Searching for value
Here’s the first page of a snapshot review prepared for the MN Senate Committee on Health and Human Services.
This data is for children specifically, but I bet the message for other groups is the same. There is a need for more services. The flow, as with many socially supported endeavors, is the lack of coverage leads people to use more expensive services- in this case emergency room visits.
Do more today, to prevent expenses tomorrow.
Not just any asylum – one that was built in the middle of a farm field in a small Minnesota town on the railroad line between St. Paul and Fargo. The last surviving Kirkbride Building that was designed by Dr. Thomas Kirkbride: a complex of four-story structures creating an arc to maximize light and hence health benefits. At 700,000 finished square feet (TPT), the Fergus Falls (formerly) State Hospital is a lot to take care of.
If footage is hard to visualize, here are some comparisons as listed by The Measure of Things. The facility is three fourths as big as Alcatraz (960,000), two times as big as the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool (339,000), and half as big as the Pentagon (1,490,000). In addition to the main buildings, there was a power plant, a gymnasium, a workshop, maintenance buildings, a rehab center, a nurses’ quarters, and acres of cropland which sustained the facility.
On a recent tour I captured a few shots.
Over its one hundred and twenty-year history, there were good times and bad. Built before the turn of the twentieth century, at its peak, it housed 1800-2000 patients. The years of overcrowding led to criticism, which in turn was addressed. The tour guide from the Ottertail Historical Society narrated a balanced set of stories from personal experiences as written in journals, to newspaper articles, to reviews given to the facility from state inspectors.
State-run institutions became an unpopular means of managing mental health patients starting in the 1980s. The trend at the time was to return individuals back into the communities for care. The hospital’s population decreased until it was closed by the state in 2007. Shortly thereafter, the property was sold to the city of Fergus Falls, a community of 14,000.
The conundrum now is what to do with these structures? A commercial building on an acreage site would get bought out and redevelopped, as is underway at the Prudential Site. Even when the buildings are in decent shape, the value of the land makes the numbers work to pull down the structure and replot the acreage for further development.
Over a few posts, I’ll discuss why this scenario is different. Of course, the location in a rural area, an hour away from the Fargo airport is a factor. The condition of the buildings comes into play in redevelopment costs. The historical designation impacts the outcome. So what is it? What is the highest and best use for a historic asylum?
Upon a recommendation from a friend, I’m delightfully plowing through Anna Karenina. I had yet to tackle the great Russian novelists, and now I see I’ve been missing out. Tolstoy wrote AK over a four-year period in the 1870s, with its first publication appearing in 1878. The title may lead one to think the story is only about a socialite who betrays her husband, but this is not the case. Over the nearly one-thousand-page book, Tolstoy touches all layers of Russian society and a great many facets of human nature. It is a remarkable book.
On more than one occasion the author distinguishes between private interests and public concerns. Levin is a country squire who is preoccupied with bringing agricultural pursuits to a new level. He contemplates all angles of farming. In particular, he expresses a need to invigorate the ambitions of the labor force. Tolstoy depicts various arrangements throughout the novel, including a family farm, hired workers, and leaseholders. It’s important to note that the emancipation of the serfs happened in 1861.
He is desperate to engage the workers for his estate, to key into their motivation. Here is how he frames his ambition:
I need only push on steadily toward my aim and I shall achieve it,’ he thought, ‘and it is worth working and striving for. It is not a personal affair of my own but one of public welfare. The whole system of farming, and above all the position of the people, must be completely altered: instead of poverty – wealth and satisfaction for all; instead of hostility-concord and a bond of common interest. In a word-a revolution bloodless but immense; first in our own small district, then throughout the province, throughout Russia, and the whole world-for a good thought must be fruitful. Yes, it is an aim worth working for! The fact that the author of it is myself, Constantine Levin,…
For Tolstoy, a combination of motive in the private and the public is possible.
Government is really good at saying ‘no.’ Rule-making is all about saying “don’t do this” and “don’t do that.” Sometimes solving problems means saying yes. Like, yes, we can fix that stinky, polluting car. In steps the philanthropic entrepreneur, Environmental Initiative.
Launched in 2017, Project CAR works with local car repair shops to cover the cost of fixing emissions control and exhaust systems for qualifying lower-income Minnesotans. Nearly 600 cars have been repaired since the program began, eliminating 32 tons of emissions. Project CAR is focused on fixing the estimated 25% of passenger vehicles that cause 90% of vehicle air pollution in Minnesota.
Folks who are driving the car which contributes the most to declining air quality are also stretched by other priorities.
Cathy Heying, executive director and founder of The Lift Garage, an established partner of Project CAR, praised the program’s expansion, expressing enthusiasm for the collective impact such partnerships can generate. “Customers come in with all sorts of needs, and, often, environmental impact is not their top priority due to cost constraints. So, this program is amazing because customers want to do the right thing for the environment and this program allows them to do that while also improving their car’s functionality,” she said.
This non-profit ends up offering a two-for-one. They provide people with transportation to go about their daily lives and they reduce a negative externality to the local public. All this without interfering with the owners’ everyday flow of finances and obligations.
What other low hanging fruit are our there for the entrepreneurs to capture?
The Hennepin County Commissioners just voted to raise their pay by 49%. Sometimes this is justified, when the starting pay is unreasonably low. A large percent of a very small number is still a small number. But here the Commissioners were already at what people in this part of the US would consider a nice salary.
District 2 member Irene Fernando proposed the pay raise during Tuesday’s Administration, Operations, and Budget Committee meeting. The proposal would increase the current salary cap for commissioners from $122,225 to $182,141.
According to Fred, this figure is double of the per capita income in the state.
The commissioners stated that this new amount brings their wage in line with other county executives. But is this a fair comparison? Should elected officials be motivated to serve and then draw an adequat salary? Or should the salary be the motivator to run for office?
The Governor chooses to take home only $127K a year. He seems to think that part of the prize is the job, not the wage.
A strong monetary motivation can also produce golden handcuffs. It’s commonly accepted that incumbent county officials (or city coucil people for that matter) rarely loose their position in an election. Their name recognition and familiarity with the constituents often secures their job. Is it a good idea to pay out a salary that would be tough to duplicate elsewhere and thus encourage someone to stick with it once they’ve lost interest in the spirit of the work?
When I was young, I often heard that jobs from teachers to government positions were done with a spirit of public service. That generation appears to have retired from the workforce.
The Savior must have been
A docile Gentleman—
To come so far so cold a Day
For little Fellowmen—
The Road to Bethlehem
Since He and I were Boys
Was leveled, but for that ‘twould be
A rugged Billion Miles—
Often, the merits of a transaction are given from the perspective of a single agent in the trade. An assembly line-worker lost their job when the plant was moved to another location. This is bad. The worker suffered a loss. Quickly, within sentences, the effect is generalized to all the workers in the plant, town or even region. The Experience of the middle aged white guy who is difficult to retrain and find meaningful work of the same quality is the catalyst for all sorts of feelings and demands for government intervention.
Do you see the slide? From a valid totaling up of wins and losses for one individual turned into a model involving segments of society.
It’s important to declare which model is in play as this dictates whether the players are individuals or groups, whether the tally of net benefit or loss is assigned to one or to many, and perhaps most interestingly the flow of reaction and counterreaction as value settles in the system. More interesting insights surface when consequential outcomes are looked at in a flow of events.
Think back to the time of the 2008 recession. Say one buyer purchased a home at the peak of the housing market with a three-year adjustable ARM. When the ARM recalculated in 2011, the buyer’s payment adjusted upwards to an amount beyond their ability to pay. Due to the recession, the value of the home had decreased below the mortgage balance. The buyer ends up in a familiar situation at that time and loses the property to foreclosure. This is a clear loss.
But say every other homeowner in the neighborhood had owned their homes for more than ten years. None of them were interested in selling until after 2015. These individuals realized no impact from the value changes during the recession expcept to see their assessed values decline resulting in lower property taxes. As a neighborhood the effects of the recession were uneventful.
In the plant closure story, there were most probably workers who ended up better off for the closure. Perhaps it encouraged them to return to school to achieve an updated skill. At the other end of work life, perhaps someone nearing retirement ended up with a more favorable retirement package. Getting people to think of workers as a mass might be useful for unions, but loses a finess of obeservation for analysis.
It seems, to have a profitable discussion, one must pick a playing field. If you want to pick a town, then the players are all the workers, their economic impact on local services, and the support available through the municipality’s local services. Who netted out what and where did the money settle in time periods 1, 2, and 3 following a plant closure. If there was a draw of support from a higher level of governance, maybe the playing field needs to be moved up a rung to the county level, or to the region within the state. The players then get expanded to blend in other economic agents and their positive and negative tallies.
Instead, the story is usually told like some mid-19th century Russian novel. The peasants were persecuted and the capitalists must be blamed! This is not helpful.
I say, yes, without a doubt. Home-cooked food is worth pursuing.
I got wind of a family that was going through a rough time, so I dropped off dinner: a pan of chicken alfredo in penne pasta, Brussels sprouts, buns, and a pan of blond brownies (minus a test brownie to be sure it met grade). I wasn’t even out of their neighborhood before I received a thank-you text. And then I heard later through mutual friends that the food was deemed delicious.
An unexpected gift is often a delight. A gift of a meal just as one is getting hungry is bound to taste better than reheated leftovers. Still, I believe the appreciation for the food is in part because it did not arrive in takeout boxes.
If one is a careful counter of costs, then one will be impressed by the price difference between made-from-scratch and prepared foods. It is substantial. There are lots of financial incentives to spend a little time with the church ladies’ cookbooks and fine-tune a repertoire of family-friendly options. I’d guess, on average, the ratio is 1:3 or 1:4, even with substitutes like Subway. It’s simply so much cheaper to learn to cook!
I won’t sugar coat the drugery of the educational experience. The peppering of complaints from the kitchen table of a missing this or a what if you tried that can almost push one over the edge on the right day. The hang time is worth it, though. When they return from college campuses begging you for a home cooked meal you are blessed with one more affirmation that you did something right. Vindication comes in many forms.
A local writer-comedian asks on X:
Here are some of the eighty-four responses which rolled onto the thread in just a few hours.
The benefit to volunteer hours is that at every donation an individual evaluates the worth of their time against the mission at hand. This anarchist form of dispensing goodwill will never exceed the need and hence avoids fraud. It also is given with the lowest possible overhead.
Zoning is not a taking by the government. Zoning is a means for a population to control the neighborhood where they live. Whether they bought into the single-family setting, or whether they zoned the corner bar out of their neighborhood, it’s the neighbors’ call.
There’s no shortage of desire for control. So accept zoning. It’s here to stay.
That’s what Michel de Montaigne thought about.
Montaigne was not pitying himself; rather, he was using the criticism of more ambitious contemporary works as a symptom of a deleterious impulse to think that the truth always has to lie far from us, in another climate, in an ancient library, in the books of people who lived long ago. It is a question of whether access to genuinely valuable things is limited to a handful of geniuses bom between the construction of the Parthenon and the sack of Rome, or whether, as Montaigne daringly proposed, they may be open to you and me as well.
Vacant properties are not popular with municipalities. Cities create a vacant land registry to keep a running log of properties that do not host residents. Here are directions from the town of Brookhaven New York.
There is no longer a requirement to submit a notarized application or payment through the mail – it is all available online. The cost to register is $360 for the year and can be paid through our secure online platform.
