Tuesday, December 3, 2019

A Huge Flood Of Housing Is Expected To Hit The Market As Boomers Die

     
Symphonie / Getty Images

Baby boomers are now ages 55 to 73; to housing economists, this fact means millions of homes will hit the market in the next couple of decades “as their current owners pass away” or move in with their children or into assisted living, according to a new and utterly macabre report by real estate search platform Zillow, just in time to make Thanksgiving incredibly awkward.
Does this flood of supply mean housing prices will plummet to more affordable levels? Not likely, unless you’re looking to live in popular retirement destinations or cities with a large elderly population like Miami, Orlando, and Tampa in Florida, or Tucson, Arizona. Still, it will relieve some of the upward pressure on prices created by the current supply shortage.

 
“The number of extra homes opening up via boomers aging out will be comparable to the extra wave of supply built in the heady days of the early 2000s, which eventually contributed to inventory overhang in many metros,” Jeff Tucker, an economist at Zillow, told BuzzFeed News. “These homes will also be more affordable to a broader range of buyers than most newly built homes, due to the diversity of building ages and conditions.”
Zillow estimated over the next 20 years, 27.4% of owner-occupied homes will hit the market, much of it in or near city centers rather than in the outer rings and suburbs, where new homes tend to be built. About 55% of owner-occupied homes in the US are owned by residents aged 50 or older, according to the site. “As these households age and begin vacating housing, that could represent upwards of 20 million homes hitting the market through the mid-2030s,” the report stated.
From 2017 to 2027, Zillow estimated, 920,000 homes will be released into the market each year by seniors aged 60 or older; from 2027 to 2037, it predicted, that number will rise to 1.17 million homes per year.
Don’t expect prices around the country to plunge though — the impact will vary depending on the market. Well-known retirement destinations “will experience the most housing turnover,” according to Zillow, and “regions including Cleveland, Dayton, Knoxville and Pittsburgh are also more likely to see bigger effects” as young residents have moved out in recent decades to pursue better job opportunities.
Meanwhile, fast-growing cities with affordable housing stock, like Atlanta, Austin, Dallas and Houston, will see minimal impact as boomers age. Still, the report stated, “homes coming onto the market in high-demand areas — if combined with local changes to land-use policy that allow for more density — could spur more construction of small- and mid-sized multi-unit properties by providing developers more opportunities to acquire lots (and by making it easier to assemble them into larger ones).”

After Google Announced New Political Ad Rules, Michael Bloomberg Spent An Estimated $1 Million

     
Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Ex–New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg began his campaign for president last week with the purchase of a decaf coffee and a slew of ads on Google searches for climate change, guns, and President Donald Trump’s tweets.
The Bloomberg campaign’s ad blitz debuted less than two weeks after Google said it would implement major restrictions for political ads in the 2020 campaign. These restrictions appear unlikely to hold the presidential campaigns back, as indicated by Bloomberg’s spending, which is running close to $1 million, according to an estimate via search analytics platform SEMrush.
“We are investing heavily in digital, an area where the Trump campaign has had a free run throughout most of the country and we are going to change that," Bloomberg campaign spokesperson Marc La Vorgna told BuzzFeed News. La Vorgna did not comment on the $1 million estimate.
Bloomberg’s campaign has run ads across thousands of different search queries, according to SEMrush, including ads that ran against search results for “Trump tweets,” “Fox News Trump,” "Trump approval rating,” “impeachment,” “climate crisis,” and “gun control.”
A Google spokesperson said that while the company’s new policies don’t go into effect until January, Bloomberg’s ads are already in compliance.
The former mayor of New York isn’t the only candidate advertising on Google. The Trump campaign is also an active advertiser on the platform. Campaigns sending traffic to donaldjtrump.com spent more than $3 million over the past month, according to SEMrush estimates (which are imprecise). Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, despite calling for Google’s breakup, is also an advertiser on the search giant, although not a big one; her campaign has spent in the range of $10,000 to $20,000 for ads on search terms like “Elizabeth Warren” and “Nevertheless she persisted T-shirt.”
Google
For Google advertisers, context — what people are typing in the search bar — is much more important than online behavior. If someone searches “where to buy a Kia Optima,” for instance, that’s a more significant indicator that they want to buy a Kia Optima than if a third-party data broker found they were making $70,000 a year and had visited a car website within the past month. That’s just as true of politics as it is the automotive industry.
“The restrictions make it much harder to target based on behavior and psychographics,” Aaron Levy, a group director at Tinuiti, a digital marketing firm, told BuzzFeed News. “But they don't restrict what you can do on a normal basis.”
Levy wouldn’t go as far as to label Google’s political restrictions as meaningless. But the core of the company’s allure to political campaigns remains.
In November, Google and Twitter tightened their rules around political advertising, setting Facebook apart for now. But a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News last month, “Nothing is off the table.”

