vvarren

> But he soon discovered that the shade from the towering panels above the soil actually helped the plants thrive. That intermittent shade also meant a lot less evaporation of coveted irrigation water. And in turn the evaporation actually helped keep the sun-baked solar panels cooler, making them more efficient.

Holy cow! Sounds like a win-win-win to me?

I stayed in an Airbnb in Bangkok and in the middle of the night we found a guy under the bed. Airbnb was kind enough to refund us the replacement fee of the key we took with us as we ran for our life. Awful company.

First word I got was disability!

Absolutely. In fact, inflation may be the strategy of choice to get the US out of its debt crisis. Ruling class is totally fine with inflation, because it allows them to raise wages to $15, 20, 25, 30 per hour and act like benevolent leaders when in reality wages are just catching up to where they should be after decades of stagnation.

Fair point. This housing boom is largely caused by wealthy investors bidding up the price of single family homes, with AirBnb completely unrelated. There are also some urban-suburban migration dynamics at play. I mentioned AirBnb to point out that this isn't just a new issue. And while vacation rentals have always been a thing, they were formerly centered around vacation destinations. Now, they can be anywhere, and the internet makes it possible to browse and compare prices anywhere in the world. It is now economically feasible to own several vacation rental properties in small cities, which creates a pressure on supply for housing locals. And if you can earn a month's worth of rent in two weeks of AirBnb renting, the price of rent for long-term tenants is either going to go up or you are going to switch to AirBnb.

I'll pushback against this point. I noticed that the popular discourse was all about unemployment benefits being the root cause of the labor shortage, when in reality the statistics said differently (i.e., stats from states which had ended unemployment). So I did research to find the true root causes, while I still fleshed out the counter-argument on unemployment. EDIT - also, i'm not a journalist this is just my personal blog and opinions so it's inherently motivated reasoning.

I am the author and I appreciate your feedback. I actually wrote this piece to push back against the popular opinion that there’s a labor shortage due to “lazy people on unemployment benefits”. I don’t view asset prices skyrocketing as a healthy sign of the economy booming, instead I view it as all the rich people shielding themselves before inflation sets hold. And my argument hinges on working class people being unfairly priced out of their communities due to the skyrocketing asset prices. I also make an argument against the Airbnbification of real estate and how it is hurting the majority. I apologize if it seems that I am supporting the capital-owning class but it is actually the opposite. Let me know if you have any suggestions to clear this up on my article. (Edit) thanks for the edit that clears it up. I was worried you thought I was pushing a narrative when I’m actually pushing back against the narrative. Cheers!

I am the author, and my argument is in no means against rising wages. In fact, I think it’s about damn time that wages are rising. The $15/hr living wage movement has fought for this so long, that now $15/hour is barely a living wage anymore. My argument is actually that the economy is built on the backs of underpaid workers, and now that these workers are demanding their fair value we will either see inflation or the failure of many businesses. I don’t believe a business should be allowed to survive if it can’t afford to pay its employees a living wage, so if my argument implies that it is truly not my intention. Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions to clear this up in my article.

Well the business case as of late is that the global supply chain isn’t as resilient as previously believed, with all of the disruption seen during covid. Primarily with surgical masks and medical equipment at first, but now with nearly every good experiencing disruptions of some sort.

Hasn’t this been the trend for a while now, though? My understanding is that self driving trucks are still a decent time ahead of us, and logistics seem like the primary bottleneck causing a lot of these shortages.

Labor systems will definitely be seeking AI replacements, but just because they are needed now doesn’t necessarily mean they are available now. Although you make a very good point, and I think we will certainly see acceleration in this direction.

That is definitely the solution to rate variability, but it doesn’t make sense economically. If you are borrowing money why would you also want to buy futures contracts, it would eat into your mortgage spending power when you can just trade in the Bitcoin, get a normal mortgage and probably far better rate, then buy at full buying power.

My argument doesn’t hinge on the excess spending. Rather, the increase of costs due to a labor shortage, chip shortage, construction materials shortage, etc. is having a compounding effect across the whole economy.

So my understanding is that you’d owe a set amount in Fiat but you can make payments in crypto. Would you be locked into crypto for payments, at a designated fiat value or designated crypto value?

Because if you borrowed in crypto for a house and then the price of crypto skyrocketed you would be screwed. Seems like a nice option for people trying to short the crypto market, but I doubt this has much viability.

Companies realize they can get a headline by adding crypto as a payment method, but nobody cares anymore. It’s the equivalent of a brick and mortar store accepting Venmo and then gathering everyone in the town to tell them how innovative they are…