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Cake day: April 29th, 2024

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  • I figured it was more about how people essentially ignore senate and house positions unless someone is retiring. They just vote the same way again and again.

    All people talk about by and large is the presidential election. I know very few people who know anything about federal senate and house reps, let alone anything at all about state senate and house reps. They think presidents decide everything when what’s really broken is congress. If congress wasn’t f’d they could fix the supreme court. If they fixed the supreme court then dictatorial law (and draconian interpretations of law) would change.

    In terms of committees, I figured the people who got the coveted ways and means spots were the ones with the most power and influence (money), not just old timers. Jason Smith is the chair of the house ways and means committee and he’s only 44. Senate side is over 70, though senators on average are much older than those in the house of reps.







  • So let’s say your mortgage is 1k/mo. We’re not talking PITI, just mortgage.

    Let’s pretend the house is worth $30,000 and the landlord has $7200 in equity at the beginning of the lease (20%.)

    Let’s also say of that mortgage 700 is interest and 300 is principal. So a renter pays you 1k/mo rent for 12 months. They get 300/mo principal totaling $3,600 after a year.

    At this point there are a few different ways of handling it.

    Option 1: The tenant is buying debt from the bank with the principal payments over the course of the year. So $3600 of the debt they now own, when you pay the bank the payments go proportionally to the tenant which actively reduces their equity, but they collect all the interest income for the share they own.

    Option 2: You could have shares of the home. As money is paid in against principal the tenant gains share of the overall home - so in this case a bit over 10% over the course of the term. Since this is shares as the valuation of the home increases so do the share prices and the typical compound interest applies. This can be very messy because when you want to cash out the principal owner either need to buy you out by taking another mortgage or paying you, but it could be done.

    When you factor in things like the appreciation of the home the first option gives the appreciation to the landlord without reducing their mortgage. They would gain in net worth because the home is worth more money, even though they still have a mortgage that hasn’t decreased in price.

    The second option takes the equity gain away from the landlord proportional to shares owned. Although harder to track it’s still possible.

    This is ignoring the real world scenario where the mortgage is really only $500/mo for a lot of long time landlords who bought 20+ years ago or refinanced in 2020 and the rent is $2000-3000+++ There would have to be something that takes into account excess paid beyond the mortgage/taxes. This also doesn’t make any sense at all if the house is paid off either since there would be only taxes, no mortgage. Obviously there would need to be some nuance in implementing a solution but it’s not impossible.



  • If you think landlords are bad you should see how much the bank makes.

    My 500k 7.5% mortgage if I only paid the mandatory payment would end up costing me something like 1.6 million dollars. My PITI is something like 4k/mo and only like $500 is principal.

    Edit:

    Why would someone buy a house so someone else could slowly buy it from them?

    Imagine if you can’t make your mortgage payment on a home that you will not be living in due to whatever personal reasons you have, so you want to pause payments. Instead of selling the home you choose to rent it out… barely losing equity thanks to the kind renters who take on the interest and tax payments for you so you don’t have to pay.

    The renters are not getting a worse deal than buying and they get the benefit of having a home they are gaining equity in. The landlord is not losing the home they otherwise could not afford to keep given whatever factor is going on. (Parents need short term care? traveling? going to college for a year or two? just don’t want to work?) Bottom line, it’s far more equitable for everybody.

    Anything that just rips away equity from those who currently have it is going to be wildly unpopular. In gaming terms, nobody likes nerfs, you need to buff the curve for people who do not have equity. If you are perceived as taking something away it is so hard to convince anybody that the change is for the better or needed.


  • This shit never works out as simply as you expect it to. With any public policy change there are layers and nuance. If you restrict rent increases then every year you’re gonna see the majority of landlords including the ones who do not increase rent yearly suddenly change course to always up the rent 5% per year, every year. Otherwise as a member of the ownership class who doesn’t increase rent your are losing out on equity compared to those who do. Compound interest never catches up.

    If you want to make renting profitable and homeownership obtainable for nearly everyone you need to setup a system where renters gain a share of ownership proportional to the money they put in. Make it so ALL renters eventually own the place they rent if they stay long enough. Ownership increases for every dollar spent towards rent. Evaporate the double dip appreciation for landlords and punish the income so that you gain money but at a slower rate than an index fund.

    You also need subsidized lending for individuals who own no home. Possibly make it so 100% of rental income tax goes into a fund that provides mortgages to someone purchasing a primary residence when they do not own any current properties or are selling their primary residence to purchase another one (e.g. moving, not hoarding housing.) Make the application process for these mortgages prioritize families without any owned homes in their direct lineage (e.g. those with parents and children which do not own homes get a higher priority than the kids of wealthy homeowners.)

    Something like this can bring homeownership to the masses and bring prices down as investment income from housing is no longer as valuable as other investments. Prices may still stay high, but subsidized mortgages would keep monthly payments affordable for those who qualify while minimizing profitability for hoarders.

    Finally if you are still in love with rent control, then do it concurrently with a program like the above. Balance the scales.











  • I’ve had games not record time because I was in offline mode on vacation and I pre-downloaded it, or I just played in offline mode or directly from a game’s executable without steam’s crap embedded.

    In the past it’s been trivial to set achievement unlocks and time played with 3rd party tools too.

    I don’t see any kind of discounts mentioned either. I almost never buy from steam directly, usually reputable 3rd party sites like Fanatical, GamersGate, WinGameStore etc that I find through isthereanydeal. It’ll show as being on my account but nobody knows what I paid for it and I almost never pay MSRP.

    Then there’s the countless bundle keys I used to get that I definitely never played and will never play because I wanted 2-3 games in a bundle of 10-20 that was cheaper than one of the games alone.

    It wouldn’t shock me at all if there was 10 billion worth of unplayed games though. I have friends that buy all the hot releases and then barely touch them because a couple hundred bucks a month is not significant to their monthly budget.