tube fed and housed in a conductive, viscous fluid and spoon fed computer generated images of a sentient life.

 

129 The problem with the home deduction is it is a disincentive to paying your mortgage off. While giving an incentive buying close to the limit of what you can afford. (see recent housing crisis)

Why should I be essentially be punished for paying my house off?

130

Have the government reward people you think have done the right thing, and you're giving the government a mandate to regulate behavior.

 

That is not the purpose of a limited constitutional government.

131 If these college professors were as empathic as they claim we should be, they would be giving courses pro bono.

132 Pheonixgirl! Did you locate that snake?

133 I grew up in the Bronx and now live in the suburbs, it would take an act of Congress to make me move back..

Posted by: The Huggable Robot Devil at July 09, 2012 01:14 PM (136wp)

If you refuse it's still a penalty not a tax, if you pay they'll eminent domain your ass back to the Bronx.

134 I wonder if Rush Lindbaugh realizes the feed from WABC radio is playing the hannity intro over and over and his show isn't coming up.

Posted by: lybor tee at July 09, 2012 01:13 PM (oZfic)

Slams head on desk....OY!

135

Academics who live in segregated communities hypothesizing about people who live in segregated communities. 

 

As usual, liberal projection comes shining through again.

136 >>Why should I be essentially be punished for paying my house off?

The same reason I should be punished for never taking out a mortgage I can't repay?

137 If the gov. has bribed ass****s to leave the city, then the cities - without all those jerks - should be nicer places now.

138 >>>"Glaeser argues that “f proximity breeds empathy … then distance may reduce that empathy."" It's not just proximity, but numbers. From a review of "I See Rude People": "The anthropological and psychological research Amy Alkon mixed into her chapters was enlightening. It explained why our homo sapiens, sub-species sapiens, brains are wired to be rude. We can’t handle connections of groups larger than 150 people. Everyone outside this group is deemed a stranger and, therefore, inconsequential."

139 No maddogg but I did eat a rattler at dinner Friday night

140

Posted by: imp at July 09, 2012 01:13 PM (UaxA0)

 

 

Sorry, but this was supposed to be a Free Society, where WE decided how to live... not the Government...

 

If the RIGHT uses Laws and Taxs to Social Engineer... then they are EXACTLY the same as the Left.... ie they are ANTI Freedom....

 

You are just willing to trade one set of Masters, for Another...

141 Buzzsaw and entropy - being 5 years away from paid-off I see your point definitely! It's the low damn interest rates that are really ticking me off tho. we actually discussed refi-ing which is silly, just b/c we can't get return on any freaking money anyway, we may as well "play the game" a little bit more and get more years of interest deduction. We don't have much in the way of interest left now.

142 I consider long term studies by liberal academics the same way I consider modern art. Total self-serving crap passed off by charlatans for mass consumption by rubes.

143 Pheonixgirl. How was it? Was it not excellent?

144

Ent, you're being absurd.

By your definition, criminal law is social engineering, and hence=BAD!!111!1!!elevens!

SOCIETY itself is "social engineering."

145 114 We should live like the urban    male    Japanese.

Posted by: Sleeps in a Tube at July 09, 2012 01:14 PM (7+pP9)

 

Chicks don't get to sleep in a tube in Japan.  Apparently our mere presence would be too much for all the    porn starved salarymen in the tubes around us?     Or maybe they     make the    tubes too narrow to fit our hips and breasts?    

 

I dunno.   Japan is strange.

 

Anyway, back on topic.   Leftist academics can fuck off and die.

146 "lybor tee."  Get it?  I mean, dontcha get it?

Retard.

147 Phoenixgirl, I had a black snake scare the wits out of me this morning by my pool filter. DAMMIT! those things are FRELLING HUGE

148 I grew up in the Bronx and now live in the suburbs, it would take an act of Congress to make me move back..

Posted by: The Huggable Robot Devil at July 09, 2012 01:14 PM (136wp)

 

 

------------------------------------------------

 

 

It's either live in the inner city or pay the tax.  Know what I mean, bub?

149 I would bet that "empathy" of those living in Billy Ayers Hyde Park neighborhood would drop a whole lot if they were beaten to a pulp in downtown Chicago by those poor unfortunates they love so much

150 The real question is, why money spent procuring a residence is considered income at all even if rented. As if I could function effectively as a wage earner without a place to

1. Get secure stress free rest.
2. Prepare and consume food.
3. Store my clothing and perform cleaning maintenance upon it.
4. Store my vehicle.
5. Provide for my personal cleanliness.

The left will look at the poor and say everyone deserves access to mass media via a TV, internet with a high speed connection, food freshly prepared and unprocessed, a secure living environment to call their own, calling all those things basic rights, and then call the money you and I spend accomplishing all of that taxable income because all of these things are luxuries when fairly bought.

151 Suburbanites: Reptile-Brained, Or Just Heartless Bastards?

Can't I be both?

152

We shouldn't use the law to favor stable, productive citizens and pursuits?

Why not?

 

You tell me, what do you say when lefties do it?

 

You apparently have not been informed what the road to hell is paved with.

 

The only difference between this view, and that of a raving socialist prog, is your insistence "But I'm RIGHT!", which the prog also insists.

153

Sorry, but this was supposed to be a Free Society, where WE decided how to live... not the Government...

If the RIGHT uses Laws and Taxs to Social Engineer... then they are EXACTLY the same as the Left.... ie they are ANTI Freedom....

You are just willing to trade one set of Masters, for Another... Posted by: Romeo13


I strongly doubt that ANY of the Framers, even the most vehement anti-federalists, would have agreed with the proposition that government is not allowed to do ANYTHING that would encourage a certain way of life.

Hell Thomas Jefferson INTENDED to create a nation of yeoman farmers, and sought to pass laws that would inhibit the rise of incorporated capital.

But Jefferson was a statist, or something.

154 Welfare is bad.

Including home loan assistance welfare.

Unless you are hopelessly crippled, you should not be getting ANY government assistance.

