Subject: RE: [smof-politics] Thought for solving two housing crises, but is the cost too high?
From: "Noah Scott" (bigcheese@stellvia.lib)
Reply-To: smof-politics@smofcon.fen
Date: 2014/2/12 09:17
To: undisclosed-recipients
It's amazing how much problems shrink after a good night's sleep...
Mal, I was going to do this the capitalist route because my pockets aren't deep enough for me to do it any other way on my own - I honestly couldn't see any other way to get the houses from Earth to Mars if I was footing the bill. But now it looks like I'm not doing this on my own.
And that's a good thing.
I hope the Federation Assembly, Repubic Senate, and Ministry of Magic do vote "yes" to provide funding for this project; it'll go a lot faster that way than if the seed capital was coming out of my own pocket. (I might technically be a billionaire - just barely - but most of my wealth is tied up in businesses and foundations; things that are keeping hundreds if not thousands of people healthy and employed and, I hope, happy. I can't just write a check for fifty million dollars without causing a lot of other people some hardship. The Big Six factions, however, can write checks that big without blinking.)
If the Federation Assembly vote for this, then a large chunk of this is going to be socialized housing just because that's how they do things, and the Convention *should* be in charge of buying it. Hell, let Haruhi run the whole project; she'd probably enjoy being in charge of something again, and despite everything I've ever said about her, she does know how to get the 'danes to work with her. But if it's a Convention project, then the Convention had better make sure that some of these houses end up on Ganymede and Callisto and Mimas and Ceres and Vesta and Luna and, yes, even ultra-rich Pallas, not just on Mars. If everybody's paying for it, then everybody should get a fair shot at the benefits. Heck, I'd expect one house - but only one - to end up on Wonderland if this is a Convention project.
(Yes, I was thinking of setting them up just in Port Lowell, but that's because I was thinking "unreal estate", which can't easily be broken up, and then I was thinking "ship them on a freight train", which doesn't currently have landing facilities away from Earth, the Island, and Port Phobos. But it looks like we've got heavy-lift capability from the Jupiter Mining Corporation and the Roughriders promised for this project, so that concern disappears with the morning dew.)
When you suggested last night that the cis-Jovians be involved in this, I thought you meant that they should help pay for it and not see anything for their contribution, which I think is wrong. It's obvious now that I misunderstood what you meant.
As I see it, we are now waiting for the Big Boys And Girls to pass judgment on this idea of mine. If they don't like it, then it's back in our laps to figure out how to solve this mess that I dumped onto the list yesterday. (And since it is my mess, I'd damned well better figure out how to clean it up. Somehow.)
--
Noah Scott, of station Stellvia
OOC: No personal offense taken, Mal. No worries.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
From: "Noah Scott" (bigcheese@stellvia.lib)
Reply-To: smof-politics@smofcon.fen
Date: 2014/2/12 09:17
To: undisclosed-recipients
It's amazing how much problems shrink after a good night's sleep...
Mal, I was going to do this the capitalist route because my pockets aren't deep enough for me to do it any other way on my own - I honestly couldn't see any other way to get the houses from Earth to Mars if I was footing the bill. But now it looks like I'm not doing this on my own.
And that's a good thing.
I hope the Federation Assembly, Repubic Senate, and Ministry of Magic do vote "yes" to provide funding for this project; it'll go a lot faster that way than if the seed capital was coming out of my own pocket. (I might technically be a billionaire - just barely - but most of my wealth is tied up in businesses and foundations; things that are keeping hundreds if not thousands of people healthy and employed and, I hope, happy. I can't just write a check for fifty million dollars without causing a lot of other people some hardship. The Big Six factions, however, can write checks that big without blinking.)
If the Federation Assembly vote for this, then a large chunk of this is going to be socialized housing just because that's how they do things, and the Convention *should* be in charge of buying it. Hell, let Haruhi run the whole project; she'd probably enjoy being in charge of something again, and despite everything I've ever said about her, she does know how to get the 'danes to work with her. But if it's a Convention project, then the Convention had better make sure that some of these houses end up on Ganymede and Callisto and Mimas and Ceres and Vesta and Luna and, yes, even ultra-rich Pallas, not just on Mars. If everybody's paying for it, then everybody should get a fair shot at the benefits. Heck, I'd expect one house - but only one - to end up on Wonderland if this is a Convention project.
(Yes, I was thinking of setting them up just in Port Lowell, but that's because I was thinking "unreal estate", which can't easily be broken up, and then I was thinking "ship them on a freight train", which doesn't currently have landing facilities away from Earth, the Island, and Port Phobos. But it looks like we've got heavy-lift capability from the Jupiter Mining Corporation and the Roughriders promised for this project, so that concern disappears with the morning dew.)
When you suggested last night that the cis-Jovians be involved in this, I thought you meant that they should help pay for it and not see anything for their contribution, which I think is wrong. It's obvious now that I misunderstood what you meant.
As I see it, we are now waiting for the Big Boys And Girls to pass judgment on this idea of mine. If they don't like it, then it's back in our laps to figure out how to solve this mess that I dumped onto the list yesterday. (And since it is my mess, I'd damned well better figure out how to clean it up. Somehow.)
--
Noah Scott, of station Stellvia
OOC: No personal offense taken, Mal. No worries.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012