Open Thread December 11 the “Kelly Parcel,” Utah
Open Threads are created for people to have conversations which may not fit in with topical posts . . . a comment which may be off topic. I usually offer up one topic to start a conversation.
“Simply put, this small inholding, known as the “Kelly Parcel,” (Utah) should never be privatized. It is one of the most awe-inspiring and important pieces of open space remaining in America.
Within Grand Teton National Park, its borders include the National Elk Refuge and Bridger-Teton National Forest. Its value was appraised in 2022 at $62.4 million. However, the director of the Office of State Lands and Investment just recommended a starting bid of $80 million” for private investment.
Its real value isn’t about money: The land is a vital migration corridor for elk, moose, big horn sheep antelope, pronghorn and mule deer travelling into and out of the national park. It also hosts 87 other “Species of Greatest Conservation Need.”
Commentary: Outrage in Wyoming Erupts over Public Land Auction, msn.com.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/us/politics/rent-burdens-low-income-life.html
December 11, 2023
Record Rent Burdens Batter Low-Income Life
More tenants than ever spend half or more of their income for shelter, leaving less for everything else, taking an emotional toll and leaving some without a place to call their own.
By Jason DeParle
To understand how rising rents punish families of modest means, look no further than the queen-size bed that Jessica Jones and her three children share in her mother’s living room, where each night brings a squirming, turning tussle for space in a house with no privacy.
Ms. Jones and her daughter Katelen, 14, anchor the sides like human bed rails, with two younger girls tucked in between. Joy is a 4-year-old featherweight, but Destaney, at 6, kicks so much that Ms. Jones binds her in a mermaid blanket. The day’s tensions lie beside them, and midnight sneezes are shared events.
After two years of doubling up, Ms. Jones longs for a place of her own. But even though she works full time for the state government, a modest apartment would consume more than half of her income, a burden most landlords find disqualifying and one she could not sustain.
With $41,000 a year in earnings and child support, she is, by government definition, not poor — just homeless.
“My anxiety is through the roof,” she said. “I feel almost hopeless.”
Unaffordable rents are changing low-income life, blighting the prospects of not only the poor but also growing shares of the lower middle class after decades in which rent increases have outpaced income growth.
Nearly two-thirds of households in the bottom 20 percent of incomes face “severe cost burdens,” meaning they pay more than half of their income for rent and utilities, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Among working-class renters — the 20 percent of people in the next level up the income scale — the share with severe burdens has nearly tripled in two decades to 17 percent.
For both groups, the proportion with severe cost burdens has reached record highs.
“More people, higher up the ladder, are facing impossible trade-offs,” said Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a researcher at the Harvard Center….
Jason DeParle, who has covered poverty for three decades, reported from the Charleston, S.C., area, where he spent weeks observing how the lives of families were affected by their difficulties in making rent payments.
As a midsize city in a low-cost state, Charleston may not seem like a place with impossible housing math. But it has long drawn new residents with big housing budgets attracted to its beaches, history and food, and a surge of manufacturing jobs has swelled their ranks.
Higher housing prices at the top mean higher prices below as land values rise and gentrification quickens. Mount Pleasant, an affluent suburb, compounded the shortage of affordable shelter by banning new apartments.
“Charleston County has become a victim of its own success,” the county’s housing plan warns.
Even after adjusting for inflation, the cost of a basic two-bedroom apartment rose by a third over the past decade, according to federal estimates called fair-market rents, taking $4,600 a year from tenants of modest means.
Civic pride suffered a blow in 2018 when Princeton researchers found the city of North Charleston had the country’s highest eviction rate, a product of high rents and weak tenant-protection laws. …
The county set aside $20 million in federal stimulus funds for affordable housing. But that is only 4 percent of the investment the plan said is needed.
Budget-busting rents are not just an urban problem. Three-quarters of Charleston’s low-income households (those in the bottom fifth) pay more than half their income for shelter. …
More Than 1 in 4 American Homeowners Is ‘House Poor’
NY Times – May 30
The increase in rents since 2020 has been exceptional, and is causing distress for many, many families:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/us/politics/rent-burdens-low-income-life.html
December 11, 2023
Record Rent Burdens Batter Low-Income Life
More tenants than ever spend half or more of their income for shelter, leaving less for everything else, taking an emotional toll and leaving some without a place to call their own.
By Jason DeParle
The federal government deems shelter affordable if it takes 30 percent or less of household income, a goal that only about half of the nation’s 44 million renter households meet….
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=HKys
January 15, 2020
Consumer Price Index for Rent and Owners’ Equivalent Rent, 2020-2023
(Indexed to 2020)
(Vaguely related to ‘The Rule of 72’ vs Inflation?)
If You Hate Investment Risk, High Interest Rates Are Great. With a Catch.
NY Times – Dec 8
Investors who want to lock in safe income may be hurt over the long haul if they don’t also hold stocks, our columnist says. …
Re Kelly’s Parcel, g’da would’ve muttered something about cutting off your nose to spite your face. They’re not doing this for any other reason … pure spite. To ‘own the libs’
Ten Bears:
But, but, these people love their state the open wilderness.