155 But rent is too damn high!

156 HBO's The Wire was full of heart warming tales of great helpful people.

Posted by: Adam Smith's Invisible Pimp Hand at July 09, 2012 01:16 PM (ZhEoC)

 

Come to think of it, so was "Oz!"  All of them    no doubt      products of their    empathetic, life-affirming     youth spent in      highly diverse urban centers.

157

105
Posted by: wheatie at July 09, 2012 01:10 PM (MbB0O)

 

Uh.... Why? Why is subsidizing DEBT, through the Tax Code... a GOOD idea?

Or to paraphrase, why should I pay more Taxes, because I am NOT in debt... than someone who IS in debt???

 

Posted by: Romeo13 at July 09, 2012 01:13 PM (lZBBB)

 

That is a good question....and a good argument against it.

 

However....the majority of people incur debt to purchase large-ticket items, like vehicles, real estate, large appliances, etc.

Allowing them a deduction for the interest they pay on those purchases...used to have a stimulative effect on the economy as a whole.

 

Businesses get to deduct all the interest that they pay.

It was nice when you could do that as an Individual, as well.

Right or wrong....it was nice.

The economy has been limping along ever since they took it away.

They didn't 'fix' the system....they just took away some of the grease that made it run better.

158 Glaeser argues that “f proximity breeds empathy … then distance may reduce that empathy.”

Familiarity breeds contempt

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

I've heard from a lot of people who live in the cities, and some of them are one robbery or flash mob away from joining Stormfront

159

Posted by: imp at July 09, 2012 01:20 PM (UaxA0)

 

 

Its all a question of Balance... and the Republics balance when created sided with the Individual, and Liberty.... vice Government Control...

 

But the balance has shifted from the Government being a Referee, to being a Boss....  and 'Fairness' has gone right out the window....

160

So this is an arguement for overpopulation?

Remember Crocodile Dundee where he specuates that NYC must be the nicest place on Earth with all those people living so close together. Funny.

161 Posted by: wheatie at July 09, 2012 01:25 PM (MbB0O)

That's correlation...not causation.

162


You tell me, what do you say when lefties do it?

You apparently have not been informed what the road to hell is paved with.

The only difference between this view, and that of a raving socialist prog, is your insistence "But I'm RIGHT!", which the prog also insists. Posted by: entropy


The problem is, they aren't right.  History is replete with their failures.  But they keep going to that same well. 

Giving a tax break to encourage certain behavior that is DEMONSTRABLY (not shouting, just hate the new formatting crap) beneficial is conceptually no different from vagrancy laws. 

163

Posted by: MikeTheMoose Lite! 98% Anger Free! at July 09, 2012 01:22 PM (0q2P7)

That's one hell of an argument.  Well done.

164 155 Welfare is bad. Including home loan assistance welfare. Unless you are hopelessly crippled, you should not be getting ANY government assistance. Posted by: Kristopher at July 09, 2012 01:24 PM (0aV2C) REDDING, Calif. -- A 30-year-old California man who wears diapers and lives as an “adult baby” can keep his $800-a-month Social Security disability checks, the agency ruled. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com

165

By your definition, criminal law is social engineering, and hence=BAD!!

 

Disingenuous.

 

You don't see the difference between a broccoli mandate and murder 1, I feel sorry for you.

166 Living in New York or Los Angeles doesn't lift your opinions or engender empathy for your fellow man

If misfortune visits a person in a suburb or small town, many neighbors will help the person out

If misfortune visits a person in the big city, most of his fellow city dwellers will step over him on the sidewalk

167 I lived in a large apartment complex in Houston, didn't know my neighbors, not even the ones next door. I'd have felt guilty about that, but none of them knew each other either. It's just the way large urban complexes are. On the other hand, when I lived in apt. complexes of less than 50 units, many of us residents got to be friends, and even hung out on weekends together. In my experience, it's mostly a matter of SCALE. Eventually, though, I fled -- literally, FLED -- Houston, after my fourth friend in eight years was murdered. (Victims were two men and two women. Murderers were three black men, one Hispanic man. Sorry, them's the facts.) Also, I'd had a problem with a stalker that had already forced me to move to the opposite side of town a year earlier (The stalker was the same race as me, by the way -- white -- so you can just forget the "You're a RAAAACIST!" accusations). I fled Houston for small-town Kansas, thinking I could escape it all -- and felt personally cheated/ripped-off/betrayed/terrified/furious when a woman was murdered here a couple years after I got here. Where there are human beings, there is evil, sorry to say. You can't ever get entirely away from it. Having said that, though, you can sure create conditions that make things worse or better. As either Peter Maurin or Wendell Berry once said (I can never remember which), You can't MAKE people be good, but you can create conditions in society that make it EASIER for people to CHOOSE to be good. Anywhere in the world, kids need PURPOSE and constructive things to do; they need GOALS; they need unconditional love from at least 1 person, preferably more, most preferably an intact family; positive adult role models outside the family; schools that neither bore nor terrify them; and friends who don't corrupt them. Even in my little sheltered Kansas town, we have a lot of the same pathologies you see in the big cities, because kids watch TELEVISION and get their brains rotted out and their moral sense trashed. The big cities are essentially COLONIZING the brains and souls of people in even the most rural and remote places -- so they might as well be living in the big city! I've often thought that the one good thing that would come out of an EMP attack would be instant destruction of all the damn televisions.

168 "Anyone who doesn't put their self-interests above the interests of other people is, by definition, an idiot.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at July 09, 2012 12:55 PM (D4YYZ)"

Honestly, I don't even think it is possible to put other people's self-interests above your own, unless the "other people" include your immediate family, in which case it is possible for the short-term.

One possible exception is the military, where many people have literally died for their fellow soldiers.

People just say they put others self-interests above their own because it sounds nice. After decades of watching what people do vs. what they say, I can honestly say I've never seen anyone act that way consistently.

Are some people really nice? Sure, obviously, but that has very little to do with actual self-interest vs. a desire to avoid constant conflict with strangers.

