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The history of the end of poverty has just begun

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Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#441

Post by mbrodersen »

southerntofu wrote: post #432
WalterBright wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way that modern poor have worse health care than medieval kings, because those kings HAD NO HEALTH CARE, and in fact, what doctors they did have did harm to their luckless patients. For example, they would bleed a person to try to drain out what was making them sick. For another, they did not wash their hands or their instruments.

I'm not arguing otherwise. All i'm saying is you can't compare apple to oranges: it's fine if you can't walk on the moon. Except when every one else is doing it because it's become trivial and you're denied it because of your caste/class or social status. That many Americans die due to illnesses we know how to treat for cheap for decades is unbelievable. And don't even get me started on long-term conditions, like ins…

You are absolutely right. When I lived in Europe, the US was often used as an example of how bad things can get when you prioritise profits more than people. The US culture is brutal to the less capable/unlucky citizens.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#442

Post by mbrodersen »

nickpp wrote: post #349
mbrodersen wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer to be a medival king. Easy access to having sex with the most beautiful woman in the world, beheading people I don't like, fixing laws I don't agree with, having people willing to do anything to please me etc. Lots of perks!

> Easy access to having sex with the most beautiful woman in the world Which can give you any number of incurable dick-rotting diseases (because no antibiotics) or give birth to an unwanted heir (because no birth control). > beheading people I don't like Thus making enemies that will hunt you in your sleep (because no rule-of-law). > fixing laws I don't agree with Then having to keep fixing them to repair unwanted si…

And if you think that being homeless in the US, being beaten up by people eager to steal your few belongings, raped by strangers and ignored by the police, freezing to death during the winter etc. is better than being a king then you are watching too many feel-good rags-to-riches Disney movies.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#443

Post by crowbahr »

dillondoyle wrote: post #27
crowbahr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and we're nowhere near post-scarcity. We're able to foresee the end of some forms of scarcity, like basic food insecurity, but there's still no reasonable expectation that the economy becomes post scarcity in any way shape or form within the next 100 years.

Not to be a doomsday troll, but climate change seems to throw a big question mark in terms of basic food security especially non-industrialized. See Afghanistan drought right now. I'm sure we can solve those problems with enough money and tech, but we could do that right now and feed millions but we choose not too.

I agree with you on climate change causing issues with scarcity, I just wanted to point out the basics around food scarcity is about the closest we could reasonably see a fix arriving within the next 100 years.

Durable fixes to food scarcity could come even in drought conditions through advanced genetic editing techniques, for example. It's not infeasible to imagine that being possible within the next century.

Now whether or not we'll do it is an entirely different question.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#444

Post by maerF0x0 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #435
maerF0x0 wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely couldnt do it in a weekend. But I have been wondering how new cities are born, like not a suburb beside an existing city, but the ones that are in the middle of "no where". And what would stop a few thousand people from having a mutual interest to start something in the middle of no where? Most of the jobs could be remote save for the ones that support the citizens themselves. maybe this would fail for t…

It would fail, or at least be hard, for the reasons I listed.

What if those 10k people put up capital kinda like buying a new build home?

Like what if we somehow sold 10 thousand condos at $100k each. If I didnt make a mistake thats about $1B of capital to prepare the place for them to live. If China can build a prefab hotel in 36 hours, I would think we could pull it off too...

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#445

Post by CryptoPunk »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #436
CryptoPunk wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The higher the price, the more potential projects are cost-effective to move ahead on. The secondary market generating demand in the primary market is a universal property of all markets. >>The speculators who make-up the secondary market are not the ones who make money by tearing down and building new properties. The investors who tear down and build new properties are motivated entirely by the market price that a u…

> The investors who tear down and build new properties are motivated entirely by the market price that a unit can fetch on the market, which is largely determined by the speculators in the secondary market. But how is this at all related to the secondary market speculators? People who make a living by holding on to properties and flipping them on a price increase. This only exacerbates the lack of supply.

>>But how is this at all related to the secondary market speculators?

Speculators inject capital into the real estate market. They often bring outside capital into it, and then keep it in the real estate market instead of taking it out. Housing prices are simply a matter of the interplay between the supply of capital interested in housing, and the supply of housing, i.e. supply and demand in housing, and more speculators pushes up the demand side of the equation, leading to higher prices.

