#I am not a political expert

[mypoorsqheart]

I've had this Sansaery Modern Westeros Politics AU bouncing around in my head for about a year or two and I finally decided to post some edits I made for it.

Margaery Tyrell, a woman from a long line of politics, is going across the country running Daenerys Targaryen's campaign for presidency.

Sansa Stark, her wife, is at home running a blog about disability awareness, survival of abuse, queer identity, and her service dog Brienne.

Due to things in Sansa's past, their marriage is a secret to anyone outside their close inner circle. As the campaign between Daenerys Targaryen and Cersei Lannister heats up, Margaery has to make some decisions about her life and what she cares about most.

[hylianengineer]

if you've ever wanted to know how computers translate electricity into letters and numbers and whatnot, this article about encoding is really cool and beginner-friendly. Tl;dr on/off = 0/1 (I'm not sure which is which) and the strings of ones and zeroes get turned into characters by encoding, which is essentially a big reference table that says things like "01000001 = A." If you've heard of ASCII, that's an example of an encoding scheme. The kicker, though, is that there are countless encoding schemes and if you use the wrong one to translate your ones and zeroes into text, you get gibberish. Computers have to be told which one they're receiving information in - and if you deal with programming or software development, this can be messy.

I fell down this rabbit hole because one of the lab instruments at work spat out a text file using an encoding scheme called UFS-16 (a version of Unicode, which is like a big master encoding system designed to include all the possible characters you could ever need, in practically every language on earth. Fun fact, there's an unofficial version of Unicode that includes Klingon letters!) but the software I was using to process the data wanted UFS-8. It took me most of an hour and accidentally turning said text file into Chinese characters (used the wrong encoding system, oops) before I figured it out.

[zvaigzdelasas]

interesting standout point from harvard's atlas of economic complexity. 2013 theres a sudden & never-repeated spike ($1 Billion) of exports claiming to be Cigars & Cigarettes from Niger into Nigeria.

[folatefangirl]

I found this article by Carlee Gomes on current American Puritanism in our media interesting, especially since while the article mostly focuses on heterosexuality, it's not hard to read it and make the jump to understand why censorship of this is associated with censorship of queer depictions as well in media and online.

Important quotes:

The current state of cultural and material decline plays an important role in the shift toward Puritanism in media and art, in consumer appetite, and in the political posture of the State. That is to say, with the compounding crises we are bombarded with (everything from climate disaster to rampant racialized police violence to genocide) as a part of our daily lives under late capitalism, the need for escape, and indeed, the need for that escape to be completely unchallenging and non-confrontational, has become imperative. Moreover, as control over our own material realities becomes less and less feasible, the last lone place we believe we can exercise agency is within the landscape of that which we consume. This has resulted in the consuming public approaching all media and art with a moral imperative — that which we consume must be perfectly virtuous, sanitized of all problematic or complicated ideas and depictions, because it has become the stand-in for our very realities, our very political action as citizens; consuming has become our praxis. [...] The desire to exclusively engage with media and art made by “unproblematic” artists is a direct result of Americans viewing media consumption as an inherently political act because that is the supreme promise of Western prosperity and the religion of consumerism, and because it’s seemingly all that’s left. We’ve been stripped and socialized out of any real political energy and agency. Our ability to consume is the only thing remaining that’s “ours” in late capitalism, and as a result it’s become a stand-in for (or perhaps the sole defining quality of) every aspect of being alive today — consuming is activism, it’s love, it’s thinking, it’s sex, it’s fill in the blank. When the act of consuming is all you have left and indeed the only thing society tells you is valuable and meaningful, the act must necessarily be a moral one, which is why people send themselves down manic spirals deciding what, who is “problematic” or not, because for us the stakes are that high now.

[sagevalleymusings]

Harris is actually a pretty decent candidate and here's why

I have seen a lot of the same talking points that lost us the 2016 election getting repeated - a lot of talking about the very worst parts of the Democratic candidate, mixed with a lot of "vote blue no matter who" nonsense and I just want to say... Harris actually is a pretty decent candidate and it completely kills me that NO ONE is talking about this. Is she perfect? No absolutely not. Are all American politics conservative compared to global politics? Well... they used to be. But lots of people have said that a rise of fascism here in the US have emboldened the right globally , so that's not great. In either case, yes they are conservatives. But their policies aren't completely terrible and in fact I agree with a decent amount of them. So here's the good things about the Harris campaign, and why you shouldn't just vote for her, but vote for her and feel good about it.