169 We shouldn't use the law to favor stable, productive citizens and pursuits? Why not?Posted by: imp

No, because it's central planning. You may not like to hear that but it's the truth. Any and all attempts to induce behavior, no matter the good intentions behind it, will become arbitrary and capricious. It's all hunky dory when 'our' pols are at the till, but when the Left gets a turn it becomes tax credit for everything under the sun.

Playing with the economy like it's a game of Monopoly is at heart Statism fueled by the arrogance that Mises and others like Sowell have described as the Knowledge Problem; no person, especially a bureaucrat or pol, has enough knowledge, wisdom, or ethics to decide what is best for citizens.

Aside from some vague notion of "fairness" or "consistency," that is.

Why would we sweep aside notions of fairness? It is the very problem with using the tax code as a game. What's fair to a Leftie isn't necessarily fair to a Rightie and visa versa.

If two-parent opposite sex families living in single family dwellings on at least a 5,000 square foot lot produce the most productive, intelligent, and well-balanced children, there is nothing wrong whatsoever to using a power expressly granted in the law (damned 16th amendment) to encourage such behavior.

Oh, so you're going to be the judge of whose productive, intelligent, and well-balanced, are you?
Really?

The purpose of government is to create a flourishing society.

Quoth every Statist ever.

Don't allow some ridiculous notion of false equivalences force you down the path of treating dissimilar things alike.

False equivalences? The only equation here is that the power to advantage one behavior is the same power to advantage the exact opposite behavior. It's only a matter of the pol in charge.

The role of central government is to enforce contracts and defend the country. We suffer at every deviance from that.

170 Living in suburbia I don't have to worry so much about whether my neighbors like to smoke in bed.  That's something.  Also, the downtown that I work in is full of street loonies -- being from a small town originally, I've never gotten used to the concept of letting the mentally ill wander around on the own, turning the city into an open-air asylum.  I couldn't live around that.  So I guess that makes me an a-hole to the Harvard crowd. 

171 Key phrase: ". . . Found that support for redistrubution policies was greater . . ." Its all about trying to push theyr marxism on us.

172

Romeo13, that isn't what ent is saying.  He's saying, in a foolishly RAWNPOAL way, that the government cannot legitimately encourage any ends in the citizenry.

That is absurd.

173 I guess this explains why Country Music stars are such dicks and hip-hop rappers are such paragons.

174

Giving a tax break to encourage certain behavior that is DEMONSTRABLY (not shouting, just hate the new formatting crap) beneficial

 

Define beneficial. You think everything is about what you want.

 

Other people have a different idea of what is 'beneficial' and don't deserve to have your cockamamie opinions forced on them because you're too obtuse to realize your opinion is like your asshole - it stinks.

 

is conceptually no different from vagrancy laws.

 

That's just retarded. In more ways than I can count. Seriously?

175

Posted by: wheatie at July 09, 2012 01:25 PM (MbB0O)

 

When you subsidize somthing... you make more of it... when you Tax it... you make less....

 

Sooo... by that definition, the Government WANTS us to be in debt?

 

Annddddd... the winnah???  The banks.... and the Real Estate Bubble which really hurt the economy....

176 >>Citing the work of economist Erzo F. P. Luttmer, who found that support for redistributionist policies was greater among those who live near poor people of the same race<<

What passes for empathy now I suppose.

177

I used to live in an apartment in the city. Every time a riot erupted outside my door at 2:30 in the morning, the walls shaking as groups of people screamed and beat on each other, my first thought was always sympathy for the lower classes. My second thought was to stand quivering in the dark with a shotgun, hoping they didn't throw each other through the front door into my living room.

178 Ok i object to posts longer than what can fit into one screenshot. Thats just greedy.

179 Posted by: imp at July 09, 2012 01:29 PM (UaxA0)

But the government should not encourage any ends in its citizenry. No matter how great and simple an idea it may be, it is social engineering, and that will eventually lead us to the state we are in today...or worse.

180 I'm sure that Glaeser and the rest of his redistribution ilk live right in the heart of some shitty inner city neighborhood and gladly share all they own with the poor.

181 But cities r soo multi-culti n stuff.

182 What's the proportion of urban dwellers to suburbanites paying tuition so these wackjobs can make 6 figures a year pulling this kind of prap out of their asses?

183 Posted by: JustLikeDavidHasselhoff at July 09, 2012 01:33 PM (Rwrs+)

Which was a more productive thought?

184

Oh, so you're going to be the judge of whose productive, intelligent, and well-balanced, are you?
Really?

 

Yes, he is. Because "he's right" dammit.

 

So really, when the left does the exact same thing (even though "But they're WRONG!"), I don't see how he can bitch.

 

They're just doing what he would do, albeit with a difference of opinion with regard to the means.

 

Both feel justified by their own certitude of their own rightness. That is a horrible standard to support - if the dense asshole in charge really really really thinks he is right?

 

When you contend that government should impose this stuff, you set the stakes. If government is about making people do the right thing, every asshole who gets elected by a disinformed and lazy populace will have carte blanche to force you to do whatever he thinks is right.

 

Don't bet what you can't afford to lose, imp.

185 No surprise that these "reserchers" are from UC Berkeley

186

For Moi?  The great American Experiment was will people make good choices if left alone.  Can we create a system whereby the Government is a Limited Referee, not a Ruler.

 

 

I see many who want to be Ruled... as long as the Ruler agrees with them... so those rules impact everyone else.... they only get upset when the Other Side rules....

 

Me?  I don't want to be Ruled by ANYONE... especialy a bunch of Inside the Beltway Washingtonians who don't have any clue of how the rest of the Country works.... and I'm talking BOTH sides of the Aisle here...

187


If two-parent opposite sex families living in single family dwellings on at least a 5,000 square foot lot produce the most productive,  intelligent, and well-balanced children, there is nothing wrong whatsoever to using a power expressly granted in the law (damned 16th  amendment) to encourage such behavior.

