I don't get your point. Who are referring to are not being responsible here? The Chinese government or the Chinese people? If the former, they installed one-child policy with the sole purpose of population restriction, sounds pretty "responsible" to me. If the latter, are you suggesting as a people, maybe the Chinese shouldn't breed as many, to, say, leave space for other people?
Yes, it's not particularly productive to factor China's large population into comparisons of current responsibility.
But GP has a valid point in pointing out that it's not reasonable to compare the entirety of a rich developed country to a low-density slice of China, which is very likely using fewer resources because of scarcity and underdevelopment rather than greater than average responsibility.
If I choose to drive 1000km that I don't have to drive in a 35mpg Prius I am not more environmentally conscious than someone who drives 200km in a 10mpg Hummer.
Similarly if I have 10 kids instead of 2.
Anyways, I should have said "was irresponsible" since those decisions were made by their ancestors a while back and so there's not much more they can do about it now.
The analog is pretty unreasonable. It sounds like 1000km Prius driver has an option to drive only 200km. But they may not have. I.e. a poor lower middle class worker needs to drive everyday for work, while a millionare might choose to stay at home being environmental friendly. But he might be using too much electricity...
Plus, you cannot just bash Chinese government of killing baby, while at the same time calling them environmental irresponsible...
Is this the right TL;DR of this article? "Homeownership leads to inequality". "Inequality is bad". Therefore, "Home ownership is bad". Therefore we should make home-ownership as hard as possible. So when nobody owns a home, everybody is equal. Sounds about right.
The subsidy is enormous compared to the cost of other housing programs, and it almost all goes to well-off or rich people. So, no, your TLDR is not accurate, as it points to homeownership as an important wealth-building mechasism for those who can afford it. Furthermore, since the FHA was straight-up refusing to insure mortgages in black communities until 19-freaking-68, there is a strong historical effect of perpetuating racial inequalities by making only whites eligible for housing subsidies. We spend more than four times as much on mortgage interest than Section 8 housing subsidies.
TL;DR: The mortgage interest deduction is a welfare payment that you have to be rich (and until 1968, white) to get. Maybe we shouldn't spend $71 billion a year on it.
DPRK artillery destroying Seoul with lightning speed is practically a meme at this point. I've been hearing it for decades and I find it hard to believe South Korea and the US with 10s of thousands of troops have no contingency plan and no rapid response for DPRK artillery fire on Seoul.