Four Engineers Allege Google Fired Them For Speaking Up. Now They Want The NLRB To Investigate.

     
Rebecca Rivers, Sophie Waldman, Laurence Berland, and Paul Duke (not pictured) were fired in late November by Google for allegedly accessing and sharing information outside the purview of their jobs. They say that Google retaliated against them for helping to organize labor movements within the company.

Four recently fired Google engineers who were active in company worker movements say they will push for a federal investigation into the search and advertising giant for unfair labor practices.
On Tuesday, the four former employees announced their intent to file charges with the National Labor Relations Board for what they allege was retaliation from the company against their roles in organizing workers. Two of those employees had been on leave and spoke up during an employee protest at Google’s San Francisco offices last month, while two others had not publicly revealed their names until Tuesday. All four were terminated last week.
“We participated in legally protected labor organizing, fighting to improve workplace conditions for all Google workers,” read a letter penned by Laurence Berland, Rebecca Rivers, Paul Duke, and Sophie Waldman. "Google didn’t respond by honoring its values, or abiding by the law. It responded like a large corporation more interested in revenue growth than in ensuring worker rights and ethical conduct."
A Google spokesperson responded: "We dismissed four individuals who were engaged in intentional and often repeated violations of our longstanding data security policies, including systematically accessing and disseminating other employees’ materials and work. No one has been dismissed for raising concerns or debating the company’s activities."The firings, which happened the Monday before Thanksgiving, came during a fraught two and a half years at Google, in which groups of employees have protested against contracts with the military, plans for search in China, payouts to executives accused of sexual misconduct, and more recently, the company’s work with US Customs and Border Patrol. Among labor organizers at the company, the firings were seen as a crackdown by Google management and an attempt to rein in the company’s once open, speak-your-mind culture.
Last month, the New York Times reported that Google had hired a consulting firm that specializes in anti-unionization efforts, while the company, in light of the unrest, canceled future all-hands meetings which employees had used to pose questions to leadership. For Berland, a site reliability engineer who had worked at Google for more than 10 years, the changes indicated that the executives making decisions at Google were “opposed to any sharing of power, on any terms.”
“It’s pretty typical that those with concentrations of power don’t want to give it up, at any cost, but is that what’s best for Google? For its shareholders? For its users?” he asked in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “It’s certainly not the best for the workers, and I think many of us feel that we as workers are well-positioned to ensure that our workplace remains a place that honors all of that.”
A Google spokesperson declined to answer specific questions, though a widely reported internal memo written at the time of the firings suggested that the employees had accessed information “outside the scope of their jobs” that was then later leaked to the press. Other alleged activity, which included the examination of other employees’ calendars, created a working environment that made others feel unsafe, the memo said.
The spokesperson said that the four individuals, who they declined to name, were fired for violating rules on data security and in the company’s code of conduct, noting that it was against Google's rules to obtain, copy, or share information deemed "confidential" or "need-to-know."
In an interview on Monday, the employees pushed back on those allegations. All four denied leaking information, with Waldman, a former engineer at Google’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, office, noting that she sent reminders to other organizers specifically not to do so. Waldman and Berland didn’t deny that they accessed information outside the purview of their jobs, but noted that these actions were not against Google policy and that the information was available to anyone at the company.
“Viewing of others’ calendars, documents, etc., is a longstanding tradition at Google, very intentionally, and Google provides users, including employees, a wide range of access control features to limit things when needed,” Berland said. The fired employees added that under this policy, they were able to access and view company documents that pertained to Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) that had not been limited by higher-ups, but maintained that they did not share them externally.
Duke, an engineer who worked for Google for eight years, most recently out of its New York office, likened his “interrogation” and firing to McCarthyism. He became active in the internal push to prevent Google from working with CBP and had been previously been interviewed by the company’s internal security team in September before being abruptly fired last month.
“This is about the company being scared about worker power,” he said. “It’s being scared of workers demanding accountability or a say in what they’re working on — even a right to know what they’re working on.”
In August, more than 1,300 employees signed a petition that asked the company to not provide cloud services to CBP, which Google executives reportedly allowed to test a new product for free. That relationship led to further employee questions about the company’s ties to the federal government, including its hiring of a former Department of Homeland Security senior staffer who previously defended a version of the travel ban against citizens of Muslim-majority countries and the family separation policy at the US–Mexico border.
Google management would go on to censor questions about the former DHS staffer’s hiring ahead of an all-hands meeting in October and later canceled all future company-wide meetings. Last month, Berland and Rivers, who by then had been placed on leave by the company, spoke to a crowd of more than 100 protesters outside of the company’s San Francisco office, decrying the erosion of Google’s open culture.
“I want to believe that it still is possible,” Rivers said when asked if the company could return to an environment where employees wouldn’t fear retaliation for speaking up. “But it will only be possible if we see a real, credible change in executive leadership, and a push to engage more with employee concerns.”
For now, they’ll have to push for change from the outside. The group, which was originally known as the “Thanksgiving Four” before ditching the name out of concerns regarding its association with a colonialist holiday, said it will file charges with the NLRB later this week. A regional director with the agency will then have to determine whether the charges are worth investigating.
In September, the company previously settled with the NLRB over accusations that the company had prevented employees from discussing workplace issues. It did not have to admit any wrongdoing.
“Google fails to understand that workers are the ones who built the company and its most successful products,” read the fired employees’ letter. “And that we can stop building them. No company — tech giant or otherwise — should be able to interfere with workers’ rights to organize for better working conditions, including ethical business practices.”