Economics

Harris has an 82 page PDF on her website with a plan to re-energize the middle class. It includes a ban on price gouging, a cap on insulin and investment in clean energy, among many other intersectional policies. It includes a bunch of affordable housing policies including banning large investor purchases. It simplifies taxes for small businesses. It would end unnecessary degree requirements on jobs. It's 82 pages densely packed with not just good policy but actionable policy, if I went through all of it, this post would just be nothing but the economic plan. The Harris economic plan is actually pretty good. Is it a socialist pipe dream? No of course not. I think it's better than that. It's progressive policy that benefits everyone in this country, which will make more progressive policies even more popular. This is the kind of economic plan that starts shifting you back to the left.

Race

Harris has made supporting Black men a priority for her campaign. This plan includes LEGALIZING MARIJUANA FEDERALLY in order to overturn unjust tough on crime convictions. Reading Harris' own campaign page for this post TODAY is when I learned Harris wants to legalize weed. The Opportunity Agenda which focuses on supporting Black men and the issues they told her they are facing also includes FEDERAL REGULATIONS ON CRYPTOCURRENCY. It includes 1 million loans for Black entrepreneurs (can't help but notice that one is carefully ungendered, Black women), invest in community violence intervention, launch a health equity initiative, and invest in combating discriminatory housing. Reading this policy on supporting Black men on Harris' own campaign page... this isn't just Democratic policy, this is legitimately left-leaning.

Queer Rights

One of the reasons I was pushed to write this up is that recently someone whose opinion I normally respect said that they didn't like Harris' answer that she would "follow the law" on providing trans care for inmates. A law her administration confirmed when they reissued the transgender offender manual, by the way. As far as I can tell Harris has a long and progressive history on queer rights, even with the nuance that she was legally obligated to defend the CA DoC when they sued over the matter in 2015. Harris treats trans healthcare as something obvious - a normal decision between a person and their doctor which should be protected like anything else while her administration also quietly enshrining access to health care into law. This is part of the problem. Biden has signed at least four separate executive orders about gender since he took office and no one talks about it. i think the conservative pushback on this topic has been so aggressive and widespread that it's been difficult to see what should have been the effects of Biden's progressive policy on LGBT issues.

Environment

Harris is very good on climate. I've already mentioned that it's worked into the economy stuff. She's got policy on reducing emissions, she investigated Exxon Mobil, and as a senator she co-sponsored the Green New Deal. She's waffled on fracking and seems to currently prefer making it economically nonviable as compared to clean energy, which isn't as good as a ban. But most of the policies she's supported aren't just "better than Trump" they're actually good.

Immigration

It would be dishonest of me to write all this up without getting into some of the things I dislike Harris on. I don't like Harris on immigration. No one does - she's either too lax or too strict. She wants to resurrect the bipartisan border security bill, which, although it does call to expedite asylum process, would also increase deportations and in my opinion makes too many concessions in the name of bipartisanship. Her stance has not been very vocal other than to say she supports this bill. But I've noticed that Biden's policies on immigration have often been softer than they appear, including caveats to keep families together and expand the possibility of legal immigration while controlling for illegal immigration. I'm not necessarily against that - a major source of illegal immigration is corporations trafficking workers across the border legally and then not helping them renew their work visas. That is something we need to crack down on at the corporation side in my opinion and I wish we could see a candidate who talked about that part of it as an immigration issues. This is something that I think Harris is too conservative on and I won't hide from that. I also don't think she's being given much of a choice. Conservatives are frothing at the mouth over immigration. It's really really scary. There are way too many people willing to take matters into their own hands on this one. I want something more progressive but I understand taking a stricter stance on this one as a form of harm reduction. If these people think the country is being "overrun," they'll just take the solution into their own hands. We don't want that.

