Made in America is back, leaving US factories scrambling to find workers

Moreover the reason why more housing has become investments is because capital costs of the housing market has increased. If local governments and fiscal policy try to make housing prices increase forever, then eventually house capital costs become high enough that only corporations or co-ops can own them.

Everyone is competing to ensure they are not at the bottom. But:

- will the pressure rise slowly enough to simply pressure those at the bottom to have less children.

- will the pressure rise cause those at the bottom to explode. IE riots in the streets etc

I think the second option as more likely. By definition, those in power are out of touch with those at the bottom.

Although in my experience people are convinced there's "vacant houses" absolutely everywhere based on not seeing the lights on at night. It's not true and this is not a major contribution to the housing crisis.

Scroll down to price and tax history.

This house has been on the market for at least 15 months and has had its price slashed by over 3 million dollars and nobody is nibbling.

It's become a bit of a running joke around here, trying to guess if it's still the most expensive listing in the local paper each week.

As an aside, the local papers are really just pages and pages of real estate ads with a few paragraphs of news sprinkled here and there. Can literally rip out half the pages and not lose a single line of news.

The parent claimed that prices in Metro Detroit have gone up and become unaffordable.

The leading cause for people not wanting to live somewhere is almost certainly the ability to find work (relatively) nearby. Large amounts of crime are only really a problem in sufficiently large cities (obviously with exception) and particularly poor ones, both of which stem from a lack of sustainable income:CoL ratio.

So much property value is tied up in this assumption we need to be close to jobs to work and it's all a lie. Many of the jobs that do require an in-person presence are only located where they're located because the assumption is the jobs need to be there to serve the workers who don't need to be there in the first place. I don't think any part of how we're making cities actually makes sense, because they're designed for the world of 2020, and not the world of 2030.

People have this mindset that's outmoded, they think about how to get the workers into offices. The thought now should be how to get goods and services to the workers.

And once again, the growth ponzi scheme strikes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0

If you ask people if they support a constitutional right to free speech, they'll probably say yes. If you ask them if someone should have a right to say some specific disagreeable thing, many people will say no.

Similarly with NIMBYism, people say they want houses built and support candidates who say they'll fix the housing crisis, but if you ask them about some specific planned development close to them, they say no.

I have no idea what the will of the voters actually is on this issue. Everyone agrees there's a problem, but most people are against all solutions.

I think the main issue I have with it as a proposal is that the fiscal resources required to sustain such a program only exist at the federal level, and it's not ethical to embark on such an endeavor if there is no solid 60-vote bloc in the Senate and poor people are at risk of getting the rug from pulled out from under them. (See how our current housing authorities are doing to know how that plays out.)

https://www.rbth.com/history/333420-socialist-communal-citie...

There is more than one architype of public works projects

We also need laws against large scale speculative home purchases. An individual having a vacation home/rental unit or two is one thing, but home flippers and large scale property rental corps are a big problem.

If housing prices are rising in the area then generally (not always) there's more demand for housing than supply. Increased density generally leads to increased economic activity (more housing = more residents = more commercial activity = higher tax revenue.) Viewing the housing market in isolation is a mistake.

> But if all you're doing is making housing more financially affordable, you're going to have to deal with the fact that Peter's financial savings is Paul's lost rent-seeking, and Paul is generally a pensioner that votes.

Yes and that's the problem. Veto powers in most residential politics tend to be strong and so Paul's veto generally overrides Paul's demand.

Sure, as long as you believe you must never change the laws around housing. In that case, you can stop the whole conversation there.

On the other hand if you wanted to actually do something you could pass a federal law or constitutional amendment giving individuals the right to posses no more than one home without undue restriction. For example, construction codes simply get more and more strict across the nation each year. For the simple reason that the industry lobbies for it, as it increases their opportunity for profit. There's no actual need for this as it isn't like humanity hasn't been building homes for thousands of years.

This is the main factor, and it's a result of the monetary policy of the last decades.

Since this number has been increasing compared to wages, it's becoming less sensible to build apartments for rental. But at the same time, those are needed to increase density and availability of affordable housing in attractive cities.

It's a mess.

European cities also aren't that dense, generally speaking. Building high is an exception and only pushed recently, in places with infrastructure already present.

In many major European cities, a place like that will cost a lot more than nice house in the suburbs. In fact we ended up moving to a house in the suburbs in large part because because we could not afford an apartment like that.