Countries Most at Risk Call Proposed Climate Agreement a ‘Death Warrant’
NY Times – Dec 11
The working draft made public at the U.N. summit in Dubai would not commit nations to phasing out the fossil fuels that are dangerously heating the planet.
In a First, Nations at Climate Summit Agree to Move Away From Fossil Fuels
NY Times – just in
Nearly 200 countries convened by the United Nations approved a milestone plan to ramp up renewable energy and transition away from coal, oil and gas.
If we truly believe that addressing climate change is a global problem that demands global solutions; rather than relying on individual countries to perform “good faith” efforts and complicated strategies; why not adopt a simple “global tax” on pointsource CO2 & GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, to be administered by the UN. All countries would be contributing on a uniform basis related to their relative GHG contributions. The revenues would create a global fund to assist in developing innovative climate control strategies and funding for various climate related disasters. At least we would be doing something and providing an incentive to reduce CO2/GHG emissions, instead of wringing our hands and kicking the CO2 can down the road again.
Hi Bill, I posted a repy to this climate change posting, but I did it from my tablet and not my usual PC posting device. Not sure if it’s lost somewhere. It said it was under review.
Got it… thanks.
This Tiny Parcel of Paradise Could Be Devoured
NY Times – Ted Kerasote – Dec 6
‘This square mile, 14 miles northeast of Jackson’ piece of land is worth $60-80 million dollars?
Yet ‘the Kelly Parcel brings in slightly less than $2,900 a year to Wyoming’.
Go figure.
Isn’t it State-owned currently? Maybe it has some grazing revenue. Also, confused by the reference to “Utah”. Is that the name of a publication, not the state, maybe?
Presumably it is state-owned (Wyoming).
Probably if there is somewhat less than $2900 annual revenue it is from grazing.
Wyoming officials postpone decision on Kelly Parcel auction until next year
Wyoming Eagle-Tribune – Dec 7
If this were Montana, not Wyoming or Utah?), a blockbuster tv series could be made of it. Any interest from Taylor Sheridan & Kevin Kostner?
As Zelensky Pleads for Aid, Republicans Demand Border Concessions From Biden
NY Times – just in
Ukraine’s president is in Washington with an urgent request for more help to fight Russia, but Republicans in both chambers say they won’t act without a border deal. Mr. Zelensky will meet soon with President Biden.
(IMO, the Dems have too much of a problem with ‘migration at the southern border’ to NOT do anything. They should at least take the opportunity to discuss this. Take it off the table.
However, it may be too late. They’d have to make it look like they weren’t caving.
As it is, we are looking at (at least) one issue too many for next November.)
NY Times –
NY Times –
However, the MAGA GOP has set this issue up so they don’t really want to have Dems come towards them. They really want to get the Biden Impeachment on the books, maybe have another one before Election day. Just to even the score.
I hope what will happen will be that more voters will swear off ever voting for GOP candidates again.
Remember when a GOP President talked about this country being the last best hope of mankind.
‘In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. ‘ – Abe Lincoln
E.U. Leaders Agree to Open Membership Talks With Ukraine
NY Times – just in
After a bruising trip to Washington, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine welcomed a breakthrough in securing support from his allies as the war drags on.
Hungary Blocks Ukraine Aid After E.U. Opens Door to Membership
NY Times – Dec 14
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine welcomed the breakthrough as talks on joining the bloc officially opened. Securing more financial aid will have to wait.
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Extraordinary post * by John Mearsheimer – America’s most renowned political scientist – on Gaza, which he says he wrote because he “wants to be on record so that when historians look back on this moral calamity, they will see that some Americans were on the right side of history.”
His main point is that “what Israel is doing in Gaza to the Palestinian civilian population – with the support of the Biden administration – is a crime against humanity that serves no meaningful military purpose”.
He explains this in seven points (read his post for more details, this is a summary):
1) “Israel is purposely massacring huge number of civilians, roughly 70 percent of whom are children and women”
2) “Israel is purposely starving the desperate Palestinian population by greatly limiting the amount of food, fuel, cooking gas, medicine, and water that can be brought into Gaza”
3) “Israeli leaders talk about Palestinians and what they would like to do in Gaza in shocking terms [which leads prominent scholars] to conclude that Israel has ‘genocidal intent.’ “
4) “Israel is not just killing, wounding, and starving huge numbers of Palestinians, it is also systematically destroying their homes as well as critical infrastructure – to include mosques, schools, heritage sites, libraries, key government buildings, and hospitals”
5) “Israel is not just terrorizing and killing Palestinians, it is also publicly humiliating many of their men who have been rounded up by the IDF in routine searches”
6) “Although the Israelis are doing the slaughtering, they could not do it without the Biden administration’s support”
7) “While most of the focus is now on Gaza, it is important not to lose sight of what is simultaneously going on in the West Bank. Israeli settlers, working closely with the IDF, continue to kill innocent Palestinians and steal their land.”
* https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/death-and-destruction-in-gaza
1:33 AM · Dec 12, 2023
There’s currently no posting allowed on the latest (Dec 17) ‘Open Thread’.
Why is that?