In fact, that's what the critics of real estate speculation always point to as to why it should be discouraged: they push up prices (which is a bit simplistic: the increase in prices in multi-dwelling units is temporary as long as zoning doesn't prevent developers from building more dense developments. Only the price increase in single family homes is permanent).

What the critics miss is that rising prices is what funds supply expansion. Ceteris paribus, a market with more speculators will have higher SFH prices, more units, and lower rental rates, and rent is the true cost of housing (the purchase price is the cost of investing in housing).

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#446

Post by willjp »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #232
barry-cotter wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cost of housing would go up until a lot of people are still homeless That’s true if building enough housing to meet demand continues to be illegal.

The effective purpose of a UBI (why the ruling class likes the idea) is to constrain risky tendencies of a highly financialized economy that depends on a large supply of dirt cheap labor without too much inflation. With UBI, gainful employment will be an elite luxury only accessible to those with existing wealth. Everyone else will be a reserve army of cheap labor that serves to bare the weight of the financial ebbs…

This is terrifying, and has a ring of truth to it. I still think it's better than the alternative though.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#447

Post by nobodyandproud »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #445
nobodyandproud wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The investors who tear down and build new properties are motivated entirely by the market price that a unit can fetch on the market, which is largely determined by the speculators in the secondary market. But how is this at all related to the secondary market speculators? People who make a living by holding on to properties and flipping them on a price increase. This only exacerbates the lack of supply.

>>But how is this at all related to the secondary market speculators? Speculators inject capital into the real estate market. They often bring outside capital into it, and then keep it in the real estate market instead of taking it out. Housing prices are simply a matter of the interplay between the supply of capital interested in housing, and the supply of housing, i.e. supply and demand in housing, and more specula…

Injecting capital doesn’t magically increase the supply of real estate.

If my goal is to hold on to a single family house and sell it for a profit later as is or with just some touch-ups, it’s still a single family residence. The speculation just increased the cost of the land.

If my goal is to tear down the single family home and replace it with a two-family home or a small apartment; that increases the supply.

Both involve speculators, but only the latter increases the supply. Why shouldn’t policy discourage the former—a market inefficiency, but a very sane local maxima—and encourage the latter?

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#448

Post by CryptoPunk »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #447
CryptoPunk wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>But how is this at all related to the secondary market speculators? Speculators inject capital into the real estate market. They often bring outside capital into it, and then keep it in the real estate market instead of taking it out. Housing prices are simply a matter of the interplay between the supply of capital interested in housing, and the supply of housing, i.e. supply and demand in housing, and more specula…

Injecting capital doesn’t magically increase the supply of real estate. If my goal is to hold on to a single family house and sell it for a profit later as is or with just some touch-ups, it’s still a single family residence. The speculation just increased the cost of the land. If my goal is to tear down the single family home and replace it with a two-family home or a small apartment; that increases the supply. Both…

>>Injecting capital doesn’t magically increase the supply of real estate.

It's not magic. It reliably increases supply by raising the return on investment from building new units, and thus increasing the number of potential projects which find investors.

>>Both involve speculators, but only the latter increases the supply. Why shouldn’t policy discourage the former—a market inefficiency, but a very sane local maxima—and encourage the latter?

I fully support encouraging the latter and discouraging the former. I would support utilizing a land tax to discourage, and eminent domain to outright prevent, the former.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#449

Post by nobodyandproud »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #448
nobodyandproud wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Injecting capital doesn’t magically increase the supply of real estate. If my goal is to hold on to a single family house and sell it for a profit later as is or with just some touch-ups, it’s still a single family residence. The speculation just increased the cost of the land. If my goal is to tear down the single family home and replace it with a two-family home or a small apartment; that increases the supply. Both…

>>Injecting capital doesn’t magically increase the supply of real estate. It's not magic. It reliably increases supply by raising the return on investment from building new units, and thus increasing the number of potential projects which find investors. >>Both involve speculators, but only the latter increases the supply. Why shouldn’t policy discourage the former—a market inefficiency, but a very sane local maxima—…

Then you’re taking the same position I am.
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