Palestine

Yep, we had to get there. Look, no electable politician in the United States is going to give a good answer to Palestine. We are far too entrenched with Israel and imperialism and war profiteering for a leader to easily take the moral stance here - they would receive too much pushback from their peers. The bar is set really, really low here, and that isn't a good thing. I don't think Harris is going to call what's happening in Palestine a genocide while it's ongoing, and I don't actually think she'll withdraw military aid, though I am hopeful that she'll do what Biden has done before and restrict it. But I do know that Gazans say that Harris would be the better president and I do know that Arab Americans support Harris and I do know that Harris said Palestinians have a right to self-determination. I included this because it's an important issue for many voters and one of the biggest deal breakers for a lot of leftists in the US. I believe Harris will act in ways that make her complicit in genocide if she gets elected. And I believe she will try to limit that harm more than a lot of other politicians would. This is the one where I would say that in comparison the situation under her leadership would be much better than under Trump. Trump supports an Israeli victory, not a ceasefire. He's told Netanyahu to "finish the problem." In fact Trump has already contributed actively to the genocide in Palestine. He dropped the US commitment for a two-state solution in 2017 and declared Jerusalem as Israel's capital in the same year. He cut aid to Palestine and reversed US policy on the Golan Heights and the occupation of the West Bank. One of these candidates disapproves of what's happening, but might not have the backbone to stop it. One of these candidates will actively participate. And that's enough for my conscience to be clear.

In conclusion

Voting is about compromise and accountability. Who do I think will enact at least some policies I agree with, and how can I pressure them to enact even more? Elect Harris and then petition the White House to revoke military support of Israel and there is at least a chance they will listen. Elect Harris and we'll have at least a little longer to breathe clean air while fighting for a solution to all the other problems we have. Elect Harris and she'll LEGALIZE MARIJUANA WHY IS THIS THE FIRST TIME I'M HEARING ABOUT THIS.

[iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid]

i could be wrong but like, as much i would love to see that old bigoted dipshit bite the dust i'm pretty sure it would actually be catastrophic if he died before the election

like, let's set aside the glaring part everyone's already talking about, which is how even this unsuccessful assassination attempt is gonna help his base deify him even more than they have before, and how much fuel it adds to the far right's fire. aside from that, and i'd argue more importantly in the long term, while this dude does have a large chunk of the country absolutely rabid over him, he's also got a significant chunk of republican voters grumbling and reluctantly voting for a democrat for the first (or second) time in their lives, because these are people with conservative values who see him as someone who's poisoning their otherwise perfectly respectable political party. it's no secret that biden is not fucking popular, and because of that i genuinely believe that trump is the only person on earth who is hated more by enough of the american people to give biden a chance. if that asshole had died yesterday, the republican party would've just shoved the most well-respected right wing guy they could find in his place, and republicans across the country would either be devastated and still vote red or say "oh thank god" and return to voting red, and then we'd still be stuck with Project 2025 Lite™️ and a lifetime of a conservative supermajority in the supreme court

(ideal scenario is obviously that he loses in november by a landslide and then dies and shits his pants on live TV right after. this scenario is highly unlikely but a girl can dream)

[baronetcoins]

So. The US has a speaker of the house(*). If you've seen the memes floating around for the past few days, you might find yourself wondering: how did that happen? Buckle in folks, this was a bit of a ride.

(*) for now

When we last left our... main characters, Kevin McCarthy had failed an 11th ballot to be elected speaker, down 20 Republican votes when he could afford a maximum of five defectors. The house then voted to adjourn until 12 eastern time on January 6th. Overnight, some deals happened, because for the first time since day 1 there was a significant movement in votes. Round 12 saw 14 of the representatives who had previously been defectors voted for McCarthy—not enough to give him the speakership (lmao, imagine?), but enough to prove his chances of victory weren't entirely dead. Important for later, three representatives were absent—Ken Buck (R-Colorado), Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), and David Trone (D-Maryland).

Round 13 went much the same in actual voter count, with one more of the never-Kevins peeling off to vote for McCarthy, though it was the first round in which there was not another republican candidate formally nominated. Trone came out of his voluntary surgery to vote for Hakeem Jeffries, and there was a motion to adjourn so the republican caucus could continue haggling, which passed. Setting the house up to reconvene at 10 pm eastern time, and some of the most dramatic hours we've seen in this whole glorious train wreck.

Signs suggested Kevin was feeling good—when asked why he felt confident he had the votes to clinch this, he responded "because I count." Two of the more notorious never-Kevins (Boebert and Gaetz) seemed open to negotiating. The press reported Buck and Hunt would be returning for the evening vote. A cart loaded with giant boxes of Five Guys burgers rolled into the speaker's office.

The hours pass. 10 pm rolls around, and the air is thick with anticipation. The house chaplain offers a prayer in which she suggests the gridlock may finally be over. Patrick McHenry (R-North Carolina) gives a nominating speech for McCarthy with not one but two jokes that fell extraordinarily flat, all the while wearing a bow tie.