Oh, so you're going to be the judge of whose productive, intelligent, and well-balanced, are you? Really?

The purpose of government is to create a flourishing society.

Quoth every Statist ever.

The problem  with this ahistorical absolutist philosophy is that it cannot be done, and never has been in the history of the world.  Like "true communism" or whatever, you just can't have this type of society.  

Yes, WCL, I WILL (again not shouting, just substituting for formatting) be the one who decides what is to be encouraged, so long as I have a majority (if I can garner it) of my fellow citizens.  That  is called a republic.  The Res Publica, the public thing.  Living in a society is a public thing, not simply a "leave mee the hell alone!" idea.   Some things are outside the majority's purview, hence the bill of rights.

You may wish it so, but the "government" you conceive has never existed, never been advocated with any success, and would result in a further atomized society ripe for conquest.

Classical notions of the political state informed the founders as much as religious scruples and memories of royal abuses.

188 Cities are great.

I can go into NYC and get fantastic food, see wonderful museums, amazing architecture, hot pieces of ass dressed in sexy and revealing outfits, etc.

Then I can drive home and not have to worry about getting my stuff stolen.

189 I think I just got a dandy idea for a research proposal...  I will invoke the dreaded words of Global Warming to tie in with urban areas to increase chances of shaking down the Obama Green Machine...

It's my tax money and I want it now!

190 Tell you what perfessers, force the federal government hacks living in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs to move inside of the Washington DC city limits, then get back to us

191

Posted by: entropy at July 09, 2012 01:37 PM (TULs6)

 

 

Yup... every time I see the US Navy's new Motto.... I cringe...

 

"Navy, a Force for Good!".... what the F?????   No... its a force designed to Defend the Nation.... not "do Good".....

192 I live five miles down a dirt road, atop a hill 47 miles from the nearest fast food franchise, and 13 miles from the nearest power pole. I can see across miles of high plains in any direction, and my 30.06 has been carefully sighted in to be accurate for a considerable distance. Oh, and I paid cash for virtually everything I own.

I'm an asshole? Come on up and explain that to me. Last hundred yards I'd recommend you keep your empty hands above your empty head.

193

Yeah, when I think of inexpensive places to live that are great for raising families, the first thing I think of is a large urban area.  NYC!  Nice and cheap!  Helllllloooo Chicago! Lileks once had an article about urban v. suburban living talking about how he'd picked up a case of soup at Sam's Club because hey good deal and realizing he could have never done that when living in a city since a.  he'd have to carry it and b. he'd have no place to store it.   Crap like that matters. 

 

In important news - lunch made for me by mommy update:  egg salad sandwich with the sandwich cut into quarters since I like it best that way; apple slices since I can't bite into whole apples due to my stupid dental issues so she slices them for me; veggies chips and can of diet pepsi with lime.  They keep the dpl at their house just for me since the 'rents don't drink it.  No offense to the Horde and, truly, no offense to the moms of the Horde, but I win Best Mommy. 

 

 

194

There used to be some actual poor people in Cambridge and neighboring Somerville, but they all got gentrified out by 1990, primarily by the massive salaries generated by Harvard and MIT.  Harvard Square now looks like Rodeo Drive.  So this asshole doesn't remotely practice what he preaches.

 

You know what happens when everyone crowds into cities?  POLLUTION.  Major issues with clean water, clean air, solid waste disposal, etc.  But I guess sicne those things are icky and are dealt with mostly by middle class and poor people who haul the trash and run the sewage treatment plants, asshole Harvard professors don't care.

195

But the government should not encourage any ends in its citizenry. No matter how great and simple an idea it may be, it is social engineering, and that will eventually lead us to the state we are in today...or worse.

 

I really think the socons (by which I mean so-cons who are not any other form of con but just socon) get off way too light on this.

 

The underpinnings of the socialist leviathan and all these gay marriage laws and whatnot, was Christian Temperance sorts who gave the government the power to dick around and try to game people into more stable marriages or less alchoholism.

 

And they don't see how they caused this. They haven't learned a thing.

 

Progs today want to molest your children and obliterate gender stereotypes. Progs yesterday were school marms and fundies.

 

The end-vision has changed, but the mechanisms and function has not. People are still too stupid to know what's "good" for them.

196

Posted by: imp at July 09, 2012 01:37 PM (UaxA0)

 

But you would agree that that 'Nation which never existed' was closer to reality when this country was founded, than anytime before?

 

And that the Pendulum towards Nanny State Power has shifted way to far?

 

 

Speaking for meself... as a libertarian... we don't want Anarchy... but we definatly want to shift the balance more towards where it once was.

197 "Last hundred yards I'd recommend you keep your empty hands above your empty head."

Posted by: jwpaine at July 09, 2012 01:41 PM (FUozQ)

That is some funny shit!

198

162Posted by: wheatie at July 09, 2012 01:25 PM (MbB0O)

 

That's correlation...not causation.

 

Well yeah....we want to talk about causation?

Minimum wage, union demands, government regulations....these are some of the things that add layers of cost to the consumer goods that people go in debt to buy.

 

Banks were scrambling around, looking for new ways to make money....after the Consumer Interest Deduction was phased out.

People were paying off their credit cards.

The only interest deduction left....was home mortage interest.

Subprime mortgage lending and Derivitives were born shortly after that.

Granted....there was government pressure to make subprime loans.

But, how do we know that the Housing Bubble would've occured....as badly as it occured....if people could've still been able to deduct their consumer interest?

 

 

199

Harvard Square now looks like Rodeo Drive.

 

tinyurl.com/cvfgdrf

200 What is the best thing about cities? Let me tell ya: The people within are so totally and completely dependant on the (incredibly fragile) system and modern technology to survive, that when the whole thing collapses they will be really, most sincerely fucked. Whilst little old country boy me will just adapt to the new reality. Not fun, but I will survive, and I won't have to eat my neighbor to do it.

201 192 Ditto ". . .wherever natural disasters strike, . . . " When the fuck did it become the working taxpaying citizens of the u.s.'s job to save the entire world everytime a flood or earthquake happens?!

