OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
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User ID: 359
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1hr ago
Being able to go into debt is not wealth or everyone attending college right now would be worth $100,000.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2hr ago
You don't need a painting but you need a shelter. You don't need an Apple stock and you can sell it without needing to buy another S&P stock to replace it. I don't think that home value increases are wealth in the sense a good stock and bond portfolio is, but they are often treated as such in economic calculations. Accessing that wealth requires lowering a standard of living in some way that isn't replicated with other assets.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2hr ago
Are you denying that homeowners who have there house values massively increase aren't richer?
No, I acknowledge that a homeowner who has had a large home where the value massively increased can downsize when the kids are out and add the difference to their retirement. But I disagree that reverse mortgages and HELOCs are "wealth." Yes, it is possible if someone is lucky to have been born at certain times to leverage home values and buy rentals and extract economic rent that way.
What I don't think, and what I think the article author is trying to get at, is that home value increases are wealth in the sense a good stock and bond portfolio is, but they are often treated as such in economic calculations. Accessing that wealth requires lowering a standard of living in some way.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2hr ago
Your own source says, "President Donald Trump, who is holding a meeting about Venezuela with his national security team later in the day, said on Sunday that he would not have wanted a second strike on the boat." So I'm not sure why your follow up questions are on Trump.
The Washington Post story is, "The Washington Post had reported that a second strike was ordered to take out two survivors from the initial strike and to comply with an order by Hegseth that everyone be killed."
Sean Parnell (Assistant to the SECWAR, Chief Pentagon Spokesman & Senior Advisor ) said, "We told the Washington Post that this entire narrative was false yesterday."
You seem to be implying that Leavitt's comment contradicts this:
"Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated," Leavitt said.
However, Leavitt's statement is not the Washington Post story. It actually contradicts it by placing the emphasis on the destruction of the boat, not the killing of the two survivors of the first attack.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5hr ago
A lot of people complained about that, and it's really his fault but Part I is actually kind of Part 1.5. He wrote an article earlier about affording a home in Essex County, NJ, and used the numbers from MIT's Living Wage analysis for Essex County, New Jersey in his calculation. He wasn't expecting the article to go beyond his readership so he didn't really explain that part well until Part II.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5hr ago
The value isn't increasing in the same way as other assets. He compares it to a painting:
If you own a painting and it goes from $1,000 to $1,000,000, you are now wealthy. You do not need the painting to survive. You can sell the painting, buy a house, and live off the proceeds.
Whereas, if you have a house increase in value, you can't sell it for that full value and pocket the proceeds. You need to live somewhere:
If you sell the house to “realize” your wealth, you are homeless. You must enter the market to buy a replacement machine. But because all the machines repriced in correlation, your $600,000 gain is immediately consumed by the purchase of the new, equally expensive house.
The only way to unlock that wealth is to:
Die.
Downsize (move to a cheaper region, sacrificing income/opportunity/quality of life).
Borrow against it (HELOC or reverse mortgage), which turns your equity back into debt.
All three represent either a loss of utility or a conversion back into debt.
The fact that a person who doesn't own a house is in an even worse position does not negate that home inflation shouldn't really be considered the same as other assets.
Don't compare it from No home to Has home. Compare between a world where homes inflated 10x to one where homes only inflated 2x. Which world has generated more "wealth?"
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6hr ago
Reminds me of this viral Substack series: Part 1, Part 2..
If you own a painting and it goes from $1,000 to $1,000,000, you are now wealthy. You do not need the painting to survive. You can sell the painting, buy a house, and live off the proceeds.
But if the home you live in goes from $200,000 to $1,000,000, you are not wealthy, because the replacement home also costs $1M. You are trapped. You cannot sell the house and take the profit, because you still need a place to sleep, and the house across the street also costs $1,000,000.
You haven’t gained purchasing power. You have simply experienced a revaluation of your Cost of Living.
...
For the middle class, rising home prices are not “Wealth Accumulation.” They are Asset Price Inflation. We have confused the capitalized cost of future rent with an asset. When housing prices triple relative to wages, we haven’t made homeowners rich; we have made non-owners poor. We pulled up the ladder and called it “Net Worth.”
The median age of first time homebuying has gone up from 28 in the 1990s to 40. First-time buyers now comprise just 21% of all home purchases.
Nothing about this seems sustainable to me. At least the younger generation will inherit the houses? Well, no. Usually inheritance passes down to the next generation, which currently owns their own homes. And many elderly are forced to sell their houses to pay for eldercare, meaning that all that home value goes to the health care system instead of anyone else.