They also centralize poverty, which has effects on the local area. The workers in those buildings need to travel all over for their work.

Small, two to four story apartment buildings can largely be managed by handymen. They can be distributed throughout a city, placing them in communities that can support them. The people who live there can work in their local communities.

Beyond that, their initial capital costs are lower, and it's easier to find land that is zoned for 4 story buildings than 40 story buildings.

> Isn't Amazon cheaper than your local electronics store?

Cheaper? Maybe. Better? Absolutely not. Amazon might save me a couple bucks, but the hassle and time dealing with quality control issues, poorly managed inventory, lack of local experience, etc makes the dollars I save disappear I into increased headaches.

The thought of renting a home from Amazon vs the local bookstore is nightmarish to me.

Even if every regulation was struck from the books tomorrow, housing supply doesn't have anywhere close to the same flexibility. It's limited by the availability of undeveloped (or redevelopable) land, and just as importantly, by the location of that land. You can't just create more land next to the metropolis of your preference. There are practical and physical limits.

Well, problems with electricity, water, and wildfires destroying towns? Transportation problems and a housing crisis? Never mind, Silicon Valley and Hollywood will fill the state coffers all right!

Tides turn slowly, but they are turning; I'm afraid Californian voters are heading towards a series of rude awakenings.

Should descale the Nespresso though…

I am not automatically saying you are wrong, but with exception of real estate, there is little I can find where somewhat verifiable data seem to support it.

Second point was a known flaw with a long history that was overlooked, because, frankly, the LCS is a jobs program. But here's some of the history of the problem: when the LCS program was started, the demonstrators had appropriately sized combining gears - although it was likely the company underbid a bit to get on the contract. Mid-construction of future vessels the company that provided these combining gears was bought by another company. They updated their leadtime to three years per unit (each ship needs two) and were thusly booted from the contract. The next best size combining gear (from another supplier) wasn't good enough. And now you know the history. On top of all this, the companies building these ships are now flushing the oil and remachining the combining gears to be more durable - so they're fixing this problem.

Third point, this is a point on maintenance of some super large ships - which is both difficult and can only be carried out at ONE shipyard in the whole USA for the two newest carrier classes (Newport News). A slipping of the maintenance schedule would be natural with a full work schedule - and they have their hands full building the new Ford class supercarriers.

You've selected three problems on complex systems in a country that makes hundreds of different defense products. I think my point still stands.

There are merits to immigration but the politics around this has become toxic.

I do not know how the US gets back on this horse without having bipartisan legislation.

Such legislation looks pretty hard to be supported by a majority of the republic party’s primary voters. So, the question is what gives.

Any one sided policy moves on this by the Democratic Party would likely face risk to be reversed.

Controls/Automation engineer? I apprenticed for 4 years and still learn something every day.

Their issue is with illegal immigration and drug trafficking across the border. The dream would be to let American jobs stabilize after addressing undocumented labor. Get everyone protected under the law and paying into the system. Then import people as needed.

The other half of the country seems to support a system of exploitative labor because not doing so sounds racist.

By the way, these postings most always include the hourly pay, which everyone earns, including the Ukrainian refugees and guest workers we have at our plant atm.

The fact is in America at least, folks have been sliding down the occupation ladder for a generation. Somebody who used to manage a shift at a factory is now selling shoes or a security guard. An office manager becomes a McDonald's manager. And so on and so on.

So sure, be comforted by employment statistic, but remember that the govt has been obsessing over them for half a century, and they don't reflect wealth or happiness. Witness the fraction of us that can't afford a house.

Its just a plain fact that manufacturing has a tiny fraction of the people employed that it did a generation or two ago. Blurring that with hopeful 'employment' statistics that ignore what kind of employment, is PollyAnna stuff.

My friends owns a house on five acres in a city in Montana. They wanted to carve out an acre or two for their adult kid to build on. They must put in a road, sidewalks, connect to sewer, and city water even though they are on a well and septic. Light poles, geologic surveys, and wildly expensive permits. They were not prepared for over $200k of development and fees before even laying down the house foundation. Now the land stays empty. The land itself is sellable apparently for several hundred thousand dollars. A developer would be insane to buy and develop the land and sell a house for anything under a cool million.

Originally they thought they could spend about $70k and let their kid build. Nope.