Bryan Caplan - The Economics of Housing Abundance

[@bealzy]

Long term fan of Bryan's work!

[@nixpix814]

Bryan is just so lovely.

[@stlouisix3]

Bryan Caplan is a practical economist who works on the most important topics that aren't being discussed sufficiently and properly.

[@josephnoelwalker]

Hope you guys enjoy - Bryan is a fantastic guest!

[@Ryanrobi]

I am from the Boston area and when i did the math my standard of living making $160k was lower in MA than if i lived in poor rural upstate NY and made $75k mostly due to housing cost and income/real estate tax's. The average house in all of Massachusetts 630,000 first the average house in St Lawrence county New York is just over $100,000. So i bought a farm here and I am taking over a custom crop spraying company and I left my tech job. The cost of living is just soo stupidly high there you need to make $250k a year to really get ahead. Technically we have building regulations in northern NY but in reality its not enforced and people dont ussualy get building or occupancy permits. And I can still be in e-commerce here or work remote in tech and make the same amount. Now a days your much better off living in a cheap poor area with a job than be a 6 figure professional in NYC. The average truck driver or plumber in North Dakota has much more purchasing power than than a journalist at the NYT. Lol

[@usernameryan5982]

Great interview! I think the only objection to his position of taking a car always being faster than mass transit is that’s usually true on an individual level but if everyone in a large city wanted to drive, there is just not enough space in the city for everyone to be on the roads at the same time which leads to mass transit being a more space efficient option in more densely populated regions. I’d still say America is super pro car even without congestion pricing because most density laws are to manage traffic as well as they enforce all these stupid parking minimums. In a city like NYC, not only is there limited street space but something like 6% of the urban land is dedicated to parking. In the densest areas of Dallas, the roads are designed much differently for higher speeds, larger streets for more capacity, and I believe 33% of downtown Dallas is dedicated to parking. In Tokyo, I’d say it’s much more of a free market for housing than most American cities and rather than enforce parking minimums, they actually ensure before you buy a car that you have a place that can fit it at your residence. I strongly believe in Bryan’s belief in congestion pricing, I wish that was one thing that isn’t so politically unpopular as it’d increase productivity of all streets including the collective forms of mass transit like buses. Thank you for the great interview!

[@P103-u2f]

Nice video

[@CA999]

Long time no see... Lex Fridman has competition again! 😉

[@aslamtu]

This interview shows the importance of having a knowledgeable interviewer. The opposite of the Joe Rogan example.

[@aslamtu]

Re: fertility problem. Is there evidence that pro-natal populations are lower IQ and, if so, what are the ramifications?

[@emmanueljimenez1289]

More kids=lower IQ's? Less kids=Higher IQ's? No kids=?? Definitely sounds anti-natal...no evidence to support it though. As Kaplan says at the end the anti-natalist David Banatar types would be and are always weeded out by Darwinian evolution...but something more radical is possibility there is no birth or death-analytic idealism/radical non-duality. The opposite is materialistic/physicalist worldview which says there an "I" or self that was born into space and time and will die. Paradoxical and competing worldviews apparently...

[@gravitaslost]

Not everyone's vision of the future is Eden.

[@vmoses1979]

Very interesting interview. But the professor's direct correlation of higher pay to higher productivity is an assumption he takes for granted in every situation.

[@xsuploader]

And how do you explain the difference ? Niceness of employers ? Unless you make minimum wage your wage generally reflects your productivity

[@amatingmind7258]

Caplan has no understanding of how real-world economics works. By his own admission, he's occupied a sinecure for the last 25 years. He's also incredibly arrogant and solipsistic, precluding his ability to analyze anything properly.

[@home_screen761]

@@amatingmind7258Lol, no

[@vmoses1979]

@@xsuploader You've never worked with a higher up who was incompetent and unproductive and didn't merit his pay. If so you live in a bubble. How many top ceos have completely f'd up their company despite being paid millions? Completely unproductive if you drive your company into the gutter.