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>More defective programming in the wetware. Why is pay the only part of the equation? When Japan realized that their housing market was undermining living standards in the late 90’s, they cracked down on NIMBYism and took housing and land zoning authority away from cities. The housing market almost immediately corrected itself and housing prices in suburban Tokyo have been in free-fall ever since. You can get a 2000sqft family home for the equivalent of about 200k just 30 minutes outside downtown Tokyo today. We don’t do that because... why?

The world does exist outside of Silicon Valley. I can get exactly what you're describing in over half of this country, pick your state including the entirety of the midwest.

>Again, more defective wetware. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan - these are democratic states with a high standard of living that have been able to control costs in ways that the West hasn’t. More people are homeless in the US per capita than any of those countries and it has everything to do with defective programming and talk of “liveable wages”. Of course everyone needs to be able to afford to live. But your own mistaken assumptions are emblematic of the political and social dysfunction of the West. Until we address that, no - those supply chains won’t be returning.

The median income in South Korea is $3,000 less than the US. And they have universal healthcare.

Someone's wetware is defective, it isn't mine. You might want to do some research before showing up with that kind of condescending attitude.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...

>The world does exist outside of Silicon Valley. I can get exactly what you're describing in over half of this country, pick your state including the entirety of the midwest.

This is equivalent to saying sky-high housing prices in Tokyo didn't need fixing, since folks could always just live in Hokkaido--a pragmatic absurdity.

A city is a giant organism that needs people to play a variety of roles in order to thrive. All those people deserve (and arguably, for the health of the city, need) to be able to earn enough to live with some dignity. If only the wealthy can afford decent housing near a city, that city is no longer a functional community--it's a NIMBY bubble that creates a feedback loop of socioeconomic disparity.

>This is equivalent to saying sky-high housing prices in Tokyo didn't need fixing, since folks could always just live in Hokkaido--a pragmatic absurdity.

It isn't even remotely the equivalent of saying that. The land mass of Japan is a fraction of the US, and the jobs are highly concentrated in their large cities. The US, as a whole, is nothing like that.

Regardless, it was a pointless argument for him to make in the first place, he was just moving goal posts by trying to equate calling employees parasites to San Francisco zoning laws. There was absolutely no point going down that path other than to distract from his original (disgusting) statement and implying that somehow people wanting more than minimum wage should really be blaming the Mayor of San Francisco for high housing prices. Which again... is completely irrelevant to the vast majority of the population of the US.

It isn't even remotely the equivalent of saying that. The land mass of Japan is a fraction of the US, and the jobs are highly concentrated in their large cities. The US, as a whole, is nothing like that.

Most US industrial production is concentrated in about 5 regions. The US isn't that different.

Regardless, it was a pointless argument for him to make in the first place, he was just moving goal posts by trying to equate calling employees parasites to San Francisco zoning laws

Nonsense. Housing costs are the great misery-multiplier in the West and it isn't specific to SF. Look at Berlin or London or Paris or Toronto. Everywhere the dysfunction is the same and everywhere the working poor live with crushing housing insecurity, in spite of living in thriving job markets. With reasonable urban housing prices and rent most of the people in the "working poor" would advance to middle-class status and a lot of the inequality issues we have would be tractable. Instead, we just keep ignoring pricing theory and we just keep dumping more wealth into supply-constrained markets and we just keep wondering why these problems don't get any better.

There was absolutely no point going down that path other than to distract from his original (disgusting) statement and implying that somehow people wanting more than minimum wage

Ptooey! Pardon me, but I had to spit out all of the words you're stuffing in my mouth. I said nothing about minimum wage. You did. This is the same neurotic defective programming I'm talking about. The projection of intent in your response is what's disgusting.

Which again... is completely irrelevant to the vast majority of the population of the US.

Go look up what a lower-middle class family needs to pay for rent in suburbs in Atlanta or Austin or other cities with good job opportunities.

We're not dropping prices in NA in good part because our governments are dysfunctional and don't want to intervene, and because large landowners see such interventions as contrary to their benefit.

And besides, relaxing zoning is far from enough - you need to build vast and performant public transit systems, and in the case of Tokyo you need to make housing a depreciating asset.

South Korea was not a democratic state during most of its crucial growth period either - it was only after a revolution in the 80s, and even then democracy is a very gracious word for a country that was literally ruled by a cult for half a decade.

Taiwan also was in quasi-dictatorial KMT rule for most of its rise, and Japan to this day on the national level is basically ruled by the LDP in perpetuity.

But crucially, Japan, SK and Taiwan aren't where the kind of production China does happens. They are just as economically beholden to China as we are, sometimes moreso.

We're not dropping prices in NA in good part because our governments are dysfunctional and don't want to intervene, and because large landowners see such interventions as contrary to their benefit. And besides, relaxing zoning is far from enough - you need to build vast and performant public transit systems, and in the case of Tokyo you need to make housing a depreciating asset.

Yes - and as I said, this is the defective programming in minds of Westerners. The government does what we tell them to do and most people want this. It's everywhere - it's the entitlement to a suburban home and the subordination of all other interests, even the concept of personal property, in service to this. The fact that the media doesn't discuss these things in spite of the fact that smart people like Warren and others write about it is evidence of the bad programming.

South Korea was not a democratic state during most of its crucial growth period either - it was only after a revolution in the 80s, and even then democracy is a very gracious word for a country that was literally ruled by a cult for half a decade.

Taiwan also was in quasi-dictatorial KMT rule for most of its rise, and Japan to this day on the national level is basically ruled by the LDP in perpetuity.

Is it your contention that these countries aren't democratic and prosperous today? Is that your claim? Is your claim that their citizens live in near slavery, as the previous poster's was?

But crucially, Japan, SK and Taiwan aren't where the kind of production China does happens. They are just as economically beholden to China as we are, sometimes moreso.

The company that I worked at previously had to assess manufacturing alternatives to China in the wake of Trump's tariffs. Most of the parts on the BOM could reasonably be sourced by other Asian countries like those three at a small premium. US manufacturers either weren't available or were completely priced out. If the West could even just get their manufacturing costs in parity with those three - TW, SK, and JP - that in itself would be huge progress.

Japan, SK, and Taiwan, were not democratic when they were manufacturing behemoths, yes.

For reference, the US has roughly twice the manufacturing output of Japan.

The idea that manufacturing boomed there because the workers were almost slaves is fairly accurate.

You’re making a lot of bold claims. It would be nice if you justified at least one of them before chaining them together to reach a pre-ordained conclusion.

Nice name