Ok, but then who are the elderly selling to? People in their 40s able and willing to get into tons of debt. OK, but who buys when you exhaust that group? Property investment firms who are able to rent the houses out. Can that go on forever? Well, if they're buying houses at a certain price, they're hoping the rent will be more than the mortgage over the length of the life of the home. This happens when rents increase over time. Will we always have more people looking for homes than there are available?
To put a finer point on it, it seems like the system requires that there be perpetually fewer homes than desired, but this is not really desirable as a society because we like when everyone has a home and punish people who do not have a residence. And, regardless of what's good or bad or anyone's wishes, eventually the population will decrease as the boomers die off.
Home prices have to fall, right? And I wouldn't even be mad about it, though I'd be one of those holding the bag. I'd like for my kids to afford a home. I'd put me in a precarious financial position until the bulk of the principle is payed off. But I will pay the monthly amount I agreed to pay because I'm an adult, and I'll be happy to see my kids in a better position than me because I'm a normal human being.
But anyone who was hoping to trade their $800,000 home for 8 months in hospice care might be in for a rude awakening.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
11hr ago
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell picks up in the last third. I haven't decided if it was worth reading.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
11hr ago
On the more philosophical side of things:
Brief, 1 hour interview with a Gender Philosopher: https://youtube.com/live/w8D5tyvodSM?si=1tORdLvMpXnTDLLi
Extended discussion/book club on Gender from a Catholic lens (but holy shit I learned so much about contemporary "queering the gender norm" academics): Season 1, Season 2.
On the more medical side of things: https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/15hhliu/the_chen_2023_paper_raises_serious_concerns_about/
https://old.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/hp0ee4/so_im_actually_a_doctor_who_specializes_in/
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
3d ago
He's nuts, for sure, but even crazy people have some kind of internal logic . I'm not asking, "Why did he attack the National Guards?" I'm asking, "Why did he attack the National Guard in DC instead of the ones in Portland, California, Chicago, Tennessee, etc." Or is DC the only place they are actually deployed, in which case what is with the Liberal histrionics?
Why did Lakanwal drive all the way to DC to shoot two National Guardsman? There were many other National Guard deployments between his home and DC. Edit: I'm not questioning his motive to kill members of the NG. I'm questioning why he drove 40 hours from Washington State to Washington D.C.
Guess 1: It's symbolic. DC is more "America" than Portland and the attack was against America. But if so, why not wait one more day and do it on Thanksgiving proper? Even more symbolic that way.
Guess 2: It's a probing attack for a bigger event later on. Probably shouldn't have let himself get taken alive if that's the case...
Guess 3: He had a personal beef against one of the Guardsmen? Was one of them deployed in Afghanistan, he saw them on the TV once, and made it his mission to take revenge for something?
Guess 4: He is actually a Trump agent. After the "Sedition" video, Trump activated him to attack a couple national guards to show his opponents just how dangerous it is to call the military the enemies of the American people. No one was supposed to get really hurt...
Guess 5: He's actually the most patriotic of Americans and took it upon himself to lead the uprising of the American people against the Tyrannical Trump regime, as prompted by the "Sedition" video.
If you can't tell, my guesses are getting wilder and wilder, because I haven't settled on anything I find very plausible. Anyone else feel the same?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6d ago
Is MTG all that important to Republicans? I haven't seen much than a passing, "huh."
Marjorie Taylor Greene had an average 24% Approval Rating among Republicans. Most Republicans didn't recognize her name in a poll:
Most who were asked about Greene said that they had no opinion of the congresswoman. Republicans were less likely to be aware of or have an opinion about Greene than Democrats, with 64 percent of Democrats weighing in compared to only 44 percent of Republicans.
Greene is more important to Democrats to show how crazy Republicans are, than she is to Republicans who largely don't think about her at all.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
9d ago
Right now, the threats to our constitution are not just coming from abroad, but from right here at home.
How else do you interpret this sentence?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
10d ago
I played Dispatch. It's fun. It's pretty. It's not really a game but a story with aspects that make it more immersive than a normal TV show. I will be happy to buy whatever else AdHoc Studio comes up with.
If the atrocious legal advice is, "disobey your commanding officers," then yeah that sounds seditious and it is illegal to advise.
Add up the following:
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While service members have the right to refuse illegal orders, all orders are presumed lawful, and the burden falls on the service member to prove an order is manifestly unlawful.
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The video implies without evidence that unlawful orders have already happened.
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The video therefore implies that current orders which have the presumption of being lawful should be disobeyed.