202 Re: the larger, nefarious purposes of people such as these idiotic "money-empathy researchers" (WTF?!), look to the U.N.-created and -promoted and being-imposed-as-we-speak Agenda 21. You might take special interest in the Agenda 21 plans for "settlement" or "sustainable cities." http://bit.ly/LYIZ3z If you lack the patience (or the stomach!) to wade through documents in U.N.-ese, there's a LOT of stuff about Agenda 21 on YouTube, including this lecture: http://bit.ly/L46xzz

203 Late to this post, but I'd wager anything that charitable contributions (even adjusted as a percentage of disposable income) are higher in these "less empathetic" suburbs. Just a hunch.

204 Also I always LOL at liberals who whine about the mortgage interest deductuion and the FHA causing the creation of those horrible suburbs.  Those were both New Deal programs designed to stabilize the housing market after the Depression caused massive foreclosures.  Do these idiots really think some evil right-winger hypnotized our government and forced it to enact these policies that helped people get out of the city?

205 The problem with this ahistorical absolutist philosophy is that it cannot be done, and never has been in the history of the world. Like "true communism" or whatever, you just can't have this type of society.

No one claims that perfection is possible. It's the pursuit thereof that matters.

Giving into the idea that government can make men better is a bad idea. Can't beat 'em, so we should join 'em? 

Mankind is fallible. To say that some should be allowed to remake others in their own image is well, frankly contrary to everything the Founders expressed.

Hey, since you're ok with using economic 'incentives,' I'm sure you'd be happy to see some Democrats proposing tax incentives to live crowded cities, right? 

After all there are 'studies' by important scientists who know more than you do that show empirically that living in a city is good for society and our environment.

So, let's hear it for tax benefits for living in cities! 

206 If city living brings togetherness and integration, then why do lefty hipsters live in Williamsburg and not Crown Heights? Why Silverlake and not Boyle Heights?

Most cities are collections of segregated neighborhoods who only integrate when doing business downtown

207

Oh, so you're going to be the judge of whose productive, intelligent, and well-balanced, are you?Really?

Yes, he is. Because "he's right" dammit.


No, not because I'm "right" but because I have the collective wisdom of 1000 generations as a guide, and the statistical proof of educational outcomes, crime rates, and economic activity.

We need to have a fundamental discussion in this society about what it is we actually want.  We obviously don't want Sparta, where the state raises the children and forces everyone into their vocational mold.  But we don't want the oligarchical Athens, either. 

We don't want the "liberty" of the French revolution, or the "order" of the North Korean state.

But society DOES serve a purpose.  It DOES have an intent.  It MUST have a goal. 

Ifwe form government to ENCOURAGE liberty,  then we need to ask ourselves, what allows the greatest liberty to flourish.  An anarcho-capitalis commune is, I posit, not the surest guarantee of liberty.  At least not for most.

The Somali warlord is pretty fucking free, but few others are.  The framers wanted a society that would broadly allow liberty to flourish, and they conceived of doing so through "Social Engineering"  (OH, NOES!!!!111!)

So the state DOES exist to do more than provide an army and enforce contracts.  It does not exist to force people where to live and provide cradle to grave socialism.

There is plenty in between, though, and that should be what we as a society try to figure out.

Believe me, I'd like to just say "fouck it' and live on a hobby farm surrounded by motion sensors.  And I may.  That still won't fix the fundamental disconnect we are experiencing as a society.

208 Posted by: kbdabear at July 09, 2012 01:46 PM (Y+DPZ)

Or in the case of Crown Heights: when they want to kill some Jews.

209 hey entropy if they get rid of the mortgage interest deduction for individuals I'm going to rent my house out to a business I own so that I get the same deduction your landlord does because I will have been "social engineered" into doing so. if you're talking about getting rid of a legitimate business expense as a deduction for business, you're talking about taxing business on revenue not profit, which is even dumber.

210 Entropy said:

>Um, no, you clearly don't get it. It's the same one non-property owners don't >get.

>Why should your wealth be taxed less or more depending on what you >spend it on? That's called social engineering.

No, this isn't social engineering at all.  This is, like the initial poster said, leveling the playing field between businesses that own real estate and individuals.

Example, if I form a corp and buy an apartment building with financing, I get to deduct the interest from my proceeds of renting the apartments before I calculate my corporate income for taxation purposes? With me so far. You deduct the costs of doing business from proceeds to determine your taxable income.  This is basic.

Now, if the personal mortgage deduction didn't exist, it would cost the same person more after tax to borrow money to buy their own home than it would for them to buy rental property for their business.  WTF right?

So, without the mortgage interest deduction you'd have people creating S-Corps to buy their home and then rent it back to themselves for cost after deducting the interest as a business expense of course.  This would be marginally legal and from a tax perspective would be a wash with what we have now.

It isn't about social engineering at all.

211

BTW, I live in the Philadelphia suburbs and there is an immense number of charities and nonprofits out here that raise money and do things to help the poor who are stuck in the city.  Plus we go into the city and spend our money without burdening any of the city's services. 

 

We care a lot about the poor and want to help them to help themselves.  We just don't agree with liberals' definition of compassion as creating and enforcing a prison of dependency for the poor.  That's why we vote Republican!

212 Posted by: wheatie at July 09, 2012 01:44 PM (MbB0O)[i/]

I'm not sure that the end of interest deductions had much to do with anything.

The housing bubble was as a result of political expediency; not financial miscalculation.

213

Businesses get to deduct all the interest that they pay.

 

If the business is owned by a person they still pay income taxes for whatever they make, on top of whatever taxes the business pays.

214

215

 Plus we go into the city and spend our money without burdening any of the city's services.

----

I do when the Phiilies have a GOOD team.

216

Posted by: imp at July 09, 2012 01:47 PM (UaxA0)

 

Uh... the Founders had this exact discussion, and created this thing called the Constitution.   You know... the rules by which this society was supposed to work?

