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DarkGamer , to Politics in Trump says he'd bring back "travel ban" that's "even bigger than before"
@DarkGamer@kbin.social avatar

As usual, the GOP agenda is scapegoating and hatred of (brown) foreigners.

Books , to Politics in Activists sue Harvard over legacy admissions after affirmative action ruling
@Books@kbin.social avatar

This is absolutely hilarious.

Is there discovery process here? I gotta imagine there are some damaging emails about legacy students.

xuxebiko , to Politics in Activists sue Harvard over legacy admissions after affirmative action ruling

Good.

autotldr Bot , to Politics in Demonstrators vow to disrupt DNC protest in Chicago with or without a permit

This is the best summary I could come up with:


One protest with about two dozen demonstrators gathered outside Chicago Police District 18 on Sunday.

They described themselves as a coalition that included local Palestinian organizers as well as survivors of police torture and brutality.

These groups shared what they said was a joint struggle linked by billions in tax dollars used to marginalize their communities further, whether it's to fund what they call genocide in Gaza or mass incarcerations in the United States.

Each of these demonstrations, they say, is designed to highlight particular demands of the coalition as they build support and grow in numbers on the road to the convention in August.

His story of injustice serves as a source of motivation for what can happen when people mobilize.

They recently withdrew an application with the city for a permit as a response to the removal of the pro-Palestinian encampment at DePaul University.


The original article contains 310 words, the summary contains 146 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

JCPhoenix , to U.S. News in Honda recalls 750,000 vehicles in U.S. to replace faulty air bags
@JCPhoenix@beehaw.org avatar

What is going on with Honda? Seems like once a month for the last several months, I’m hearing about a new recall with their cars. Or am I just seeing the same news being reported over and over?

I like Honda, I have a newish Honda, and it’s my second or third. “Luckily” only one of these recent recalls applies to my car. But damn, seems like quality is slipping.

If you’re curious if a recall applies to your vehicles, and you’re in the US, visit www.nhtsa.gov/recalls. Just need a VIN and it’ll tell you what recalls are in effect.

Midnitte , to U.S. News in Honda recalls 750,000 vehicles in U.S. to replace faulty air bags

Technically, it’s for faulty seat sensors that determine if the airbag will trigger.

Honda says that a weight sensor, which is meant to disable the passenger airbags if the seat is occupied by a child or child seat, might not work properly, allowing the airbags to deploy during a crash.

Pratai , to Politics in Nikki Haley walks back Civil War comments after backlash

Soooo… She has an even more zero chance of winning now? Seriously. Did anyone even remotely think she had a chance? Nothing she says will damage her chances to win if she has no chance to win.

American_Communist22 , to Personal Finance in Homes "unaffordable" in 99% of nation for average American
@American_Communist22@lemmygrad.ml avatar

comrades the .world comments are such libshit lol, count your lucky stars you can’t see them

ohlaph , to Personal Finance in Homes "unaffordable" in 99% of nation for average American

We purchased right before ar the beginning of the rate increases. A 10 year ARM. Hoping the rates stabilize by that 10 year mark or things might get expensive for a few years.

shortwavesurfer ,

Purchased at like 4.1% but absolutely refused an ARM. We have a fixed rate and absolutely nothing would ever make me get an ARM.

naqahdah , to Personal Finance in Homes "unaffordable" in 99% of nation for average American

This situation has turned into a real cock for so many people.

The place I got my mortgage through sends out emails regularly with updates on my home value, current rates, and other assorted stuff. I originally bought this house at the tail end of 2020. It’s not the best house around, still needs work, but it had the room we needed, was in our budget (220), and the payment was low because the rate was great (2.75). Our original plan was stay here a bit, get rid of some debt, and then maybe try to find what we’d like to be our forever home, wherever that may be (we’re 44).

That idea went south in a hurry. What once probably wouldn’t have been worth sinking extra money into to fix, may now be the only choice. The aforementioned newsletter has a section where it shows what you could “save” at current rates by refinancing or taking cash out. The most recent one said I could “save” -$213400, meaning if we refinanced to take cash out to fix things up right now, it would cost us the entire price of the home yet again, on top of what the home and interest will already cost. Where a home in the 400’s was achievable before, our home in the 200s would nearly not be now.

