The working class (with housing and all that) are screwed, while the rich get richer. Eventually there's no where left to turn for profitability though - and no more debt Wall Street can issue to keep the spending up. Then what?
The working class (with housing and all that) are screwed, while the rich get richer. Eventually there's no where left to turn for profitability though - and no more debt Wall Street can issue to keep the spending up. Then what?
I can't see this not affecting inflation as cost of goods will increase.
Try one of the many online 'balance the budget" games like https://us.abalancingact.com/2022-federal-budget .
Total federal outlays in 1989 were $1,143,744M in today's dollars. That's less than is currently spent on Medicare and Medicaid, ignoring everything else in the budget.
So you'll have to make some pretty substantial alterations.
if only "essential" stuff like buying a home or a business got a loan, things would be much cheaper because overall there would be less interest to pay.
It’s always productive people that have to pay more to government. For less.
And government has zero accountability. Zero motivation to use our money efficiently. 600+ foreign military bases… $200 hammers…
Justify more government wastefulness… before taking my earned money.
you benefit from having the FBI, FDA, NLRB, FAA and even the EPA while people try to rob you, give you fake drugs, force you into endless debt and low pay, put you on dangerous crowded flights and crash railroad cars around you with cheap stinking chemicals that stay on your lakes and farms for years.
these companies would rather you shuttup and buy from the only two identical stores left who raised their prices.... and shut down the government for your own problems.
not theirs.
That is, even if we could instantly magic into completion, all of the affordable housing to meet all global demand, and give it free to all who require it - as in, "hey! problems solved! enjoy your new homes, everybody!" - then the simple environmental load of doing that would put us quite significantly further on the road to ruin, in and of itself.
Climate change is here and will increase, so any human strategy involving "speed up! do more stuff! build more stuff!" is also inevitably an Own Goal in some respect. Even some things that we consider to be desperately needed for this or that societal reason.
Your point - is basically what most well off (and since you’re on HN I assume you’re better off than 80-90% of the world) are now saying about climate change, screw the poor, they need to have expensive energy, expensive food, and according to you no affordable housing. Why? Because you think the world will be ruined, because that’s what your media is telling you, and you haven’t even looked at the scientific facts on this.
You know, maybe you should give up all your possession and live on rice and beans for the next 10 years, knowing you’ve done your bit for the climate, and then see how you feel.
Edit: removed personal attack at the end. It was unnecessary.
And that's part of the perennial problem with discussion nowadays. It's near impossible to speak without being pigeonholed and caricatured : "omg! you dared to tangentially hint that prioritising building comes with some downsides! one of them! you must, therefore, also hold this, this, this, and this unfavourable worldview! how horrid you are!!".
It's all a bit silly. And ironic, because I'm actually disabled, and on a really tiny income within the scale of my country. I already make my difference by living a low impact life, practicing what I preach. I'm in my 40's and I've never owned a car, and it's not because I can't drive. I consume so much less than my countrypeople, in general in life. While my friend is earning, and consuming, $150K worth of "whatever" per year, goods, consumables, flights here and there for this and that luxury frivolity, raising his kids rich-person style, I'm living a simple life at home making a lot out of a little. There'll be no kids for me.
Screw the poor?? I am one of the poor. Regardless, I still see the basic Occam's reality that our species as it stands (and with massive inertia) is currently saturating this planet's resources in many different ways. And the mindset that we can fix everything by getting busy will always be somewhat paradoxical. Because, as you point out, everything we need is already right there, stockpiled in the hands of a greedy minority.
- Universal high quality health care - Free education including high quality universities - Cheap or even free quality childcare - A social system that has everyone's back if shit hits the fan
No need to introduce socialism as some here seem to advocate. History has shown that this fails 100 out of 100 times, and it's been tried in every thinkable constellation.
Europe IMO has a better approach vs the US - still enough incentives to work hard, but aiming to afford everyone a humane existence. The main threat I see is that the balance is shifted too much to socialism over here, stifling innovation and ultimately destroying the wealth that funds all these goodies.
Eastern Germany started this way - "no one is intending to build a wall" they said, until one day, it was there.
So stop immigration, let the population contract, and the housing problem takes care of itself.
We need more workers (record low unemployment in 2023), and more consumers (to generate more profits without more profit margins), and more tax payers (to cover fixed government costs).
We should basically open the borders, and enforce that those entering work fairly against Americans to keep them from driving down wages. This wouldn't be an issue if the business acted respectably.
Time for a forceful redistribution and system change. Can’t happen soon enough.
Sadly revolutions have a really bad track record for the 99%. It may feel good in the short term but the people who end up assuming power are usually much worse.
OTOH fractional reserve banking and cronyism are really past their expiration dates. It'd be nice to stop kicking the can down the road - we have technological solutions now.
Similarly if you redistribute wealth - what's going to prevent it from becoming unequally distributed again? I'd imagine that a small subset of people would quickly game whatever system is devised and we're back at square one again.
Instead, a random representative sample of 1000 people is chosen from the population, for some congress, for a year. They rule during that time. Some rules cannot be overruled, like the 1 year limit, no way to game that. Additionally, all communication of the chosen ones must be recorded and public, without exceptions.