 

Now some of us LIKED that set of rules... but the federal Government, and others, have over riden a lot of the Freedoms we once had... and now the Nanny State is taking effect....

217

leveling the playing field between businesses that own real estate and individuals.

 

Oh.

 

Wait, what?  Did you just hear yourself? Goverments gots ta 'level the playing field' so it's 'fair' and you don't get raped by them evil biznesses?

218 >If the business is owned by a person they still pay income taxes for whatever they make, on top of whatever taxes the business pays.

Not if its a subchapter S corp. 

219 Is "businesses" a code word for "illegal mexicans" or "reptillian aliens" or something? It seems like they are not made of people but rather of something antithetical to people by the way the term is used.

220 So, let's hear it for tax benefits for living in cities!

Posted by: weft cut-loop at July 09, 2012 01:45 PM (sClIO)

 

 

-------------------------------------------------

 

 

No.  Let's not.

221 Everyone -- make sure to take the blue pill.

222 Forget it DanInMN, it's entropy.

223

Example, if I form a corp and buy an apartment building with financing, I get to deduct the interest from my proceeds of renting the apartments before I calculate my corporate income for taxation purposes? With me so far. You deduct the costs of doing business from proceeds to determine your taxable income. This is basic.

 

Yes. Now the "business" has eleventy-billion dollars. However, you can only (legally) spend it on business expenses or investments.

 

If you want to put it in your pocket, voila - individual income taxes.

224 >Wait, what? Did you just hear yourself? Goverments gots ta 'level the playing field' so it's 'fair' and you don't get raped by them evil biznesses?

Are you a fucking imbecile or what? Can you read? Its been explained to your dumb ass, nicely I might add, several times in this thread and you still don't seem to get it.  One can only conclude that you are either being intentionally obtuse or you're a fucking idiot.  Which is it?

225 Posted by: imp at July 09, 2012 01:47 PM (UaxA0)

The founders understood that the social strictures of government could guide behavior, but they also understood that it wasn't a good idea to exercise the power that enforced those strictures. That way lies despotism.

Nobody here is arguing for anarchy. But the goal should be to minimize government control over decisions made by the individual, as long as those decisions will not adversely affect others.

For all I know, home ownership is the holy grail of society, but it is not the business of government to guide society to that end. It is the business of government to enforce the laws that allow a level playing field, so you can make that decision on your own, and I can make the opposite choice without penalty or favoritism from government.

226 To the extent "businesses" have an "advantage" it is because they are being treated differently in the first place. As if business profit should be the same as individual income for purposes of income taxation.

227

@213

People started taking out 2nd Mortgages....to pay off their credit cards, charge accounts, etc.....after the Consumer Interest Deduction was eliminated.

 

They did this, to be able to still be able to deduct the interest on that debt.

This added debt is what has caused a lot of homeowners to be 'underwater' on their homes.

228 Wow! Great thread guys. Love the tax argument. I tend to side more with Entropy. People in government will always aspire to some ideal demographic or moral goal- it's human nature. Making it impossible to use the *taxation tool* for these quasi-religious intents can only make government more humane. They'll have to persuade rather than command. Me on twitter: @laurww I don't tweet much, though.

229 Does this "economist" really not know that the mortgage interest deduction applies to property owned in cities as well as suburbs?

230 >Yes. Now the "business" has eleventy-billion dollars.

No dumbfuck, the corp is going to show *zero* dollars of income, pay no taxes, and not pass go.  Its a shell that I pass money through to get preferential tax treatment.  I'm done, you're either a troll or a moron (not the good kind.)

231 No, not because I'm "right" but because I have the collective wisdom of 1000 generations as a guide, and the statistical proof of educational outcomes, crime rates, and economic activity. Posted by: imp

Argument from authority, see Special Pleading.

We need to have a fundamental discussion in this society about what it is we actually want. We obviously don't want Sparta, where the state raises the children and forces everyone into their vocational mold. But we don't want the oligarchical Athens, either.

We don't want the "liberty" of the French revolution, or the "order" of the North Korean state.

Strawman, variation of the Either/Or routine.

But society DOES serve a purpose. It DOES have an intent. It MUST have a goal.

It?  You mean a small group should be allowed to determine what is to be productive, wise, and good.

If we form government to ENCOURAGE liberty, then we need to ask ourselves, what allows the greatest liberty to flourish. An anarcho-capitalis commune is, I posit, not the surest guarantee of liberty. At least not for most.

Strawman. No one is arguing for zero criminal law.

The Somali warlord is pretty fucking free, but few others are. The framers wanted a society that would broadly allow liberty to flourish, and they conceived of doing so through "Social Engineering" (OH, NOES!!!!111!)

Strawman in Zulu outfit, screaming apparently.

So the state DOES exist to do more than provide an army and enforce contracts. It does not exist to force people where to live and provide cradle to grave socialism.

When you empower pols and bureaucrats to decide what is good, productive, etc, you necessarily empower socialism, whether the small kind of  that most Americans are willing to play along with (SocSec, welfare, etc.) or the large-scale fascism into which we are sliding.

Again the argument is not for zero Fed government; it's an argument for less something less than a byzantine monster of a Federal Government.

232 i would have to say that exactly the opposite is true.

233 Laura:
Take a trundle over to Sipsey Street Irregulars and peruse Mike's post on: The Little Blue Book. You may find it amusing.

234 Posted by: wheatie at July 09, 2012 01:59 PM (MbB0O)

That's an interesting point, but do the numbers add up?

Credit card interest rates have always been ridiculous. 15%-25% (and sometimes higher). So swapping that interest rate for a low, secured rate is a good thing, even if you lose the deduction.

The housing bubble was caused by politics, not by finance. Banks were forced to accept loan applications from people who could not pay off the loans. Eventually that will cause problems.

235

So, without the mortgage interest deduction you'd have people creating S-Corps to buy their home and then rent it back to themselves for cost after deducting the interest as a business expense of course.

 

Quelle horreur.

 

All of which relies on gaming the intricacies of the insane 70,000 page abomination I am arguing against...