I feel terrible for people having to try to achieve home ownership at this point, or probably for the rest of the decade. On the one hand, I understand how fortunate I am to have gotten in when I did, and to have a home period; on the other, like many, I’m now essentially trapped, which has the ripple effect of keeping both rates and prices high because most people aren’t going to trade a sub-3% mortgage for 7%+, assuming they can even find a place to go at this point.

Add in corporations branching out into a new area to do their level best to eliminate the concept of ownership for the majority of people, and politicians focusing on the more serious global issues like who goes in which bathroom, and my hope for the future couldn’t be squashed any further if you put it in a hydraulic press.

flathead ,

Real estate will crash, eventually. Hard to predict exactly when and why, but if history is any guide, a market crash eventually is practically inevitable. It could conceivably happen relatively quickly for any number of reasons, but crash it will.

That doesn’t necessarily mean it will become readily affordable - when real estate goes south, a lot of other stuff will be crashing with it. History books are full of monumental calamity. There’s no reason to expect that to change.

callouscomic ,

And corporations will be right there to buy it all up and further make it worse.

ArtVandelay ,
@ArtVandelay@lemmy.world avatar

It should be fucking illegal for corporations to own single-family homes, full stop.

chiliedogg ,

A more elegant solution would be to slap on a massive tax for houses that are not the primary homestead of the owner. Make it possible for companies to build and sell, but make it super expensive to sit on them or rent them out.

With houses being sold at 3x what they were just a few years ago in my area, it’s more profitable to leave half the houses empty than to sell them at a reasonable cost.

ArtVandelay ,
@ArtVandelay@lemmy.world avatar

I could get on board with that, as long as you account for situations where you might have bought a second house and moved, while still trying to sell the first. Technically you would still own two houses and I’d hate to see individuals punished for merely trying to sell their old house.

chiliedogg ,

This time is different. The new business model isn’t selling homes - it’s single family rental.

I coordinate all development projects in one of the fastest-growing cities in the county, and 100% of new single-family projects proposed since 2021 have been build-for-rent.

Why sell someone a house when you can rent it to them forever AND increase the price every year.

flathead ,

Practically all housing development is financed with borrowed money against the property. Given the build-to rent model, the party at the end of the cashflow stream relies on rent checks being paid every month to remain solvent. When the rents stop being collected, at some critical point, some loan that is reliant upon that rental stream will default. When that happens, the properties are called in by the borrower and auctioned off at foreclosure.

Now yes, the major lenders, developers and speculators will spread their risk as much as possible by diversifying their portfolios and try not to be caught short by a problem in any specific market. But when there is a some kind of macroeconomic shock, ALL the markets will suddenly contract and be flooded with foreclosed properties and other rapidly depreciating assets. That’s more-or-less what happened in 2007. Massive liquidity injections and historically low interest rates supposedly saved us from a prolonged financial catastrophe then - but there were still a LOT of foreclosures. I also think we are still seeing that situation playing out today. Current housing markets are unsustainable in a climate of higher interest rates. This will all come crashing down, probably sooner than most people expect. When it happens, it happens fast - and of course the reasons will seem obvious with hindsight.

By the way, perhaps you’re being ironic - “This time is different” is the defining catchphrase when looking at historical financial crashes: economist.com/…/this-time-is-different-reinhart-e…

chiliedogg ,

I’m not saying a crash definitely won’t happen, but these BFR projects are a different beast than what we had in 2008. There are lots of reasons this isn’t as financially risky.

The biggest factor is how they’re being financed. They’re mostly doing public financing where the lender is the municipality and it’s paid back with extra taxes attached to the development agreement. The interest in these deals is usually 0%. The idea is that the government makes is money off of the tax money from the residents.

If the development falls through the government will just put a tax lien on the property for the past-due portion of the 25-year 0% deal that will be bought up cheap and fast by the next group.

flathead ,

Interesting. Thank you for the very enlightening info. So the local government is providing interest-free loans to developers for BFR projects, when prevailing rates are over 5 percent?

