Post #33,442
3/25/02 11:06:30 PM
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*grin*
My old man worked to 'prove' that DDT was harmful - he worked for a pesticide company and DDT was an effective commodity.
I think the only effect that he saw was a dramatic (read NO) reduction of the incidence of skin cancer amongst DDT factory workers (and they were covered in the stuff).
There wasn't any conclusive statistical data for it's ill-effect on birds, so Dad focussed on developing tests to prove that traces are in ever organism in the food chain.
Scare tactics.
Imric's Tips for Living- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
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Post #33,458
3/26/02 8:54:22 AM
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I remember you sharing that story before
Wasn't the story basically that the patent on DDT had expired, and the people with patents on new stuff wanted it banned?
===
I can't be a Democrat because I like to spend the money I make.
I can't be a Republican because I like to spend the money I make on drugs and whores.
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Post #33,538
3/26/02 6:45:59 PM
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Yup!
Imric's Tips for Living- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
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Post #33,545
3/26/02 7:31:42 PM
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Reminds me of an architect I knew
He designed buildings that were never built.
The idea was that a company would buy land, he would design a commercial building for it, with that proposal they got it rezoned, then once it was rezoned for commercial use the company could sell it for more.
(ie Bait and switch.)
Cheers,
Ben
"... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything."
--Richard Feynman
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Post #33,635
3/27/02 3:06:25 PM
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Not just architects; Greed is now a commodity
Locally (here in beautiful tiny Kenwood):
Guy wanted to start a hardware store on main road, but it wasn't zoned for commercial. Still it would be unobtrusive and, there was community desire for such a convenience. Petitions, etc. Finally it is approved.
Guy (family actually) renovates this leased former house, starts business. It works (seemed to) - even though couldn't match chain prices, quality stuff and worth the saved trip to some subsidiary of The One (Wal)Mart USA.
Then.. about a year later +/- .. owner decides to cancel lease; wants to "sell" the property. Screw the heavy investment advance in time - good-faith contract yada yada (And natch: screw any community opinion). He lost the lease..
Yan yan *$&*$$# Wine-tasting shill place replaces the useful hardware store (and joins THREE other wine tasting shill places). Hdwre folks lost lots of 'on spec' work and expense.
*THIS* is what 'capitalism' has come to mean in Murica; not anything like what the Econ BS pretends re. demand, supply and that fanciful feel-good Market icon. This was a patent scam from the first and.. it taints any bonafide efforts to answer community needs anywhere.
And they got away with it. Surely it's now in The Entrepreneur's Guide to Legal Scams
Ashton
Sign on local Contractor's bumper..
Die! Yuppie Scum
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Post #33,642
3/27/02 4:18:38 PM
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Works the other way also
Guy buys some dirt and subdivides. Builds pleasant housing and holds back a couple of corner lots for a 711 for his retirement. After a few years he goes to get the permits, the people who bought the houses had been using the lots for their gardens, they petition the city to rezone residential and not allow ANY building on lots. They get it. The bank forcloses on now useless lots. The owner just before foreclosure takes a D8 and flattens his lots. He is arrested for public nuisance. Retirement gone, lots gone and yuppie scum happy. Sometimes I can understand that particular bumber sticker. :(
thanx,
bill
TAM ARIS QUAM ARMIPOTENS
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Post #33,933
3/31/02 3:57:15 PM
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Heh. Airports are a favorite target
of this type of multiuser scam. I just got back from Toronto, where they have a wonderfully convenient downtown airport on a small island that's part of the complex forming the harbor. The only inconvenient thing about it is that to get to it you have to ride a ferry across the channel -- the guys told me it is, or was, in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's shortest ferry ride (it's around a hundred yards or so).
Trouble is, the Condo Commandos have taken over the waterfront, and now that they're there, they don't want no !#%$$#@ buzzy little airplanes running around in the picture windows of their $300,000 Homes in the Sky. That means that if the subject of building the bridge they've been charging ferry tolls for (CAN$30 round trip, unless you work there!) comes up, dozens of people will stand around in the area chanting the CC's Magic Mantra: Don't Hurt Property Values.
Happens all over. People build right up to the fence, then [the horror! the horror!] discover that there are airplanes coming by! Right over their house! The city council Must Do Something!
If I were an airport manager, I'd hire a series of people, probably college students, and give them a little pickup and a supply of signs. Whenever they found a surveyor's stake, a hole not dug by an animal, or a stone lying on a stone within the airport's operating area, they would put up a sign reading:
Airport nearby
Airplanes make noise
Airplanes sometimes crash
Talk to your RealtorTM about Airplanes Nearby!
If they then returned and found that the sign had been taken down, they would call the airport, which would respond with a construction truck and crew. That crew would erect an identical sign, twelve feet high, made of steel and set in concrete.
Sheesh. I feel better now :-)
Regards,
Ric
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Post #33,946
3/31/02 7:22:45 PM
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Sounds like my F=MA sign
Required reading before applying for a driver's license. One must demonstrate an understanding of kinetic energy, the EZ pushed-innedness (to use the technical term) of human bodies and the important 2 in that other equation [E=\ufffdMV2] equation, as regards velocity, mass and the amount of energy you are er "controlling".
