[toomuchtodo]

Asset prices are not wages. The latter is necessary for workers to survive, the former are imaginary numbers. One would expect the requirement to both cram down asset prices and push wages up for a healthy economy. It’s pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet.

“A crash” is just a Rube Goldberg wealth redistribution mechanism (wealthy people own the vast majority of securities and real estate). I argue a crash isn’t what’s needed: much more housing supply, robust antitrust enforcement (to keep monopoly pricing in check), efficient healthcare, living wages, and high progressive tax rates are what is needed to right the ship.

[precompute]

The issue is that there's entirely too much "short term thinking", which is code for "there is no one to speak for the middle class any longer". Yes, it's magic numbers and estimations stamped as iron-clad all the way down, but notions of a "healthy economy" are strictly contextual. "Software is eating the world" (h/t a16z), "1bn VR users by 2027" (zuckerberg), "100k starting" -- there's a clear imbalance, and sometime after '99 the economic model clearly shifted from "enable a better life" to "controlled demolition". We even saw bankers get paid for it!

IMO it doesn't matter if you believe in fire or in ice, either will suffice. There's only one way forward.

[aschearer]

Lol, what?