>I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I usually fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it (using konqueror, which won't fetch from other sites in such a situation).
I was, at first, very skeptical that so many people would walk out of the their jobs in a seemingly organized way, until I heard about the PTO angle of the story.
I work at a company with “unlimited PTO” (because business leaders learned that they pay less with “unlimited” than they do with accrued). But in previous jobs, it was very common to accrue PTO (up to 2 to 3 weeks worth). Most employees would find it hard to get coverage or approval for taking time off, so their PTO would accrue until it maxed out. Anytime I was going to leave a job where I had banked PTO, I would take my time off, and then resign when I came back because if you leave with accrued PTO, they would pay it out, taxed as supplemental income, which is at a higher rate.
3 weeks is a common max accrual for folks that have worked somewhere longer than a year or two, and looking at the calendar, we’re almost exactly 3 weeks from November.
These workers are getting (PTO) paid to strike, plus they’re not breaking any rules, or committing to resigning (or being terminated due to COVID policy), yet. Three weeks to take a much needed break, speak their values, and not miss a check? Now that sounds more like human behavior.
PTO usage generally needs to be approved, I can't imagine Southwest approving enough time off to shut down their operations.
If employees are using PTO by claiming they're sick (assuming there's no separate "sick days" they would normally use), Southwest might have recourse to deny paying PTO but whether or not they will is another question.
>The busiest US container ports are moving up the global rankings amid record import volumes, but the deluge of cargoes continues to exceed capacity with growing ship queues on both the East and West Coasts.
The price is determined by the intersection of supply and demand. With a bull market in real estate, demand is greater than supply. Buyers have a greater effect on price than sellers. In the extreme, market prices converge to the maximum loan as GP described. In practice, people with higher incomes, liquid investments, or previous home equity can out bid individuals who assume the largest mortgage they can.
> The price is determined by the intersection of supply and demand. With a bull market in real estate, demand is greater than supply.
These two sentences cannot simultaneously use the same meanings of the words "supply" and "demand". In the sense of supply and demand required by the first sentence, the second is gibberish.
> In the extreme, market prices converge to the maximum loan as GP described.
What is the maximum loan? Prices cannot converge to "the maximum loan" because there is no such value. Different people can obtain different quantities of financing.
> Different people can obtain different quantities of financing.
And the people that can obtain the most get the best houses, and the people that can get a little bit less get the next tier of houses... until no houses remain (or no buyers).
Here in seattle (for example) we have a lot of SDEs making ~150k. A mortgage company will give you like 500-750k mortgage for that income. Maybe 1M if you have a couple with that income each. Most houses in areas where software engineers want to live all start at 650-700k for decent homes. Because that's the top end of what the buyers can afford, so that's what sellers ask, knowing there is a cohort of buyers that can afford that as a minimum buy price.
>These two sentences cannot simultaneously use the same meanings of the words "supply" and "demand".
The second sentence is technically incorrect. During a bull market, demand is increasing relative to supply. (If supply was decreasing relative to demand, prices would increase, but that would not be a bull market)
>What is the maximum loan?
The GP comment I credited described the "maximum amount of loan" as a function of buyer income and interest rate. Obviously, the house is sold to the highest bidder.
In a hot market, the average price of real estate will approach the largest mortgage available to the average winning bidder (plus some quantity of household wealth).
> The GP comment I credited described the "maximum amount of loan" as a function of buyer income and interest rate.
But the price of the house is set without reference to buyer income or interest rate. It therefore cannot depend on "the maximum amount of loan", which is an incoherent concept anyway.
The government program juices demand by making financing more available than otherwise. This raises the price of homes. But that's the limit of what we can say.
Not always feasible. Imagine this as if it were a recurring weekly thing manifesting itself in all manner of different activities as well. At this point its probably easier to just put the house up for sale and move.
>I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I usually fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it (using konqueror, which won't fetch from other sites in such a situation).