BHA Charlestown/Bunker Hill Redevelopment | Charlestown

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TallIsGood said:
I believe Rover was suggesting that the developer is bearing the cost of rebuilding the units. Profits from market rate housing can only support so much.
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Thank you. Not only does Kent want the developer to do that, he also wants them to pay for new schools in Charlestown which apparently aren't even needed since the current schools aren't at capacity yet. Sounds like a rebel without a cause to me.
 
TallIsGood said:
I believe Rover was suggesting that the developer is bearing the cost of rebuilding the units. Profits from market rate housing can only support so much.
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If the developer cannot make it feasible to do so, then they are not in the business to redevelop Charlestown. You cannot displace current residents without offering something to them for their troubles. The developer may be bearing the cost of rebuilding the units but its the residents that's bearing the cost of disruption. I understand you guys could care less about the low income people affected by this project because you're not personally affected. Luckily, that is not how the city runs, nor should it be ran.
 
KentXie said:
If the developer cannot make it feasible to do so, then they are not in the business to redevelop Charlestown. You cannot displace current residents without offering something to them for their troubles. The developer may be bearing the cost of rebuilding the units but its the residents that's bearing the cost of disruption.
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Umm...this makes no sense. The residents of Charlestown particularly the low income ones in this project are getting brand new dwellings that would never otherwise be built since federal housing money has dried up. What again are you complaining about exactly?
 
Rover said:
Umm...this makes no sense. The residents of Charlestown particularly in this project are getting brand new dwellings that would never otherwise be built since federal housing money has dried up. What again are you complaining about exactly?
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I'm complaining about you complaining how the developers have to "shoulder the burden of building affordable housing" as though they should not have to do so because that's all bullshit.

Btw, I have dropped my argument for a new school but I still want to see a plan to improve traffic congestion that currently exists and insufficient public transit from the city before the project moves forward.
 
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KentXie said:
I'm complaining about you complaining how the developers have to "shoulder the burden of building affordable housing" as though they should not have to do so because that's all bullshit.

Btw, I have dropped my argument for a new school but I still want to see a plan to improve traffic congestion that currently exists and insufficient public transit from the city before the project moves forward.
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Rebuilding the public housing is effectively the cost of the land for the developers. The more cost they incur the more they have to charge nonsubsidized housing. For someone who wants more middle income housing I’m not sure how you think that should be accomplished. Developers are in business for a profit. Just like you work for profit.
 
coleslaw said:
People do not work for profit they work for wages. Profits are the surplus value taken by the bosses.
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Sure they do. If you consider your time to be valuable, then you have to assess you're profiting from going to work as opposed to not working. Also you have to make more money than the cost of getting to work.
 
Is there any new news with this development, or are people just arguing local politics on a thread that hasn't seen any new news in nearly a year?
 
Rover said:
Sure they do. If you consider your time to be valuable, then you have to assess you're profiting from going to work as opposed to not working. Also you have to make more money than the cost of getting to work.
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This is just literally not what profit is. Profit is a product of surplus value extracted from labor. Your wage is definitionally not surplus value as it is always only a fraction of the value you actually created, the rest going to the bosses.
 
coleslaw said:
This is just literally not what profit is. Profit is a product of surplus value extracted from labor. Your wage is definitionally not surplus value as it is always only a fraction of the value you actually created, the rest going to the bosses.
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Meh. While it's not profit, it's fairly well analogous. You make more money than you put out paying for all your costs to live, and the left over goes in the bank or is reinvested. The left over is pretty much your profit.
 
SeamusMcFly said:
Meh. While it's not profit, it's fairly well analogous. You make more money than you put out paying for all your costs to live, and the left over goes in the bank or is reinvested. The left over is pretty much your profit.
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They are very distinct things. Your life is not a business generating value. The reason this matters is that wages and profits (again the value generated by labor but not paid to the worker) are in contradiction, if one rises the other falls. Profits can be increased among other ways by further exploiting the workforce and lowering wages, and if wages are increased the rate of profit falls. If the earnings of the company increase the bosses profits will as well but the workers wages won't without collective struggle, with the minimum set by what will keep the worker alive, train them, and reproduce the working class (this itself requires vast amounts of unpaid labor). To collapse wages and profit into one thing is to fundamentally misunderstand class and the functioning of the capitalist system.
 
Again, i agree with Seemus. i don't think they're significantly different.

