I'm economically conservative (I think unemployment insurance and many mandates tax job hiring thus hurt poor people prospects plus are benefits that are designed to help upper income people pay their bloated mortgages) on business regulatory issues, but the Republicans are a bunch of plastic cookie cutter drones (Paul Ryan only rehashes tired old crap and is portrayed as an "intellectual" in the media).
Part of the problem is that welfare and other support programs actually penalize people who get some work by cutting benefits by the amount they earn (leaving them with the cost and time invested in getting to and from) so it disincentives getting small time work.
I look forward to a Sanders win. It will force some real discussion of many issues.
What we see is that the US is reinventing\rediscovering a lot of socialist programs such as minimum living wage, overtime pay, paid sick leave and wage equality issues.
Ran across this interesting pair of (worth 50 minutes each) videos on facebook about defining "socialism" and it's history:
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Part of the problem is that welfare and other support programs actually penalize people who get some work by cutting benefits by the amount they earn (leaving them with the cost and time invested in getting to and from) so it disincentives getting small time work.
The United States doesn't have any welfare unless one counts the 3 million additional disability recipients since around 1990.
If we had straight "welfare" (say $200 a month cash payment for anybody out of work),and the constitutional right to shelter, then people would be in good enough shape to get up off their feet pretty quick.
The "welfare" in this country is prison. The "homeless shelter" programs we have in the United States are prison, daily emergency room visits, and selling drugs. Those that hang in for the long-haul (4-7 years) fake schizophrenia and "bi polar" , and take the pills.
In London, there are 20,000 homeless people and all but 300 actually live in hotels. Only the people who want to live on the streets, do so. I'm not in favor of spending money on hotels, but I am in favor of a constitutional right to shelter. Regardless, London has a superior system that allows people to get up on their feet (the amount of business regulation in London, a Labor stronghold, is bad though, and jobs are tough to get. There is a centrist party, the Liberal Democrats, but I'm not sure how much less regulation on business' their towns have).
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What we see is that the US is reinventing\rediscovering a lot of socialist programs such as minimum living wage, overtime pay, paid sick leave and wage equality issues.
I afraid so, and unemployment will go up quite a bit (at the lower end) because of it. On top of all the other drivers of lower income people and their misery. The upshot of it all is that, I think, poor people are really getting the point that life is miserable and birth rates really are falling. The Republicans picked a really bad time to go after birth control (2012) lol.
Note that they start at the same point with equivalent values, then Democratic Progressive policies were enacted in Minnesota and regressive Republican policies were enacted in Wisconsin.
It is a SLAM-DUNK that the progressive polices work better that the regressive ones.
... The Republicans picked a really bad time to go after birth control (2012) lol.
It truly amazes me that they still get elected with all the people that they have gone out of their way to alienate for ideological (bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, etc) reasons.
Nader said, a few year back, that Walmart would see its total bills go up from $315 per year to $317 if they paid everybody $10.50 and then he said the workers would spend most of it right back into the businesses, so they would loose very little money.
Business wouldn't loose a huge amount by paying higher wages, and lower income people will spend it all (which creates jobs).
On paper, the reasons are sound for raising the minimum wage. Seems like businesses almost break even.
I really do think that the dynamics of the situation will lead to less job mobility. Unemployment rates aren't always 100% clear indicators for the ease or difficulty in poor people finding jobs. You can have low unemployment (like 4% for the last year) in places like Hawaii, but jobs are very hard to find for poor people.
The minimum wage isn't the best way to raise wages. It artificially raises wages above the market rate, and that causes issues.
Unemployment insurance (especially the way it is structured), social security FICA (the way it is inefficiently taxed punishes hiring), etc. all hurt employment of poor people.
The minimum wage increase(bad as it is already) will combine with those and cause more hurt.
I really do think that the dynamics of the situation will lead to less job mobility. Unemployment rates aren't always 100% clear indicators for the ease or difficulty in poor people finding jobs. You can have low unemployment (like 4% for the last year) in places like Hawaii, but jobs are very hard to find for poor people.
Can you make a case for any of this. "I think" followed by a bunch maybes does not even reach the level of a proposition, let alone an argument. Remember, you are shooting down an idea that you agree "seems to work on paper"
Low employment suggests that many people have already found jobs although it is not a perfect indicator of that. So tell me why we want poor people working and yet still living like refugees. What is the incentive to do so?
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams
The minimum wage isn't the best way to raise wages. It artificially raises wages above the market rate, and that causes issues.
Because the minimum wage is far less than a living wage, the greatest amount of welfare does not go to those most in need but is rather is devoted to corporate welfare for those least in need. This is due to the rapidly disappearing middle class in the USA being forced to subsidize minimum wage workers with various anti-poverty programs such as food, heating, medical, and housing assistance for which they are taxed at around 30% of income from honest labor while the rich like Mitt Romney brag about an effective tax rate of 15% of their income (if even that), including the cost of bribing immoral and unethical politicians, on their so-called investment income in the Cayman Islands.