Opinion: We Want To End The School-To-Prison Pipeline. 2020 Democrats Are Starting To Listen.

     
Twyla Joseph speaks with Bernie Sanders at a roundtable last week.

Last week, youth leaders from across the country spoke with two leading presidential candidates to share our vision for schools free of police, dehumanizing security measures, and harsh school discipline policies. Anybody who wants to lead our country needs to listen to young people, who are the leaders of today and are shaping the political climate. And it’s not just about listening: They need to push for the solutions we know will work.
We have seen the impact of the school-to-prison pipeline firsthand: One of us is an organizer working with Black and Latinx youth, the other is a young Black woman still attending public school in an underfunded community of color in New York. We know how racist school discipline policies and practices rip young people of color from their classrooms into the criminal legal system, deportation, and ultimately, cages.
Last week Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren listened to our stories and heard our vision. Our roundtable with Sanders last week had its origins in a question he was asked by a young person from Pittsburgh earlier this year at the People’s Convention. Would he meet with young people from across the country to discuss the school-to-prison and -deportation pipelines?
He did, and Sanders engaged with our questions and began what we hope is an ongoing conversation. Youth leaders from the Center for Popular Democracy Action and Alliance for Educational Justice networks asked whether he could get behind our vision for police-free schools, defunding criminalizing infrastructure in schools, ending cooperation between schools and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and passing policies to protect the civil rights of young people.
Young people have also continued engagement on this issue with other campaigns — most notably, Sen. Warren and former Housing secretary Julián Castro. On a Make the Road Action call last week with Warren, a youth member asked directly if her administration would end all federal programs and funding for school police and the criminalization of school infrastructure, and instead incentivize school districts to adopt restorative approaches to school discipline. The debate on these critical issues is heating up.
Across the country, Black students represent 15% of public school students and 31% of all students referred to law enforcement. Other students of color are also disproportionately arrested in schools. In Arizona, Native American students are 8% of all students, and 23% of students arrested. In Connecticut, Latinx students are 23% of all students, but 35% of students arrested. For normal youth behavior, students of color are being sent to courtrooms, jails, and detention centers, while their white peers are directed toward academic, social, emotional, and mental health support.
Students of color have been disproportionately impacted by the school-to-prison pipeline ever since police were introduced into our schools in the 1950s and ’60s as a response to demands for civil rights and an adequate education. Student uprisings in East Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Boston were all met with violent police repression. School police departments were established in hyper-segregated urban cities, setting the foundation for embedding the criminal justice system into schools. An ongoing narrative of school crime waves and dangerous schools was created to justify criminalization and oppression of young people.
In the 1990s, schools became sites for mass criminalization. With the 1994 Crime Bill, the federal government started the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program and other “public safety” grant programs that funneled a billion dollars to subsidize police and security infrastructure in schools. Following the tragedy in Columbine and more recently in Parkland, state and local school districts poured millions more into police, metal detectors, and invasive security.