Please be advised, that any owner, or agent of an owner acting on behalf of the owner, who fails to register a vacant building or to pay any fees required to be paid pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 87, within 30 days after they become due, shall constitute a violation punishable upon conviction thereof by a fine in the amount of not less than $1,000 nor more than $15,000 for each failure to register, or for each failure to pay a required vacant building registration fee.
The amount of the fine implies that full buildings are of value to the hamlet. Perhaps, in part, this is due to the services a resident will take up once they walk up their sidewalk every day to their front door. Perhaps having people come and go in the neighborhood keeps everyone more secure. Here are the benefits as expressed by the bureaucrats.
Registrant’s point of contact will be notified by phone and/or email of issues that may arise such as:
- Property maintenance (tall grass, litter on property, etc.)
- When the Town is notified by law enforcement of unauthorized occupancy
- If property becomes unsecure.
When properties are registered, the Town will have contact information and will have the opportunity to notify the owner/property manager to correct any issues before taking action. This will save the property owner money.
The city of Miami goes one step further and requires the owners post a no-tresspassing sign and authorize their police force to enter the property should a need for their services become apparent.
Install No Trespassing Sign
Once you’ve submitted your forms, you’ll need to install a No Trespassing sign on the property (this can be any sign purchased any where).
Although it may never cross your mind, your comings and goings every day in your neighborhood and place of business are a public service.
BTW- National averages are less than helpful. The Great Recession taught us they can be outrightly deceptive.
Johann Sebastian Bach wrote four further Kyrie–Gloria Masses, BWV 233–236. These compositions, consisting of the first two sections of the Mass ordinary (i.e. the Kyrie and the Gloria), have been indicated as Missae breves (Latin for “short masses”) or Lutheran Masses.
A lake
A swing
A book
A perfect summer afternoon
All the cool kids are doing it. An externality occurs when an activity with a commercial goal creates a positive or negative impact on parties outside of the transaction. The classic example is the manufacturing plant polluting the water with their waste. The community downstream suffers a negative impact. Or consider a drug dealer taking up business alongside the playground at the local park. The neighbors no longer use the public park which is there for their use.
The plant and all those who benefit from its production internalize a gain from not properly disposing of their waste, which pushes out a cost to the people downstream. The dealer accesses a young group of clients internalizing a gain from his location while the neighbors suffer the loss. But what about the other way around? A small group forms a club to advocate literacy. They offer extra help in the local schools and give out scholarships to new high school graduates. They lose their time, which could have been spent on something else, so that the local youth may internalize the gain from extra tutoring. Perhaps a company agrees to locate to a small town under the condition the municipality brings in internet infrastructure. The townspeople internalize the benefit of the corporate relocation.
All this talk seems to suggest there are groups of people who are either on the inside or on the outside. The lines are porous, but exist. What if there were a group who had gotten a bad rap for an extended period of time – and it was considered beneficial to come to their aid in some way? Wouldn’t it make sense to place them in locations where other groups have the knack of externalizing benefits to others? That way, no direct interference messes with the balance in their lives. The positive externalities show up in the serendipitous manner of access.
When’s the last time you thought about your mattress? Probably when you were out looking to buy one. There are products like that. We are in the market for a new one so rarely that we forget they are a commodity. It turns out, mattress manufacturers are getting hit hard by the slowdown in real estate transactions.
It’s pretty common to hear about the effects of home sales on the home improvement industry. New buyers put around eighty percent of their upgrades into a new home within the first six months of ownership. No moves means no dissatisfaction with the status quo, which means far fewer trips to Menards, Home Depot, and Lowes.
As with many things, it’s a combinations of factors hitting the mattress makers. More and more buyers are purchasing on-line. Victoria Freeman at the Manhattan Institute (MI) writes:
Brick-and-mortar storefronts are suffering the most because mattress demand has recently shifted toward online sales. As shown below, the ‘mattress-in-a-box’ model has risen in popularity – while only 27% of consumers would purchase a mattress online in 2016, 47% would do so in 2020. Younger consumers, who tend to prefer online shopping, are driving this change.
A change of shopping venue has given an edge to those who ship and are able to undercut price.
In particular, Chinese exporters often sell through Amazon rather than setting up a U.S. storefront because it minimizes the length of the supply chain, cutting costs. On Amazon, a Queen size mattress from China can thus sell for less than $175 – a marked bargain compared to the average price of around $1,000. The consequence of consumers’ savings on mattresses, though, is that domestic mattress producers are losing market share and hence cutting jobs.
As someone who is often frustrated at not being able to touch and feel before I purchase, I wonder how this will go. If a mattress simply shows up at your home, will the consumer get what they want, or will the mattress be too firm or too soft? And what’s the deal with those inflatable or rather expandable mattresses? Do they really hold their shape long term?
Mostly it’s interesting to note the instigator of a shifting mattress market is the real estate sales slowdown. Markets are unpredictable, spontaneous, and fun to follow.
by Andrew Wyeth, 1947
I find this painting captivating. How can one see what cannot be seen other than through the influences it creates on surrounding elements? The frail, sheer curtain tells us the strength of the breeze. Two tire treads show us the path it blows in from the sea. If you were able to reach into the frame and touch the white hot paint on the sill, it would be warm to the touch. Shadows and darkness show us a sun high in the sky, slightly to the front of the building, the voile catching glints of light well into the dingy room.
Disclosures are often used to inform consumers in the early stages of a transaction. They are especially popular when there is thought to be an imbalance of savoir-faire between the parties. The idea is that if the consumers really knew what they were in for, they would have made another decision. This conclusion might have been drawn under suspicion that the vendors are hiding material facts. Or one might think this is a bit haughty and judgy on the part of the regulator putter-togetherers. This implies that consumers cannot do a little research and inform themselves before making a decision. Either way, all other things equal, more information is better than less information, right?
Maybe.
Gathering information is part of any worthwhile transaction. Only after a review of alternatives can a purchasers feel confident that their decision best suits their needs. At the beginning of the process they may feel confident in their priorities only to have them challenged. They may walk in thinking they’re buying a sedan and drive out in an SUV.
In addition to supporting a spirit of investigation, it is to the consumers’ benefit to learn early on that to be vigilant in their interactions. A good shopper will ask questions and compare answers. An environment of abundant disclosures might lead people to believe that they will be told what is best for them. And everytime they feel they could have done better, they will wonder why no one was there to guide them.
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.
Mere Christianity, by CS Lewis
The Death of Stalin, set in the Soviet Union in 1953, is endlessly funny, but more absurdist than those earlier works. The story spins off from real events. When Josef Stalin suffers a stroke and collapses, guards are so fearful of entering his room that he is left on the floor in a puddle of urine for hours. In the aftermath of his death, his closest ministers, who once trembled at his every glance, begin their scramble for power. As they do, Iannucci masterfully blends dark humour about an authoritarian regime and farcical comedy performed with perfect timing.
BBC
This book is quite good. But I think I give it extra credit because of the visuals.
Milwaukee Avenue Historic District, Minneapolis
1883
Real estate agent William Ragan purchases four blocks in Minneapolis to develop high-density housing for the growing numbers of immigrant workers coming to the city.
1890
Ragan’s development, along what comes to be known as 22 ½ Avenue, is completed.
1906
The residents of 22 ½ Avenue petition for the name of their street to be changed to Woodland Avenue. It changes to Milwaukee Avenue instead, perhaps because of the nearby Milwaukee Railroad.
1970
The houses of Milwaukee Avenue are run down due to suburban growth and disinvestment in city neighborhoods since the 1950s.
1970
The Minneapolis Housing and Redevelopment Authority plans to demolish most of the western portion of the Seward Neighborhood, including Milwaukee Avenue, as part of their urban renewal plan. This inspires citizens to organize to stop demolition.
1971
Activists who oppose the renewal plan gain control of the Seward West Project Area Committee.
1973
Tense negotiations between the PAC and MHRA motivate Jeri Reilly and Robert Roscoe of the PAC to form the Milwaukee Avenue Planning Team with Bill Schatzlein and Bob Scroggins of the MHRA to discuss how to advance the redevelopment plan.
1973
The Milwaukee Avenue Planning Team launches a study to determine the feasibility of rehabilitation.
1974
Milwaukee Avenue receives its designation from the National Register of Historic Places on May 2.
1974
The MHRA gives up on its demolition plan and begins to support the Milwaukee Area Planning Team’s recommendations for rehabilitation.
1975
Rehabilitation begins on three Milwaukee Avenue houses in October.
1975
The Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission designates Milwaukee Avenue a historic district.
2007
Milwaukee Avenue celebrates its thirtieth anniversary of rehabilitation with a self-guided walking tour of eight of the restored homes The Preservation Alliance of Minnesota organizes the event.
2015
The Milwaukee Avenue Homeowners Association (MAHA), sponsored by the Seward Neighborhood Group (SNG), receives grant money to install a bronze plaque on Milwaukee Avenue describing the district’s evolution and historic status.
I like Frederick Melo- Reporter. He knows how to sum up a message in a few words. Here are some captions from the public at a city council meeting.
Grain elevators are as prevalent in towns across the Midwest as the corner bar, the grocer, and the three local churches (Lutheran, Catholic, and Presbyterian), or at least in towns on the railroad lines. As the open prairie became home to new arrivals, farmers broke open the soil and turned it into grain fields. Upon harvest, they took their product to the elevators until it was shipped down to the grain exchanges.
This one isn’t as rustic looking as some. The interior wood planking has been covered with a shield of aluminum siding. The structures are known to burn. As they have been decommissioned, local firefighters have set them ablaze for training purposes. Once their original use was replaced by larger shiny cylinders of metal, their new purpose served the community. For one last dramatic day, the flames leap and lick at the side walls as trainees in the safety business try to tame their destructive nature.
Back when they illustrated beautiful graphic novels.
Does affordable housing vary in quality based on location? Or is it simply a category of housing no different than a category of a car or a type of breakfast cereal? If you can use the home to shelter a household whose income falls below an acceptable level, then the property adequately meets its intended value.
A group of black pastors, led by Dr. Alfred Babington-Johnson, thinks location does matter. They are suing Minnesota Housing, an agency responsible for the allocation of public funds to subsidized housing, for exacerbating a household’s access to success by predominantly building in areas serviced by weak institutions.
A prominent voice among Black Twin Cities ministers, Babington-Johnson sued Minnesota Housing and the Metropolitan Council last year, arguing that state and regional efforts to build affordable housing effectively have backfired, increasing racial segregation while concentrating poverty in poor neighborhoods.
“Whether that’s done with proven intentionality, the outcomes clearly indicate none of the disparities go away,” Babington-Johnson said in an interview Wednesday. “The educational gaps don’t close. The economic opportunities don’t materialize.”
In this quote, Babington-Johnson refers to two institutions: schooling and the workplace. Efforts to develop educated people are regarded as the path to improved employment. Yet when people reside in areas where 40-50% of the residents live below the poverty level, it is easy to imagine that the lack of informal networking and time resources available to nurture these institutions is not at hand.
The Minnesota Housing Commissioner counters:
In a letter to the state advisory committee last month, Minnesota Housing Commissioner Jennifer Ho wrote that “in the last several years, 63% of the new rental units in the Twin Cities metro area that have been awarded funds through the Agency’s Consolidated Request for Proposals have been in the suburbs while 37% have been in the central cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.”
Which seems to contradict what people on the ground are feeling. My question, as a casual follower of the issues, is why are the numbers so hard to come by? Every time I’ve gone down the rabbit hole to try to nail down the numerical facts of these conversations, time has not allowed for a successful outcome. As public information, it seems they should be accessible. Attorneys for the pastor group put out these numbers.
