youtube.com/watch?v=MYoA1R38… An amazing video on how inadequate the concept of the left-right spectrum is in describing political views. Left-Right really is astrology for politics, I'm going to have to steal that phrase.

GDP per capita on its own is a weak proxy for living standards between rich countries, anyways heres regions of North America based on the Human Development Index.

The federal government spends 10 times more on seniors than on children.

When I say rent controls are freezes are a bad policy, this is one reason of a million:

If you really want to tax wealthy people more, you should impose a new property tax. Not increase the income tax

It almost as if up-zoning and density never had anything to do with these valuations

Impact fees (known in BC as DCC/ACC) are such an important part of the housing cost delivery problem. Putting the entire cost of new infrastructure on the backs of new renters and homeowners. Bonded infrastructure financing and alternate municipal funding models are needed.

Neat visualisation on rent control from John Burn Murdoch

What's silly about the "AI art" debate is that it's about "human versus machine", but you don't need to have that debate. Machines must always be in service of humans or else we've lost the plot. If you were an incredible illustrator, now you can easily animate your illustrations

Why can’t progressive cities build enough housing? Blame their own policies. Milan Singh explains why Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's expansion of inclusionary zoning is making it harder to build housing in the city. Take a look!

"People want actual homes" move to a place with actual homes then? Otherwise, if your city has been built out you have either two choices: complain about inevitable property tax increases, or increase the taxable square footage of your city to reduce your property tax.

Property Tax Freezes are a scam. The only thing that decreases property tax per square footage is economic dynamism & increased density that comes from zoning reform that makes us more urban. All other claims are lies that defer the tax + inflation to the year the freeze ends

Crazy! Turns out when you build a whole lot of market-rate homes it moderates prices! Data is in—YIMBYs were right and it's actually beneficial for everyone apartmentlist.com/research/r… via @apartmentlist

> “transplant” > look under the hood > a term used by leftists to complain about “outsiders” not being a native to the city > dig into what it means > turns out it’s just the same xenophobic blood and soil nationalism at municipal level > point this out > leftists get upset

Hard to overstate how crazy this is. Vancouver planners designed the multiplex zoning so that multiplexes would be barely competitive with single-family houses. If we cared about housing supply, we would make them *more* attractive, so they outcompete SFHs.

Forcing all Conservatives into one big tent winds up giving extremists undue influence. BC needs a wide variety of Conservatism to chose from on the ballot. Proportional representation

Why does higher supply reduce prices? There is 1 house for sale and 4 buyers with maximum bids: A: $600k, B: $500k, C: $400k, D: $300k The market price is the highest losing bid, since this means the winner can outbid the losers. With one house, A wins, and B,C,D lose. B's bid is $500k, so this is the price paid by A. Now add a 2nd home. Here, both A and B win, so A doesn't need to outbid B. Instead, A and B only need to outbid C, so the price is $400k. Similarly, with 3 houses, D's bid sets the price at $300k. Lesson: higher supply means fewer buyers you need to outbid, and hence a lower price.

Can we just do pro-rep? Surely all parties on either the left or the right recognize that we can’t keep building unstable coalitions for fear of splitting the vote. This election is going to be as disproportional as 96 or 01. STV+? B-W DMP? Please?

WELL I was assaulted by a schizo homeless guy today in Toronto. I was walking to the grocery store when he started stalking me. I tried to get away from him but it didn’t work. He grabbed me, pinned me against a fence, and then tried to break my hand to steal my phone. Three people passing by helped save me. The police were quick and kind, but the officer I spoke with told me this guy had been arrested for attacking people repeatedly in the past month, and “fair warning, a judge will probably let him out by tomorrow morning.” 🫠 lovely system we got goin on here folks

Why would I want to be forced to pay taxes to the United States no matter where I lived and worked? And then be subject to expatriation taxation if I want to surrender that citizenship? And live in a pseudo dictatorship where citizens votes have NO effect on govt policy?