A look at whether women’s attraction to the city is based on finding a high-status mate. That may be part of it, though really most of their career options are urban (or, more precisely, few of them are rural) and I would think that factors in as well.
Along those lines, The Atlantic reports that No One Can Explain the Economic Recovery’s Gender Gap. It’s not a mancession anymore. The article overlooks the most obvious answer: At the beginning, it was male-type jobs that were getting nailed. As those that come back, government jobs are being cut. Government jobs are disproportionately female.
Houses are a place to live. Not a particularly good investment. Even leaving aside the bubble and the havoc it reached, I am really beginning to wonder the degree to which home ownership is a social good. Even for middle class people.
From the Department of Regulation: Texas will allow you to sell stuff you bake from your home. Extended hours working at a home desk job may lead to obesity, which can mean workers’ comp. Nashville, however, won’t let you meet clients there. Why? Fear of the ethereal sex offender.
Speaking of which, a while back I linked to (and applauded) Michigan’s decision to revise the sex offender registry. Here’s a follow-up on the red tape some are running up against when attempting to get off. More on the subject.
Law enforcement issues become a lot more complicated when it comes to crimes that almost inherently happen in private. It’s true of rape, molestation, and infant death.
An interesting look at a “hippie haven” in Denmark and its collapse.
If you’re on probation, be careful what you say on Facebook.
Cracked: 5 Famous Ad Campaigns That Actually Hurt Sales. The story behind the Dove one was interesting. I was also completely unfamiliar with the Duracel bunny.
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9 Responses to Linkluster 51
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Re: homeownership: the standard argument seems to be that someone who owns a home has more “skin in the game” and should care more about how the local citizenry behaves, as opposed to renters who can move on as soon as the lease expires. What is your rebuttal?
One valid point AGAINST home ownership is that it makes the workforce MUCH less mobile. It is tough to move for a better job when you are in up to your neck in a mortgage…
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The Megan’s List should be reserved for the worst of the worst. Personally I don’t think such a list should exist at all, but the horse has left the barn on that one. However, the more people on the list, and the sillier things people are on there for, the less seriously people take the list. People who pee outside and 20 year olds who like 15 year old P don’t qualify in my mind.
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Cracked: 5 Famous Ad Campaigns That Actually Hurt Sales.
I understand that Cracked isn’t a scientific journal. However, just because sales went down DURING an ad campaign doesn’t mean that the ad campaign was the cause of the decline. Furthermore, reading the article, the sales didn’t even go down in all five cases.
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Linkluster 51
Have you just given up?
PeterW,
Mike beat me to it. I do think that there is some social value to more durable communities where the citizens are more invested. Up until recently, that was my more dominant view of things.
However, I think that there is a significant offset when it comes to the decrease in labor mobility. As work becomes more specialized, having a lot of people tied down to mortgages that they can’t pay off does economic, and therefore social, harm.
Mike, I agree with your criticism of the article of the Cracked title. Even so, I found the cases interesting. I’m moving in a different direction with the Linkluster numbering system.
As work becomes more specialized, having a lot of people tied down to mortgages that they can’t pay off does economic, and therefore social, harm.
Arguably, that’s the real problem. 30 year fixed rate mortgages make sense in an economy where one has a job for life and doesn’t move frequently, but if one ends up moving every five years or works with short to medium length durations, then owning a home becomes a bit of an albatross. At least with renting, one can downsize to a smaller dwelling without wrecking one’s credit and losing huge sums of money…
I’ve been pondering a post on the subject, but yeah. That’s my main concern. On the other hand, the lack of distinction between a renting class and a homeowning class has traditionally served out society well. So it’s not clear cut. But really, our homeowning incentives make it rather difficult to find good houses to rent.
Got it – seems like a valid point. Of course it does become a conduit from career instability to social instability, but it’s not fair to ask individuals to take the hit.
PeterW, which hit do you refer to? The hit of renting and not building up equity? Or the hit of buying a house and being nailed down?
Either way I agree. From a societal standpoint, what we have to look at is the incentives we provide. How much do we subsidize home-ownership and therefore incentivize what could be counterproductive behavior? How much leeway should we give would-be landlords to encourage them to buy properties and rent them out?
Of course, it doesn’t entirely come down to government. As a society, should we encourage home ownership by praising the wisdom of it, or should we voice a more skeptical eye. It sure seems that until recently we’ve been doing the former, socially encouraging as well as financially doing so. Possibly to our collective detriment.
The hit would be taking on the financial burden of homeownership even in today’s fluid economy. It’s contributing to a social good a social good (gives you incentives to improve local behavior) – but it’s pretty unfair to expect this of people.
I’m less skeptical about social incentives that reward homeownership, because real homeowners *do* appear to have incentives to be upstanding citizens. That’s a good thing and should, in any just world, be rewarded by increased social status. But I hadn’t considered the private burden of the immobility created by homeownership, thanks for bringing that wrinkle to my attention 🙂