236 Believe me, I'd like to just say "fouck it' and live on a hobby farm surrounded by motion sensors. And I may. That still won't fix the fundamental disconnect we are experiencing as a society.

Posted by: imp at July 09, 2012 01:47 PM (UaxA0)

 

 

---------------------------------------------

 

 

There will always be a disconnection  in society.  It's called freedom of thought and speech.  Freedom is messy.  All those people wanting to do things the way they think it should be done.  Competition.  Religion.  Politics.   Lifestyle.   Messy.  Messy. 

 

 

 

237

I'm done, you're either a troll or a moron (not the good kind.)

 

You really think what I am advocating is we just cut that 1 line from the 70,000 page tax code and leave the rest the same, and everything is peachy? Is that what you think?

238

The Somali warlord

 

That is like the go-to thing to accuse libertarians of wanting to go to an islamic theocracy because a stalemate between various warlords has created a state described as 'anarchy'.

 

It is all the rage among people who see no difference between a broccoli mandate and murder 1.

 

Apparently to them being free means having the freedom to murder people you catch dancing.

 

False dichotomy much?

239 Having to step over stinking piss-soaked drunks and punching hoods and beggars in the face has always done wonders for my empathy.

240

Hur hur hur if you don't like government why don't you move to Mars, there is no government on Mars!

 

Libertarians are hypocrites, if they were consistent they would advocate for life without atmosphere. But they want to have their atmosphere and just be hypocrits and criticize the government that gives us our atmosphere unlike on lawless Mars.

241 There, but for the grace of God, go I. Really, I'm just one bad break away from beating up old ladies for their foodstamps.

242

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (NJConservative) at July 09, 2012 02:04 PM (nEUpB)

 

Actually, CBD....if you look back....the 'Housing Boom' began shortly after the Consumer Interest Deduction was taken away. 

 

Mortgage Interest was the only interest deduction left...to consumers.

People who had never even wanted to mess with home ownership....soon saw it as the way to go. 

 

Banks even began offering 'Revolving Credit Lines' tied to home mortages.

Credit cards....tied to home mortages.

 

Poorer people....people with bad credit....were unable to participate in these new credit lines....because they were not homeowners.

So that was when the whole "You must give mortages to these people too" thing, was seized upon by the Left.

This was the mid-90's.

That was when Barky....working as a lawyer for ACORN....sued Citibank, to make an example of them, for all the other banks to see.

They 'crucified' Citibank....to make an example of them.

Then....this is what kicked off the Subprime Lending mess that led to the Housing Bubble....which led to the crash.

243 In the city, the well off live in neighborhoods that are policed by hundreds of cop to keep those poor folk the hell out, and have nice locked doors on every entrance to keep away any that might sneak past the cordon.

244 Do you know what happens when you stuff a bunch of rats all high-density like in an urban-like environment? Cannibalistic gay orgies.

245 Cannibalistic gay orgies. Go on.

246

>>

he rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people. It makes them more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, a**holes.<<

 

Well, that does explain George Soros and Barbra Streisand.

247 I would bet that "empathy" of those living in Billy Ayers Hyde Park neighborhood would drop a whole lot if they were beaten to a pulp in downtown Chicago by those poor unfortunates they love so much

Posted by: kbdabear at July 09, 2012 01:22 PM (Y+DPZ)

When I lived in Hyde Park a bunch of kids threw a bottle at me.  I was empathetic enough to break it on the sidewalk and throw it back.

It's all about the sharing and caring.

248 I'll die before I buy a condo or rent an apartment in a city. Just saying. The stress of constantly hearing heighbours, music, fighting, loud pipes, and other city sounds is almost enough to make me bleed internally. I'm just special that way, I guess.

You know what warms my heart? The occasional online bleating from leftish urbanites that so much of city planning is based around roads and cars.

249 I think you are off by about 10 years. The roots of the housing mess were in the mid-1980s, with good old bank deregulation and the CRA being two significant reasons.

Posted by: wheatie at July 09, 2012 02:17 PM (MbB0O)

 

250 Posted by: wheatie at July 09, 2012 02:17 PM (MbB0O)

Oops! Just checked...Interest Deduction was eliminated in 1986.

251 The first two sentences of this piece...very funny.

252

250 I think you are off by about 10 years. The roots of the housing mess were in the mid-1980s, with good old bank deregulation and the CRA being two significant reasons.

 

Oh, you're right about that, CBD.

The CRA was the beginning.

 

The CRA was just sitting there....like toxic waste....and not being enforced.

Once banks crossed over the line and began offering Credit Lines tied to home mortgages.....it gave ACORN and Barky a new way to enforce it.

It gave them a new element to argue that...."You are being descriminatory against poor people!"

253 "he rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people." Whose interests are prioritized by the unwealthy person who breaks into others' houses to steal their kids' video game consoles?

254

251...Oops! Just checked...Interest Deduction was eliminated in 1986.

 

Yeah. That was when it was passed.

But it was phased out gradually....during the Bush years, Bush the elder.

It had a contracting effect on the economy as a whole.

People stopped buying as much....stopped charging as much.

255 Vouchers for private schools would make a much bigger difference in keeping higher-income people in the cities than changing the mortgage interest deduction would. Most higher-income people would still buy homes if they stayed in the city. But they're much more likely to feel they need to pay for private schools if they live in the city.

256

It had a contracting effect on the economy as a whole.
People stopped buying as much....stopped charging as much.

 

You are very sure this is a bad thing? That everyone is not so much in constant debt? To a business (a corporation!) no less...

257

Whose interests are prioritized by the unwealthy person who breaks into others' houses to steal their kids' video game consoles?

 

Society's.

 

He's helping the poor.

258 Suburbanites: Reptile-Brained, Or Just Heartless Bastards? Who says we can't be both?

259

257....You are very sure this is a bad thing? That everyone is not so much in constant debt? To a business (a corporation!) no less...

 

No.

I am merely pointing out the progression of it.

