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Jack Mitcham, Ph.D.

@jackmitcham.bsky.social

350 followers 260 following 1.9K posts

👨‍💼 Risk analyst / Operations researcher 🚀 Sci-fi writer working to become a sci-fi *author* 📖 Writing a novel set on a tidally-locked iceball planet, where wealth inequality follows the temperature gradient 👱‍♂️ Dad to the sweetest boy in the world

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Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 11m

Black appears to have just moved their knight back and forth, so maybe they should try literally anything else

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 2h

We instructed them to let him pose however he wants, but they refused to take the picture, and they expect us to pay them anyway.

If you want my son to model for you so you can sell yearbooks, YOU pay US, not the other way around.

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 2h

Apparently, elementary schools now have yearbooks they want us to buy. And the photo company forced my pre-K kid to do some kind of serious professional pose because "it's for the yearbook."

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

Author in the streets, freak in the spreadsheets?

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

Thriller
Monster Mash
Purple People Eaters
Nightmare before Christmas soundtrack
Witch Doctor
Time Warp
I Put a Spell on You
Ghostbusters theme
Werewolves of London

I'd even throw in Toccata and Fugue for good measure.

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Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

I've been posting a lot in this thread about building houses, and I just don't think it's as simple as people make it out to be. I can't think of a single major city in the world that has figured out how to be both broadly affordable and desirable to live in.

More housing helps, but only a bit.

David Pardo @woodhaus-co.com · 1d

Build housing for the city you want, not the city you have. If you do the first, you get the amenities AND housing, along with the tax dollars and agglomeration effects of having more people.

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

My last parenthetical is important here, because if you build up amenities too much (lowering crime, improving schools, etc), you'll just pull in people from other regions, driving the prices back up. Manhattan has way more housing than Baltimore, but it ain't cheaper.

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

I agree, but this is completely tangential to my original point.

Pointing at a developer and saying "Make this unit in a desirable area cheaper" doesn't work in my view. Sustained building across an entire region over long periods of time works (as long as it doesn't increase demand too much).

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah, I don't believe that study, because it also says that a 1% increase in housing stock leads to a 0.4% decrease in rent. I don't see how both of those things can be true.

Also, does that mean a 1% increase leads to a 30% decrease? A 3.3% increase makes everything almost free?

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

Your own link you posted below contradicts your claim that it can make the price go down "by a lot." The articles show decreases of a few percentage points, and in the conclusion, the authors state:

"The supply effects described in these papers are not large"

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

I guess I have to take your word for it, because you gave me a paywalled article which cherry-picked a single zip code with few residents, and I have no idea what other factors were in play.

The relevant time frame also had massively increased interest rates, which lower prices.

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

To be fair, one zip code was cherry-picked to show a 30% decrease there after nearly doubling the housing units. But I have no idea what other idiosyncratic factors there were.

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

To be clear, I agree that building more housing is good policy. I just think there are balancing feedback loops that resist lowering the prices.

Someone else responded to me with Oakland as a case study, but it showed a massive increase in housing resulted in a ~10% drop in prices.

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Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

Neither is a concern.

I'm noting that there is a fair amount of affordable housing in Baltimore, it's just in areas that nobody wants to live in. The areas people do want to live in won't be made affordable to the poorest by pointing at developers and ordering them to "make it so."

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Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

And you're telling me at 700k is affordable? Or a low-desirability are?

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

Eventually, after many years, by a tiny amount, on average (not in every case), all else being equal.

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 1d

So, they sell the unit below market prices, and then what's stopping the buyer from just immediately flipping it gor the market price?

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 2d

I don't follow

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 2d

When someone does something that you like, yelling "MAGA TROLL" at them in response is counterproductive.

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 2d

Nobody is asking you to. I'm talking about actions, not opinions.

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 2d

In your mind, is this the way to encourage more behavior you want to see?

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Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 2d

In Baltimore? Not far. It changes block to block sometimes. Mt. Vernon is a good example. Here's an example. Search is for 2 bedroom, 1-1.5k sqft townhomes. A similar dynamic plays out elsewhere. And Baltimore is a tiny city.

Image showing a Zillow search in Baltimore. Homes north of rt 40 are cheaper than the ones south of it by a wide margin.

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 2d

I didn't watch JD's speech. It seems like he just said "North America" according to the article, which would make his statement literally true, but misleading because of the context.

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 2d

I think he was vague about the location on purpose, because the Aztecs did sacrifice children, and they're in North America.

The dishonesty would be in him implying that it was Native American tribes rather the Aztec Empire.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_s...

Human sacrifice in Aztec culture - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Jack Mitcham, Ph.D. @jackmitcham.bsky.social · 2d

I'm saying that the poorest people will have to live in the worst areas. I'm struggling to find a way to force it to be otherwise in a capitalist system.

Building more housing in the best areas can help limit the cost for thr middle class, which is a good thing, but it's not "affordable housing"