Now, the votes for speaker are conducted as roll call votes. The poor, probably underpaid, long-suffering house clerk reads off the name of each representative in alphabetical order, then goes through a second time calling the name of any representative who didn't vote the first time. This takes... a while, but what it means is that when you know who's vote to watch, you spend a while in anticipation of that person's name being called, listening to the alphabet.

The other thing to understand, as this gets deep into the weeds, is a little more of the nuts and bolts of how the count works. The speaker of the house is elected by a majority of the votes cast—that is to say, the number of representatives-elect who vote for a name instead of not voting or voting present, divided by half, plus one.

M = [ (# reps elect - # of reps elect not voting - # of reps elect voting present)/2 ] + 1

The US House, while normally filled with 435 reps, currently has 434, due to one death. 212 of those are democrats, the remainder are republicans. If all 434 vote, the threshold for a majority is 218 (434/2, +1). If, say, two members vote present and everyone else votes, the threshold is 217.

The remaining detractors were Biggs, Boebert, Crane, Gaetz, Good, and Rosendale. Biggs, first on the list, voted for a non-Kevin guy, Jordan. Boebert, second in line, voted present. This was a difference that got audible applause from the chamber. For one brief, beautiful, shining moment, it seemed like we might have a resolution. And then Crane votes for Biggs, which. Fine. Kevin can spare a few losses. And then, Gaetz doesn't. vote. Not voting present, which is a different thing. He just lets the first round skip him. Good votes for Jordan. Rosendale votes for Biggs. At which point, the math is as follows. 434 congresspeople, 432 votes, 217 to win. McCarthy has 216 votes. It all comes down to Gaetz: if he votes for McCarthy, Kevin wins. Anything else, and we're doing this again.

Gaetz. Votes. Present.

At first, this gets cheers and claps. And I look at my mom, who's watching the vote with me, and wonder "what the fuck?" The reaction makes me doubt my math. The floor is in chaos. Pretty quickly, it seems people realize that McCarthy is not, in fact, speaker of the house. Kevin runs back towards Gaetz and starts "negotiating" (fig 1)

Fig. 1: things get heated

A democrat heckles from the distance, yelling "On your knees!" To Kevin as he approached Gaetz. There are calls for order. Mike Rogers, R-Alabama, has to be physically dragged away from Gaetz (fig 2)

Fig. 2: lol, and furthermore, lmao

All this, followed by a motion to adjourn until Monday that at first appears to be successful, until Kevin runs to the front to tell members to change their votes. It appears a deal has been struck—and ballot 15 proves it. All the remaining holdouts vote present, lowering the threshold to 215, and allowing Kevin's 216 votes to take him over the line. Truly, our long national nightmare has come to a middle.

What does this mean? Probably bad things. The rules package and committee assignments are yet to be formalized (that'll come on Monday), but expect the house ""freedom"" caucus to be more or less running the show (*) (*pending a long and bloody battle over the rules, which is, IMO, still on the table).

I could go through the speeches, but it's 2:30 am and I've got a flight tomorrow so I would literally Rather Perish so instead, to conclude, i'll leave you with this.

(3: source)

[rosacarolina]

I've read your pinned post and wanted to say something, as a white girl but also a South European: the "homestead" term is historically bounded to white supremacy, yes, but only in those countries of the Western world that actively participated in colonialism and built their economic fortune on slavery. I'm a contemporary history graduate and I can assure you NOT ALL OF WESTERN WHITE COUNTRIES WERE INVOLVED IN COLONIALISM. Go ask a Hungarian, a Moldovian, an Albanian if their grandparents were white suprematists because they owned a homestead and they will laugh. Also, some European peoples were themselves victims of colonialism. So please please please when you all talk about specific historic issues consider learning how to divide nowadays political discourse from actual historic work. "Fancy" political discourse has most of the time nothing to do with serious historic researches (at least, in European universities; I cannot speak for the level of academia in the US...).

I am also a history graduate student at a european university, but thank you for this ask anyway. I don't disagree with your general point-- that colonialism is not a strictly racial divide with white people being the colonizing party and all non white people the colonized. Like that's definitely true. When speaking about the term homestead, i am discussing it as a white supremacist dogwhistle, not saying that anyone who grows their own food is a racist. i would expect that the words agrarian subsistence farmers in hungary, moldova and albania used to describe their homes and their lifestyles would not be "homestead" because it is, an english word.