Attorneys for Stairstep noted that in the Twin Cities, more than 23,000 affordable housing units received subsidies that began between 2017 and 2021. Of them, 56% — or 13,000 units — were subsidized by Minnesota Housing, the Met Council or another form of state funding.
Note the difference in verbiage between ‘new’ units versus all subsidized units. Two thirds of the new units may go to the suburbs. However, this clouds the issue, which is that most subsidies, by the structure of aid distribution, flow to neighborhoods of high poverty. The Housing Commissioner proposes work to be done to create the ideal institutions in place.
“For example,” she said, “the only avenue for lower-income parents of color to access well-resourced schools should not be making them move to a white, wealthy community, which may lack other opportunities that they value. Rather, we should invest in disinvested communities and ensure that all schools are well resourced, allowing people to achieve equity in place.”
The implications that folks could be giving up support groups in a move is a valid one. But who would be in the best position to provide voice to whether it is more feasible to relocate or to enhance institutions in high poverty areas? The pastors, or the residents if given the choice to move, or the government who holds monopoly on dictating where the housing units are located? Shouldn’t residents have a choice?
I don’t think people will balk at the idea of dual choice, that with every transaction there are blended motivations to the self and to society. But what will be fun to pursue is the idea of a market for the social side of life. The price will set us free (or at least make a lot of decisions easier).
“And it wasn’t until much later that when I had read more carefully and maybe had some people kind of point me in certain directions or whatever, that I came to realize that what Buchanan is struggling against is fundamentally important to how we think about economics. And he points to the fact that there are two ways of doing it, as he puts it, two methodologically distinct ways of doing economics. And he says in the first one, the economist sets up a goal for the economy and for the actors within the economy.”
“And that goal, he points to efficiency as one possible goal that could be presupposed. And here’s what’s important, is you then impose that on the model, I mean, it’s part of the model, and it’s imposed on the people who are in the model. And that, he says, in the 1960s, is very different from what he’s trying to do, which is a much messier kind of economics.”
“And maybe that’s why it’s, A, both difficult to do, and B, perhaps not as appealing to some economists, which is you don’t establish the goal, rapid growth, or, as I said earlier, efficiency, but instead, you let the people within the economy, private individuals, engage, as he puts it, in the continuing search for institutional arrangements upon which they can reach substantial consensus or agreement. So that’s a very different way of doing economics. And really, the book is about how the Virginia School, led by Buchanan in this respect, tried to have this second way of doing economics as an alternative, a methodological alternative.”
From The Great Antidote: Sandra Peart on Ethical Quandaries and Politics Without Romance, Jun 28, 2004
Lots of great stuff in this podcast with Juliet Sellgren.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-great-antidote/id1530247318?i=1000660538062
James Buchanan is renowned for charting a new direction in economic theory with the introduction of Public Choice Theory. This theory emerged from the realization that politicians are not solely altruistic public servants, but may also be swayed by self-interest in their political roles. It should follow then that when a politician takes action in the form of an exchange, it is possible that that behind the choices lie blended motives. And in general, people can use trades to general a gain for the self as well as the tribe.
After all, purely altruistic action is most commonly seen between parents and their children. When exerting effort during the trying toddler years of dependency or spending down savings for higher education, few formulate a cost-benefit analysis. Perhaps in the back of the parent’s consciousness there is a thought that a healthier, better-educated adult will be a kind caretaker to their elderly parent. This deep bond between parents and children often leads to countless unnoticed acts of selflessness, like a parent waking up in the middle of the night to comfort a scared child or a child sacrificing personal time to help a parent in need. These acts of love and sacrifice form the backbone of familial relationships and lay the foundation for a strong, supportive family unit. Over the years, the selfless actions of parents continue as they guide their children through life’s challenges, always putting their children’s well-being above their own. And as children grow older, they often reciprocate these selfless acts, showing love and care for their aging parents, thereby perpetuating the cycle of altruism within the family.
Blended motives are becoming increasingly prevalent in modern society, as individuals seek to align their personal goals with larger social or environmental causes. In the workplace, many employees are drawn to non-profit organizations, where they can pursue their professional ambitions while also contributing to a meaningful collective mission. Similarly, in the realm of leisure and tourism, the popularity of eco-tourism continues to grow, reflecting a desire to explore the world while supporting sustainable and environmentally friendly practices. Moreover, in the consumer market, there is demand for organic foods and battery-operated vehicles, driven by a dual concern for personal well-being and environmental responsibility. These diverse examples all underscore the complex interplay of individual and collective motivations in contemporary decision-making processes.
This holds true in institutional pursuits as well. Recently, a juror in our area promptly called the FBI instead of keeping a bag containing $120,000 in cash in exchange for an acquittal. This act of integrity serves as a testament to the essential role that individuals play in upholding the principles of justice and fairness in society. Where would we be if citizens didn’t react in a judicious and expeditious manner when confronted with such moral dilemmas? The swift and decisive action taken by this juror ensured that the would-be bribers were tracked down and held accountable for their actions. Such incidents underscore the pivotal role that individuals play in preserving the fabric of justice and upholding the rule of law.
This democracy is made up of individuals like all the ones who will share a 4th of July picnic around BBQs in backyards today. These are the folks who, in actions large and small, blend into thousands of choices made every year, work and contribute to the ever-evolving project of America.
Philip Schwartz posts a nice example of the missing middle housing. Predictably, someone in the comments doesn’t find the color nice enough.
In 2023 there were 34 of these permitted in the city core. Year to date, another 4. In Hennepin county the total of 3-4 unit multi-family permitted in 2023 came to 78.
The history of words is curious. Nobody in Mill’s time, with the possible exception of Marx, could have guessed that the word “Communism” would come to denote the military, administrative, and judicial tyranny of an oligarchy, permitting to the workers only so much of the produce of their labor as might be necessary to keep them from violent revolt. Marx, whom we can now see to have been the most influential of Mill’s contemporaries, is, so far as I have been able to discover, not mentioned in any of Mill’s writings, and it is quite probable that Mill never heard of him. The Communist Manifesto was published in the same year as Mill’s Political Economy, but the men who represented culture did not know of it. I wonder what unknown person in the present day will prove, a hundred years hence, to have been the dominant figure of our time.
In the latest round of environmental review versus the world (or do it my way legislation), the boxers are the almighty climate combatants versus those who request a road expansion. I should qualify. When I say ‘request,’ I mean demonstrated demand through usage. If the roadways are full, then it’s safe to say that the participants find travel along that freeway by car best suits their needs. Once vehicles come to a standstill on a commute, they are polluting an extra amount by idling. Managing the road system to facilitate flow keeps emissions lower.
A new law passed last year requires an environmental review before authorizing a roadway enlargement. Calculating a social cost at the time of the transaction, like a road installation, is an interesting thing to do. It should be done in conjunction with calculating of all the other benefits prompt and efficient transporation offers, such as getting the elderly to their doctors’ appointments or kids to their extra-circular activities, as well as getting commuters to their jobs.
Residents are dong that all the time. Cars cost money to own and maintain. Consumers will use them when they are their best option. Denying a population access to a road enlargement pushes them to substitute less desireable options. These are less attractive not because of their love affairs with the car, but most probably because they eat into their time and ability to achieve their other daily tasks.
If the goal is to reduce trip miles, then study populations who achieve success at all their goals while using the fewest miles. How is their matrix of choices allowing this to happen? What are their priorities and how did they achieve them. I can promiss one answer. It isn’t because a bureaucrat squeezed their road improvement project.
A musician from up north wrote a beautiful song after a walk in the woods.
I have been introduced to so many interesting (and famous!) people through Tyler Cowen’s podcast, Conversations with Tyler. This last one with Joseph Stiglitz is no exception. Tyler knows exactly the tempo to keep the clip of information at a perfect speed. The written follow-up provides links to referenced papers. It’s truly a wonderful service.
The breath of Stiglitz career leaves many areas open for further review. But this comment stumped me a little.
STIGLITZ: Today, the critical issue in trade policy is US CHIPS Act and the IRA. The CHIPS Act was, we had lost the ability to make chips. That meant that if anything happened to Taiwan or Korea, we were in a very vulnerable position. Markets don’t take into account that kind of defense concern, or even the resilience. That goes back to some of my earlier work that markets aren’t very good at assessing risk and pricing risk into the decision-making process.
How does he mean that the market does not take into account national defense? Undoubtedly the chips made in Taiwan are produced at a lower cost than in the US, hence the benefit from trade. But where is the documentation to show the accounting of that price drop? Surely people think that a portion of the discount is from the difference in state governance?
When US retailers buy from a textile plant in Bangladesh, they are aware of the different standards imposed (or not imposed) on the building facilities. Surely they factor that into the the price difference? The US retailers could choose to pay a bit more under the conditions that the building and machinery were held to a high standard, should they choose.
The dynanism of the market will adjust to new circumstances and knowledge as it surfaces under changing conditions.
My tea rose bushes bloomed spectacularly this spring. A neighbor texted to say her husband needs advice as his plant looked meager in comparison. There are general weather conditions which contribute to the performance of garden plants. Blooms, however, are often the product of a little grooming. Rose bushs like to be trimmed back once the petals are falling into the landscape rock below.
Lilac bushes also enjoy a good haircut once their blooms have faded. Be agressive and cut the stems of the plant down by a foot. A few short weeks later you will notice multiple new off-shoots at every cut.
In eleven months each of these sprigs will be bending from the lilac blooms. A heavy scent will remind you of an elderly aunt with pressed powder make-up.
This is a great series. The clashing of European and Japanese customs are just one interesting twist in the struggle for power following the death of a great ruler. Another is the depth and power of the female characters. I can’t think of an english speaking war genre with a similar balance of captivating roles.
I remember the splash James Cavell’s novel Shogun made when it was published in 1975. We were also living abroad, and the depiction of cultural interaction was familiar. My brother remembers it as the first novel he could read straight through. The strength of the story lines holds the imagination of all ages, including that of a fourteen-year-old.
Even though a copy of his 1980 book Noble House stakes a spot on my bookshelf, I haven’t thought of James Cavell in years. His background is (perhaps predictably) adventurous.
Imprisoned in Changi[edit]
Shot in the face,[5] he was captured in Java in 1942 and sent to a Japanese prisoner of war camp on Java. Later, he was transferred to Changi Prison in Singapore.[6]
In 1981, Clavell recounted:
Changi became my university instead of my prison. Among the inmates there were experts in all walks of life—the high and the low roads. I studied and absorbed everything I could from physics to counterfeiting, but most of all I learned the art of surviving, the most important course of all.[5]
Prisoners were fed a quarter of a pound (110 g) of rice per day, one egg per week and occasional vegetables. Clavell believed that if atomic bombs had not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki he would not have survived the war.[5]
WIKI
I also did not realize he wrote The Great Escape, another favorite film from my childhood.
Watch on HULU with ads.
Allison Shertzer takes issue with the headline’s cryptic economic message. If there is enough housing, then the price for occupancy should settle to the price each resident can afford. If there are fifty homes in a settlement and fifty households, then those who can pay the most pick first, and down the line, the pricing match shuffles until the last match of the least desirable to the household to those with the least resources. This simplified balance market omits nuances like how two homes are tied up when people transition from one property to another. Or that when major renovations are underway, it is difficult to live on the property, so it is vacant.
The basic premise, however, is that when there are sufficient structures to shelter every household, the price to live in those structures is pushed through the system to reflect consumers’ ability to pay. After all, even at the lowest end of the scale, it would be better for the property owner to receive some income from a less advantaged person than to let the property sit vacant.
Or is it?
