I think the answer to your perplexity lies somewhere buried here:
> The couple that own it own several properties across my city
Without knowing which city you’re talking about I can assure you this is rather common.
The moment a property becomes just one out of many (assets) in your portfolio your necessity to let becomes a mere annoyance.
Many of the housing market imperfections could be at play here, but it certainly doesn’t help that renters are increasingly unable to afford to become first time buyers.
>> The couple that own it own several properties across my city
There always seems to be this common thread running through these discussions, but few want to address it. It's just build build build, moar moar moar. The problem isn't that there aren't enough homes. The problem is that so many homes are owned by so few people/entities and are often vacant. We shouldn't allow people (often foreign investors or private equity firms) to buy a home, leave it vacant, and sit on it as an investment as if it were a bar of gold or something.
You really got to hand it to the Royal Family of Qatar - they are geopolitical Warren Buffets.
The Arab Spring and all the bad things that ensued from it was effectively a giant geopolitical windfall for the Qatari royal family and their investments in founding that broadcaster.
They (almost) changed the entire geopolitical landscape of the Arab world to their benefit. Installing a caliphate here, toppling a major power like Egypt there. They even forced Saudi Arabia into concessions.
All of that, like the NATO-buffoons sending fighter jets into Libya because the Qataris social-engineered the Western public into demanding it, is an amazing show of political skills.
Gee, the poor Europeans till this day don't even realize how much their "refugee-crisis" has been instigated as a "weapon of mass migration" by the Qataris using their set of tools of which Al Jazeera is one.
Since presumably "all writings" refers to all his writings during his lifetime, I'd hope it can account for those times in his life at which he changend his mind on certain topics?
Yes I guess that “all writings” (sorry I meant all of his writings - not an English native) means everything he wrote and also his speeches, taking into account the times when he changed his mind. Knowing how meticulous he is I would be surprised if this wasn’t the case. Worth considering that he was recently diagnosed a mild form of autism himself.
For context: This happened after an allegedly "secret plan against Germany" was leaked which the AfD conceived during a secret gathering and by which they want to "deport millions of citizens".
What is not said however is:
- that this meeting never was secret
- there was no plan conceived but rather a kind of conservative TED-talk of individuals
- that the smeared politicians (from other parties than AfD as well) are already suing the news outlet leaking this for libel
- that the leaking news-outlet is mostly government funded and its leadership almost entirley comprised of members of the ruling SPD- and Green-Party
- that not one of the attendees used the word "deportation"
- that not one of the attendees talked about "deporting citizens"
- that this meeting happened in november last year thus raising a lot of red flags about the timing of leaking this "story": As it just got released to the press days before the culmination of the government-critical, authentic, farmers-protests. Which are in contrast to the "anti-deportation" protests not run and organized by political parties (especially not those parties in power).
Couple of years ago I've excelled at a lead position interview, we've arrived at the part where I get to just spitball questions about their company, team and overall culture.
I just talked about how I think it is important for leaders to have an extra-fine antenna for the psychological well-being of your colleages when in a remote-first environment. The moment I uttered the word "psychological" it triggered the interviewer's DEI-driven buzzword thesaurus and he immediately started talking endlessly about their efforts for "Inclusivity" which of course stands for: if a non-straight, non-white, non-male candidate existed alongside me, they would've of course chosen him/her/... instead of me.
I know that this is what it meant because this were his exact words ;-) (which he confided in me thinking I would see statements like these as a good thing and not a massive red-flag)
Aww, I can't say I'm surprised that this text of mine (an open confession by a major european tech company to have racist employment standards) would be getting down-votes :-)
Or of course that a link criticizing DEI would get flagged on HN. Shocker.
HN Guidelines suggest not going on about down votes btw
"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
I agree though it's understandable if a bit sad that this submission gets flag killed. Better to stick to safer tech stuff unless there's a big story I guess!
Personally I don't believe the hype of this "backlash". It smells manufactured.
Tried to bring a US buddy of mine (non-mixed) into a Spa/hot bath/Sauna in Beijing. He got terribly scared of having to be naked and rejected. But it is a good place. And they have a good all you can eat buffet. Sweat. Eat a little. Rest. Repeat.
You basically spent there the whole day.
The reason is hygiene. You sweat into your sheet leaving very little behind on benches. Then you shower and bath and do it again.
With swimming clothes you soak everything then bring it back to the chilling pool and back to sauna.
Also imho nudity in sauna seems wierd first time but you quickly realize you can be covered all the time (with sheet) and that its not sexual at all because you are focusing on your body as does everybody else (heat stress).
Imho after few saunas everybody seems to shed this fear and even gain confidence and casuality about the nakedness part.
Because the sauna police will look down on you and give you some nonsense about how textiles are gathering sweat or something, all while they sit their sweaty asses on cotton towels which they carry around with them all the time.
Watering your vote down (Germans by a factor of five, Danes by a factor of 90) is always a bad idea, representation-wise. That this would result in Brussles being “too far away” should surprise no one.
I mean the infamous quote by Jean Claude Juncker says it all: “We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.”
The EU very well knows that if most of their policies were up for vote, including each and every job of theirs, they would be out of office within a year.
> The couple that own it own several properties across my city
Without knowing which city you’re talking about I can assure you this is rather common.
The moment a property becomes just one out of many (assets) in your portfolio your necessity to let becomes a mere annoyance.
Many of the housing market imperfections could be at play here, but it certainly doesn’t help that renters are increasingly unable to afford to become first time buyers.