Consider also that this is a tumblr aesthetic blog and not a historical research conference, where the focus of discussion is, in fact the "fancy" (whatever that means in this context) political discourse which pervades the space and has pervaded it historically.

I'm sure as a student of contemporary history you would understand the historical connections between colonialism, white supremacy, and "blood and soil" rhetoric which used the visuals and languages of pastoralism. this is what i am referring to when i say that homestead is used as a dogwhistle.

also, the idea that a country or a people being subjects of colonialism means they cannot also, at the same or another time, be the perpetrators (or beneficiaries) of it is laughable. i would say that yes, EVERY western white country was involved in colonialism, to varying degrees, at the same time that some are/were subjects of it.

my apologies if this response was disorganized; but i found your assertion that political discourse (which i take from context here to be discussions of the current effects and manifestations of colonialism) not only is but should be largely divorced from serious historical study to be misguided at best. In fact I find it difficult to think of an example wherein the discussions are unrelated.

[theriverpointace]

Πολίτης άρχίφιλος//Polites archiphilos

so i was watching the cut songs video posted by @epicthemusicalstuff and in the first song polites is described as odysseus' best friend.

incidentally i learned the ancient greek word for best friend this week.

(well, technically i learned the ancient greek word "areiphilos," beloved by ares, and my dad, who teaches new testament greek, read the word without his glasses and saw a chi that shouldn't be there, and told me the word was "archiphilos," which he would translate as "best friend." so we could be just making things up really. but still.)

so ig now i have a polites design <3

[vulnerasti-cor-meum]

have to read greek plays to understand girard have to read sarrasine to understand barthes learning takes so much effort sob

[potahun]

feeling very lucky that i get fed so much furukaza on the regular —

—by japanese furukaza fans. technically and relatively speaking it’s a rarepair over there too. and yet the fans are regularly creating beautiful things, hilarious things, things that made me bawl sometimes from emotion. without knowing it, some ‘brands’ of characterization of furukaza that i see most often have grown on me to such a degree that i have become picky with fanon that conflicts with them and i think it has even influenced my general perception of them as characters… there is also such love for kazami on the regular that i can often read a post and nod furiously in agreement. im fed so much, and they’re loved so much… there is every reason for them not to have any active fandom and yet, there is so much creativity and beauty aaaaa

[botslayer9000]

does the world of mdzs have a civil service exam

[clairenatural]

Please do tell

ok so baseline is that the wagner group is a private military group linked closely (until now) to the russian state/putin himself, which was widely understood (again, until now) to essentially just be an arm of the russian military deployed to deny state culpability in various military interventions. like Russia will be like "oh we're not involved in [insert country or conflict here]" but then Wagner pops up there and we're all like okay yeah sure lmao

they rose to prominence in the 2014 invasion of Ukraine but have since been used by Russia to expand Russian influence and military presence across the world. basically they provide various regimes with military support/join civil conflicts on the side Russia wants to win to overall promote Russian presence, sphere of influence, etc.

What this coup means for Ukraine and the current war we have yet to see, wagner is NOT like. good. like they're a private miltary they're fascist and have killed many many civilians and committed many human rights abuses. so wagner taking control would not be good at all. but my understanding is that there's a very high chance this insurrection (not really a coup as they aren't technically state military) will fail, and if/when it does, that could be good news for Ukraine as they've been fighting as a major part of Russian forces in Ukraine and if they pull out it would destabilize Russia's attack. And it looks like Wagner is currently pulling out of Ukraine to head towards Moscow - and they're so closely linked to Russia's official forces that some people think other Russian military forces might just kinda follow them in confusion and/or just have nobody to command them without Wagner being there

(edit to clarify that I'm not saying here that I want Putin to remain in power, rather that we shouldn't be cheering for Wagner as any sort of "good guys." I do think any sort of destabilization of Putin is a good thing and that's exactly what's happening)

However I'm also concerned about what's gonna happen in the rest of the world - Wagner has been increasing their presence across Africa recently (since ~2017) which has widely been understood as a part of Russian foreign policy to increase their footprint/influence in the region (aka exploit the countries they operate in for natural resources), and they've also been known to operate in Syria and Venezuea. So if Wagner/Prigozhin (the leader) have broken from the Putin regime, will they still be carrying out Russian interests abroad? Whose Russian interests? will they just carry on as a mercenary group to hire unattached to a political regime? What damage will it have to Russia (or at least Putin's Russia)'s global influence if a major arm of their foreign policy/diplomacy strategy has broken from the government? etc etc

