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Apple Commits $2.5 Billion to Fight California Housing Crisis
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If you were shot somewhere in Mexico by a Mexican theres a good chance you will be left to die.
For a more comprehensive article which doesn't try to make it look like Apple is the first or only tech company to invest in affordable housing:
fortune.com
Apple Tackles the California Housing Crisis. Here’s What You Need to Know
Big technology companies, like Google, Apple, and Facebook, are pledging billions to fix the California housing crisis. Here's what you should know about their efforts.
That could very well be true, and would be just another reason I’m happy to be here in the good ol’ US of A, and another one of the many reasons—though fewer in number with the disgraceful administration currently in office—that I’m proud to be American.
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Apple and other tech companies pay high salaries to tech workers in California due to the high cost of housing there. These high salaries cause housing prices to go up even more, causing tech companies to keep paying ever higher salaries, and the cycle continues. What are the chances that the cost of paying these ever increasing salaries is passed onto customers in the form of higher prices?
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Which was exactly my point
Some understand that it’s a city/county issue, while others try to paint it as a California-wide issue. As I mentioned in previous posts, there are many towns and cities in California where the median home price is less than $200k, $150k even. One bedroom apartment rents are well below $1,000/month in some areas.
But that’s nowhere in the Bay Area, that’s for sure. The cost of land makes that impossible.
Yep. Where I am near Palo Alto, $1000 a month is what it costs for a room on Craigslist. At least. Not so in a place like Fresno.
Yep. I know.
I know that the word Alien is also used by a "super humans" who like to ridicule people who emigrate to other countries. Because somehow it kind of makes these people who use the word Alien feel "special" in their own bubble world. Funny thing though, is that their brain cells quite possibly are fewer than these of a chicken.
I wouldn't say it's "most of DC". Some in DC worked with the banks and their lobbyists to take safeties off. Some on the banking/lending side of Wall Street then chose to use the lack of supervision to do things that were clearly wrong in the pursuit of $$$. The ones who did crimes should be locked up - even if they're "rich important white people" who run big companies. The politicians should be locked up to the extent that they broke laws and congressional ethics rules, and the people should stop reelecting the ones who "merely" voted for lots of questionable deregulation, even if they are familiar hometown faces who like the same sports teams as them.
Then again, I'm against the whole, "corporations get all the rights of humans, but none of the responsibilities", with the board of directors and executive staff absolved of any personal responsibility for wrongdoing, but still somehow raking in all the profits - this tends to breed corporations that act like sociopaths.
Based on your response, I don't think you looked at the sources I provided. Land is a big factor and is one of the points made. As for cost of construction, labor is 20% higher in many CA cities than the national average.
All that being said, you are looking at this on a micro level, not a macro level. Consider also Proposition 13 which handcuffs a local government's ability to raise property taxes to keep up with the market. While well intentioned by the state, they are incentivizing local governments to approve the development of land for other purposes like commercial use that will raise more taxes for them, while further exacerbate the scarcity of residential housing.
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Just mentioned this in another post. I think it is a good example of the government trying to do too much with regulation.
Consider also Proposition 13 which handcuffs a local government's ability to raise property taxes to keep up with the market. While well intentioned by the state, they are incentivizing local governments to approve the development of land for other purposes like commercial use that will raise more taxes for them, while further exacerbate the scarcity of residential housing.
On a separate note, I certainly agree land value plays a role, but why does everyone have an expectation housing in a big city should be cheap? Everywhere else in the country you pay a premium for this, and if you don't want to, you go live in the suburbs and commute to the city for work. I think the most we can hope for in big cities is to make it competitive by reducing any barriers to entry for development, construction, etc.
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Affordable housing never makes commercial sense to build though. Most construction costs are relatively fixed for a given number of rooms.
illegal aliens can't get any kind of welfare services
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apple pays what they are legally required to pay. if you want them to pay more then get the laws changed.
When land is expensive you need to build high. This is the only way to really bring down housing costs in popular areas. Can you imagine what a home in Manhattan would cost if you were only allowed to build single family homes there?
Where regulations and zoning laws prevent people from building taller multi-family homes, of course housing becomes very expensive. I mean, if you were allowed, you could probably build a tall 100 unit building an a few lots that were originally zoned only for single family homes. Then if that land costs $5M, the land portion of the home would now be only $50K per unit instead of $1M per house. Big difference in affordability. If we could build really dense and really tall, the price of the land would almost not matter anymore. But people don't want a skyscraper in their single family home zoned neighborhood. So politicians don't allow it.