It is refreshing to see a study confirming that dwellings are, in the big picture, available in
sufficient numbers. “The numbers showed that from 2010 to 2020, household
formation did exceed the number of homes available. However, there was a large
surplus of housing produced in the previous decade. In fact, from 2000 to 2020,
housing production exceeded the growth of households by 3.3 million units. The
surplus from 2000 to 2010 more than offset the shortages from 2010 to
2020.”
This article tries more than most to zero in on what is concerning. It’s not affordability in general. When ten parties are bidding on a house, that tells us there are plenty of households who find the price within their range of acceptability. When houses are selling, and apartments are rented, then folks have the funds to make those arrangements work.
What is of concern, and has always been of concern, is sheltering those at the very lowest of means. This brings us back to the question: If there are open units to occupy, is there a reason why they would be left vacant instead of settling for some cash flow? Yes, there is a reason. In some cases, the net monthly cash flow is negative. The issue is being talked about as if it concerns the building, but it’s really about the necessity of support services.
It would be even more refreshing if the conversation went in that direction instead of
hammering away about building affordable housing, which is another cryptic
economic fallacy.
Some numbers are hard to find. The number of permits pulled to build homes, for instance, are shrouded in mystery. For all of you counting building starts, however, I have the link for you! The statistics can be found on the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. You can break it down to the county level.
According to HUD Minnesota’s total for building permits pulled in 2023 was 25,665.
In the 1988 movie Working Girl, Sigourney Weaver has a dramatic entrance to a boardroom setting complete with a bevy of men in grey three-piece suits and heavy mahogany paneling. Her hair is 80s height, her attire speaks a woman of means, and her use of crutches is both intimidating and explanatory as to why she wasn’t invited to the meeting. Weaver’s urgency to attend is due to, as she announces, “Gentlemen, we have a deal on the table.”
The coming together of parties to a transaction is often featured in cinema in this high-drama boardroom fashion. Tension is integral to two parties, each feeling the other is getting the best of them, and they stand off with their legal eagles at hand. Both benefit from the trade, or they would not be present. The pressure to settle is high.
Weaver is there to claim her stake in the transaction, as there are many participants in the successful execution of a trade. The close of deal-making is when each party comes away with either what they’ve given or what they’ve gotten. There is a settling of accounts.
Turns out he didn’t like him so.
This verdict, made up of love and hatred, was given once more by Debussy in more graphic, less definite terms which unite, whilst contrasting them, the names of Bach and Wagner: In conclusion, Wagner’s work suggests a striking picture: Bach as the Holy Grail, Wagner as Klingsor wishing to crush the Grail and usurp its place…. Bach shines supreme over music, and in his goodness he has reserved for our hearing words as yet unknown, of the great lesson he has bequeathed us of disinterested love of music. Wagner disappears into the background… He is fading away … a black, disturbing shadow.
In his final analysis Debussy’s chief grievance against the great artist who degraded symphony to the service of his tragedies was a lack of this passion-disinterested love of music. For Debussy was above all a musician, whilst Wagner was above all a dramatist.
When my kids were young I tool them to a fund raiser called Empty Bowls. Participants crafted bowls from supplies laid out by volunteers. Then came back to glaze them. On the final day they returned to pick up the creations in exchange for a donation towards curbing hunger in the community. Little did I know at the time that this would launch my daughter’s pottery vocation.
She crafted this pot, sturdy enough to hold my orchid’s heavy blooms.
Pottery workshops are offered in various places all over the world. There’s Seagrove Potters in North Carolina, there’s Royal Delft pottery in the Netherlands, and there’s Stoke-on-Trent in Great Britain which claims to be the ceramics capital of the world.
Mostly I am happy to see her take a liking to a creative process.
Albert Hirshman describes an economic motion in his book Exit, Voice and Loyalty (1970). Parties can withdraw if they do not care for a product or arrangement. They may attempt to impact the process by exercising their voice. Over time, loyalties develop, which influence the superstructure of relationships.
It seems Hirshman would agree with his contemporary, Milton Friedman, about the benefits of school vouchers. Should a family be displeased with a pedantic school district, they could collect a coupon for their tax dollar input and cash it in at another more vibrant district. Since schools are tied to geographies, consumers always have the choice to relocate their homes to attend elsewhere. Vouchers make the process more fungible.
Hirschman outlined the logic of the exit option and how noted how increased competition could improve government performance. But competition didn’t solve all problems, and the exit option had several important drawbacks. The freedom to exit was often used by the most ambitious, educated, or well-to-do users of a particular service, and once they exited, those remaining were even poorer, less educated, and less demanding. Moreover, Hirschman pointed out, the possibility of exit weakened the effectiveness of voice, that is, the ability to directly change the management’s behavior through feedback, discussion, and criticism.
As Frank Fukuyama explains in his American Interest piece, Hirshman didn’t believe vouchers were the answer to improving a school system. Unlike other commodities, the departure of the stronger students from the classroom has a negative impact on the remaining students. This observation gives a new form to education. Casting the product in this light projects a little amber glow onto all members of the school community. The mission is to educate everyone. If not an educator or a student, the role may be to voice praise or criticism.
A school does not produce widgets on an assembly line, but a group process produces educated students. Changing the composition of the pool of players can have both positive and negative effects on the outcomes. And there are roles for an audience as well.
An associate asked if I’d consider a donation to World Vision, a philathropy dedicated to assisting children in poverty. I’m familiar with their work as they’ve been present in the developping world since I was a kid. Still- I did my due diligence and checked out their website: World Vision.
At the bottom of the web page the site offers linkes to organization which can vouch for their efficacy as a non-profit organization.
But I wanted to know the individual theoeries behind each on the tiles listed under the tab ‘Ways to Help.’ So I asked ChatGPT to break down an analysis.
Monetary Contributions:
- Research planned giving options:
- Input: Donors contribute financial resources through wills, stocks, IRAs, or gift annuities.
- Return: Theoretical support from Social Exchange Theory suggests that donors gain satisfaction, tax benefits, and a sense of legacy by supporting a cause, fostering a reciprocal relationship with the organization and society.
- Philanthropy:
- Input: Christian philanthropists invest significant financial resources.
- Return: According to Altruism Theory, the return is intrinsic satisfaction and fulfillment from helping others, along with potential social recognition and community status.
- Create your own fundraising page:
- Input: Individuals invest time and social capital to raise funds.
- Return: Prosocial Behavior Theory supports the idea that individuals receive social approval, increased self-esteem, and a sense of accomplishment from mobilizing resources for a good cause.
- Shop for a cause:
- Input: Consumers spend money on products where proceeds support World Vision.
- Return: Cause-Related Marketing Theory suggests consumers gain utility from purchasing needed items while simultaneously supporting a cause, enhancing their perceived personal value and satisfaction.
- Donate cryptocurrency:
- Input: Donors provide cryptocurrency assets.
- Return: The Theory of Planned Behavior implies that donors are motivated by perceived ease of donation, tax advantages, and the belief that their actions will significantly impact.
- Find donation-matching employers:
- Input: Employees donate and leverage employer matching programs.
- Return: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Theory suggests that employees feel greater satisfaction and loyalty towards their employer, while employers gain enhanced reputation and employee engagement.
Volunteering Time and Effort:
- Volunteer at a warehouse:
- Input: Volunteers invest time and physical effort.
- Return: Volunteer Function Inventory (VFI) indicates that volunteers gain personal growth, social connections, and fulfillment from contributing to a meaningful cause.
- Host an event:
- Input: Organizers invest time and resources to plan and execute events.
- Return: Event Management Theory suggests organizers receive community recognition, personal satisfaction, and social networking opportunities.
- Run or walk for clean water:
- Input: Participants invest time and physical effort in running or walking events.
- Return: Health Belief Model supports that participants benefit from improved health, social interaction, and the satisfaction of contributing to a cause.
- Build kits with your group:
- Input: Groups invest time and effort to assemble kits.
- Return: Group Dynamics Theory posits that groups enhance cohesion, collective efficacy, and mutual support while achieving a shared goal.
- Knit blankets and sweaters:
- Input: Individuals invest time and skill in knitting.
- Return: Flow Theory suggests that engaging in this activity provides a state of flow, where individuals experience deep satisfaction and absorption in a meaningful task.
- Pray for those in need:
- Input: Individuals invest time and spiritual energy in prayer.
- Return: Spiritual Well-Being Theory indicates that individuals gain a sense of peace, purpose, and connection to a higher cause through prayer.
Corporate and Group Engagement:
- Explore corporate partnerships:
- Input: Companies invest resources to engage employees in charitable activities.
- Return: Stakeholder Theory supports that companies enhance their reputation, employee morale, and customer loyalty by demonstrating social responsibility.
- Ignite your Christian school:
- Input: Schools invest in educational programs on poverty and injustice.
- Return: Transformative Learning Theory suggests that students experience personal growth, increased awareness, and a commitment to social justice.
- Activate your church congregation:
- Input: Congregations invest time and resources in community engagement.
- Return: Community Engagement Theory posits that congregations strengthen community bonds, deepen spiritual growth, and enhance collective efficacy.
- Do the 30-Hour Famine:
- Input: Students and participants invest time and experience temporary hunger.
- Return: Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis supports that participants develop greater empathy, a deeper understanding of global hunger, and a stronger commitment to social action.
- Ask for a World Vision speaker:
- Input: Organizations invest time and resources to host speakers.
- Return: Narrative Theory suggests that audiences gain inspiration, motivation, and a deeper emotional connection to the cause through storytelling.
Advocacy and Voice:
- Tell congress what matters:
- Input: Individuals invest time and effort to communicate with legislators.
- Return: Civic Engagement Theory indicates that individuals feel empowered, experience increased political efficacy, and contribute to shaping public policy.
- Connect kids with sponsors:
- Input: Ambassadors invest time and social capital to promote child sponsorship.
- Return: Social Capital Theory suggests that ambassadors build networks, enhance their social influence, and experience fulfillment from facilitating connections that improve children’s lives.
But where?
“People don’t talk about anything.”
“Oh, they must!”
“No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and say how swell!
But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else. And most of the time in the caves they have the joke boxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the musical wall lit and all the colored patterns running up and down, but it’s only color and all abstract. And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract. That’s all there is now. My uncle says it was different once. A long time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people.”
There was a presumption toward voluntarism in human affairs, but in recognition that our nature is divided between a cooperative nature and an opportunistic nature we must figure out a way to curb our opportunistic side if we hope to realize the fruits of our cooperative side. While our cooperative nature is reflected in our propensity to truck, barter and exchange (which no other species actually exhibits), our opportunistic side is revealed in the warring nature witnessed throughout human history. Political economy solved the puzzle by suggesting that we could sacrifice in a small way the presumption of voluntarism in order to create a government which will curb our opportunistic side and enable our cooperative side to flourish. Thus was born the argument for limited, but effective, government that was the core of classical liberal thought from John Locke, David Hume and Adam Smith to more contemporary writers such as Frank Knight, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman and James Buchanan.
It’s not easy.
Clients who want to live in an old neighborhood have few choices. The open land is gone. Most homes that are in the neighborhood are in good enough shape to add value to the lot upon which they are perched. Ideally, the clients want to find a tear down, or a home is such rough shape that most everyone cannot see a renovation opportunity. But it doesn’t stop there. As this thread explains, there are more issues in play.
Soil testing and estimates for debris removal and site prep are easy numbers to come by. The tricky bits of information is whether the plan the clients have in mind will fit on the parcel and still comply with the building codes and municipal ordinances.
Lack of information results in uncertainty. Too much uncertainty and people do not want to move forward. That’s not progress!
