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It’s funny how time and circumstances can erode disappointments, over time. I’m sure that at one time I had hopes for career advancement which have largely become irrelevant, since having concluded that it’s better to be self-employed. I used to be disappointed in womanhood’s indifference to me, until I spent so long living on my own that I decided it’s just as well. Years ago, there was a time when I was fired up to move to one of the really big cities, but the post-9/11 security-state transformations of Washington and New York cooled a good deal of that ardor. And for years, now, I’ve cherished this little dream of bailing out on our afflicted nation to take up residence in Canada, but…

Lately, it seems like a concerted campaign is in progress to convince me that it wouldn’t be worth bothering.

The national government in Ottawa has been run by increasingly-American-ish Conservatives for years, now. And in my Canadian city-of-choice, Toronto, the current mayor is apparently a reactionary blowhard from the Bill O’Reilly school. Presumably these things will change, eventually, but the larger picture of Canada becoming a petrostate seems worryingly likely to be a long-term trend. (more…)

Alright, part of what’s bugging me here may just be a product of Matthew Yglesias busily promoting his e-book, and therefore placing a lot of posts about his arguments against artificially-high rents in front of me. But even if Yglesias is ultimately behind most of the noise about insufficient rental housing, he isn’t alone. He’s apparently got this guy Mark Bergen joining in, both at Forbes as well as at Good (which I read for a while last year, before giving up). And Ryan Avent has been writing along similar lines over at The Economist for quite some while.

And in some ways I’m quite sympathetic, here. I rent, after all, so I’m interested, particularly in any idea which might lower my cost of living. And I’m sure there’s something in all of this fretting and complaining, especially lately as a traumatic disaster in the mortgage market has undeniably moved more people into the renter’s market for various reasons, including what may well be an entire generation or two (myself included) which is now permanently more averse to obtaining housing through an arrangement which, translated from French, essentially means “death pact.” In a lot of ways I think it’s great that the national obsession with “homeownership” may have receded a bit and that my own preferences for housing/agreement type may not mark me as a shifty-loner-outcast quite as immediately.

However, it’s not so great if we have more people demanding one category of housing (which I happen to prefer also) while the supply remains fixed. That way lies yet another basic living expense going up, and up. And that’s pretty much the essence of Yglesias’s complaint, so far as I can tell. So far, so fair-enough.

Except I kind of wonder, just how general a problem is this alleged rental-housing shortage? Those guys are the masters of number-crunching and I’m not, so they may well have a solid foundation for presenting this as an everyone problem. But I still find myself wondering, to be blunt, is this actually any kind of national problem or is it just a New York issue? (more…)

ENVY

Let me start things off by taking my own whack at the now well-thrashed piñata of Mitt Romney’s latest pronouncement, that complaints of widening inequality are simply “envy.” I think that to some extent, in the current political climate, this attempt by Romney to claim the crown for “most out-of-touch presidential candidate since George Bush, Sr.” needs no real rebuttal; by all means let him self-destruct. Those taking the occasion to make or repeat useful points about inequality, meanwhile, have already done a fine job.

But I thought of one more point, yesterday, which I think is interesting enough to record here; I think this might be a good response if one were in a debate with Romney (and actually wished to contest his dismissal of inequality). A bit long for a genuinely good sound-bite, probably, but oh well. Here goes:

Think about it this way, Mitt. Imagine you have a friend who plans to start a company. He’s going to need a lot of start-up capital for this enterprise, say $200 million. So you and, say, 98 other friends all go in as investors; not necessarily in equal shares but all 100 people have contributed something to this project. The $200M total is reached, the company is launched, and huzzah! your investments produce a success. Or, that is, they produce growth, but not for 99% of those who made that growth possible, you included. Certainly, the amount of initial contributions varied so one would likewise expect investors’ shares of the growth to vary, but everyone should receive something. Except that 99% are receiving absolutely nothing, with all of the growth going to the enrichment of just 1 in 100, the CEO having through some chicanery or other arranged to keep all the company’s growth to himself. This is entirely contrary to how things were supposed to work, themes of “a rising tide lifts all boats” and “everyone in this together” having been constantly repeated when money was being collected. And so, naturally, you and the rest of the 99% intend to protest this outcome, vocally and aggressively. Asked to respond to your charges, the CEO shrugs disdainfully, waves his hand and pronounces them “just envy.”

And undoubtedly, Romney’s warped corporations-are-people perspective would find various reasons why this is an invalid parallel. He still insists that Romneycare and Obamacare are completely different, after all. But I’m not sure he convinces anyone else. (more…)