But negotiations mean that both sides need to give something. So NATO and the U.S. should agree to pull back heavy weapons and missiles away from the Russian border and recognize in public what NATO has long acknowledged privately: that Ukraine will not be joining the military alliance in any foreseeable future.

This is absolutely playing into Russia’s hands, and is essentially imperialist. What right do Russia’s government (and American veterans) have to decide what Ukrainians get to do with their own country?

No, because Belgium isn’t a real country — it’s parts of two other countries pretending to be their own thing. We all just let them enjoy their little game.

Read the link posted by OP as a reply to me.

I suggest you re-read the first link you posted. It may as well be posted on RT. What exactly is the diplomatic solution here? Russia needs to GTFO of Ukraine. Any equivocation plays into the Russian agenda.

Diplomacy Not War - Peace in Ukraine!

“We demand urgent, good faith diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine, not more U.S. weapons, advisors, and endless war. And certainly not a nuclear war. We want those billions of dollars going for climate correction, jobs, healthcare and housing, not for the profiteers who manufacture weapons for death and destruction. “As veterans who have experienced the carnage of war, we feel great empathy for the young soldiers on both sides of this bloody war, who are being killed and injured in the tens of thousands. We know all too well that the survivors of armed conflict will be traumatized and scarred for life.”

VFP also advocates for countries to stop arming Ukraine, and for Ukraine to essentially bend over and accede to Russian demands.

I wish more non native people would take the initiative instead and acknowledge commemorations like this. It normalizes things like this and makes it more significant for us native people

Something I’d like to see is the addition of regional FN languages to the school curriculum for each province. I’m a languages nerd so I’m biased, but I think that would help (not to mention also help preserve the language of those particular nations)

As a non-FN person, I never really know what to do on this day. Remembrance Day for example has the usual ceremonies around 11am.

The fact that the entire condo market is built with investor sized units would suggest otherwise (or suggest that builders build what the market demands and if the market is all investors they will build investor focused units).

That’s still fundamentally a supply (and by extension pricing) issue. Prices are high, therefore small units are the only thing people can realistically afford, therefore that’s what developers build.

I agree, not sure where you saw that. Was it where I said that green belt policies are “very necessary”?

Here: “When we had urban sprawl, you could still buy cheap land on the outskirts and build your own house if investors stopped building new developments, but with (very necessary) greenbelt policies, it eliminates that release valve, putting the housing market basically entirely in control of investors who’ll keep it inflated to profit themselves.”

The point is that policies that combat urban sprawl have also increased financialization of the housing market

How do you define “financialization” here, especially in the context of non-rental units? If we’re talking about REITs, sure, but rentals are only a small part of the picture.

both my making housing a more limited commodity (which incentivizes investors to buy)

It also incentivizes builders to build, so as long as that isn’t impeded, prices should stabilize. Unfortunately building is severely impeded, which is what I mentioned in my earlier post.

and by making it impossible to build a house unless you’re a large corporation that can afford to build a multi-tenant building.

Again, this is a land value issue, not one of construction costs. Of course land is going to be expensive in an urban centre, as it should be! It’s a very limited resource. it makes much more sense to have two hundred people living on a building lot rather than four. Hence my confusion about your desire to reduce supply even further in order to reduce the price of housing.

Supply needs to increase, but it can literally never increase enough given its current structure of investors and profiteering. As long as houses are bought by investors (anyone with two houses), then it means that normal people will be priced out as the investors push prices up higher than they should be. If house prices drop they’ll invest in building less housing.

I’m not sure you’re familiar with the way the industry works. Builders and investors are very rarely the same people. Builders don’t care if the buyer is going to live there or rent the property. Your theory also doesn’t account for the ~80% of housing that is owner-occupied.

This is compounded by most new housing being multi-unit buildings that a single person cannot build on their own. When we had urban sprawl, you could still buy cheap land on the outskirts and build your own house if investors stopped building new developments, but with (very necessary) greenbelt policies, it eliminates that release valve, putting the housing market basically entirely in control of investors who’ll keep it inflated to profit themselves.

This is also quite the take — it’s very rare to see anyone advocate for more urban sprawl or suggest that building more housing units drives up prices. If you want to live in an urban area, density is good because it means there’s more housing supply. Land is the only finite resource in the equation, so making less efficient use of it in the hope that prices will come down is… Well, I’ll need you to explain how that math is supposed to work.

You’d be amazed how many people don’t understand that causation. For example, most people I talk to IRL about this don’t know that most homeless drug users started using after they became homeless. Instead, they think the homeless became addicts first and spent their rent money on drugs. Once they’re made aware of that and the fact that a housing-first approach is actually less expensive than the costs of homelessness (shelters, law enforcement, etc.) almost everybody I’ve discussed this with agrees that ensuring everybody has housing is the best approach. Mind you, they will rarely agree that everybody’s house value needs to come down, but it’s a start.

Exactly. This has nothing to do with MPs being landlords. Any government that crashes house values will never be reelected. That’s why all measures taken to date have avoided doing that — for example the reintroduction of 30-year mortgages, undoing a change that was introduced to prevent house prices from growing too high. The only long-term solution is of course for prices to come down (which can only be achieved by massively increasing supply) but most homeowners don’t want that and will vote against it.

For other parrot enthusiasts who were wondering as I was, these seem to be Patagonian Conures (not endangered, and somewhat common as a pet). I hope this spurs people into conserving their habitat.

Ah so this is funny because it disproves the rule. How do you like them apples, Duverger?

I’m not up to date on Sri Lankan politics. What’s happening?

Americans stop making everything about the US challenge (impossible)

You know most other western countries support Israel too, right?

What levers of decisionmaking are manipulated by whom

I hope you aren’t saying what I think you’re saying here.

In any case, the main reason for western support of Israel is the same as the reason for western support of Turkey. Both have obnoxious leadership but both are in key geographic locations, and the value of having them on-side against their neighbours is greater than the value in cutting them loose.

Austria is very much right-wing too, so they’d be down for some anschluss action.

Of course it’s Hungary. What a sad state of affairs for the country whose brave resistance led to the term “tankie” being coined for the pro-Russian side.

Only ten percent? I’d have guessed it’s higher, but perhaps the states I haven’t visited have slimmer people.

Dammit, how’d I miss that one? As a token of thanks, please use coupon code 1000YRCH for an extra discount!