If the primary source of funding for the operation of all government programs at the national, state, and local levels -- including medicare, social security, defense, national parks, road maintenance, hospitals, law enforcement, courts, fire protection, education and so on are diminished due to lack of a sustainable tax base, then so is the quality and sanctity of human life due to civilization.
This is why income inequality, the greatest threat to economic health and therefore national security, is the greatest threat to the people of the USA instead of Daesh, Putin, guns, or immigrants.
Edited by anglagard, : inadvertent double use if word income
Edited by anglagard, : add middle paragraph for clarity
Edited by anglagard, : Modify second paragraph for, once again, clarity.
Edited by anglagard, : replace on 15% with of 15% for accuracy -- signed master of post post editing
Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. - Francis Bacon
If we had straight "welfare" (say $200 a month cash payment for anybody out of work),and the constitutional right to shelter, then people would be in good enough shape to get up off their feet pretty quick.
Do you mean that the welfare system is so generous that it enables them to sit back and collect an easy check and offers no real incentive to find more work?
I'm not in favor of spending money on hotels, but I am in favor of a constitutional right to shelter.
Well, it's not a constitutional right, so you would have to create another Amendment. On what basis do you think that free housing be supplied and do you know how expensive that would be to house every human being in your country?
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
Because the minimum wage is far less than a living wage, the greatest amount of welfare does not go to those most in need but is rather is devoted to corporate welfare for those least in need. This is due to the rapidly disappearing middle class in the USA being forced to subsidize minimum wage workers with various anti-poverty programs such as food, heating, medical, and housing assistance for which they are taxed at around 30% of income from honest labor while the rich like Mitt Romney brag about an effective tax rate of 15% of their income (if even that), including the cost of bribing immoral and unethical politicians, on their so-called investment income in the Cayman Islands.
I think we're asking the wrong questions and pushing the wrong initiatives to ensure people have decent lives.
I'm always amazed how few people see inflation as the real enemy here. You can always pay people more money, and still inflation will outpace "a living wage." So why do we continue with this fiat currency that is constantly depreciating instead of creating a much more stable form of currency that remains largely static?
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
quote:
Well, it's not a constitutional right, so you would have to create another Amendment. On what basis do you think that free housing be supplied and do you know how expensive that would be to house every human being in your country?
In New York, a friend bought houses on Staten Island for around $70,000 (did some fixing up) and rented both halves (double sided house) out and got about $1,500 a month for each half ($3000 per month total). He made a killing as the government paid many times the value of the house over several years.
Needless to say, the "subsidized housing" is expensive and is always subject to only a small amount of people getting it (after long waiting lists and lots of paperwork).
In Houston, they have something called "bunk houses" which are around $180 per month and really nice (lots of space, clean, temperate). They are for-profit and hold around 200 people at one time. The Workers Co-op (or Du Drop inn as it was called as a slang name) was on prime downtown Houston real-estate. It sold in 2012 for about $400,000.
Take the $100 billion home mortgage deduction (just for 1 year) and build enough "bunk houses" so that enough can be built that there will be a 100 million person capacity. I say let the rich or poor have the option of paying for a bunk-house. No paper-work, no b.s.
You know why they won't do that? It will sink property prices (which is what our whole economy is based on - a totally unproductive waste, not to mention an environmental disaster). Nobody would want to borrow money from the bank to pay for a house if they can stay in a bunk house. Why pay for a big investment when it just sits there and sucks the individual dry as well as sucks the oxygen out of productive investments we could all be making? Most would not if they weren't essentially forced to.
Another powerful issue
San Francisco just passed the $1 million mark (summer 2014) for the average home. The conservative Economist did a big special report back in May or June (2015) about how people would have enough mobility to move around to where a specific industry is clustered (cities have become meccas for certain skills and industry) if the rights for property owners to veto buildings from being built were ended. Prices would drop by 80%. The Economists talked about how 4 million people would live in San Francisco if it was possible. It is economic stupidity and extremely unproductive to hold people back from being able to move where their skills can be used. It's an economic bottleneck that kills our GDP about 15%.
I found a small part of the article online.
quote:
BUY land, advised Mark Twain; they’re not making it any more. In fact, land is not really scarce: the entire population of America could fit into Texas with more than an acre for each household to enjoy. What drives prices skyward is a collision between rampant demand and limited supply in the great metropolises like London, Mumbai and New York. In the past ten years real prices in Hong Kong have risen by 150%. Residential property in Mayfair, in central London, can go for as much as 55,000 ($82,000) per square metre. A square mile of Manhattan residential property costs $16.5 billion.
Even in these great cities the scarcity is artificial. Regulatory limits on the height and density of buildings constrain supply and inflate prices. A recent analysis by academics at the London School of Economics estimates that land-use regulations in the West End of London inflate the price of office space by about 800%; in Milan and Paris the rules push up prices by around 300%. Most of the enormous value captured by landowners exists because it is well-nigh impossible to build new offices to compete those profits away.
The costs of this misfiring property market are huge, mainly because of their effects on individuals. High housing prices force workers towards cheaper but less productive places. According to one study, employment in the Bay Area around San Francisco would be about five times larger than it is but for tight limits on construction. Tot up these costs in lost earnings and unrealised human potential, and the figures become dizzying. Lifting all the barriers to urban growth in America could raise the country’s GDP by between 6.5% and 13.5%, or by about $1 trillion-2 trillion. It is difficult to think of many other policies that would yield anything like that.
