471–480 of 1001 posts
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Obviously money will not change everything but if you get a monthly allowance to feed your children it will probably decrease the incidence of onion vomit for a substantial portion of them. Which seems valuable in its own right. Dealing with a large lump sum payment is inherently much harder.
I agree, I think some sort of universal income payment for each child would be the least controversial version of UBI.
I have a feeling that the problem for a lot of middle-class people isn't wealth inequality but lifestyle. It became normal that one has $500/month car payment for life (which cost you around $3,000,000 over 40 years), or a 2500 sqft house for a family of 2 or 3, or credit card debt of $30,000 on a $60,000/year income.
Be wary of data and whether or not your speculations contradict the data.
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This. Poverty doesn't just cause immediate issues it can also cause long term issues that can effect not only adults, but the children who grew up in that environment. This is largely because families in poverty tend to also abuse their kids at higher rates (this includes mental abuse) or at least foster an extremely unhealthy environment due to the stress it causes. So even a generation later it can be difficult for…
I grew up in a family of 7 (4 younger siblings), during civil war, father was into gamling and drinking, mother was unemployed and constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown (understandable given the conditions she was living in). To paint the picture, I have vivid memories of vomiting a boiled onion I ate after not eating for days (I think I was arround 5 years old). And we were poor well into my early 20s untill…
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Give a viable alternative that doesn't descend into fascism. Capitalism is called the 'least worst' system for a reason, and some countries have an excellent QoL under it.
Social market economy. Socializing some things does not mean you have to put up red flags everywhere, hold big party meetings and kill all the intellectuals. You can still keep markets where they make sense and outcompete others in a global capitalist system. Extremists are always wrong.
This is a false dichotomy and huge oversimplification.
> Extremists are always wrong.
Another one. Who defines what's moderate and what's extreme? Completely rejecting slavering was called extreme, as universal suffrage was.
The current economical system is destroying the planet and hence completely unsustainable. We need radical changes to survive.
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Wait, all mainstream economists put the blame on massive increase of regulation all around the developed world ? I really doubt it's happened everywhere, from NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Portland, Seattle to Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, München, Vienna, Brussels, Amsterdam and so on. Everywhere housing prices went way up, I doubt everywhere had the same issues with regulations since the 7…
Yes - GP is right. When they say regulation, they mean preventing market forces from building as much prices allow. This NIMBYism is a global phenomenon and the root cause. All the other factors certainly contribute , but cheap credit only affects how much the most desperate buyer is able to pay. This becomes the limiting factor almost everywhere, meaning that prices would be equally unaffordable if credit wasn’t che…
Profit margin at the publicly listed UK house builders in around 30%
I'm not sure why people think Paul Graham's perspective on wealth inequality is in response to a recent shift in public opinion; he's taken this position since at least 2004: http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html (the basic premise of that essay was that in the tradeoff between freedom and wealth inequality, the latter didn't matter because everyone's living standards are converging). From that essay: Materially and soc…
What's the non-paraphrased version of Feynman's words? I could use that quote.
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Thank you, it's been a while now since I started improving things so it's easier to look at this more objectively. I was harsh on my parents in that post, they were dysfunctional but my mother loved all of us in her own way and spent her whole life arround us, and I can't say a lot of good things about my father - dealing with my mother in those days would break anyone. I'm on good terms with them now and they are in…
I wonder if things would have turned out the same if your mother hadn't cared about you. My theory is that love from parents and family growing up is hugely important for a happy life. Hard to optimise through political solutions, unfortunately. Just handing out money probably won't help so much, like you observed. Generous parental leave rules might be useful.
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I grew up in a family of 7 (4 younger siblings), during civil war, father was into gamling and drinking, mother was unemployed and constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown (understandable given the conditions she was living in). To paint the picture, I have vivid memories of vomiting a boiled onion I ate after not eating for days (I think I was arround 5 years old). And we were poor well into my early 20s untill…
I think calling it a wealth gap really misses the point - it's a stability gap. Most upper-middle individuals pass on socio-economic stability to the next generation. Most middle and lower class pass on instability. Wealth is a small part of it.