I've seen the graphs showing that the combined costs have risen much more than salaries and such. So it's no surprise. Nobody seems to know what the solution is, other than moving away from the places where the worst inequality is right now.
<i> Nobody seems to know what the solution is, other than moving away from the places where the worst inequality is right now.</i>
Taxes! Tax financial gains better and more consistently, tax income more progressively, eliminate tax loopholes, and structure taxation in a way that encourages corporations to raise pay for employees instead of paying out huge dividends etc. to investors.
Productivity has outpaced income year after year since the 1970s. That difference is going to the people who already have wealth.
Zoning! Ignore the hue and cry of existing property owners who don't want their property values to fall and rezone to encourage new housing development in desirable areas.
Please help me understand this. We have a collective government that has more money than any other country EVER. Yet they can't balance a budget and are massively in debt. If you have people who are very bad at spending money giving them more money isn't going to solve any of their problems.
We have corrupt officials who are well entrenched in their positions who profit off of it by selling out their constituents to their donors.
More government isn't the answer. Less government better run and regulated is the key.
Countries aren't households. They don't retire. They don't have to pay for services in some other authority's scrip. And here is the important part - they don't have the same debt pressures as people.
It is well and good for a country to accumulate debt for meaningful ends so long as the interest on that debt can be serviced. Hold the debt long enough and inflation will "pay off" the capital for you.
The belief that "Less Government" is anything other than a point at which thought stops and rationalisation begins is one I cannot grasp. There is mountains of data and counter-examples but people just stop up their ears, screw shut their eyes and thrust their heads downward hoping to find sand. Lack of regulation, particularly around poltics itself, leads to corruption and misrule. Lack of investment can lead to wastefulness.
More and stronger government is the answer to much of the UK's and US's issues in particular.
San Francisco is a great example of more and strong government. There are committees and steering committees to keep the committees accountable, and oversight committees to keep the steering committees accountable.
However even with all this government oversight, lots of regulation, and very large budget, they haven't been able to make a dent in the major problems like homelessness. Are they doing something wrong?
> However even with all this government oversight, lots of regulation, and very large budget, they haven't been able to make a dent in the major problems like homelessness.
All major economies have some problems. There are no binary switches to fix or unfix a problem, especially one as complex as homelessness.
There is one obvious, and effective, fix for homelessness. Provide homes. This would run into a plethora of issues, many political, some social, but it does solve a shit-ton of issues. When the homeless are provided with homes, they tend to have fewer emergency health interventions, fewer police interactions and cost society much less than leaving them homeless. But I cannot see a nation or a state which is still arguing over whether or not healthcare should bankrupt people will go the extra steps to provide the homeless with free accommodation, especially in SF.
Portugal (and other countries) shows that there is a way to solve the problem. However most Americans will reject those solutions because they are not punishing the homeless for being homeless/poor/mentally il/drug users.
Not al all. The average American doesn’t care enough about helping the homeless to accept any of the solutions that have worked for other countries (Portugal for example). In other words, it is the “will of the people” to only solve the problem of homelessness if it can be done with a very limited set of tools (punishment, laws). And those tools won’t solve the problem.
Consumer credit provides upward pressure for the price of goods while removing the composite pressure for wage growth. I think the liberalization of the consumer credit market is the primary catalyst for this situation.
Can't disagree there... My home is apparently worth about 30% more today then when I bought (mortgage) it two years ago. That's just insane. Not to mention the price of cars as another large example car loans when I was a kid were maybe 3-4 years, now they're often 7+ on new cars.
Or break up large companies and monopolies to promote more competition in the employment marketplace. In addition, bring in more regulations to protect unionisation so employees can demand fairer wages.
Also, companies should be taxed on revenue rather than profit like individuals. I think this would solve most cases of corporate tax evasion as it is much harder to hide revenue.
And specifically, how about a tax on the unimproved value of land? Addresses housing costs pretty readily, and no room for loopholes (you can't exactly move land overseas).
Replace all taxes with LVT, replace all welfare with UBI, cut all other expenditures to a bare minimum, and bing bang boom you've got a system that works to everyone's interests.
While I disagree on the targets of financial gains and income, I think that tariffs and excise taxes along with foreign currency exchange taxes would be more impactful. A significant portion of the issue comes down to the amount of manufacturing that has gone overseas, and with a lot of those at the top having tax havens and/or being incorporated out of the US, the use of financial gains taxes would do very little to curb the tide.
And despite the increased cost in a lot of things, I think a trade war with China is largely inevitable. As to the increased costs, maybe it would actually get people to think about what they're doing, and other points of concern like Right To Repair legislation. The fact that we buy so many things in our day to day lives that don't even make it 5 years is fucking ridiculous.
Allow me to represent the predictable tech-bro YIMBY perspective: we don’t build enough housing. Supply has lagged behind demand for decades. And still basically everybody opposes new housing near them.
If “we don’t know the solutions” means “we don’t know what is causing this,” then I think that’s wrong. We definitely know. But if it means “we don’t know how to change course,” then that’s clearly right. It’s a disaster.
The article directly points out the decline of union power so unwinding the various anti-union legislation that has appeared in the last few decades would help.
Taxes! Tax financial gains better and more consistently, tax income more progressively, eliminate tax loopholes, and structure taxation in a way that encourages corporations to raise pay for employees instead of paying out huge dividends etc. to investors.
Productivity has outpaced income year after year since the 1970s. That difference is going to the people who already have wealth.
Zoning! Ignore the hue and cry of existing property owners who don't want their property values to fall and rezone to encourage new housing development in desirable areas.