The only significant difference is how risk and rewards are distributed.

You negotiate to provide a service for the highest possible gain. You partner up for gain. You risk and invest for gain. You do peace work for gain. You work for wages as part of an organization that takes risks and provides products or services for gain. We work for those wages (gain) within a system that spreads risks over multiple layers and extended time.... but for no less direct personal profit (gain).

When the gain diminishes, the labor slows.... Take the gain/profit/reward away from any exchange of services or work, and we stay home.
 
odurandina said:
Again, i agree with Seemus. i don't think they're significantly different.

The only significant difference is how risk and rewards are distributed.

You negotiate to provide a service for the highest possible gain. You partner up for gain. You risk and invest for gain. You do peace work for gain. You work for wages as part of an organization that takes risks and provides products or services for gain. We work for those wages (gain) within a system that spreads risks over multiple layers and extended time.... but for no less direct personal profit (gain).

When the gain diminishes, the labor slows.... Take the gain/profit/reward away from any exchange of services or work, and we stay home.
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Again you are lacking all basic class analysis. Those who work for wages do so because they must do so to survive. While those who make profits take the surplus value of the labor of others by virtue of their ownership of the means of production, which obviously not everyone is able to have under this system, to increase their existing capital (monetary, physical, and social). One group must sell their labor to survive the other buys that labor and reaps the profits of it. These are not at all meaningfully the same thing in any way.

Also yes the gain is quite literally less. Profit is the unpaid wages of the working class so very literally workers do not receive the full value of their labor because the profit of the bosses.
 
coleslaw said:
Again you are lacking all basic class analysis. Those who work for wages do so because they must do so to survive. While those who make profits take the surplus value of the labor of others by virtue of their ownership of the means of production, which obviously not everyone is able to have under this system, to increase their existing capital (monetary, physical, and social). One group must sell their labor to survive the other buys that labor and reaps the profits of it. These are not at all meaningfully the same thing in any way.

Also yes the gain is quite literally less. Profit is the unpaid wages of the working class so very literally workers do not receive the full value of their labor because the profit of the bosses.
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"Again you are lacking all basic class analysis."

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Edit: Also, I co-sign everything the 'slaw has said.
 
Analogous is not a definition.
Everything doesn't need to fit the exact meaning when talking comparisons. People get too caught up in trying to sound smarter than everyone else to realize their is no point to their argument.

Profit is to revenue as savings account is to gross pay.

You don't have to be a company to see the basic similarity.

a·nal·o·gous
əˈnaləɡəs/Submit
adjective
comparable in certain respects, typically in a way that makes clearer the nature of the things compared.
 
shmessy said:
Hey, hey!!!! Bosses are people too!
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True, and ownership does not guarantee pay. If you ain't profitable, you don't eat. Not every owner is a millionaire CEO like in the news. They all aspire to be, but they don't all make it.

Profits are not from workers not getting full value for their work. Profits are much more than what pays the owners. I personally like seeing my profit sharing bump show up once a year. I wish it was more, but I'm glad it's not zero.
 
SeamusMcFly said:
Analogous is not a definition.
Everything doesn't need to fit the exact meaning when talking comparisons. People get too caught up in trying to sound smarter than everyone else to realize their is no point to their argument.

Profit is to revenue as savings account is to gross pay.

You don't have to be a company to see the basic similarity.

a·nal·o·gous
əˈnaləɡəs/Submit
adjective
comparable in certain respects, typically in a way that makes clearer the nature of the things compared.
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Yeah but his point - and there was a point - was that the analogy wasn't clarifying because the terms used weren't properly understood by the people using them.

Don't want to speak for someone else, but I'd say he was also getting at another point: it's not only an inaccurate analogy, but a harmful one, because it obscures the structural disadvantages that the non-ownership class faces in the world.

So he had a real point, you just don't like it.
 
GW said:
Yeah but his point - and there was a point - was that the analogy wasn't clarifying because the terms used weren't properly understood by the people using them.

Don't want to speak for someone else, but I'd say he was also getting at another point: it's not only an inaccurate analogy, but a harmful one, because it obscures the structural disadvantages that the non-ownership class faces in the world.

So he had a real point, you just don't like it.
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You summarised the point well. That is exactly why I took issue with it. To use the same term for both collapses inequality by loose terminology and ignores meaningful differences in form, scale, and position in the relations of production.
 
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