[Herring]

I spend a lot of time here: https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart

Housing/medical/college etc are outpacing incomes. Loneliness has skyrocketed. People are voting for fascism and starting wars. Americans like to pretend with their big houses and fancy iphones, but things are NOT ok.

Also note on that chart: younger demographics in the US are reporting significantly lower life evaluations compared to older demographics. So if you think things right now are bad, you haven't seen anything yet.

[suttontom]

I'm asking genuinely, is there a connection between housing, education, and healthcare becoming so much more expensive and them also being the three parts of the economy that have the most government interference (in the US)? If so is it causal?

[Herring]

Well yeah. Key policy choices in housing/healthcare/education/banking/etc have financialized basic human necessities, forcing the working class to give up a growing percentage of their income to the asset-holding class.

I'm not saying "all government interference is bad". For example plenty of countries prove that if you want to control healthcare costs, you need more government intervention in drug pricing, not less.

[chadgpt3]

Probably reverse causal, people want interference in fucked markets

[Schiendelman]

I'm unconvinced that younger people have a harder time than the last couple of generations at the same ages, and would like to see evidence that this is not simply them overwhelming themselves with social media comparisons with others.

Yes, housing, medical, and college are outpacing incomes. Which item would you want to work on if you only got to pick ONE thing?

[swed420]

> Yes, housing, medical, and college are outpacing incomes. Which item would you want to work on if you only got to pick ONE thing?

Why would we intentionally narrow the discussion like this?

That's something that pretend political parties do to prop up the interests of the uniparty of capital interests while squelching actual progress for the majority.

[Schiendelman]

Why? Because an individual can only positively influence one thing at a time when it's so far outside of their sphere. My goal is to help people make positive change, and the only way to do that is with focus.

[swed420]

> Because an individual can only positively influence one thing at a time when it's so far outside of their sphere.

Not true, but let's pretend it is: then pick the parent item that's affecting all of the child items: aforementioned faux democracy. Then everything else falls into place.

But based on your various comments here, you don't seem interested in solving the root issues.

[Herring]

They have social media in Finland too. Go talk it out with your favorite "pro" LLM.

You can't just pick one. The main problem is inequality is rising, which means those without serious capital (which includes the young) are much less likely to see anything from their efforts. It just pops up in different ways. All my money goes to [rent, inflation, student loans, hospital bills, .. etc].

[Schiendelman]

Henry George made a compelling case that land is the inherent driver of inequality issues, and I think the work being done in housing now significantly supports that theory. If you want a bunch of those choose fixed, and they all are rooted in inequality, you may want to get rid of land use restrictions on housing development.

[Herring]

Yeah I’d go even further. Singapore-style public housing is pretty high on my wishlist. But it’s a long wishlist.