The value of the stock (which is outrageously overvalued) is solely down to musk’s personality cult. So now that it’s been announced that he should be “leaving government and going back to his companies” it led to a stock jump, since his presence is the only reason that the stock is worth a lot in the first place.

The issue is that Musk often sounds convincing when he talks about things you don’t really know much about, and there are a LOT of investors who have a lot of money but don’t really know much about anything.

He always gets so hung up on MIT because of his uncle

That’s been my thoughts as well.

Eliminate income tax on anyone making less than, say 500,000 per year. Then aggressively tax wealth and those making more.

Is this a MASSIVE shake up? Absolutely! Would it likely be a bit messy? Definitely!

But we are at a point where such fundamental change is necessary

There is no such thing as illegal immigrants.

I mean, I’m not saying that this isn’t a valid opinion, but it’s certainly not a majority opinion.

It’s almost certainly inclusive.

I don’t think you realize how rich musk is.

If you scaled the numbers above to the whole US population, the fine would be something around $17 Billion.

Musk’s net worth is over 20x that!

Extreme inequality causes extreme instability

Essentially: the status quo of the past 30 years is dead (and its never coming back), some people just haven’t realized it yet.

I think you may have missed the point a bit. It’s exactly these ‘empty promises’ which have been the democrats issue over the past 30 years.

They get elected on messages like ‘make the economy work work everyday americans’ and then once in office they prioritize the status quo and making sure that nothing major changes. This benefits the wealth and damages everyday people, many of whom voted for them in the hopes that the democrats would improve their situation.

As awful as much of their platform is, the Republicans have proven that they aren’t scared to break things and make big changes. This appeals to many voters who feel let down by empty promises.

The flexibility of the rights platform is actually one of their greatest strengths.

They are happy to flip-flop on things that they kinda care about in order to keep people onside and get what they really care about.

We on the left should learn from this. Less purity tests and trying to die on every hill or we’re fucked.

That sounds like all the more reason to be for legal immigration and against illegal immigration.

Politics (especially among republicans) has become a bit religious, so it’s not really THAT different I guess

Just look at history though and you’ll see that most significant changes (both bad and good) happen abruptly and it’s often a bit messy.

Unfortunately it’s just the way that humans work

I don’t know anything about the campaign in Oregon, but most people are scared of things they aren’t familiar with.

Also I’m guessing neither party really supported this much, since they benefit from first-past-the-post.

Status-quo politics is dead, many major western parties just haven’t realized this yet. People want firmer political leadership that promises fundamental change and isn’t afraid of breaking things along the way.

It’s just fucking unfortunate that (in most countries) it’s only the far right who are ahead of the curve at realizing this.

Center to left parties need to reinvent themselves and focus less on pleasing everyone or fighting losing battles. They also need to present a much clearer vision.

This is 90% just a proxy for how their parents will vote.

Its only a very small portion of kids that age who are going to have substantially different views than their parents (not that they don’t exist!)

Yeah that’s what I mean… it would be good for society if prices went down, but it would also make a lot of people pissed off, so they intentionally dance around actual solutions in favor of shit like this.

I recently moved to Vienna and don’t qualify for the public housing (you need to have lived here for a certain amount of time)but the sheer amount of it (and relative quality) means that even in the private market, competition is much less.

Compared to other cities we have lived in, the rent is much lower and the quality much higher.

Something like 60% of the population lives in either public or subsidized housing!

It’s the perfect solution for the democrats because it sounds good but also won’t actually cause housing prices to go down, so homeowners won’t feel like they are ‘losing’ money.

Sure, here’s a paper which explores the effects.

Essentially, housing prices have hugely inflated (in much of the developed world) because demand is much higher than supply. Prices in the real-estate market are generally really reactive to changes in supply or demand because each ‘product’ is unique and limited, as well as being worth a lot of money so there is more pressure to maximize the potential gains.

This sort of plan increases the resources available to the demand side without increasing the supply side. This drives up prices since there are more potential buyers.

Anyone who couldn’t buy a house without such a program is being added the the pool of people competing for a limited supply of houses. It won’t increase supply because supply is heavily limited by other factors, most notably zoning.

It’s unfortunate, because the thought behind such a policy is admirable. It’s trying to make buying a house more fair and more easily achievable for a broad segment of the population that currently is effectively shut out from owning a home.

In the UK a similar scheme just led to the entry-level segment of the real-estate market inflating faster than the rest.

It also led to a rise in more ‘luxury’ entry-level properties being built.

Again, it’s not exactly the same concept, but in the case of the UK, most economists agree that most buyers actually would have been better off if the policy had never been introduced, since the price rises ended up outpacing the value of the assistance.