If the scope of BFR subsidization is as large as indicated then it’s probably buoying the housing market. A quick search found this glowing report on the BFR “boom”.

rei-ink.com/the-build-for-rent-evolution/

Real estate developers getting free government loans from public treasuries. What could possibly go wrong?

nodsocket ,

The housing market isn’t going to crash. New homes aren’t going to flood the market and demand for homes will not fall. As long as we have a growing population the price of homes will also increase.

flathead ,

Yes, there is finite supply and ever-growing demand, however the price of real estate ultimately reflects both the buyer and lender’s confidence that the mortgage payment will be met. This can be affected not only by interest rates but by labor market conditions and other factors.

If there is a sudden surge in interest rates in response to some kind of inflationary shock, or the credit market becomes suddenly much more restrictive in terms of lending standards, then housing prices will most certainly fall, simply because the pool of potential buyers at a given price level is smaller.

When pressures on the housing market are coupled with leveraged loans on variable rates going upside down, people will begin dumping their real estate investments. These factors compound to cause a sharp reduction in price. In 2007-8 metro home prices declined up to 50% from their earlier peaks - but seem to have increased about 200% since the bottom, roughly, to where they are today That’s quite a considerable appreciation and seems unlikely to be sustained. Maybe I’m wrong - we’re just shooting the shit on Lemmy - but looking at what’s happened before, real estate seems overheated - but it may well keep on boiling for all I know.

IHaveTwoCows ,

And thats why pro-lifers are the enemy of freedom and prosperity

IHaveTwoCows ,

Arm up and take it

whofearsthenight ,

Hey are you me? We moved temporarily to a place with a far longer commute with the plan that we’d ride out the silliness of the market for about 5 years. That was in 2017. They’ll fucking bury me here lol.

Yewb , to Texas in [CBS News] Texas city strictly limits water consumption as thousands across state face water shortages

I would be willing to bet these restrictions have a few people who they don't apply to, who coincidentally also are 90% of usage!

Flaky_Fish69 , to Politics in Republican attorneys general issue warning letter to Target about Pride merchandise
@Flaky_Fish69@kbin.social avatar

So… didn’t s republican judge just bitch at Biden for doing…. Exactly this?

btaf45 , to Politics in Activists sue Harvard over legacy admissions after affirmative action ruling

Harvard degrees are ridiculously overvalued. I know a couple of legacy admission students. Neither of them were especially smart either before or after going to Harvard. Since then I realized that there are lots of below average people running around with Harvard degrees. Same thing is probably true for other Ivy schools.

Clairvoidance , to Politics in Activists sue Harvard over legacy admissions after affirmative action ruling
@Clairvoidance@kbin.social avatar

Crickets from the anti AA crowd

RandoCalrandian , to men in Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill ending permanent alimony
@RandoCalrandian@kbin.social avatar

My initial response is "about damn time"

But knowing how laws work... i want a bit more info into the specific details before celebrating

BaldProphet OP ,
@BaldProphet@kbin.social avatar

Yeah, I'm sure there are loopholes or it'll be challenged in court. But it really is a step forward in terms of gender equity.

RandoCalrandian ,
@RandoCalrandian@kbin.social avatar

Finished the article

It's a tiny step forward.

It technically gets rid of permanent alimony, but only for new couples. Existing payers will have to go to court to have their setups adjusted, and that's not a guarantee. They just now get to have their "right to retire" considered as part of the adjustment, which it very much wasn't before.

vlakas ,
@vlakas@kbin.social avatar

I was curious about what the statistics are for the alimony arrangements that currently exist. As the article says, any "non-modifiable agreement[s]" will continue to be so. I don't really know how common that is or what that entails. But on the surface, this seems good. I, being a Floridian, am very happy that we are taking another step toward making our state slightly less shitty.

Halafax ,

Non-modifiable divorce agreements are fairly common, unfortunately. I had to finish paying spousal support to my ex >WHO WAS IN JAIL FOR MAKING KIDDIE PORN WITH ONE OF OUR CHILDREN<. I even had to pay child support to her until I could get a hearing and have the magistrate adjust the final decree. The family court system hates fathers, it cannot be salvaged at this point.

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