That's because rent of $1.5k is for the whole of a house, whereas the mortgage is only covering whichever part of the house you don't own.
My rent would be $3k, but I own one third of the house, so my mortgage is $2k.
The alternative would be paying $3k in rent and investing the $100k in equity. The cash-flow from the equity investment would off-set some of the cost of renting.
There is definitely non-linear pricing in the London housing market as one example.
When I was last looking -
Studio apartments and one bed room apartments rented for similar amounts, and so did two beds and three beds.
But the price jump from one bed to two bed was much larger than any of the other jumps.
You can speculate on many reasons why this might be the case (smallest size apartment for a family in the city, smallest size you can split with a friend, smallest size with space for an office).
There are exceptions and I'm sure that more research time could help you find them.
But one of the points made convincingly in the artle is that if you are poor you don't have a lot of energy, time or gas-money to do that kind of research.
Aluminium or Titanium frames make the best travel bikes.
- Unlike steel, they don't rust.
- Unlike carbon, they can cope with rough treatment (for example when loaded into the hold on a plane). They are less likely to be damaged, and the damage is more likely to lead to a gradual failure.
Titanium is reputed to be better but modern Aluminium frames are pretty light, pretty comfortable, and vastly cheaper.
I have an aluminium bike that I use whenever my trip involves a train ride or a flight.
When it was removed the study "calculated that average trip times eastbound increased from 5min 39sec to 8min 14sec, with those westbound rising from 5min 48sec to 6min 27sec."
Not hard. We have taken the whole family camping by bike-train-bike. Even a small car would be a doddle.
The four year old is towed using a follow-me, all the gear goes in a couple of panniers.
We have spent a small part of our car-money on some very high quality gear, through. Small and light equipment is much easier to pack than Walmart camping gear.
Diplomatic buildings have often been strong points designed to keep staff safe in uncertain times. This is true even in safer locations; the new US embassy in London is very much a fort although the defensive features (like the water-filled moat/pond, and bollards hidden in the hedges) are well integrated into the landscaping.
The new site is probably considerably harder to assault than their old building, even though that looked more like a military building. The Grovesnor Square building was so ugly that even the official picture on the US Embassy website tries to hide it from view behind some trees!
UK VED is a polution tax (not a road tax) and cycles don't pay it because they don't pollute. VED is a very small proportion of the UK general tax take and not ringfenced to funding roads.
UK roads are funded from the general tax pot and regular cyclists in the UK – those who cycle at least once a week – are disproportionately likely to have a household income of at least £50,000 per year which means they almost certainly pay more towards road maintainance than the general population (1).
In addition to this this, 83% of UK cyclists live in a household that pays VED in some form (2) anyway.
The argument that cyclists pay no tax and therefore don't deserve to use the roads is rubbish.
There have been quite a few studies with conclusions like this:
"On average, the estimated health benefits of cycling were substantially larger than the risks relative to car driving for individuals shifting their mode of transport."
Given that poor people can't afford to hoard because of the cost of storage (especially in cities) and financing, isn't it better that rich people are encouraged to hoard when supply is plentiful?
The problem arises when rich people start hoarding at times when supply is constrained, because they can do it so much more rapidly and create a much greater shock to the system.
It was notable in London that severe shortages only really existed at stores you can drive to. Stores that you can only walk to have been much better stocked.
The very best HDR cameras have roughly the same dynamic ranges as the human eye.
You can't display all of this range to people because of the limitations of display technology, but you can feed the full range to a facial recognition engine.
Security budgets might not stretch to top-end HDR equipment but the price keeps on coming down. The performance of a modern flagship phone is remarkable compared to a few years ago - and fixed surveillance cameras can have much bigger glass and sensors, making it cheaper to get super-human performance.
One new but related issue is that body-worn cameras can capture more low-light detail than the human eye. Police unions have argued against deploying these sensors, because, they want the evidential record to show what the officer could see - not what a cat could see.
It's hard not to talk about the most dominant thing in your life, and only a few people have the skill of being genuinely interested in the priorities of other people.
Some people are boring about their hobbies, some are boring about people, some are boring about work, some are boring about their kids.
If you find the conversation boring just remember they are probably just as bored at you droning on about blockchain or whatever it is you are keen to talk about.
I live in London, where escalator lane discipline is very good - mostly because if you fail to stand on the right you will get jostled by 80kg of fast moving commuter.
It's a culture shock going to places where people stand on both sides blocking the way through.
- Too complicated to assign blame to one party
- Futile to rehash in HN comments