patrick.net

Robert,

I'll accept that answer, although it's a bit wishy washy. I do agree that it's a bit of "to each his own" in terms of lifestyle/community preferences between exurbia and cities.

But it does raise the point that the ideal situation is to have both options available in a free choice society.

T Lynch,

I believe RC uses "agnostic" as an extrapolation. The strict definition (aside from the historical group reference) is someone who believes that it is impossible to know whether or not God exists. This is often extrapolated to mean someone who cannot find enough justification to take one side or another of a particular issue/argument.

Or are they everyday slobs who were born to priviledge?

It is born to be priviledged, even though some of them were born poor. It is fate, which is the number one contributing factor of success, failure, and death.

Peter, TBAorNTBA,

The big problem with executive compensation is lack of oversight and checks and balances. Compensation is usually set by the Board of Directors, who, guess what, are often nominated by the CEO or vice versa. At the very least, they're all chummy. The stockholder gets left out of the loop.

The stockholder gets left out of the loop.

This is why Randy said it is better to be a 50% owner of a small company then a 0.0001% owner of a large company.

Ths thing is, why aren't we the one getting "unfair" executive compensation (yet)? ;)

Medicare isn’t what you think it is, my grandmother must pay a $750.00 a month co-pay.

...which is an amazing deal for a Grandmother. Go try to buy insurance in the private sector and see what that costs you.

Health Insurance is a prime example of where private markets fail to maximize the public good for the injected money. Medicare may be flawed, but by insuring everyone they avoid the problem of private markets where insurers cherry pick the healthy money makers and drop at first chance the expensive clients.

When you grandmother needs a new Hip, $750 will look cheap.

I use a board definition of religion. To me, region is an organized belief system. Science is a religion. Agnosticism is a also religion.

Health Insurance is a prime example of where private markets fail to maximize the public good for the injected money.

Perhaps the market does not perceive longevity (past productive age) as being a public good.

Perhaps the market does not perceive longevity (past productive age) as being a public good.

Run Logan! Run! That would solve the housing problem in a hurry. Sell your house Grandma for another two years of life.

I'm biased towards public spending on the young, but not quite that selfish.

I’m biased towards public spending on the young, but not quite that selfish.

The market tend to spend money on the productive group. Voters may choose otherwise though.

If you equate belief system= religion, then absolutely.

Science is definitely a religion.

newsfreak said: And then we will need interplanetary realtwhores?

Actually they are, but the newer ones have no atmosphere.

Ouch - where's the rim shot when you need one?

Besides, I thought there were some that believe, assuming the Big Bang Theory to be true, we may be headed towards or already in the collapsing phase of the cycle??

Normally I’d be right there with you on to each his own but all things are not equal. Los Angeles spends 78%-87% of all its transportation funding on the 2% that is public transit.

Some of this is based on the belief system, er, religion, of the superiority of mass transit/urban dwelling, but a whole lot of this inequity is probably just pork barrel politics.

Run Logan! Run! That would solve the housing problem in a hurry. Sell your house Grandma for another two years of life.

Again, it's the Logan's Run references! If Michael York were lurking, he'd be smiling right now.

On that note, has the red light on anyone's palm gone off yet??? Time's up!

Returning to BA,

Sorry but this is not at all untypical. You might even want to call us the "Sun Pikers". We (I) complain bitterly about the drizzle but the minute it get's into the 80's everyone over 35 stays inside! Sad really. Since our daughters are now college age we can explore new living arrangements including sitting out some of the drizzle. Be warned, it sucks. I recall one time in the late 90's Seattle had a 3 week summer! I am not kidding, wish I was.

The commonly used meaning of religion is largely dependent on things like ‘faith’, i.e. a willingness to believe a hypothesis without requiring the existence of a rigorous, logical and independently verifiable proof.

The "faith" in empirical methods should qualify. Science and logic can never completely converge. There is always a small element of faith.

I am not saying that Science is not useful. It is. Very much so too. But it is nonetheless a belief system.

Returning to the BA,

I will say though that while in the service I was stationed at the now defunct Treasure Island? The sailors called it T.I, during Feb, Mar and Apr and it seems like parts of our spring share similarities. I understand that you guys had a "wet one" yourselves this spring complete w/flooding in some areas. All that aside if the bubble doesn't burst to you liking we would love to have you!

newsfreak,

Don't sell me short, I can be very childish!

Returning to BA,

Well all kidding aside I'm not trying to "sell" anyone. We do have wonderful summers and mild winters but things are changing. We've discussed the potential for a PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation). A cycle of 10 to 20 years of cooler and wetter weather. The reality is this may affect the BA as well. They seem to have mounds of evidence.

Science can be loosely defined as a religion since one must believe

Boomers could be loosely defined as human.