It’s impressive really. Stat. 507.02
Before Minnesota achieved statehood, the Territory of Minnesota enacted a homestead exemption statute that shielded homestead property from “sale on execution, or other process of a court.” Rev. Terr. Stat., ch. 71, § 93 (1851). When Minnesota entered the Union, the homestead exemption was incorporated into the Minnesota Constitution and it remains there today. Minn. Const. of 1857, art. I, § 12. In relevant part, Article I, Section 12, provides that a “reasonable amount of property shall be exempt from seizure or sale for the payment of any debt or liability.” The purpose of the homestead exemption is to “preserve the homestead to the family even at the sacrifice of just demands.” Holden v. Farwell, Ozmun, Kirk & Co., 223 Minn. 550, 558-59, 27 N.W.2d 641, 646 (1947). Indeed, in order to ensure “a stable and independent citizenry and thereby promote the public welfare, it has always been the policy of the law to protect with jealous zeal the homestead right of the citizen.” Id. at 558, 27 N.W.2d at 646.
The Legislature has enacted various statutes implementing the constitutional directive. Minnesota Statutes § 510.01 (2012) defines the homestead as the “house owned and occupied by a debtor as the debtor’s dwelling place, together with the land upon which it is situated to the amount of area and value hereinafter limited and defined.” Minnesota Statutes § 510.02 (2012) further provides that the homestead exemption shall be limited to 160 acres or less, and shall not exceed $300,000, or $750,000 if the homestead is primarily used for agricultural purposes, subject to periodic adjustment of the dollar amounts in the manner set forth in Minn. Stat. § 550.37, subd. 4a (2012). The exemption extends to the debts of both spouses even if only one spouse holds legal title to the homestead property. See Minn. Stat. § 510.04 (2012).
Consistent with the purpose of preserving the homestead to the family, Minnesota law has, at least since 1865, provided that no conveyance of the homestead by a husband is valid unless “the wife joins in the deed of conveyance.” Minn. Gen. Stat., ch. 68, § 5 (1865). That requirement, which is currently codified at Minn. Stat. § 507.02, is now gender-neutral and provides:
If the owner is married, no conveyance of the homestead, except a mortgage for purchase money under section 507.03, a conveyance between spouses pursuant to section 500.19, subdivision 4, or a severance of a joint tenancy pursuant to section 500.19, subdivision 5, shall be valid without the signatures of both spouses. A spouse’s signature may be made by the spouse’s duly appointed attorney-in-fact.
Minn Lawyer
I’m an advocate for homeownership. No question. But to develop products which prematurely get people of little means into a home is irresponsible. For example:
For a time the monthly expenses may be all that is owed. After a while larger mechancial expenses appear. Some can be deferred by stop gapping replacements here and there. Eventually the folks will end up with a home that has not appreciated because of all the impending repairs.
Purely by chance, I parked across the street from what turned out to film venue which specializes in vintage productions. There was a handy leaflet right under the red letters ‘cinema.’ So I grabed one, as old movies often appeal to me.
I prefer to watch a recommended film just to take some of the risk out of the time investment. A Brief Encounter was coming up as a summer viewing option. The screenplay was written by Noel Coward which sounded promising. The blurb suggested that it was one of the best British films ever made.
I didn’t quite see it that way and drifted off about half way through the production.
More qualifiers would be nice when people suggest something is the best of its kind. It seems that there are many layers of what a film could be. So what is this one the best at? Maybe more context is needed. That’s certainly the case when evaluating so many things.
A recent paper, Houston, you have a problem: How large cities accommodate more housing, by Anthony W. Orlando and Christian L Redfearn, offers a new reading of real estate data.
Consider the stylized fact that unmet demand is most-inexpensively delivered on low-cost land at the periphery of the commuting shed, known as a “greenfield” site. This type of development uses low-cost, low-density construction methods. However, in productive and desirable urban areas, low-cost land—especially close to jobs and retail—is quickly consumed, pushing single-family home builders farther away from the amenities that make these urban areas attractive. Eventually, this progression reaches a limit in which commuting back to these amenities is too costly. At this point, the greenfield land is effectively “built out,” and developers are forced to look inward to more expensive land closer to the core where spatial amenities are valued by renters and buyers. When this “infill” development becomes a larger share of new housing supply, the marginal cost of supplying a new housing unit will increase, and the elasticity of supply will fall. Thus, even in the absence of different regulatory regimes, an MSA with more population and more density will appear to have a steeper supply curve because large and growing urban markets naturally progress in this direction.
Real estate has a history of being talked about in static numbers. Orlando and Redfearn discover a dynamic in their research. A city grows along the fringe where the developers can build over large parcels of undeveloped land. This is the most consumer-friendly by meeting the desired structure for the lowest cost. But at some point, the authors observe that the commute to a central business district causes infill projects to gain in status. At that point, a city gains new units within the old infrastructure instead of in the greenfield.
Much of what we have learned in the two decades since DiPasquale (1999) first prompted the field to investigate housing supply is aggregate and static in nature. The goal of this empirical work is to document the location of housing stocks within several MSAs over a long time of growth. The results presented in the article are largely descriptive. It is abundantly clear that aggregate analyses miss the compelling dynamics we documented.
Why stop at the trade-off between low cost fringe housing versus commute time? There are many other interesting dynamics to expore.
Here’s a wonderful short movie about Tank Man was produced by Robert Anthony Peters.
I see this in reverse. The beauty of real estate is that it keeps people honest.
By Z Randall Stroope
The Timberwolves lost to the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday at the Target Center, but they brought home a win to Minnesota fans. It’s been a couple of decades since the franchise has had this level of success. They brought the audience along to more than one close game just to sneak out the win to stay alive. Fans loved it.
But it’s the team members who are saying team endearments at this stage of their season. Mike Conley, a 17 year veteran of the sport said in an interview that his teammates have renewed his love for the game. They have made him feel young again.
The others too have talked about dedication to a whole new year of getting back to the top. This mutual support is refreshing to see. I hope they become the role models they seem to be as we are all better when we work together.
My grandmother would tell a story of giving in their rural Iowa community. Word would get out after a Sunday service at Holmes Lutheran Church that a family was in need. A gathering of kids’ clothes or staple food supplies would be left in a neutral pickup area, maybe at the end of a driveway. Then the mother in need would later pick it up. Poverty was shameful, you see. Direct contact in the transference of aid would be a disrespectful slight on their condition.
The evolution of social welfare has come a long way since the happenings along the gravel roads squaring off sections of farmland. Provision of resources funnels through formal government channels instead of being left solely to the church aid societies of the 50s. Efforts to detach stigma from acceptance of aid are ongoing. The evolution of food stamps is a credit card with funds for the purchase. Free lunches are provided in all school buildings so there is no distinguishing between families that qualify for aid and those who don’t.
It’s hard to see how public humiliation in the face of unforeseen circumstances is profitable. However these control mechanisms were developed as a means of discouraging group members from taking more out of the communal pot of resources than needed. It was a social metering of loosely held assets. Back-up reserves are not attached to one specific individual in the group. They are intended to meet the shortfalls of the worse off.
Scolding looks are used in other ways to keep up shared appearances, When the neighbor grass is getting knee high they may feel the scorn of dogwalkers as they pass on the sidewalk. Pushing and nudging with looks, back turns, and low whispers are simply how it’s done in society when it’s thought necessary to get the word out about control of shared space.
There’s a two-fold reason these norms are swept away in the face of dire poverty. The unkindness is too harsh as the victims are too vulnerable. And furthermore who wants to discourage, in any way, a mother from taking food for their child? The desire for stigma-free acceptance of benefits for kids is simply a long-term win for the group. Healthy kids make for healthy adults.
There are those who, however, may come to an erroneous conclusion about the tapping of public benefits without those disdainful social guardrails. Some will pursue as many benefits as they can find available to them with no personal calculation of need. And others still take the pursuit of public benefits as a business model. They dreamt of being an entrepreneur, they say. This claim is being made in defiance of accusations of fraud.
When public goods and resources are formalized through government metering, then funny things happen. They no longer have the appearance of a common pool resource but rather they take on a more private form under the guise of a ‘program.’ Gone are the nuances of need-based use. Instead, they are peddled and appropriated in a coin-counting manner.
Perhaps an ingredients label is required. This is a one-hundred percent publically funded resource. It is fraudulent to transact outside its intended mission.
There a new paper out supporting the capital investments in libraries: The Educational Benefits of Libraries.
The figure shows that after a boost in library capital investment, reading test scores steadily increased. In the short run, library investments increased reading scores by 0.01 standard deviations. Seven years out from a project, scores were 0.04 standard deviations higher in districts that invested in public libraries than their counterparts.
I’ll wager there are further tie-ins between libraries and the general social well-being of surrounding neighbors. Personally, I plan to brush up on my french.
Counting is a useful tool.
As the Lift/Uber kerfuffle comes to a close, it will be interesting to see what is learned from the two year process of politicians acting as labor negotiators between the independent ride share drivers and the platform owners.
The Governor singed a bill amid grandstanding to settle a set ride fare which all parties found acceptable. This is a win as the service is valued by a spectrum of riders and sectors. The negotiations, however, were lengthy. As one council member recently observed, the final horse trading involved in getting to ‘yes’ from all sides used up the political capital that could have been used to get the bonding bill done this year. No bonding bill means no bonding money for all the projects requested across the sate. The loss is all the agreements that were left unconsidered due to the distraction of a relatively small pool of workers.
Economists refer to this as opportunity costs. If your capital is doing one thing, it can’t be doing another. Some might say the politicians are constrained by the amount of time they have in a session to review, discuss, and come to terms on items of public concern. But if public officials are in the profession of providing goods and services of value to their constituents, doesn’t it follow that their choice of which products to work on is actionable? To not make time for the bonding bill is a choice not a constraint
Rosolino and Pete continue to develop this argument that “opportunity costs be regarded not as constraints to which individuals passively respond. Rather they are the reciprocal of choice itself.” Paper in the link.
For those who love adventure and real-world challenges, body and mind. Nature is a heaven on Earth. Here, Pastor, we surely agree. The Creation, whether you believe it was placed on this planet by a single act of God or accept the scientific evidence that it evolved autonomously during billions of years, is the greatest heritage, other than the reasoning mind itself, ever provided to humanity.
The Creation, E.O. Wilson
It is not obvious what the main driver is behind the obesity epidemic.
In Jennifer Burns biography of Milton Friedman, the famous economist is portrayed as affable and polite even under duress.
Still- he had many detractors. People in this camp, I suspect, might have been turned off by the thought that every service or enterprise is done better in the private sector.
Here is a section from Milton Friedman, the Last Conservative explaining how easy it would be to charge to enter the National Parks. And there is a small fee to access the park, as there is the cost of a stamp to post a letter.
“The entrances to a national park like Yellowstone, on the other hand, are few,” continued the Friedmans. It would be easy to set up tolls at the entrance. “I the public wants this kind of an activity enough to pay for it, private enterprise will have every incentive to provide such parks,” they concluded. Similar logic extended to the post office, public housing, toll roads, and even Social Security. Each of these could be more efficiently handled by private enterprise, the Friedmans proposed, enumerating a list of fourteen “activities currently undertaken by government in the U.S.” that could not be justified by their principles. “This list is far from comprehensive,” the authors noted.
But haven’t you ever wondered why some things remain in public hands while some are replaced by private alternatives?
Why are most parks public? Why is USPS still around after all the alternative forms of communication have evolved? Why do toll roads exist only in limited markets?
History continues to challenge the Friedmans’ view that all goods and services respond best in traditional private markets.
