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spdrun
ParticipantA few points.
(1) Why is international migration a bad thing? More foreign migrants probably start businesses than red-blooded Americans, who tend to want a “full time” job. California and NY have been ports of entry for migration for, oh, the last 100 years or so..
(2) Bigger cities have always been rental markets. Take NYC — most housing in Manhattan was BUILT as rentals, and only subdivided into owned apartments at a later date.
(3) There’s quite a bit of CA that isn’t LA, San Diego, or San Francisco.
(4) Renting out rooms via AirBnB is new. Renting out rooms is nothing new. I knew a elderly Austrian baroness in London who owned a gigantic apartment, and always had 10 or 15 foreign East-bloc students passing through. To some extent she needed the money to upkeep the place, but she also felt she was helping them by giving them cheap(er) housing in a convenient place.
People in cities have also rented out single back rooms for ages to help with the rent. Advertising via word of mouth or on paper.
The newer phenomenon is actually BUYING condos or homes to fully use as AirBnB hotels. Whereas renting out rooms doesn’t affect housing supply, or slightly increases it, renting out entire homes/condos/buildings as “hotels” eats away at supply, driving prices up. I can understand attempts to regulate it.
ParticipantAren’t non-competes essentially unenforceable in CA short of being an ex-partner in a firm? One can still sign one, then tell the ex-employer to go make sweet love to a pointy object if they object to your next job.
BTW – the free market does still exist. Just not when working for large firms, but between skilled workers selling their services to either individuals or small companies.
ParticipantIt can always be reversed. Think of yourself as … AN EMPLOYEE … not a slave. Assuming you’re entitled to some benefits or a payout if you do leave early, of course.
ParticipantSpeaking as someone who has searched long distance for property in the other direction … I’ve seen some properties that looked great in Google Earth and were total turds in person. And vice versa.
ParticipantHusband should have had a pre-nup to keep wifey from getting a dime.
Participantlivinincali:
Yes, I’m aware. Hydrogen is a STORAGE tech. Not a fuel. CH4 is a fuel. Hydrogen takes a bit more energy to extract than is garnered from using it in a fuel cell, but batteries have storage/charging losses as well.
As far as trains, there should be a national project to electrify all of the main freight routes. If the USSR could do it in the 50s and 60s after a major crippling war, we can do it more efficiently today.
Participantlivinincali: exactly right about thorium.
As far as energy storage tech: you’re forgetting about hydrogen, either to power an internal combustion engine, or to run fuel cells. You’re also supposing that we need most cars/trucks to have a range of > 100 miles. We already have electric vehicles essentially with unlimited range: trains.
If we offload most goods and medium-distance personal transport onto highly automated trains, and have vehicle rental easily available at the endpoints (think Zipcar), we could make do with 100 mile range electric cars.
As far as 50+ mpg 3000+ lb cars, Prius is close to 3000 lb and gets about 50 mpg, no? Besides, with improved crash avoidance and CAD tech, who says that cars NEED to be over 3000 lb. It’s perfectly possible to build a 4-door that weighs 2500 lb, think Honda Fit.
Participant^^^ This. (Though hanging is too good. Life in maximum security general population for nice white-collar Wall-Street boys would be more appropriate)
ParticipantI think low oil price is a combination of:
(1) The Saudis messing with Russia and I.S. at the behest of the US
(2) Japan, Europe, and China having economic problems, lowering demand
(3) End of QE reducing speculative activityParticipantOil as energy is so last century. We should be moving to nuclear, hydro, and renewables for energy, not digging for dead dinos.
Besides, whether they admit it or not Keystone XL is primarily an EXPORT pipeline. I mean — why build it from Canada to the Gulf?
Anyway, I suspect that this will be revisited after the new Congresspeople are seated in 2015.
ParticipantMakes more sense now. 🙂
ParticipantAlso, the employer could end up being a total shitheel — why would you want to tie yourself to the area before you know them? This is like marrying a mail-order bride sight unseen. You might not know about her case of antibiotic resistant vd.
ParticipantThen make sure they provide such documentation that you can prove that you reasonably expected them to be licensed, even if they actually aren’t. There’s no obligation to actually CHECK a license in the state database… 😉
Participant^^^
Morals of this story:
(1) Lawyers make out like drunken pirates. $90k of fees for a $16k judgement? Wow.
(2) Be discreet when renting anything short-term. Screen your tenants, don’t rent to idiots, and don’t lie that it’s a hotel for G-d’s sake. -
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