This basically eliminates corruption or the rise of a „ruling class“, and lobbyism has a much harder task.
I would also argue that this will result in much better overall decisions - they might lack some initial knowledge but that is more than offset by missing corruption and cronyism
A randomly assigned legislature sounds like a recipe to create an unaccountable bureaucracy of staffers and advisors 'guiding' the forced citizen through what must be done / can't be done legislatively. This is where the real power would lie - and frankly we are kind of there today. Most congresscritters spend 45% of their time campaigning, 45% of their time fundraising and 10% of their time looking damn cute. Staffers, lobbyists and think-tanks do most of the legislative work.
Sounds like the UK civil service in Yes, Minister / Yes, Prime Minister.
The people doing the drafting, suggesting, and explaining won't have term limits and will have the real power. They'll also be the ones targeted by lobbyists.
You'll end up with is a floor show with the real decisions being made behind the scenes by people who are mostly not directly accountable.
Not unlike what we have now. Different, possibly better in some ways, and possibly worse in others.
My sample is anecdotal at best, but the single instance in which I ended up in a position to witness a judgement and its rationale, the result was... laughably wrong. It was quickly overruled in appeal by the judges who actually know the law.
So... I'm not optimistic. Perhaps some AI could help, I guess? But that comes with lots of risks, too.
The redistribution shouldn't be a one-time event, but rather a persistently different approach to taxation, labor rights (unions!), welfare, etc.
We can see this working in a number of countries, especially the Nordics.
Of course, there will always be attacks on such a system, but such is life. Some battles need to be refought every two generations or so, that's just how humans work.
Norway doesn’t count because of its sovereign wealth fund.
How is it working in Sweden though? That country still has billionaires (IKEA founder, Minecraft’s notch).
I think it just doesn’t work in general. If you try to set up a new system to redistribute the wealth, the winners will be those in charge of the system.
You need incentives to work hard and it is a good idea to have strong differences in outcome, as long as you have mostly equal opportunity.
Otherwise you end up where all socialist experiments end up: in economical, social and humanitarian hell.
I mean hell, the whole BLM shindig petered out the nanosecond that it looked like the people with BLM signs in their yard might not get tackled by the first cop that see em'.
Now imagine how something with serious dollar signs attached would go(!!).
I mean hell, the whole BLM shindig petered out the nanosecond that it looked like the people with BLM signs in their yard might get to see someone walk down the street with an open container and not get tackled by the first cop that see em'.
Or you can travel with great public transport, for free. It’s not that I want more money, taken away from the rich, but the realization that everyone including me is much better off of everyone around also is taken care of. Strong public services are key.
Ontop of that, even more radical, companies should be run by the people working in it instead of shareholders siphoning out profits. Workers would never fire each other for more profits, or evade taxes that fund their neighborhood, or offshore their own jobs. Currently that might not be legal, that’s why it would need forceful redistribution.
Even on the simplest level: if you have free access to education/healthcare/… imagine how many brilliant people can try to become entrepreneurs or researchers instead of having to suffer two service jobs to provide their family. It’s statistics, that 60%+ of the population might include the next Einsteins, but are unnoticed and their potential wasted.
I am fine with not every useless thing to exist and waste resources on that.
Anecdotally, I live in Europe and know plenty of entrepreneurs, albeit mostly either in the tech space or as incorporated side gigs.
Source: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/Micr...
According to [1] 14.5% of all EU workers are self-employed (i.e.: they have their own business, as small as it may be) whereas only 6.6% are in the USA.
Entrepreneurs start companies that are meant to grow beyond themselves and aren't just a legal framework to provide their work.
Not to disparage anyone who's self-employed. I am too, but I wouldn't consider me an entrepreneur. I might become one, but that would mean changing my work setup.
What the EU lacks is the Ivy->Startup pipeline and insider/investor networks with access to old and old-ish money. And also the relentlessly aggressive branding and self-promotion (and tolerance of scamming and grifting) that defines US hustle culture.
If you're not in or around those networks already your chances of success in the US are pretty slim.
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/02_econ...
America is a great place to be rich. In Europe they tax you. But why should a millionaire care about healthcare for the poor or homeless shelters?
I’d like people to not go bankrupt paying for medical bills. I’d like everybody to be confident they can afford their next meal.
The current system was forget in the furncace of extreme bravery and duty . A fledging nation was taking on the superpower of the time (UK). Every single founding father was taking direct personal risk to themselves and their families by declaring indeoendence.
The level of bravery needed for this is astonishing. The people doing this literally had no self-interest in doing so. What leaders can you find today with the same sense of duty that are able to negotiate this country into a better deal?
The answer is there arent any and anything new we put in place today will look like a disaster vs what we have now.
Its insane to discard a 250yr old system that has outlived 2 world wars and most competing systems, because some of its features have been gamed.
Instead, you make mods. (Term limits being one).More government.
Please explain the logic behind this. Surely the solution is smaller government, no lobbying or money in government at all?