> In comparison, SpaceX/xAI are incredible at building datacentres on time. The original Colossus 1 datacentre was built in 122 days. Musk's empire does have a huge advantage in really understanding how to plan, build and execute enormous infrastructure projects quickly
Without even mentioning that it was done illegally and the air pollution they are creating with gas turbines is wildly irresponsible
I think the point is not difficulty but rather recklessness. I don't think other large players lack the ability or the deep pockets to do the same, but they might be lacking on the recklessness department for whatever reason. That reason, whatever it may be, might be the interesting part here.
No it's not. That statement assumes other corps care. They don't. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. The fact that not everyone doing it is not because everyone else is not out of the goodness of their hearts
I laughed at brand risk. I think every player in AI is well past the brand risk. Only posturing you see is being too dangerous. And even that is for hype not actually stopping them. Eventually they push the models out despite that. It really is weird market branding wise.
Just goes to show how desperate they are for compute. It's definitely a brand risk for them, but failing to keep the treadmill going is an existential risk.
The goal of this isn't simply to raise revenue, it's also to discourage parking money in empty properties when it's one of the most expensive cities to live in and doesn't have enough housing
I'm also wondering what effect it'll have on all the people that have been declaring their primary residence in Florida for tax purposes yet actually live up here in NYC a good amount of the time. My neighborhood in Brooklyn is filled with cars registered in Florida. If all of a sudden your pied-a-terre condo in Williamsburg is getting hit with $40k+/year in property taxes it might no longer make sense to try and move your residence to Florida to avoid city/state income tax.
studies typically conclude that immigrant populations do contribute to housing demand (duh), but the labor supply they bring to services market (e.g. childcare, retail) lowers the cost of those services by a more-than-commensurate amount. so the total cost of living goes down for "natives."
> They are expensive largely because of housing so your statement is a bit of a tautology.
Yes. And that's impossible to fix.
> Historically NYC housing used to be a lot more affordable before they stopped building, reducing supply relative to demand and thereby raising prices.
Demand will _always_ outstrip supply. And there's no such thing as "affordable housing", it's a contradiction like "hot liquid helium". If housing sells, then it's affordable for _somebody_.
What you're talking about is subsidized housing in some form. Like rent control or housing projects.
> And there's no such thing as "affordable housing", it's a contradiction like "hot liquid helium". If housing sells, then it's affordable for _somebody_.
Incorrect. Housing can be sold to a buyer that won't use it for housing. Like the dog protecting the manger full of food it can't eat, affordable housing can be removed from the market by investors, tax vehicles, and so forth.
"While the tax seems large, experts say the city's antiquated assessment and valuation system dramatically undervalues properties, reducing the burden. City valuations can often be 10% or less of the true market value, they said.
Rather than overhaul the system immediately, the city will gradually update valuations – and the tax – according to the budget documents. Starting in the 2028-2029 tax year, the property values will be based on comparable sales. Since valuations will skyrocket, the tax rates will fall to compensate."
this is, at minimum, a 10% increase in ALL property taxes. And the people most affected will be the lower and middle class.
That literally has nothing to do with the pied-a-terre tax. The assessment process is not related to taxing second homes. Each can be done with or without the other.
"If I were introspective, I'd have to admit that I was really lucky, I am not special, and that the govt funded the things that helped me get rich. I'd also have to admit that my current worldview and that of my peers/friends is inherently evil and we are destroying the world. So instead I'll just pretend introspection is bad."
When I work at the local coffee shop I cannot SSH to my remote servers for work on their wifi, but if I connect to Tailscale and use my exit node at home I can. Lifesaver
I recently left also. I saw a noticeable uptick in both these things and it's genuinely been a horrific experience over the last few months and it feels weird to now be on it a lot less.
This is ridiculously oversimplified, because there is no real market in housing. It is illegal to build in all of the places people want to buy. The purchase of housing by hedge funds isn't a problem on its own, it's simply a symptom of the bigger problem of supply restrictions.
The funds themselves say in their financials that they view housing as profitable because of the various restrictions on supply in every desirable city. They explicitly say that if those restrictions were lifted they would not be able to make money in that business and they would exit.
> In comparison, SpaceX/xAI are incredible at building datacentres on time. The original Colossus 1 datacentre was built in 122 days. Musk's empire does have a huge advantage in really understanding how to plan, build and execute enormous infrastructure projects quickly
Without even mentioning that it was done illegally and the air pollution they are creating with gas turbines is wildly irresponsible
reply