This new series on Netflicks has a nice mix of rivalaries and atavistic responses. As in all good stories there are several story lines intertwined. Jeff Bridges and Diane Lane anchor the acting while a flury of lesser known actors flush out their roles. So far I’m happy to have clicked on this new offering.
Nozick is a lesser know political philosopher who wrote Anarchy, State and Utopia in 1974. It was offered as a response to John Rawl’s theory of justice. One point of contention revolves around different methods for redistributing resources to the least advantaged. Should this be a top down imposed structure or spontaneously emerge from the churning motion of voluntary action from below?
Some fear individual action is inadequate if left to the individual. Hence the need for control. In this passage Nozick captures the essence of individual action toward communal goals. The delight of it secures its success.
Consider the members of a basketball team, all caught up in playing basketball well. (Ignore the fact that they are trying to win, though is it an accident that such feelings often arise when some unite against others?) They do not play primarily for money. They have a primary joint goal, and each subordinates himself to achieving this common goal, scoring fewer points himself than he otherwise might. If all are tied together by joint participation in an activity toward a common goal that each ranks as his most important goal, then fraternal feeling will fourish. They will be united and unselfish; they will be one. But basketball players, of course, do not have a common highest goal; they have separate families and lives. Still we might imagine a society in which all work together to achieve a common highest goal. Under the framework, any group of persons can so coalesce, form a movement, and so forth. But the structure itself is diverse; it does not itself provide or guarantee that there will be any common goal that all pursue jointly. It is borne in upon one, in contemplating such an issue, how appropriate it is to speak of “individualism” and (the word coined in opposition to it) “socialism.” It goes without saying that any persons may attempt to unite kindred spirits, but, whatever their hopes and longings, none have the right to impose their vision of unity upon the rest.
Come to find out, property insurance rates on a $300,000 home vary by state. They vary a lot. The annual premiums for a dwelling in Missouri and Mississippi are twice as much as Maryland and Maine. Minnesota is, of course, just average.
If you haven’t thought about your insurance coverage in a while it might be an idea to dust off the policy and dig into what is covered. Some riders are negligible in cost yet nice to have when the situation arises. And example for coverage is on the water line from the meter in your basement to the connector at the street. Standard deductibles have also gone up from $1000 to $2500. The larger deductible may save your annual premium $200-$300.
Also, be sure to understand how the coverage works. With all the roof claims, often driven by contractors knocking on doors after a hailstorm goes through a neighborhood, companies have changed the payouts on roof replacements. Many companies will prorate the coverage once a roof is over fifteen years old. If the storm comes through in the twentieth year of the asphalt shingle life, then the homeowner only gets paid the value of the remaining years of life.
A periodic review is indeed essential for staying informed about external factors that may affect your insurance coverage. Even if you are content with your current provider, the insurance market continuously evolves, making regular evaluations crucial for ensuring that your coverage aligns with your needs and the prevailing circumstances.
As of 2022 there were 69 million Boomers, accounting for 21% of the U.S. population, and 38% of total homeowner households. Boomers are overrepresented in the homeowner demographic because homeownership rates tend to increase as households age, gradually starting to decline as households age beyond age 75 (Exhibit 4).
As of 2022, Boomers were between 58-76 years of age. By 2035, these Boomers will be between the ages of 71 and 89. We estimate the retention rates of these age cohorts as they age over the period from 2000-202211 (Exhibit 5).
Applying these retention rates to the Boomer households as of 2022, we estimate the number of Boomer households each year through 2035. We find a gradual decline in the number of Boomer households over time from around 32 million in 2022 to 23 million by 2035 as the oldest Boomers reach ages close to 90. Per this estimate, there will be 9.2 million fewer Boomer homeowner households by 2035 (Exhibit 6).
That’s more than 9 million homes available for the Gen Z’s who are entering into their home buying years.
Read the entire report from Freddie Mac February Outlook.
I’ve recently crossed paths with an individual who slides in the expression God Willing as a qualifier. Whether at the beginning or the end of a sentence, there it is. You are asked to have faith that it is God’s will. It’s neither preachy nor awkward, but rather comforting the way it lines right up with the other words he uses to communicate.
Many languages and cultures incorporate similar phrases. Inshallah is an Arabic expression meaning “if God wills” or “God willing.” In Latin a signator of a letter may have closed with Deo Volento, with hopes the message has arrived to the intended recipient. And in the King James version of the Christian Bible it appears in James 4:14-4:15.
14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15 For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
Roberta Estes at Native Heritage Project writes about an expression she remembers from her childhood, “God Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise.”
Did you know the saying “God willing and the Creek don’t rise” was in reference to the Creek Indians and not a body of water? We didn’t.
It turns out that the phrase was written by Benjamin Hawkins in the late 18th century. He was a politician and Indian agent. While in the south, Hawkins was requested by the President of the U.S. to return to Washington. In his response, he was said to write, “God willing and the Creek don’t rise.” Because he capitalized the word “Creek” it is deduced that he was referring to the Creek Indian tribe and not a body of water.
Have a wonderful rest of your Sunday- God Willing.
There are 41 branches of the Hennepin County Library system serving the 1.6 million residents of the county. Some are historic buildings, some have scenic views over a lake, and some have a modern flare. All are well frequented.
Mission and vision
Our mission is to inspire, facilitate, and celebrate lifelong learning.
Shaped by the information needs and aspirations of our residents, we envision the library as a shared space for enrichment and connection.
Library services are an important part of thriving and interconnected communities. We believe that every Hennepin County resident should have a library card and use it regularly.
Although visits haven’t reached the 5 million high benchmark from pre-pandemic days, borrowing has surged to 12 million items. Visitors also use library spaces for remote work or gatherings in one of the many conference rooms.
When so many people of interest site a library or a librarian as an inspiration at a younger age, I wonder why more correlations are not made between library useage and outcomes in other areas.
Eating upside down bird. And I’ve got my eyes on you bird.
In this five minute video clip, Frederick Melo with the St. Paul Pioneer Press refers to a number of important real estate outcomes. He was invited to the weekly PBS show, Almanac, due to a recent announcement that a portfolio of commercial buildings, including the iconic First National Bank Building, is being listed for sale.
The collection of buildings are owned Madison Equities. Long time real estate developer, Jim Crockarell died in January and his heirs are not interested in being landlords. Building owners can gain emotional attachment to their properties as appears to be the case here. Some of them were half empty and some completely empty. Significant vacancies do not happen on the turn of a dime. Commercial leases are multi-year and companies have an investmest in their locations. So this recent announcement reflects activity which has been brewing for a while.
Well known architectural firm, TKDA, is also moving. They are relocating to Bloomington to keep workers happy. After 100 years, the downtown devotees are succumbing to practical desires for free parking. An added feature is scenic vistas over the Minnesota River. To attract workers back into the built environment, they are seeking out new surroundings in the third largest city in the state.
US Bank is also stepping away from downtown yet still staying in St. Paul. Workers here also say no to the densest part of the city. Melo reports that the building has had ghost leases for years. While technically under contract, the one-employee-per-floor occupancy has been a long-time indicator of what the future held.
What to do with all these vancant buildings is the question of the day. The solution under proposal is converting the office space to living space. But conversions are very expensive and the demand for residential in the capital city is not as strong as next door neighbor in her sister city. It’s a tough place to live.
Grants and tax increment financing are being proposed as public interventions. Is this a good idea? I’m not so sure. The mayor is quiet letting a non-profit alliance offer investment strategies. Their approach is to focus on one street at a time. One street a downtown does not make.
Cathy Wurzer brings in the ringer of a topic just at the end. Crime and personal safety. These are real issues that have been muted in the last four years. People don’t want to have to worry about being carjacked at knife-point when they’ve got a head full of kid’s programming and an armful of work manuals. Proximity to violence is a deal breaker for many people.
I had not heard of the study the Downtown Alliance had done around the DT Greeters pre and post pandemic. Within a district where a tax was collected to support the greeter program, quality of life crimes decreased by 40%. Whereas in the adjacent Lowertown area (where the St. Paul Saints stadium is located) crimes increased by 20%. Jim Crockarell, the real estate developer, opposed the district. This is speculation, but I’m guessing he thought greeting people and being busy maintainers of sidewalk safety was meant to be organic. It was the civic thing to do. Yet here is concrete data that an organized effort to deter crime, a significant motivator, was successful with subsidized labor.
In review, we were told about multiple exits to the city core. Be careful to note this was not a sudden occurance. We heard about emotional attachments beyond the pull of financial prudence. We heard about consumer driven needs for parking and easy access. We heard about the impracticality of retrofitting the built environment (file under why so many old buildings come down). We heard about public subsidies that will fall woefully short of the task. We heard about the big driver, safety, which is often kept on the QT so as not to implicate an area.
That’s a lot in five minutes
Sara Ellen Tandy- published 1925
they rebel:
It turns out quite a few. Tablet Magazine has an excellent article on the people behind the recent protests on campus’ across the US: The People Setting America on Fire- An investigation into the witches’ brew of billionaires, Islamists, and leftists behind the campus protests.
Not only does the article list out the actors: “This largely decentralized network of agitators is, in turn, politically and financially supported by a vast web of progressive nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, and dark-money groups ultimately backed by big-money donors aligned with the Democratic Party.”
But also gives shape to the dynamics of the interaction:
These groups, Shideler says, typically operate in a decentralized manner, using successful tactics drawn from decades of anarchist organizing and spread through left-wing activist networks via word-of-mouth, as well as through formal trainings by professionals such as Fithian or the nonprofit “movement incubator” Momentum Strategies. “If you look at Fithian,” he says, “she has consulted with hundreds of groups on how to do these things: how to organize, how to protest, how to make sure your people don’t go to jail, how to help them once they’re in jail.” There is no one decision-maker; rather, decentralized “affinity” groups work together toward a shared goal, coordinating out in the open via social media and Google Docs.
It’s worth a full read.
There’s a frequent complaint around government’s performance. Measurements for outcomes on public policies are difficult to evaluate. So how do we know when regulations meant to make things better, work?
One sense of it could be reflected by the populations adherence to the new rule. For instance, when smoking was banned from indoor areas there was a lot of grumbling. Now, a quarter-century later, it is rare to enter a home hanging heavy with the sent a-la-ashtray. The constituents agree. No smoking is great! Don’t even think about lighting up by the public entrances to buildings as perfuming oneself with the sent of Marlboros is not OK.
Some cities place permit requirements on all sorts of home improvements. I doubt there are objections to paying for an city inspector to stop out for the significant improvement projects like roof replacement or furnace upgrades. But the fees can hit smaller appliances like gas ranges or hot water heaters too. In these cases the regulatory charge adds an additional ten to twelve percent to the new appliance. After paying a sales tax and a delivery fee, people find this onerous.
As a result, people bypass the permit process. Pretty soon it becomes a known thing and nobody is following the rule. When the public ignores a regulatory process, I’d say it’s time for a reassessment.
Marshall proposed thinking in one of four blocks of time. The first would be a market period, where demand determines price because there is not sufficient time to alter supply. The short run, Marshall’s second period, introduced a new wrinkle: by responding to demand, firms could increase supply, but only by spending more money. So prices might go up, set by the cost of supply, working in tandem with demand.
The third period, the long run, during which firms had time to develop new efficiencies, introduced a further complication. Now rising demand might trigger falling prices as businesses benefited from economies of scale and better organization.