.... Hence the second trend, the proliferation of green belts and rules on zoning. Over the course of the past century land-use rules have piled up so plentifully that getting planning permission is harder than hailing a cab on a wet afternoon. .... Zoning codes were conceived as a way to balance the social good of a growing, productive city and the private costs that growth sometimes imposes. But land-use rules have evolved into something more pernicious: a mechanism through which landowners are handed both unwarranted windfalls and the means to prevent others from exercising control over their property. Even small steps to restore a healthier balance between private and public good would yield handsome returns. Policymakers should focus on two things.
First, they should ensure that city-planning decisions are made from the top down. When decisions are taken at local level, land-use rules tend to be stricter. Individual districts receive fewer of the benefits of a larger metropolitan population (jobs and taxes) than their costs (blocked views and congested streets). Moving housing-supply decisions to city level should mean that due weight is put on the benefits of growth. Any restrictions on building won by one district should be offset by increases elsewhere, so the city as a whole keeps to its development budget.
Second, governments should impose higher taxes on the value of land. In most rich countries, land-value taxes account for a small share of total revenues. Land taxes are efficient. They are difficult to dodge; you cannot stuff land into a bank-vault in Luxembourg. Whereas a high tax on property can discourage investment, a high tax on land creates an incentive to develop unused sites. Land-value taxes can also help cater for newcomers. New infrastructure raises the value of nearby land, automatically feeding through into revenueswhich helps to pay for the improvements.
Neither better zoning nor land taxes are easy to impose. There are logistical hurdles, such as assessing the value of land with the property stripped out. The politics is harder still. But politically tricky problems are ten-a-penny. Few offer the people who solve them a trillion-dollar reward. Space and the city | The Economist
The bulk of the article can't be read. I'll have to go by memory (it was May 30 2015). But it said that if the hideous bitching rights (my words) - to stop (especially tall) buildings - were done away with then the average home in San Francisco would drop to $200,000 (from $1,000,000+) and parts of London would no longer be overvalued by 850%. New York would have lots of office space and prices would plummet by over 70%.
We would see an economic boom.
The housing scam is the worst scam going. I can't think of anything (non social issue related)worse - from an economic perspective. Most scams force scarcity in an unnatural way, and this is the worst.
Most voters own houses and politicians (like "tough guy" Trump) will always buy votes with the economically destructive mortgage deduction. Politicians hand out presents to voters and sell out our future.
I think we're asking the wrong questions and pushing the wrong initiatives to ensure people have decent lives.
Indeed. There are so many programs that seem to be band-aids rather than a comprehensive plan. Unemployment, Food Stamps, Disability, Affordable Housing, Subsidized Housing, Social Security, Health Care, etc etc etc
What we are basically talking about is a base standard of living for everyone, yes?
I'm always amazed how few people see inflation as the real enemy here.
You haven't actually made the case that inflation is the problem. The problem is not inflation which actually assists people because it allows paying debts with cheaper money, but the failure to index the minimum wage to inflation during a time when there is upward pressure on every other factor of production. There is no excuse for using 1980 economics to set wages in the 2016 and that applies both to the minimum wage and every other wage.
A review of the distribution of economics over the past 50 years has shown that in real dollars the production of wealth has increased, but that the middle and lower classes haven't shared in that growth. There is simply no way that dynamic can be attribute to inflation.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams
Take the $100 billion home mortgage deduction (just for 1 year) and build enough "bunk houses" so that enough can be built that there will be a 100 million person capacity. I say let the rich or poor have the option of paying for a bunk-house. No paper-work, no b.s.
You said you wanted it to be a constitutional right, which means everyone will be supplied with a flop house, I mean, a bunk house. So why would anyone be purchasing these tiny houses?
Also, if rich people are allowed to buy them then that implies they also have the luxury of buying all of them, selling them, and marking up prices to fleece the poor.
You would also have the problem of creating ghettos on a scale reminiscent of the Bowery slums, because no one would want a bunk house. They would only do it out of necessity. And poverty and crime go together like butter on toast. If we look at government intervention now, a la Section 8 housing, you have atrocious living conditions and rampant crime. Now extrapolate that disaster a few million times.
The housing scam is the worst scam going. I can't think of anything (non social issue related)worse - from an economic perspective. Most scams force scarcity in an unnatural way, and this is the worst.
The housing market is terrible, but I'm failing how to see dropping miniature homes all over the place is somehow going to reverse that. You will still have people who desire more for themselves, and as such you will still have a class divide. Actually, it may even exacerbate the class divide.
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
Indeed. There are so many programs that seem to be band-aids rather than a comprehensive plan. Unemployment, Food Stamps, Disability, Affordable Housing, Subsidized Housing, Social Security, Health Care, etc etc etc
What we are basically talking about is a base standard of living for everyone, yes?
That's a fine goal to aspire to, but what kind of plans would you implement it to make it become a reality?
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
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