Just because it's "free" doesn't mean you aren't paying plenty for it.
Public+private spending on healthcare in the US is 2-3x that of public+private spending on healthcare in the rest of the OECD. See the chart at https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm ; we pay more in taxes than any other OECD nation does total for healthcare, and then pile individual spending on top of that .
The US government does a lot to increase health care costs. For one example, the government empowers the AMA to strictly limit the number of seats in medical schools, the purpose being to limit the supply of doctors to keep their fees high.
To be fair, most (the vast majority) of people I know in gen z I know works significantly less hard than my parents did, I did, etc. Those who do work hard are fairly well off. They work two jobs, didn’t go to college, but own their homes and have a steady income. There’s definitely systemic issues, but work ethic is the major issue. And that’s a cultural issue. Would you want the gen z you know building your house?…
This might sound like an extreme take, but I want people who don’t work hard to be able to live.
There are also more single person households now[0], and the average household size has decreased by about 15%.[1] [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/242189/disitribution-of-... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/183657/average-size-of-a...
There are also more two-person households, so perhaps part of the change is young people not living with their parents for so long? Or perhaps it is old people living alone. I don’t think I have very good priors about this. I think the kind of people I know are not going to be a great cross section of US society (and I suspect this is true for basically anyone too).
It's actually the opposite, we are at an all time high for young people living with their parents, for longer.
Approximately 50 percent of young adults 18 - 29 live with their family now[0].
Initially that was thought to be a transient externality of the pandemic but it seems to be sticking[1] thanks to the outfall of the bull market crashing.
This is all true, but I am guessing the article skipped it because rising healthcare costs likely impact Gen Z much less than the population overall. Obamacare has allowed children to stay on their parent's insurance for much longer. All of Gen Z is still young enough to qualify for that, so as a generation they haven't felt the full cost of seeking insurance independently. Plus the overturning of the personal mandat…
> There is still something very wrong with the healthcare system in the US Government interference with the free market.
Is there a country you would point to as a good model for free market healthcare? Because healthcare seems like a market prone to be abused by market forces because the demand for it is often inelastic.
For example, the free market price for insulin is basically infinite because type 1 diabetics need a constant supply of it or else they die. Judging by the price of insulin in the US compared to our peer nations, it seems like the US's problem is too free of a market rather than it being too restricted.
> In the US, healthcare is effectively a collection of cartels Not just in the US. For example there's a huge glasses cartel in France with specialists that are protected by the government and make pairs of glasses cost 500~1000 USD with very little reimbursement, while in Japan private companies (that actually compete against each other's) let you have glasses for 60~70 USD all included. You are literally better off…
Might be tricky if you don’t speak Japanese though. Do they have multilingual optometrists that cater to tourists? I suppose Tokyo is big enough you can probably find one of anything.
I'm not sure how much it would cost to hire a translator for an hour or two, but you'd probably still come out ahead.
Isn't the down payment delta pretty significant? Having to save 160k instead of 40k for a 20% down payment significantly delays the point at which a millennial household could start accruing home equity, feel confident about starting a family, etc.
First-time homebuyers can get a FHA loan, which allow a 3% downpayment.
Allow for a 3% down payment, but add in a requirement for PMI until you’ve hit a sufficient amount of equity, raising the cost of the front end of the loan.
> Housing is another red herring, of course, because the average new American home is 2x bigger now than it was in the 70s. Roughly speaking 1 square foot of the average home costs exactly the same as it used to in the 1970s. [1] And the average family has become smaller. So yes, housing is more expensive in big cities but that's because of zoning as Mr. Andreessen will tell you. Just because houses have gotten bigge…
I have long advocated for Japanese-style federal zoning rules which would stop local municipalities from playing these games. I agree that housing is more expensive, but of course, housing is priced into inflation numbers - and wages have kept pace. Housing is a major driver of inflation. Part of the discrepancy here - and housing needs its own entire article - is how low interest rates factor into affordability. In…
My understanding is that inflation is based on the monthly payment number, not on the sticker price of the house (though I’m not all that confident in that assertion). It’s meant to reflect actual consumer spending baskets.
It's conspiratorial to assume that advertising and marketing is responsible for the status quo, rather than it being reflective of the genuine preferences of consumers to have new toys. Consumer preference has rewarded lowest-common-denominator dopamine trains in basically every facet of modern life. See the gaming industry with microtransactions/lootboxes, or entertainment with the move towards short-form content.
It’s not conspirational to assume that advertising and marketing is part of forming the status quo, by virtue of those fields literally exploiting human weaknesses to do so. If they simply reflected what consumer want, not only would they not have a reason to exist, but if they did they wouldn’t need to resort to endless amounts of FOMO to get you to buy Season 329 of their Battle Pass.
In 2022, it would be stupid to make a game that doesn't have some sort of battle pass and dopamine-drip progression system. Way fewer people would play your game and gamers would complain without them. People genuinely enjoy these systems, just like they genuinely enjoy reality TV over a documentary or TikTok over long-form Youtube videos. It's an obvious trend that won't be fixed if we misunderstand the issue and assume that people don't want these things and they're being pushed by advertising.
I doubt it. Kids leave elementary school today knowing more programming languages than college graduates did in 2010. If you want actual data, compare SAT scores or something. I'm willing to bet that by any metric, school was lax back then.
SAT scores have a trend of being inflated over time because they are dropping. There is no way the average college bound student from the 70’s doesn’t score higher on every standard subject than a contemporary one.
It's conspiratorial to assume that advertising and marketing is responsible for the status quo, rather than it being reflective of the genuine preferences of consumers to have new toys. Consumer preference has rewarded lowest-common-denominator dopamine trains in basically every facet of modern life. See the gaming industry with microtransactions/lootboxes, or entertainment with the move towards short-form content.
It's not conspiratorial to assume marketing influences behavior. That's its purpose. Size of the impact is up for debate. But consider how many large business sectors have advertisement as their primary income. It's not for nothing.
Marketing does influence behavior. However, reward loops don't need marketing, just like heroin doesn't need marketing. I've sank 100s of hours into idle games that look like a spreadsheet and have 0 marketing budget.