But after billions of dollars spent “hardening” learning environments, there is no evidence police and metal detectors make schools any safer. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that the racialized targeting of students of color to control, oppress, and strip us of our right to an education continues. Research shows the number of police officers stationed in a school is more closely correlated with the number of Black students attending it than any crime statistic. It also shows Black students are more likely to be arrested for subjective, low-level infractions, such as disorderly conduct, disturbing the school, or disrupting the educational process. Policies and practices that were used to criminalize communities of color have been fully integrated into the educational process.
There is a growing movement led by students to dismantle the school-to-prison and school-to-deportation pipelines. We can disrupt these systems by ending federal funds for police and invasive security measures in schools; supporting the removal of police from schools; and fully funding restorative justice, indigenous peacemakers, and trauma-informed practitioners.
Ahead of the 2020 election, young Black and brown young people across the country are demanding that those running to be the next president listen and engage with us on this critical issue of education and racial justice. Youth leaders are seeking a firm commitment from candidates by signing on to the Youth Mandate for Presidential Candidates: Permanently Dismantle the School-to-Prison-and-Deportation Pipeline. Over 150 organizations have already signed; three presidential candidates — Sanders, Warren, and Castro — have already released plans to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. We welcome their proposals.
We know from our experience that schools can’t be safe and supportive places while home to police, metal detectors, drug-sniffing dogs, and dehumanizing security measures. Spending money to retrain police officers is not going to address the fundamental problem that, in our society, police will always make students of color less safe in their schools. What’s needed are stronger relationships with teachers; restorative justice; social, emotional, and mental health support; and fully funded schools.
We will continue to engage with Sen. Sanders, Sen. Warren, and all candidates to embrace our vision and adopt the Youth Mandate. It’s time to finally abolish the school-to-prison pipeline, and we are organizing our friends, families, and communities to continue that fight through the election. We won’t stop until all young people are free.

Google's Co-Founders Are Stepping Down. Sundar Pichai Will Become CEO Of Google And Alphabet.

     

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who co-founded Google in 1998, are stepping down from their day-to-day roles at Google's parent company Alphabet, and handing leadership responsibility to Sundar Pichai, who will serve as CEO of both Google and Alphabet moving forward.

Previously, Page served as CEO of Alphabet, while Brin served as President. Both Page and Brin will continue on as shareholders and members of Alphabet’s Board of Directors, according to a letter published by the two co-founders today.

Google founders Sergey Brin, left and Larry Page, right, are shown at the companies headquarters in Mountaint View, Calif., Thursday March 13, 2003.
Google founders Sergey Brin, left and Larry Page, right, are shown at the companies headquarters in Mountaint View, Calif., Thursday March 13, 2003.
"While it has been a tremendous privilege to be deeply involved in the day-to-day management of the company for so long, we believe it’s time to assume the role of proud parents—offering advice and love, but not daily nagging," Page and Brin wrote.
This is a developing story...