OldWoodFrame

It was always short sighted tax policy. We're just living with the blowback.

But in 1954, apparently intending to stimulate capital investment in manufacturing in order to counter a mild recession, Congress replaced the straight-line approach with "accelerated depreciation," which enabled owners to take huge deductions in the early years of a project’s life. This, Hanchett says, "transformed real-estate development into a lucrative ‘tax shelter.’ An investor making a profit from rental of a new building usually avoided all taxes on that income, since the ‘loss’ from depreciation canceled it out. And when the depreciation exceeded profits from the building itself—as it virtually always did in early years—the investor could use the excess ‘loss’ to cut other income taxes." With realestate values going up during the 1950s and ’60s, savvy investors "could build a structure, claim ‘losses’ for several years while enjoying tax-free income, then sell the project for more than they had originally invested."

Since the "accelerated depreciation" rule did not apply to renovation of existing buildings, investors "now looked away from established downtowns, where vacant land was scarce and new construction difficult," Hanchett says. "Instead, they rushed to put their money into projects at the suburban fringe—especially into shopping centers.

http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/in-essence/why-america-got-malled

But Slightly More Rotting Corpse has the better environmental policy which we'll need before the last remnant of Florida is fully swallowed by the sea in the next 4 years.

So, obviously, people don't generally change their legal gender for an advantage somewhere. But if they do, that's a pretty good sign, not that it's too easy to change your gender, but that there's a gender bias in the law.

So arguably, the easier it is to change your legal gender, the less of a problem gender-based affirmative action is. Conservatives must love this! End liberal overreach in one easy step!

They can put the reviewed items on the coffee table to keep them on camera, and it's more professional looking than a kitchen or child's room.

He somehow monetized being a Trump reply guy back in 2016, every Trump tweet you'd see this guy with a snarky little "well actually I prefer an X that WASN'T Y" or whatever. Within seconds.

How often do you wear a suit? Dry clean as necessary, hang it up between uses. I've never ironed a suit.

The one example I'm familiar with is a name brand ice cream company that produces the store brand ice cream too...in that case the recipe is different, cheaper ingredients to cut costs to the bare minimum. But using the machines for a higher volume saves money.

I'm sure 'same exact item' does happen too but just 'same manufacturer' doesn't mean exactly the same item.

Can't believe Harriet Tubman got all that infrastructure up.

Metric has been legally "preferred" in the US since 1975. We just don't use it.

Also while I was looking up that year I came across this wild factoid:

In 1793, Thomas Jefferson requested artifacts from France that could be used to adopt the metric system in the United States, and Joseph Dombey was sent from France with a standard kilogram. Before reaching the United States, Dombey's ship was blown off course by a storm and captured by pirates, and he died in captivity on Montserrat.

This would be a life goal of mine if they could guarantee I wasn't going to get a damn DVD.

I need examples or I don't understand.

Not for House or Senate. Age just isn't a close enough metric for what you're trying to fix.

If you're concerned with age-related decline, vote them out if you see signs of it, or if they would reach whatever age your limit is during the term.

If you're concerned about longevity in office, use term limits or reform campaign finance such that longevity in office doesn't grant too high of an incumbent advantage.

SCOTUS, sure. I think Canada has appointments until 75. Does not seem meaningfully different from appointments for life except less randomness on open slots.