The Economist ran a special report last week comparing Texas and California strengths and weaknesses.  What's unavoidably obvious is that many of California's weaknesses stem from housing affordability. The finances of their schools are severely hampered by 50% higher salaries for teachers.  That's not largesse, it's driven by the higher cost of housing.  Teachers in California need that money to afford to live there. Net migration is negative (though population is still growing), and the overriding factor here appears to be housing costs. California spends a lot to help it's low-income population, almost 120% more money than Texas per person, yet still ends up with only a marginally lower rate of poverty after transfers despite a much higher average wage.  Housing explains about 80% of the higher cost of living that negates California's more substantial efforts to have less poverty. So, if you care about any of these issues, you should ask, are high prope...

A number of times recently, while having a discussion about a policy with friends or acquaintances, the regressivity of a policy has been raised as a concern.  In one case it was gas tax, in another a carbon tax, in another a bag fee. Does being regressive make a policy bad?  While I agree, it is a point against, it's not the final decision point.  A policy should be looked at in terms of its larger context.  While it's hard to justify putting additional burdens on those with less, a policy can be enacted within a context of policies that overall lighten the burden.  It's beneficial to do so when the policy has net benefits.  For example, a basic carbon tax is regressive; the poor as a percentage of their income are more dependent on gasoline and energy.  But if a carbon tax is enacted within the context of a equal direct cash payment, the overall effect is progressive. It's also important to recognize that distribution can be the smaller questio...

Being involved in an activist group, being (I think) highly rational, and being somewhat resistant to becoming part of social collectives, messaging is something that comes up often.  So reading On Left Straussianism from the Point  did stoke up thoughts. I'll disagree with one part right off.  This isn't all about elitism.  Talking about messaging doesn't only have to involve elites.  It's small group/large group, but it's not always about level of education, it's often about intensity of connection.  When "messaging" in public, the bandwidth is limited, especially in terms of feedback loops.  If someone misunderstands your message, it's hard to correct.  Attention wavers, so key distinctions can be lost.  And then there's the telephone game .  Those dynamics are true no matter what level of education your public has. A second distinction, before you even start to talk about withholding or twisting the truth, we should think first a...

California was pursuing a new transit oriented development bill, SB50. It morphed into a general housing bill, before being killed by a powerful Senator . His arguments, shared by other LA residents , was that they didn't want local control taken away. On the surface, that sounds reasonable, who doesn't like more direct democratic processes? But local zoning has failed to address the problems the bill targets, and it is predictable that it will continue to fail, so long as political engagement maintains its current form. In many places, city-by-city control could work, but California is such a jigsaw of localities that each city has incentives to keep following business as usual, which means, zoning restrictions to prop up property values, which inevitably lead to housing shortages and unsustainable costs for anyone who isn't getting the land value windfall. Even those getting the windfall are trapped into non-optimal decisions by housing immobility. That immobility ha...

It's ironic that in a country where providing free access to basic healthcare, food and water are so contentious, we've been providing one resource for free in astounding quantities: Roads. It's even more ironic, that while proving the roads (and often parking spaces) for free, we've neglected to provide the real need, transportation. Should roads be free? The evidence, from a 50+ year experiment is no. Free roads leads to overuse and traffic jams, a net negative for every potential road user. There is no amount of roads you can build that prevents this tragedy of the commons. Every major city in the US has traffic jams. A city with "good" traffic is one where those only happen for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, and only at certain points. The trouble with trying to build your way out of traffic jams is that housing and driving patterns always shift to consume everything to capacity and beyond. There is also the cost in terms of money, ...

We need housing to be affordable, but how best to do it? If you're thinking about this, you might be interested in this. Bottom-line: Build more housing, ignore rent control. How do you build more housing though? Besides avoiding rent control, and using public money to build housing, how else can you build more housing? Bring down permitting/planning costs. Encourage density. Remove parking requirements. Work together to ensure public transit and other infrastructure. This post inspired by reading...   Seattle City Council Insight

The below article wonders if Uber/Lyft will ever be profitable. Seems likely to me they will. It's the belief that their promises aren't as grand as they make that will lead to that. When investors stop believing that, they'll stop funding discounts, and profitability will emerge seemingly spontaneously. It's probably less than what Uber is promising, as there will be competition. It's worth noting that in addition to competition being somewhat local, Uber and Lyft don't just compete with taxis, but also with public transit and personal vehicles. When competing with public transit, cities should regulate, as there are many public goods arising from quality public transit. The story for personal vehicles however is different, which have most of the same negative aspects of ride-hails, plus some additional negative externalities (parking is a big one). Thus the first step in regulation should be one that targets both personal vehicles and ride-hails. I support...