Are there vested interest gorups which oppose increased housing development and want to keep housing scarce so prices can remain high?
It's absolutely 100% true.
There are absolutely tax benefits and loopholes presented to those who already have the means.
I'm
Happens everywhere.
Here in Toronto Land. There's interest groups that definitely want to preserve as much of the green belt as possible (I actually agree with them). But I can readily agree that a lot of people want it preserved because it does limit somewhat urban sprawl and grabbing up even more land for housing. This absolutely helps create scarcity that helps with housing cost increases.
I agree with the Green Belt because it makes bloody sense to do from an environmental point of view. But some just care for money sake.
Toronto Area housing has been on a rollercoaster uphill for decades. The fall will be spectacular, and terrifying (As a home owner)
I guess it depends on how you define "means."
In any event, it's my impression the left is more interested in punishing the wealthy than anything else.
Look at the bloodlust in Warren's eyes when she mentions millionaires and billionaires.
It's class warfare.
Fine with me. She's a clown and even if she's elected, congress would never pass some of her goofy ideas.
The Democratic candidates are like Santa Claus promising kids jetpacks and hoverboards. When Christmas rolls around though, all they're going to be getting is a pair of socks.
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Not all homeless people are "junkies," as you said, and it's hugely misleading to say so.
Plus that video appears to focus on a group of unsheltered, and it's important to know that there's a distinction between "homeless" and the "unsheltered." Many people with poor housing stability might get evicted from an apartment and spend some time crashing on a friend or relative's couch, or living out of their car, or occasionally spending a night in a shelter before getting back on their feet.
The unsheltered are what most people think of as "homeless," these are the ones in the streets because they have nowhere else to go, and they are a minority of the truly homeless.
Just a small correction. Prop 13 was not a government program, it was a ballot proposition brought before voters and decided by them directly.
Fair enough. So Californians only have to blame themselves lol (well, blame past Californians who voted in favor). This is being discussed over on reddit as well and I thought this was an extremely insightful comment that probably explains it all better than I can.
This is absolutely true, and probably the REAL solution to many of these problems. The traditional reason for buying a home was largely to have a reliable place to live that was close to the people who employed you.
As so many jobs have become less physical labor intensive and more about you manipulating data on computer screens or managing other people? It's increasingly viable to do all of that as a remote worker.
Even where I work now? When I started here 6 years ago, telework was technically possible (we had a VPN solution in place) but was really only done for a few selected people who they hired to work off-site. Our I.T. group started a slow push to do our own work from home when it was feasible and proved to management that no work performance was lost in the process. Since they still got the results they wanted from us, they increasingly allowed it without judging it. And today, quite a few of our employees are "highly mobile" - with a home office they still have a desk or cubicle at, but with no expectation they'll be sitting there every day of the week anymore.
Half of our Finance department works from a home office today, for example.
I think there's still value in employers maintaining a physical office with enough room so people CAN show up there. Some people WANT to come in, at least some days, to avoid distractions at home or to make use of resources like a large copier/scanner in the office, or more reliable/faster Internet. But those arrangements allow people to live a lot further away from the office than they'd be compelled to live, if they were expected to be in there every single day by 8AM sharp.
As so many jobs have become less physical labor intensive and more about you manipulating data on computer screens or managing other people? It's increasingly viable to do all of that as a remote worker.
Even where I work now? When I started here 6 years ago, telework was technically possible (we had a VPN solution in place) but was really only done for a few selected people who they hired to work off-site. Our I.T. group started a slow push to do our own work from home when it was feasible and proved to management that no work performance was lost in the process. Since they still got the results they wanted from us, they increasingly allowed it without judging it. And today, quite a few of our employees are "highly mobile" - with a home office they still have a desk or cubicle at, but with no expectation they'll be sitting there every day of the week anymore.
Half of our Finance department works from a home office today, for example.
I think there's still value in employers maintaining a physical office with enough room so people CAN show up there. Some people WANT to come in, at least some days, to avoid distractions at home or to make use of resources like a large copier/scanner in the office, or more reliable/faster Internet. But those arrangements allow people to live a lot further away from the office than they'd be compelled to live, if they were expected to be in there every single day by 8AM sharp.