Science = scientific method, no religion involved, or imaginary friends.

at Robert Cote', not exactly an urban legend. GM is guilty as sin, as is Firestone.

tinyurl.com/pheh8

Thanks to Quinby’s warning, the Feds eventually took GM to trial and convicted them not for ripping out streetcar lines, but rather for controlling these companies to monopolize sales of its products, a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The participants were each fined $5,000 (plus court costs) and senior executives were each fined $1.00. And that was that. Unfortunately, no one sought an answer to Quinby’s most penetrating question (referring to the 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act), "WHO IS BEHIND THIS CAMPAIGN TO SEPARATE THEOBVIOUSLY ECONOMICAL COMBINATION OF ELECTRIC RAILWAY AND ITS POWER PLANT?"

Something I hadn't considered until reading this thread. Greed blew the RE bubble to amazing proportions, and greed is going to drive RE into the dirt. Think about it, realtwhores only care about their commisions, bless them. What drives commisions? Volume. So sales volume is way down, blame the "investors" and go negative as quickly as possible. Yes, 6% of 600K is great, but twice the volume at 400K is better. They don't care they make money either way, the only way the realtwhore doesn't make money is if houses don't sell. I have noticed that in the past month the news has gone from "soft landing, it never crashes" to watch out below. Our friends the realtwhores will drive this one right into the dirt.

RC,

Gross energy efficiency in the US is with one unexplicable exception very uniform across all built environments and urban patterns. This is where Kunstler goes horribly wrong right at the very beginning of his rants. This has become a case of repetition morphing into data. A “Long Emergency” or anything else is not going to reverse 96 years of exurban diaspora. If anything it will acellerate the process.,

Your method of analysis is flawed. I don't care about uniformity of transmission loss due to resistance. The relevant factor is transmission-miles. Reducing that yields a factor impact on total system efficiency responsible for something like 80% sensitivity. That means, even using 100% more efficient transmission lines won't make up for a simple 15% reduction in transmission-miles. This is the flaw of "micro-generation" strategies. They are of only marginal help unless they produce to peak consumption, which makes them not so "micro".

And I'm not even throwing the capital requirements at you yet. We could talk about capital depreciation replacement costs if you want instead.

I'm not arguing about whether urbanism or exurbanism is better. I am agnostic about this. I simply believe that it will go urbanistic short of any calamity, due to systemic constraints. In the current era, people like me prefer to live in an exurban or suburban environment. We are willing to support a system that allocates capital thusly, even if it is not the most efficient use of capital. This is sustainable for only so long, so long as you favor free-market systems. Exurbian utopia is antithetical to free-market capitalism.

What makes you think transit is in any way more energy efficient? This is another of those urban myths that refusses to die.

Mass transit can be (but isn't always in reality) more system efficient. You are again ignoring capital costs and infrastructure externalities. What you are doing is making arguments that contain an error of assumption. Any system capable of realizing scale economics will be more efficient.

I posit to you that your "challenge" is flawed. You are making the incredible claim that economies of scale are in fact diseconomies of scale. Such diseconomies do exist, but it is up to you to prove that transit, energy, or any of these other infrastructure dimensions are such, because they are not considered to be so by any acceptable measure, literature, or analysis. You may be right, but these claims require equally incredible proofs.

Peter P,

Science is not a religion. It is not a belief system, unless you have gone postmodernist on us. Science is self disconfirming based upon a mechanism of deduction that is open to challenge and independent verification. I need not believe in anything to demonstrate gravity or electromagnetic principles. Again, that is unless you go to Different Sean's extreme of denying that 2 + 2 = 4, and insisting that such is merely a "belief".

Bay Area Real Estate is a religion.

Science is not a religion. It is not a belief system, unless you have gone postmodernist on us.

If you say so, it must be so. Hail Randy, our religious leader.

I need not believe in anything to demonstrate gravity or electromagnetic principles.

You do need to believe that reality can be deduced from observations though. Science is not pure logic.

Randy H,

"Bay Area Real Estate is a religion"

Lately it seems like more of a cult.

newsfreak,

There is definitely an optimal scale, as is true in any economy of scale. This changes over time with technique and technology, but becomes costly to achieve due to sunk capital costs.

That is, you could easily accomidate more people per sq mile in NYC, but the cost to reengineer such is prohibitive. However, the scale value of reengineering part of, say Boston, for $1tr is far greater than the value of reengineering $1tr of rural Nebraska. The dystopian thread is that, as pressures mount, the efficient allocation of capital will bias in favor of creating greater value as measured by cold, hard efficiencies, not wishes and hopes.

People tend to think in terms of today's snapshot being a static model for the future. In reality, everything is changing all of the time. This is the assumption flaw in Cote's arguments. Dynamic system analyses always favor density over dispersion up to the point of supportable infrastructure technologies.

Returning to BA,

I really wouldn't stress out about the heat all that much. The biggest waste McMansion builders bring is installing central A/C! For what? The three weeks out of the year we break 90?

RC,

Then why do commercial jets (a form of mass transit) keep getting bigger? The technology exists to move much further the other direction towards POV. Perhaps it's a conspiracy between government loan guarantors and airline execs?

POV are only more "efficient" by your introduction of an energy-neutral, static ceteris paribus, analysis. I agree that capital reinvestment is prohibitive due to sunk costs, but you are arguing that POV is absolutely more efficient, which is categorically false.