The fourth period, secular time, was Marshall’s nod to history it-self. Secular time was generational time, which might see huge shifts in demographics, knowledge, or political organization, completely refiguring the dynamics of supply and demand. Marshall had found a way to integrate the glacial movements of the ages, the lurches and accelerations of the present, and the universalizing clarity of economic abstraction.
Lifted from Jennifer Burn’s book Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative. She narrates Friedman’s encounter with Alfred Marshall’s book Principles of Economics.
Time in real estate is yet on another schedule.
It’s game time for the second in a series against the Denver Nuggets and lead Timberwolves defender Rudy Gobert is taking the night off. For what you say? For the birth of his baby. My. Times have changed.
I guess the team is on-board with his decisions. As they should be.
Gobert and the Timberwolves were well aware that he might have to miss a playoff game for the birth of his child, and the team has been nothing but supportive of his choice to be at his girlfriend’s side for such an important life moment.
“I would do anything I can to be there,” Gobert told the Deseret News in March. “I don’t think there’s any debate to have. Coach Finch and every guy in this locker room, that’s what I love about them, we have a level of human connection and empathy for one another that I think is really good. And I think all the guys will be literally telling me, ‘Don’t play, go.’”
MSN
The team has tons of momentum. Let’s hope this opens up an opportunity for one more player to become a star.
Christ Church is the oldest protestant church in Malaysia. It sits on the same square as the administrative buildings set up by the Dutch in the seventeenth century.
The Stadthuys (an old Dutch spelling, meaning city hall) is a historical structure situated in the heart of Malacca City, the administrative capital of the state of Malacca, Malaysia, in a place known as the Red Square.[1] The Stadthuys is known for its red exterior and nearby red clocktower. It was built by the Dutch in 1650 as the office of the Dutch governor and deputy governor. It continued to be used as the Treasury, Post Office, Government Offices, and suites of apartments for the high officials after the takeover by the British.
WIKI
Many lessons were learned from the Covid lockdown, including knowing which jobs are conducive to work from afar. Employees who work primarily through an internet connection discovered that they preferred working from home as it gave their lives more flexibility. Some employers are now indifferent to where their employees sit when they earn their paychecks. But not all employers are so flexible.
A few years ago, a brouhaha flitted through the local news as it was discovered that the man in charge of our largest, and nationally recognized, library system was running the show from a downtown condo in LA. Minnesota’s weather is indeed a drawback. Still, the Hennepin County Board is in charge of this position and was not amused by someone in a key position choosing to live by the beach instead of in the land of ten thousand lakes.
There’s a consensus that if you are a public employee of stature then you should be experiencing the public environment here, along with the rest of us. You need to part of the team. You need to be in the know of the subtle and sometimes unsaid nuances of an area’s culture and aspirations. To dial in from afar was deemed unacceptable and a severance package was negotiated.
Where you choose to live tells a lot about your preferences. It’s an acceptance of the combination of features available to residents in the surrounding area. There’s an acknowledgment, by taking on the expense of the move, that there is something to gain through the relocations. Interestingly, the minority population in Minnesota is the only population that has gained ground between 2022-2024. Minnesota Compass, a non-profit research group, recently released these numbers.
People of color in the Twin Cities has increased by 34,000 in two years. It doesn’t seem to indicate the concern about policing and the justice system that some in the political realm are suggesting. Quite the opposite.
In the early part of the last century, when electrification was new, a house wiring system called knob and tube was installed in many homes. It was a labor intensive process but the materials were less expensive. Where there were workers, knob and tube made sense. Wires ran between the interior walls and the outer shell throughout the house on the whim of the electrician. Without a plan, it is difficult to know which wires connect where. This becomes a drawback at time of a remodel. But the more significant drawbacks are the safety hazards due to overloading the system with electrical demands the system was not designed to carry.
This investor purchased a nine-unit building with k&t.
The fuse box looks funny because it doesn’t have the flip breakers. The cute green topped glass are the circuit breakers.
Insurance companies in our area will no longer cover a home with k&t. At least that’s the latest I’ve heard. They tried twenty years ago or so to make it a rule, yet it did not hold. There was enough demand in the market to over turn removing that option from their insurance offerings.
Lenders, federal mortage insurance rules, property insurance providers all play a role in real estate excahnges. In this way they feature in the price of property. It’s uncommon for a subsidary service to make a property unsaleable, but over the years there have been instances where property types have taken significant hits. Condos in the early 1990s would be another example.
Stubborn Attachments is a smart slim book by Tyler Cowen. He presents a decisive defense of society’s obligation to pursue economic growth. Although he expands his profession’s definition of wealth by bulking it out to include a larger scope of life. Wealth Plus is how he describes it.
In chapter five he wrestles around with some ideas about who should do what when. In order to not only have monetary wealth, it is valuable to sense that when something bad is on nigh, someone is around for a rescue. When the drowning girl needs to be saved, there must be a member willing to jump in the water and pull her out.
It’s not efficient if everybody were to jump in. She’d be saved by the sudden and dramatic reduction of the water level. Meanwhile no other jobs would get the attention they deserve. S0 how is it that the available labor will be in place when a task needs doing? When a crime needs reporting or an old pensioner needs protecting? That’s a great question.
It’s the question that begs the demand for benchmarking.
They’re called influencers when they hit soccial media venues peddling cosementic products and outfits. Pop mega-star Billie Eilish isn’t hawking commodities. She’s pushing for people to make a sacrifice for the environement. Instead of enjoying a new outfit, settle for a used one. Instead of going solo in a vehicle to her concert, pair up and carpool.
“Hit Me Hard and Soft,” Eilish’s third album, is due out May 17. For the tour, she is focusing on sustainability and is continuing her longtime relationship with environmental nonprofit Reverb, to which she’ll donate a portion of proceeds from ticket sales. She’s also encouraging fans to carpool or take public transportation to her concerts and to wear thrifted or borrowed clothing rather than purchasing new. Fans are also invited to bring an empty reusable water bottle as there will be free refill stations at the venue.
St Paul Pioneer Press
Reminding people to do their part toward a common goal is one way to advance its objective. Another is to pass a law. No plastic straws, for instance, was meant to help the environement.
What I wonder about is which of these to strategies has a bigger impact, and to what degree? Spitballing it I would guess that someone of Eilish’s stature teases out more action, probably a lot more action. It wouldn’t be that hard to measure the ridership of the audience memebers.
I wonder why there aren’t more efforts to nail down the results of some of these strategies. If a mega-star can generate more significant results than a law. Skip the bannings that no one pays attention to and hire the influencers to change the world.
Is volunteer the right word for unpaid labor? Afterall, in free societies jobs are done voluntarily as well. Carees are pursued on a voluntary basis. That’s the whole idea. You get to choose. ‘The difference between work that is done as service work, in the efforts to improve or maintain a common goal, and work done for private enterprise, is that in one instance you are paid through reciprocity down the road, and in the other you are paid in unfettered cash.
How you choose to spend your waking hours in labor or leisure, caring for your loved ones or idly reading a book, working for a paycheck or going to an NBA playoff game, are all done voluntarily.
The difference is not whether you choose to work, but whether you choose to work for compensation. In fact, you can blend the. You can work for a check and in conjuction with your passions. And do it entirely voluntarily!
I love this clip by Kyla about the housing market in Austin. Build more housing and prices moderate. Too true.
There’s another factor at play here. Austin is a new town which has experienced a lot of growth. And along with the growth, prosperity. So for folks in the area to be pro-expansion and in turn pro-housing growth is an easy turn.
In more established cities, there are networks of additional interests all meshing on top of the landscape. There were reasons why residents fought for and built out their cities following those rules. For new growing metros, the Austin plan would be easy to adopt. For more those with longer histories, it’s not the same game. Here it will take other strategies to urge continued housing growth.
Years had passed without me giving the FFA a second thought. If someone had asked, I would’ve bet money on their demise years ago, during the era when everyone talked about the death of small-town rural America. If it hadn’t been for stopping at a rest stop on Sunday, the organization would still be out of my sight.
As it turns out the two bus loads of kids who were shoulder to shoulder in line for the sandwiches were headed to the FFA Minnesota State Convention at the UMN. Three days of events starting at a very early 7:30am. The dairy evaluations were at 7:45am.
This organization is not lacking for members eventhough it seems to be lacking media coverage.
Minnesota’s 95th State FFA Convention was held April 21-23 at 3M Arena at Mariucci and at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.
Speakers, awards, competitions, workshops and sessions were some of the highlights for more than 6,000 FFA members from Minnesota attending the convention, celebrating the convention theme “Achieve – What It Takes.”
Here are some stats:
4,200 FFA members 7th-12th grade are pre-registered for the state convention.
15,000 FFA members in the state.
40,000 Minnesota students are enrolled in Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources (AFNR) classes.
218 FFA Chapters in Minnesota middle and high schools.
338 Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources teachers/FFA advisors in the state
This is from from a Grand Rapids outlet, WDO
Youth interest in rural communities is good news for the environment.
The answer to this is something like the answer Lincoln gave to the question, “How long should a man’s legs be?” Long enough to reach the ground, Lincoln said. Just so, proper city dwelling densities are a matter of performance. They cannot be based on abstractions about the quantities of land that ideally should be allotted for so-and-so many people (living in some docile, imaginary society).
Densities are too low, or too high, when they frustrate city diversity instead of abetting it. This flaw in performance is why they are too low or too high. We ought to look at densities in much the same way as we look at calories and vitamins. Right amounts are right amounts because of how they perform. And what is right differs in specific instances.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
We were driving by an intersection nearby and my husband said, “I can’t see why they’re tearing down the Prudential building. It’s in such good shape.” True. The building that was the corporate headquarters for Prudential in Minnesota was only forty years old and still looked like an attractive structure. But the destruction has begun.
Although the building is still viable, it sits on 43.75 acres of land within the Hwy 494 loop around the Twin Cities. Perhaps a large corporation would still invest in a private campus of this size, but the likelyhood of a current buyer, with the money, and (perhaps most importantly) the compatibility with the structure, is improbable. Technology changes alone make a forty-year old commercial building sorely lacking.
But it’s really about the land.
In 1980, much of the surrounding land was undeveloped. There were scatterings of buildings and a few housing developments, but this was truly the outskirts of the metro area. Bass Lake Townhomes, for instances were built in 1990. The commercial strip mall across Bass Lake Road to the north was built in 2001.
Once the present use of the Prudential site changed, and the company no longer had value in it, then value became what an outside party could do with the parcel. And this is what is proposed.
There are plans for two large apartment buildings. There is a retail and a grocery. There is space for restaurants and other commercial. The pressure to release this resource from a one-site parcel to a multi-use asset is tremendous. Thus the value of the large, seemingly viable, structure diminishes to nothing.
What’s interesting to note is that Prudential did nothing to make this happen. It occured because of neighbors.
The pleasure derived from watching sports really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Yet- there’s no doubt about it. When your team wins its second playoff game- it’s a great night.
How do you put a number on historical value? A Minnesota bill is about to put a price on the ruby slippers worn by MN native Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz. The slippers, stolen twenty years ago, were recently returned to their owner following the completion of the trial last year. The FBI were tipped off to the where abouts and recovered the sparkly heels in a sting.
Now the owner plans to have them auctioned off after sending them on tour. Their estimated auction value is put at $3.5 million.
The state of MN is going to put in a bid but it’s a bit shy of the estimate.
How are cultural values calculated? A one-off item is difficult to determine. But other similar items come and go from the market. Properties, for instance, have been designated as historical landmarks.
The higher interest rates have cooled the residential real estate market a bit, which is nice because for a run of three years or so, every home that was in decent condition was selling in multiple offers. It was common for a buyer to bid on four, five, seven homes before they were the winners.
