The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

Shelter and medical services have ballooned due to ever increasing regulation. That regulation may be necessary, but it unquestionably comes with a cost.

Thanks for summarizing this here. This is spot on. And of course I'm being a bit hyperbolic -- like I said, the median American still gets to build wealth. Just not as much as their parents. Or their parents' parents.

The only "expectation" I took as a granted was that a given person not-so-far-from-the-median can build Wealth in America. If you're willing to set THAT one lower, then perhaps there is no problem now or on the horizon...

I commented elsewhere that it doesn't seem to me that "Economic Surplus" / "Building Wealth" is an axiom of any system. So perhaps that expectation should in fact be lowered. But that's certainly not something my peers or I are willing to do. Thus the race.

how much did it cost me to have a baby in Denmark, gee I don't know how much did you pay for the crosswalks on your street?

What I do know is that when I went to hospital and the baby was born nobody hit me with a $15000 bill afterwards just like when they installed a new crosswalk where you live nobody came by your house and billed you $15000.

Did my taxes pay for all of my baby being born - I guess they probably did I am in the highest bracket and have been for approximately 15 years. However I also know that anyone who has a baby in Denmark has it without getting billed. And I guess that's the way most of us like it.

So while there may be more American babies that Danish babies born with taxes paying for their birth I'm just going to have to point out that there is a greater percentage of Danish, or pretty much any European country's, babies worn without the parents paying a relatively large fee for the privilege.

Look, on the one hand this can get a bit too cynical, to the extent that you start looking for a "grim cabal" (quoting myself, not you) to blame. There are no lizard people etc. etc. :) So you have to phrase things carefully.

On the other hand, this quote from the article is me trying to highlight...exactly what you're saying here about optimizing human output:

"The slave works for his owner. The indentured servant for his master. The communist for everyone. The American for himself. It’s a powerful idea, a powerful motivator, and a powerful system. A grand competition, where advancement can be achieved through merit and competence — so don’t be shocked when those with merit and competence flock to compete. And they make perfect competitors."

I wanted to dodge the Culture War / Politics questions a bit. This was more about specifying the pain points than proposing My Genius Solution To The Utopia Problem #729.

But I didn't want to let it go unsaid that the American system powerfully motivates the sorts of people most-apt-to-compete to do exactly that.

Where does this idea come from?

According to the OECD, only 48% of American adults have a post-secondary education. I find it hard to believe that 52% of Americans truly cannot afford housing, healthcare, education for children, etc. I might even bet that the 52% have an easier time (especially with shelter), as there seems to be a correlation between the desire to live in an expensive city and having post-secondary attainment.

Additionally, wages are stagnant. The rapid rise in post-secondary attainment mentioned by the parent has done nothing to increase incomes among the workforce. The article points out that incomes have been on the decline for those without a post-secondary education. But misses the obvious: As colleges select for the most successful people, the most successful people without a degree who brought up the average in previous years now belong to the college group.

People can't set their expectations lower, but they can set them higher by not falling prey to misleading interpretations of the data surrounding college. The data is abundantly clear that there has been no advantage in the significant rise in post-secondary attainment. If anything, people are worse off now because of it.