"Good thing"....."bad thing"....?

The government intervention into the private sector is....the 'bad thing'.

And that began about a hundred years ago.

The mess that we are in right now is a culmination of a lot of 'bad things'....a lot of bad ideas, that the government has forced on us.

260 Suburbanites: Reptile-Brained, Or Just Heartless Bastards? You say "reptile-brained" like its a bad thing...

261 people are incredibly stupid about this issue. I guess the only way to get the economic dumbasses of the left and the right to think it would be fair would be to require the landlords to let their renters take the mortgage interest deduction instead. wait, what? your rent went up by the same or more than the deduction netted you? that's why you're a dumbass.

262

Hi, I'm hutch, and a 71 acre asshole.

It all started when my '66 Buick GS convertible got a  hit & run, our 3rd car this happened to. When I found the guy 4days later it cost me a week in jail. FUCK you Scranton! 

263

wait, what? your rent went up by the same or more than the deduction netted you? that's why you're a dumbass.

 

Wow, not even in the ballpark. The whole thing is just about cash to you? If I gave you $50,000 would you STFU and go with whatever?

264

How bout people who don't have a mortgage because they are free and clear?

 

Tell me Swanson, do you work for a fucking lender?

265

Look at it this way.

 

If a business buys a bunch of office supplies, they can write it off as operating expenses and not get taxed on that money!

 

But if a person buys a bunch of office supplies for his house, he has to pay income tax on the money he used to buy it! The corporations have an unfair advantage!

 

We need to level the playing field and allow individuals to deduct office supplies for home stationary! Otherwise people will just form shell corporations to launder their office supplies through while getting a tax deduction.

 

If a business buys a car or truck...

266

The further out you get, the MORE dependant you are on your nieghbor. I plow everybodies drive in my area. Makes up for loud Harleys ripping to my place, at normal hours. I do it 'cuz I can. Somebody leaves me cookies?? An old guy down the road taught me to weld, and gave me all his equipment, since his "Son he raised wrong cain't use it in the city". We take turns using generators when the power is out, 2 hours at my house, 2 @ yours etc..My kids use the neighbors pool, and I take those kids, anybodies actually, waterskiing.  I got a bathroom re-modeled for using my tractors post-hole digger when my neighbor wanted 300' of picket fence, about 40 holes in a few hours. A DEAL, I tell ya. And when produce is ripe, I live good!

We work on the old fashioned BARTER system alot. Can't tax that, so maybe that's why they hate us?

267

"Erzo P. F. Luttmer",  "Paul Piff",  "Money-Empath researcher"....  

This is IowaHawk, right?

268 This is IowaHawk, right?

Posted by: 66chevelle at July 09, 2012 03:34 PM (QjSgY

Why yes, it wouldn't surprise me a bit. And why is higher ED so expensive again? How do ya get that gig? Maybe I'm not Cherokee enough? But I do like their cream soda.

269 The home mortgage interest deduction sucks.
That is all.

270 BTW 66chevelle, 327,? PowerGlide?

271 >>>Tell me Swanson, do you work for a fucking lender? no. Tell me entropy, do you pay rent? is that why you want special treatment for landlords? why are you falling for a leftist talking point?

272 btw, my interest rate and mortgage balance are so low now, the mortgage interest deduction doesn't net me a thing.

273 He's helping the poor.

Posted by: entropy at July 09, 2012 02:41 PM (TULs6)

They should be out on the street getting some exercise.

274

Tell me entropy, do you pay rent? is that why you want special treatment for landlords?

 

No, I have a mortgage.

why are you falling for a leftist talking point?

 

When did you stop beating your wife?

275

267....We work on the old fashioned BARTER system alot. Can't tax that, so maybe that's why they hate us?

Posted by: hutch1200 at July 09, 2012 03:33 PM (Xx6Lw)

 

Actually....they can tax barter transactions.

If they know about them.

So, bartering should be like Fight Club....you don't talk about it.

 

 

276

is that why you want special treatment for landlords?

Wierd. Are you trying to switch arguments with me?

277

the only way to get the economic dumbasses of the left and the right to think it would be fair would be to require the landlords to let their renters take the mortgage interest deduction instead.

 

Somebody clearly hasn't been paying attention to anything anyone else said.

 

You think I want to give renters a mortgage interest deduction???? Really?

278

Posted by: hutch1200 at July 09, 2012 03:38 PM (Xx6Lw)

It's my son's toy car.  I can only pretend while driving my crew-cab P/U.

279

They should be out on the street getting some exercise.

 

Posted by: FLOTUS at July 09, 2012 04:20 PM (0It32)

 

Or working in the WH garden...oh, wait. That's slavery...no, just sharecropping...no, slavery's better, because it has a rich tradition is Muslim societies.

 

Maybe I'd better consult Lakoff's Little Blue Book.

280 Yeah, why can't we be more like Parisians....and put our housing projects far, far away from the (Disneyworld for the rich) city center...

281

I know a bunch of college faculty and administrators who live in school-provided homes. They pay nothing to live in area of nice homes filled with other like-minded professors and administrators. Housing, including mortgage payments, are just another abstract concept to them.

 

282

One thing you will discover

When youget next to one another

Is everybody needs elbow room, elbow room.

 

It's nice when you're kind of cozy, but

Not when you're tangled nose-to-nosey, oh

Everybody needs some elbow, needs a little elbow room.

283 Hey! I resemble that remark!

284 Obama is a stuttering clusterf*ck of a miserable failure.

285 Don't know if this was mentioned already, but during his 2008 campaign, Obama said that home ownership shouldn't be part of the American dream. 

286 I've lived in small towns, middle of the desert Air Force bases, mid sized cities, and one large city, Hong Kong. In that last, I didn't get accosted by beggars, have people engage in screaming fights/all night parties downstairs, endure thunderous bass from assholes' stereos, have the environs trashed, or have cops all over the place that one must try to not gain the attention of. Those things didn't happen on the AFBs either, but my point is that it is not the area that causes the problem. It is the culture.