Randy H & SP --thanks for your eloquent rebuttals to Peter P's absurd comparisons of science to religion.

The commonly used meaning of religion is largely dependent on things like ‘faith’, i.e. a willingness to believe a hypothesis without requiring the existence of a rigorous, logical and independently verifiable proof. No self-respecting science would accomodate that kind of nonsense.

Yes. For any hypothesis to be considered "proven" or "law" requires rigorous, repeatable and independently verifiable empirical PROOF. No beliefs held by any of the world's religions require this sort of empirical rigor. Even then, commonly held scientific principals CAN be dislodged by better/future evidence to the contrary ('the ether' being an example). Core religious beliefs do not tend to change much over time --in fact religious hierarchies tend to actively persecute anyone seeking to change such illogical belief systems. Hence, Holy Wars, Crusades, Jihads, Inquisitions and withch hunts.

That's why they call it "faith", not "science".

Peter P, were you trying to be "cute" here?

Peter P, were you trying to be “cute” here?

Huh?

For any hypothesis to be considered “proven” or “law” requires rigorous, repeatable and independently verifiable empirical PROOF.

That empirical proof requires faith in the empirical method. Now I am now dismissing the usefulness of science. It is indispensible.

Mathematics is absolute. Science is quite far from that.

We will never understand how things *really* are - you cannot explain a system of laws/rules/whatever from *within* that set of rules. You have to make a priori assertions that are essentially unprovable.

Exactly. We can only prove the relationships within the same set of axioms.

But I agree that Science is good enough for practical use.

RC,

In your NYC example, can you demonstrate for me why the subsidization of a transit infrastructure enabling the density of Manhattan to exist is a net loss? Mind you, consider the economic productive contribution of NYC in the face of the existent global economic/business culture over the past 96 years you are referring to. Show me how we're better off without NYC, in totality. Don't just draw a circle around your hand-picked set of factors, but include the amount that having NYC contributes to yours and everyone else's standard of living. Go look up the GDP breakdown by GSP/Metro and then by industry classification.

I retract my tin-foil-esque allegation. Nonetheless, I maintain you are playing a game with context and domain.

Commercial air travel is not "public"? Firstly, "public" transit is irrelevant to this discussion. I am comparing mass transit of any form to more direct personal transit. The mode of investment is more a macro/political matter. Whether built with $ from an investment bank, $ from taxes, or freedom from slave labor, the logistical analyses should be the same in terms of efficiency potential. And when is commercial aviation considered anywhere near a free-market? It is one of the most heavily subsidized industries in the US. Or have you not been following the whole WTO row?

I think the problem here is that you are confusing relatively more efficient with absolutely more efficient. POV is definitely relatively more efficient, even considering energy is neutral. But mass transportation as a large component of a designed density centric system would be absolutely more efficient.

You keep calling out all this subsidization and "bribing". Stop for a moment to consider that this itself may be part of an efficient allocation of capital (or the most efficient feasible) in a larger context.

...ducking under a tempting barrage of religion and density conversation...

Something I hadn’t considered until reading this thread. Greed blew the RE bubble to amazing proportions, and greed is going to drive RE into the dirt. Think about it, realtwhores only care about their commisions, bless them.

I agree that Realtors have a strong incentive to convince their clients to sell at any price (c.f. Freakonomics). Unfortunately I think that ignorant greed will lead to price stickiness as Randy predicts. Consider an owner sitting on "$300K" of equity on an "$800K" (according to them) house. They're strongly tempted to wait for the magic number which applied last year, turning down a $740K offer. The house sits for the next two years until they finally find a buyer who offers $760 and they take it, glad that they saved themselves $20K by waiting.

However, CDs hit 6% over this 2 year period, thus

Sell Now:
$240K(1.06)(1.06)= $269
Sell in 2 years:
$260K

Yes, yes, taxes make the results about equivalent and they do get to save $50K in BA rent for the two years... and take the Mortgage deduction. Hmmm, maybe Greed is good. Damn bastards.

Ok, imagine interest rates hit 10% and an asteroid hits their frigging house...

test1

test2

test3

test4

blog doesn't support tables..

Quick Religion comment and then I'm off. In my estimation, your worldly philosophy should meet three criteria:

1. Simplicity - Occam's Razer - God = Yes. Science = Yes
2. Model matches the data - God = Yes*. Science = Yes
3. Model allows you to predict the future. God = no**. Science = Yes

* ("God did it that way" argument is unstoppable on this one)
** (Nostradamus/Bible Code fans need not apply...)

Such as, what causes you to feel hurt in you’re chest..if it’s you’re brain that is controlling all functions of you’re body?? Why don’t we just get headaches when a loved one dies?

If you're looking for answers to these, Buddhism is the world philosophy for you.

Model: Life is dukka (suffering).

1. Simple
2. Fits the Data
3. Predicts the future

;-)

Science cannot predict the future accurately.

Can it tell us when the housing bubble will collapse?