[straightlightyagami]

Actually, socialism is about workers' ownership of the means of production. This does not translate to greater access to luxury goods or even guaranteed greater quality of life for everyone. For example, if you're rich/bourgeois, even if you choose to be a "class traitor" by supporting socialism, yes, you will have all your basic needs met, but your quality of life will still be significantly lower. As in, about the same as everyone else's. And even like for the "middle class" in imperial core countries, you will be in a more secure position in society (as e.g. medical care, employment, and housing is guaranteed), but! Because your access to certain goods depends on exploitation of the global south, they may not be as readily available. (This is not even to mention that something as significant as a change of economic system is likely to cause instability and a decrease in quality of life for a short time.) This is just the realistic picture, make of it what you may. For what it's worth, I do think like morally, if people in some global south country suffering less means you (not necessarily you the person reading this but a generic middle class USAmerican) might not be able to buy however many bananas whenever you want for cheap? That's a reasonable trade-off.

[charliethemanticore]

Hi btw being trans does not automatically grant you supernatural understanding of all esoteric trans knowledge. You actually need to put effort into learning or put effort into keeping quiet about things that don't pertain to your specific experience

[anonymusbosch]

so. first of all I don't know anything. take everything with a massive grain of salt

second - this is talking about housing in a very capital-y framework which is not necessarily reflective of viewpoints I hold

I don't want to engage directly with the original post I'm responding to here, but re: private construction vs gvt-owned construction of housing - when it comes to affordable housing in California in particular (where around half of homeless people in the US live), there's an obvious(?) contributor - zoning laws that prevent housing from being built in sufficient quantity to keep prices low, market-style. some people respond to this with "if we relax zoning and incentivize private construction, the problem will fix itself". Then there's the "por que no los dos" approach to public vs private investment in housing, which seems kind of a no-brainer on its face (have state-sponsored construction alongside private construction) - but I think there's a major piece missing to that, which is that - even accepting the premise of that framing - scarcity, like, exists? And particularly in construction labor, particularly in California, supply is slow to respond to demand. For years there's been an diminishing number of construction workers (and in many cases plumbers, electricians, etc) as the pace of construction has been kept slow and things like computer labs have supplanted wood shop/metal shop in schools - AND as the cost of living has increased, it's been harder to get by on manual labor wages, pushing people already in the field out of it. Part of the reason housing is more expensive to build in CA, even when it's allowed, is that labor and materials are scarce. (This is ofc in addition to addl regulations, environmental review hurdles, etc.)

The other side of public v private construction that I don't think is acknowledged as much (among people already gung-ho about building more housing) is that when there's such a tight market, the first thing to be built with private capital is the thing which sells for the most money. Okay, that people talk about. But if the response is "but let them keep building and it will eventually get to an equilibrium/drive prices down" - I don't think that's very reassuring? The problem is present now. And say housing prices drop from $3000/month for a one bedroom apartment in SF to $2000/month - that's a significant enough drop to open the market to people who previously didn't move there because it's too expensive but not nearly enough to make the prevailing wage for, e.g., a city janitor ($17.29/hr) or a construction worker hauling material at a site ($22.50/hr) super tenable. More people move in, but the low end of the market doesn't budge until all the upper tiers have been satisfied - and meanwhile, the people building and taking care of those buildings still can't afford to live in them. This seems like it will keep the cost of construction fairly high for a fairly extended period of time, right?

one answer is to increase pay for construction workers - with the consequence of increasing the cost of construction and making the cheaper units even more unfavorable to build (for investors). this is already happening to some degree.

So it seems, especially with the time it takes to get additional people into the construction industry, like the #1 priority should be public funding for the type of housing least attractive to investors and most consequential for the people who need it most - low-cost affordable housing. other priorities should absolutely be re-incentivizing the trades, rezoning to allow much denser housing in the sprawl, etc. but in terms of the massive deficit of housing and homelessness crisis, it really seems like priority one should be building cheap now. b/c the longer it takes to get housing, the more expensive it'll get.

(sidebar: gvt-owned housing also may allow the government to avoid some funding/paperwork issues like what's happened with the Cecil Hotel, though given how much of a trainwreck they made of it, I don't know how much hope I can have)

(sidebar 2: don't have the links handy but I'm reminded of two studies - one that showed that median rents in an area increased when rent control was implemented, one that found that rents increased when rent control was removed.)

@triviallytrue I don't know if any of this is of interest - thoughts?