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UCMJ 94 says: " (1) with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority, refuses, in concert with any other person, to obey orders or otherwise do his duty or creates any violence or disturbance is guilty of mutiny; (2) with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of lawful civil authority, creates, in concert with any other person, revolt, violence, or other disturbance against that authority is guilty of sedition;"
So I guess the lingering question is if a coordinated video advising that currently presumed lawful orders should be treated as if they were unlawful counts as a disturbance. But if so, yes, sedition is the word used in the military code.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
11d ago
The video heavily implies that illegal orders have already happened. "This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against citizens... Right now, the threats to our constitution are not just coming from abroad, but from right here at home."
It heavily implies that soldiers should refuse their current orders. However, those orders are presumed legal until proved otherwise by the judicial system. They at the very least are guilty of providing atrocious legal advice.
Eowyn's motivations are really most explicated in The Return of the King, where it seems that everyone knew she was depressed and hopeless before the battle:
Alas! For she was pitted against a foe beyond the strength of her mind or body. And those who will take a weapon to such an enemy must be sterner than steel, if the very shock shall not destroy them. It was an evil doom that set her in his path. For she is a fair maiden, fairest lady of a house of queens. And yet I know not how I should speak of her. When I first looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily, and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel. Or was it, maybe, a frost that had turned its sap to ice, and so it stood, bitter-sweet, still fair to see, but stricken, soon to fall and die? Her malady begins far back before this day, does it not, Éomer?’
‘I marvel that you should ask me, lord,’ he answered. ‘For I hold you blameless in this matter, as in all else; yet I knew not that Éowyn, my sister, was touched by any frost, until she first looked on you. Care and dread she had, and shared with me, in the days of Wormtongue and the king’s bewitchment; and she tended the king in growing fear. But that did not bring her to this pass!’
As you say, she had a right to join battle as an Iron age aristocrat woman, but her uncle had her stay back to defend the people instead. Everyone expected that they would fail, and she would die defending her people as well, just from the rear. She abandoned her people, her duty, and went to the front to die anonymously. This isn't really glorified in Tolkien's writing.
"Did you not accept the charge to govern the people until their lord's return? If you had not been chosen, then some marshal or captain would have been set in the same place, and he could not ride away from his charge, were he weary of it or no."
'Shall I always be chosen?' she said bitterly. 'Shall I always be left behind when the Riders depart, to mind the house while they win renown, and find food and beds when they return?'
'A time may come soon,' said he, 'when none will return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defence of your homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.'
The point is that Tolkien was doing something much more complicated with Eowyn than a simple Mulan girlboss story.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
12d ago
With Eowyn, entering the battlefield isn't really celebrated or glamorized by Tolkien. It's sad. It's an expression of Eowyn's hopelessness. She thinks her options are to die fighting or to die cowering, and so she picks to die fighting. After the battle, she has to turn away from this kind of thinking and instead garden for the future.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
12d ago
I have seen an increase in popularity of "Free Range Parenting," https://letgrow.org/, etc. I think sentiments on this are changing among some groups.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
13d ago
Is this a decision someone made and can theoretically be unmade by a governing body? Like someone takes a case to the Supreme Court, or a law in Congress gets passed? Or is this just incentives finding a local minimum?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
13d ago
Did anything change in the last 150 years in tort law that caused the risk of being sued to increase? Did the supply of lawyers increase and the cost to access a lawyer decrease? What are the incentives that have made us like this?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
14d ago
There's also Anglicanism. But those "only 100 years" are 100 years where Catholics and Protestants became separate groups, which seems relevant.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
14d ago
Fastforward a few hundred years, and you have the Inquisition, the Protestant Reformation, and all the wars. Christendom in the West is basically fractured entirely, with the Protestants generally attracting folks that are more into mysticism, experiential acts of faith, and contemplation. Whereas the Catholic church tended to keep those focused on structured, ordered discipline and an explicit, rational understanding of the faith.
Not sure if this is the case. Conversions were political decisions by princes and nobles. That's why you have state churches and whole countries that became one kind of Protestant.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
17d ago
I think this is a good example of the rule, "Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion." It is often used to mean "write civilly," but also write as if you were trying to explain it to a reasonably intelligent random you just met at community pool.
Your first comment seemed to be about the new scandal - the double strike. Trump might have had very little to do with the double strike while still not being a "Weekend at Biden."
No, Trump is clearly doing something with Venezuela. But if you want to argue about the whole situation in general, it would require putting forward more of an argument on your part.
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