It was always short sighted tax policy. We’re just living with the blowback.

But in 1954, apparently intending to stimulate capital investment in manufacturing in order to counter a mild recession, Congress replaced the straight-line approach with “accelerated depreciation,” which enabled owners to take huge deductions in the early years of a project’s life. This, Hanchett says, “transformed real-estate development into a lucrative ‘tax shelter.’ An investor making a profit from rental of a new building usually avoided all taxes on that income, since the ‘loss’ from depreciation canceled it out. And when the depreciation exceeded profits from the building itself—as it virtually always did in early years—the investor could use the excess ‘loss’ to cut other income taxes.” With realestate values going up during the 1950s and ’60s, savvy investors “could build a structure, claim ‘losses’ for several years while enjoying tax-free income, then sell the project for more than they had originally invested.”

Since the “accelerated depreciation” rule did not apply to renovation of existing buildings, investors “now looked away from established downtowns, where vacant land was scarce and new construction difficult,” Hanchett says. "Instead, they rushed to put their money into projects at the suburban fringe—especially into shopping centers.

http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/in-essence/why-america-got-malled

The one example I’m familiar with is a name brand ice cream company that produces the store brand ice cream too…in that case the recipe is different, cheaper ingredients to cut costs to the bare minimum. But using the machines for a higher volume saves money.

I’m sure ‘same exact item’ does happen too but just ‘same manufacturer’ doesn’t mean exactly the same item.

Can’t believe Harriet Tubman got all that infrastructure up.

Same way Uber lost money for 7 years straight. Investors.

Not for House or Senate. Age just isn’t a close enough metric for what you’re trying to fix.

If you’re concerned with age-related decline, vote them out if you see signs of it, or if they would reach whatever age your limit is during the term.

If you’re concerned about longevity in office, use term limits or reform campaign finance such that longevity in office doesn’t grant too high of an incumbent advantage.

SCOTUS, sure. I think Canada has appointments until 75. Does not seem meaningfully different from appointments for life except less randomness on open slots.

It’s an older meme sir, but it checks out.

And Trump just copied the slogan from Reagan anyway.

Catholics and Protestants are two different tribes. They’re all Christians.

But if Eastern Orthodox counts as “Christian” while Catholicism doesn’t, that destroys the reasoning. If Eastern Orthodox doesn’t count, then you’re just referring to Protestants.

I don’t think there’s any explanation other than anti-Catholic bias, Protestants just want to claim their way of doing Christianity is the only way.

I’m definitely a city person. I love walking to things (for which I need sidewalks) and hate cars. I like being able to walk to a bar, personally I find more sense of community with close neighbors instead of being a mile from anybody. I have a rural friend who once asked if I got freaked out that my neighbors could see what I do in my yard and…no. Doesn’t bother me. Honestly I feel safer when I leave for vacation that my neighbors would text me if something was wrong at my house. I’m not scared of violent crime because it’s vanishingly small odds in most residential areas that aren’t poverty stricken.

Any outdoor activity I don’t do frequently enough that it’s worth having a huge plot of land for it and I don’t want to have to mow an acre or more. I wouldn’t be able to survive on satellite internet.

The thing I’ve heard is, think of how when you’re a mile away from each neighbor, it’s your tax dollars paying for the road, sewer, sidewalks, water, electric, gas lines, for a half mile in each direction. Initially and for maintenance and replacements. That’s why a lot of rural areas just don’t have sidewalks or fiber internet or sometimes they’re using well water.

In a city duplex, you’re paying half the utilities for like 20 feet in front of your house.

It just is more efficient to live closer together, the reason cost of living goes up is because everyone wants to live in the city and employers want that supply of workers so they try to get in or close to the city too and it’s a virtuous cycle of concentration. But housing supply being what it is, and all the jobs being nearby, means housing prices go up. Still worth it to most people hence why there’s still demand, but higher than living in a place with fewer jobs and amenities.

I’m judging from the back benches like everyone else here. I know enough to say “policy declared by Mexico’s president” is not necessarily equal to “the best policy for Mexico.”

If there’s a better policy that helps Mexico as a whole which isn’t what the US wants, I’d love to hear it. Something tells me “not fighting drug cartels” isn’t it.

I was a huge “1000 Blank White Cards” fan in college and I maintained a drinking deck and a sober deck and we played all the time. Everything got lost when I moved home so I never played again and I’ve never even heard of anyone else playing.

I honestly don’t understand the math of not releasing movies and un-releasing games. People say tax purposes but I’d think streaming is essentially pure profit, hard to imagine not being able to make 20% of your money back or whatever credit you get for taxes.

What a refreshing meme use. Makes me want a beer actually.

If “Cat’s In The Cradle” doesn’t get you, you are not a father.

I always thought the Ottoman Empire’s millet system was interesting. Basically since it was a Muslim country that allowed other religions to exist, how do you rule them? Doesn’t seem quite fair to make them follow your religious rules, but also you are a religious empire protecting everybody and what’s in it for you to protect these non believers?

So they just had different legal systems set up for each religious community, and non-Muslims just had to pay a tax (the jizya).

The covid restrictions being gone is only better if covid is gone.

That’s an impossible bar to clear, the next best thing is vaccines so prevalent that covid numbers stop surging and get down to manageable levels. That is what happened, since November of 2020.

Employment hasn’t “stayed low the entire presidency” it was one of the highest it’s ever been and only got to this point over the course of two years.

Bidens presidency started January 2021, unemployment at 6.4%. By the end of the year it was at 3.9%. And it has been steady between 3.5% and 4% ever since.

If we didn’t get enough of a recession to meet your standard for calling it that, we at the very least got close enough to spark a huge national debate in the media about what constitutes a recession.

We didn’t meet the US definition. The NBER decides, and they say there wasn’t a recession. You are 100% right that the media and political figures were were talking about an impending recession the entire time, and it never happened. That is a good thing.

The covid restrictions are gone, that’s better. In spite of all predictions there has been no recession over 4 years and unemployment has stayed low the entire presidency. That’s better. I literally don’t know what more you could want in the metrics of unemployment and covid restrictions.