Recently at a sales meeting the manager pulled the topic out of his list of things to talk about at a meeting because some properties are still attracting several offers. The strategies the office came up with filled the large sheet of paper on the easel at the front of the room. There’s more than one way to write and present an offer to a seller.
This made me think of game theory as the purpose of the meeting conversation was to theorectically compare strategies amongst the active participants in the market. Like in game theory, agents develop a sense of their buyers valuation of the home. There are many angles to this, but given the process of considering other options, perhaps loosing out on other bidding situations, the agent shares the strategies discussed amongst the agents in the meeting, and advises the buyer accordingly.
While reading Isreal Kirzner work, I thought his concept of discovery best described the process buyers go through in the market to arrive at their home purchase. After repeated investigations into the various housing options, perhaps with breaks in between to go home and reassess the purpose of the move, buyers discover their best option and only then are motivated to pursue an offer to the seller.
I can see now that the game theory part is the setup for strategy, competition and cooperation with the seller once the property has been identified. The discovery part has to do solely with the buyers insights into which property has that added benefit that boosts the property ahead of others in accomodating their needs. It is more useful to them and their particular circumstances.
It’s funny beause often a buyer is attracted to a property for the some or all of the same reasons the seller has enjoyed it during their tenure. And that affinitiy for the same likes and dislikes encourages the parties toward cooperation.
Massive suburban mall parking lots must be one of the more unattractive features in a built environment. That’s why I like this little park so much. The city of Minnetonka installed a well landscaped gathering spot in one corner of Ridgedale Mall’s lot.
A woman walking her dog mentioned that on Tuesdays in the summer months the farmer’s market sets up in the open space.
JeremyHorpedahl- the most reliable man of numbers on Twitter- comments on wealth across the generations.
Westminister Church has a wonderful town hall forum that hosts interesting visitors in a its beautiful nave. Today’s guest was Keyu Jin whose book, The New China Playbook, Beyond Socialism and Capitalism, was recently published. I was not familiar with this professor from the London School of Economics but the title of the talk drew me in.
After the half hour talk, Prof Jin took questions from the audience. Tane Danger, the host, looks through the cards in order to group similar topics together.
One audience member asks about the nuts and bolts of the k-12 education system in China. She responded that the party originally was responsible for education and it was free to all. But the one child policy in conjunction with fierce competition to vie for the best spots in the work force, led couples to hire tutors. A high score on placement exams guarantee economic and social advancement. Thus, in response to demand, a large industry of private education providers was spawned. This led families of limited means to expend, according to Jin, as much as a quarter of their income on supplemental instruction.
Prof Jin saw this as a negative outcome to capitalism. People’s hopes and fears for their children’s success were being exploited by a private entrepreneurial spirit.
Which brings us back to a favorite topic here at Home Economics. The theory is that certain endeavors are better suited to cooperate efforts of resource providers, while others respond favorably to incentives. In the first instance, the common goal is achieved through public governance and provisions, whether informally within a group or formally via a state structure. Public education has positive impacts from all angles in a society which is undoubtedly why it was established and is still maintained as a public good in the US.
Prof Jin provides a counterfactual. When the state fails to prioritize education, private entrepreneurs jump in and fill the gap. In her example, their success in combination with the high stakes creates an inefficiency.
From behind him Madame emerged, small and wrinkled and fierce. She considered that she had created this man out of whole cloth, had thought him up, and she was sure that she could do a better job if she had it to do again. Only once or twice in her life had she ever understood all of him, but the part of him which she knew, she knew intricately and well. No little appetite or pain, no carelessness or meanness in him escaped her; no thought or dream or longing in him ever reached her. And yet several times in her life she had seen the stars.
She stepped around the Mayor and she took his hand and pulled his finger out of his outraged ear and pushed his hand to his side, the way she would take a baby’s thumb away from his mouth.
Sue Christianson watched in shock and heartbreak as Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and she wondered what she could do to help.
Christianson, of St. Paul, was looking for a way to donate money online when she came across a Forbes article that mentioned ENGin, a nonprofit organization that pairs Ukrainians with English-speaking volunteers for free online conversation practice.
This is how she ended up helping a Ukrainian — now living in Minnesota — practice his English via Zoom or Google meet.
Mary Divine shares more about the need for volunteers.
When people have time, and they see a need, they willingly give of their time and expertise. It’s the work we do keeping a social objective in mind.
Read about it here, as Mary Divine explains in the Pioneer Press. Perhaps you can spare some time as well?
The first author of neighborhoods points out the need for self-governance.
Let us assume (as is often the case) that city neighbors have nothing more fundamental in common with each other than that they share a fragment of geography. Even so, if they fail at managing that fragment decently, the fragment will fail. There exists no inconceivably energetic and all-wise “They” to take over and substitute for localized self-management. Neighborhoods in cities need not supply for their people an artificial town or village life, and to aim at this is both silly and destructive. But neighborhoods in cities do need to supply some means for civilized self-government. This is the problem.
Chp 6, The uses of city neighborhoods
The Uber/Lyft conversation in the Twin City area provides material to illustrate the dual nature of transactions. Let’s revisit the players. The drivers provide a service to riders for a fee. They also use a platform which takes a cut of the fare in exchange for technology services and national branding.
Drivers left the taxi structure back ten years ago or so. And it does not sound like they want to go back to the taxi arrangement and work for a boss, but are encouraging other ride share companies to enter the market. They are disgruntled with private pecuniary measures, yet satisfied with the soical benefits and flexibility of the job.
Riders are pleased with the services at today’s pricing. Present public transit options like the bus or metro mobility are actually cheaper but do not replace the service. The groups that would be most damaged by the loss of the ride share structure, since there is no substitute, are disabled folks and those who use it to go bar hopping. The social detriment to the first group would be internalized by loss of freedom and a reduction in trips to their medical appointments. Social detriment would be externalized through outcomes from drunken driving.
Another group of riders would have an impact on local businesses and conventions. The travelers who arrive from elsewhere in the US are familiar with Uber and Lyfts through their national presence. Their apps are already downloaded on their phones and they know the drill. The travel community is worried about how removing this transit option will be externalized onto their business.
Other ride share providers have always been able to enter the market. Drivers have always been able to seek out other work at traditional taxi oulets and other types of driver opportunities like school bus driving. (There are regular job postings for this in our districy choice.) Now that Uber/Lyft’s departure may be eminent, five other platforsm are said to be interested in the market. Yet there are regulatory costs.
Uber and Lyft’s threat to leave the Minneapolis area has sparked a lot of interest from outside players. But the cost of operating a ride share business is not for the faint of heart. It costs $37,000 for a license in Minneapolis, plus another $10,000 wheel chair accessibility fee. St. Paul’s license fee is $41,000. MSP Airport requires a $10,000 security deposit and a $500 license fee.
Separately, it costs about $150,000 to secure a commercial auto insurance policy for a rideshare company.
MSN.com
The issue around the driver’s fare split is presented, politically, as the wealthy corporate boss taking advantage of a punch clock worker. This isn’t the turn-of-the-century, nor are we talking about a factory. And since the platforms have yet to make a profit, that visual is difficult to sustain. But this broohaha may be the trick to get other companies to enter the market and have a go. Should they offer drivers a better cut, then the labor flow will move over to the ride share platform.
The key in all this is freedom. If drivers have the freedom to work as taxi drivers, or bus drivers, or drivers for ride share platforms, then they will gravitate to the best situation for their private interests, leaving the failing apps to die off. If riders find services that better suit their needs, then their business will filter over to new options.
Picking numbers and setting up a dam in the system inadvertently sets off financial as well as social repercussions without clearing them through the numerous social structures involved.
What’s interesting about this post by psychologist Kaidi Wu is, that in debunking the myth that American are solely independent and eastern cultures are solely communal, she exposes the reality that people in general act with both types of action in mind.
So the trick to organizing our actions really revolves around acknowledging which endeavors generate the best results through competition, and which ones sort more readily to a communal response.
Some of these are easy to spot. The sales of a tangible widget is best left to competition. Once the market is saturated and the object is no longer of use, resources will stop flowing in that direction. Services which save people from harm, like firefighters, are best provided by a community.
But Kaidi Wu is absolutely correct that the historically popular criticism that Americans are solely interested in the self is simply in err.
It started over 30 years ago. Steven Landsburg wrote the popular book The Armchair Economist in 1993. Through popular stories of economoc quandries and paradoxes, he challenges the long held premise of the rational agent.
Quite the opposite: Our working assumption is that whatever people do, they have excellent reasons for doing.
If we as economists can’t see their reasons, then it is we who have a new riddle to solve.
Since then the discipline has been flooded with sub-categories. There is behavioral economics, feminist economics, health economics, environment economics and so on. Perhaps there’s a thread that ties them together.
Kenya needs title companies.
Example of private ordering described by Anthony Downs.
The purpose of shifting services to the neighborhood level is not just to improve quality but also to encourage self-development of local residents and enhancement of their personal values. Neighborhood self-development usually occurs most effectively through spontaneous, unplanned local efforts often led by charismatic individuals. In city after city the most effective such efforts have emerged from the dramatic leadership of one or a few unique individuals who took it upon themselves to “do something” about local conditions and galvanized others into : action. Inevitably, their efforts reflect their own unique combinations of talents and are therefore difficult to replicate elsewhere.
Neighborhoods and Urban Development
A coalition of diverse groups, it was reported, were all coming together for a housing bill. That was sixty days ago.
(KNSI) — The Central Minnesota Builders Association is throwing its support behind a piece of legislation aimed at addressing the lack of housing and the high cost of new construction.
A coalition of housing advocates and bipartisan lawmakers joined together at the State Capitol to call for an increase in access and affordability in housing through the Minnesotans for More Homes initiative.
The bill (HF 4009/SF 3964) legalizes missing middle housing and new starter homes across Minnesota.
KNSI Radio
From the builders association to affordable housing advocates, an unlikely melange of interested parties were looking for ways to reduce housing costs. How better to lower expenses then to reduce barriers to building by rolling back the rules. This bill brought authority over what can be built where to statewide control.
Once the implications of un-zoning the neighborhood hit local communities, residents weren’t impressed. Here are some of the changes proposed.
League of Minnesota Cities
- Sets a base level for density allowed on any residential lot by right (or without needing to go through a discretionary review processes) regardless of size at 2 units statewide and 4 units in cities of the first class. If certain conditions are met, 8 units are allowed in second-, third-, and fourth-class cities and 10 units may be allowed per lot in cities of the first class.
- Forces administrative approvals of projects that meet the standards in the bill language and prohibits public input in the approval process.
- Limits minimum lot size requirements to no greater than 2,500 square feet for first class cities and 4,000 square feet for all other cities except for Greater Minnesota cities with populations of less than 5,000.
- Requires all cities to accept Accessory Dwelling Units on all residential lots regardless of size and allows property owners to subdivide their lots by right.
- Prohibits off-street parking from being required close to major transit stops and limits off-street parking minimum requirements to 1 spot per unit in other areas.
- Allows multifamily buildings to be built up to 150 feet tall on any lot in a commercial zoning district.
- Broadly prohibits design standards for residential development and eliminates minimum square footage and floor area ratio requirements.
The cities organized and alerted their constituents who must have followed thorugh with calls to their state representatives as the bills is no longer progressing through the chambers. I doubt constitutents will agree to handing over local property rights to the state. This seems like a heavy handed, top down approach.
So how does one encourage increased density? Why- the market of course!
When the drudgery of putting out three meals a day for a family ends up being your favorite thing to do.
Home Economics 