Hah.. one in 20? 50? Tell me about the tailgaters at 65 mph..
Hmmm, dare I steal a piece of marlowesque boilerplate and observe that we have become a nation of ... whiners (and fucking ignorant ones at that) ??
Oh well,
Ashton
whining about the whiners
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Post #34,177
4/2/02 2:19:21 PM
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one car lenth for every 10mph
TAM ARIS QUAM ARMIPOTENS
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Post #34,175
4/2/02 2:12:14 PM
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Same stuff in Seattle.
s/stuff/shit
In downtown Seattle, we have the Viaduct. It's an elevated freeway that runs along the waterfront. There are condos in front of it and behind it.
Now, remember the big earthquake we had last year? Well, it did enough damage to the viaduct that we're going to have to replace it. Suddenly, all those condo owners behind it are demanding that any replacement be built under ground, at an *INSANE* expense.
Wankers.
I have a few other names for them, but I'll save it for the Flame On forum...
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #34,232
4/2/02 11:23:07 PM
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Universal situation
Same in Toronto, except no earthquake; the Condo Commandos just want the Gardiner Expressway buried out of sight.
Interestingly, a few people seem to have started a sort of underground, low-key program to remind people of just how much it's going to cost, and what they can't do about highways, etc. for the city if they do that.
I'll have to keep tabs on the situation.
Nearby in Fort Worth, the overhead for I30 is now gone; the last few bits of rubble are being carted away. That, though, was a matter of spending a few extra bucks to do it right when a major bottlneck intersection was done away with. The replacement isn't buried; it's built on air rights over the railroad yard.
Regards,
Ric
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Post #33,808
3/29/02 9:28:59 AM
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There's an article in the NYT...
...by Virginia Postrel about the effects of zoning laws on the price of housing. Apparently new research from Harvard says that a large chunk of the reason that housing in Boston is more expensive than in (say) Charlotte is because redevelopment restrictions.
The NYT article:
[link|http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/28/business/28SCEN.html|[link|http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/28/business/28SCEN.html|http://www.nytimes..../28SCEN.html]]
The academic paper she quotes can be found at
[link|http://post.economics.harvard.edu/hier/2002papers/HIER1948.pdf|[link|http://post.economics.harvard.edu/hier/2002papers/HIER1948.pdf|http://post.economi...HIER1948.pdf]]
I've just started reading the paper -- it's good stuff.
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Post #33,815
3/29/02 10:05:14 AM
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Zoning is a forum by itself
If I build a new development I will be adding to the water sewer road maintenance utilities schools garbage and wetland destruction.
How much of the above should be tacked onto the price of the dirt?
Who should manage, plan, enforce the zoning?
If local government is in the pocket of development, how should an appeals proccess work?
more questions than answers.
thanx,
bill
TAM ARIS QUAM ARMIPOTENS
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Post #33,827
3/29/02 12:37:50 PM
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Re: Zoning is a forum by itself
Yeah, everything you asked are good questions.
But the striking thing about this work is that it shows how some sets of answers are much, much worse than others -- and that the price is disproportionately borne at the low end of the socio-economic stratum. The Houston and Boston metro areas have about the same population, but the median cost of housing in Boston is about 3 times that of Houston's (350K vs 120K).
That's a big difference -- a 30-year mortgage in Houston would be an $800/mo payment, vs. a $2330/mo payment in the Boston area. A lower-middle class family in Houston can reasonably expect to be able to own a home. A home is mostly out of the reach for middle class families living inside the Boston. That's really bad news, because homes are one of the principal means of capital accumulation for the non-rich: investment vehicles like stock are only owned by slightly more than half of the population, and savings accounts don't generate signficant investment returns.
I wonder how much of our underclass would be able to get out of poverty if there were fewer regulations keeping them there. The heartening implication from this study stems from the fact that zoning regs are all local -- this means that individual, local, activism is likely to be able to effect some positive change. If it were Washington regulations that were the problem it would take a much larger effort to solve. Now I feel all politically motivated. :)
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Post #33,896
3/31/02 12:11:25 AM
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Three comments
The first is that this is good material for the wiki.
The second is that the problem may be harder to solve than you think. As you note, a house is a large fraction of the average owner's wealth. Changing building regulations to allow lots of new development tends to drop the value of nearby existing housing. This immediately makes those home-owners rather highly motivated enemies, who likely have some standing in the community.
Now you might think that they stand to make lots of money. After all if you own a 3 million dollar home, you can break it up into 10 lots of a million per at current prices. But if that starts happening then everyone else on the block gets all upset, plus if this starts happening to any large extent then the 3 million dollar home can be split up into 10 lots of, say, $180K per, at 30K of profit. Which means that, erm, you make $300K on what was an initial $3M house. And in the event of a major legal shift, this price change would happen pretty fast.
And my third comment? I don't think that their pinning the hidden costs on government is necessarily accurate. For instance I would bet that the influence of organized crime on NYC's housing costs should not be underestimated...
Cheers,
Ben
PS That is organized crime as opposed to the rather less organized crime of government. duck
"... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything."
--Richard Feynman
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