141–150 of 687 posts
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> the rich get richer (...) and the poor get poorer It's always the same story. Can't we just make the economy more fair by saying that the wealth gap must at least be smaller than some value or else the rich will pay (taxes) to make it so?
No, because the rich will then flee to a more rich-friendly economy and you will be left with just the poor
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> The Sweden story sounds so much like the SF story. It sounds like the same story being repeated all over the world. There was someone on comments here on another thread talking about how this is a problem in Ireland now as well. It's not just SF in the US, it's all over the place. A friend recently told me about his search for a place to rent in rural western Washington and they said it was just impossible to find…
I don't know about Ireland, but in the US the home ownership rate is higher than it was at any point in the 20th century. So however bad the situation is it doesn't seem to actually prevent people from buying a house.
No one I knew, could afford an entire apartment to themselves!
I find it weird that people complain about not being able to rent their own entire apartment, but are in their 20s. It wasn't a thing 30 years ago!
As one advances in their career, eg in their 30s, then income tends to rise, due to experience, and better paying jobs.
San Fran is an outlier here. Literally the most expensive area on the planet, with loads of money floating around. Of course rent is crazy expensive.
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I could. I have zero attachment to places. But it would be though on my wife and daughter (who both are Swedes, I'm the only immigrant) And not everyone is equally poor. Sweden has one of the highest number of Billionaires per capita in Europe. In fact wealth inequality (not income inequality) is almost as high as russia. Source: https://medium.com/@samo.burja/the-family-that-finances-swed...
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Nobody likes to talk about the effect of moving large populations around globally without the housing infrastructure to support them.
I feel people act naively on these discussions because they are afraid of offending others, but it is common sense that a ~0.3%/year influx of immigrants with low resources over 50 years has contributed in some way to economic disparity in Sweden. Nobody is saying that immigrants are having a negative effect here, it just means that newcomers have an uphill battle versus established families that have been building wealth for decades.
It seems like it's the same story everywhere I look. Housing is the main driver of inequality and there is little change happening. We have the same problem here in Germany. I am currently living in Munich to finish my CS Master's at TUM and build a startup, and it is absolutely impossible to find anything remotely affordable. I am supported by two startup scholarships and make enough to get by, but no landlord even…
Low interest rates and endless money is the main driver of inequality. Housing was just one manifestation of the root cause.
The main problem is the terrible rent control system - with a lucky few getting rent-controlled first-hand contracts, and everyone else facing a cut-throat almost completely unregulated market of sub-letting. Rent control never works.
In italy 2nd hand rent is illegal… You just need that imo
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It really isn't that simple, because again, no one really can say how it is so simple, merely that it is, somehow. Economists also talk about this point often, and they also can't agree, generally speaking, on how to, or even if to, reduce the inequality gap. The best solutions I've seen are land value taxes, inheritance and estate taxes, and taxes on loans backed by stock; and among the worst are unrealized capital…
Economists are part of the problem. When the rich are getting richer and the poor work their asses off and still get poorer, then just about any solution is better and the more decent thing to do than keeping disagreeing about what is the best solution.
How can you make such a claim, when you look at the state of many regions/countries in the world?
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I'm in Vancouver working remotely for an EU/US company because I couldn't get anything here. At $100k CAD, my partner and I wouldn't be able to afford a modest upgrade to a 1 bedroom condo... anywhere in the city (from a tiny basement studio) without significantly increasing our take home. The place I just visited would require $4000/m after a 20% down payment (which I don't have). If I double my savings in the next…
Back in the mid/late 90s Vancouver was affordable and a lot of flats being built. It was still more expensive that the suburbs, etc. but still cheaper than metros across the border. Sometime in the 2000s money started flowing in and those flats I was seeing in place like Kits for $150-$200k were suddenly going up a lot. Rents were also escalating. A lot seemed to be fueled by foreign money. I was looking at relocatin…
The suburbs around Vancouver gradually decrease in price a bit, but for obvious reasons and not enough to make much of a difference. It's like going from $750k for a 1 bedroom to $550k for a 1 bedroom and that's sort of the spread within reason; an absurd gap to be sure I don't mind them, but I'm just thinking about it terms of being able to stay in my community for once.
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It really isn't that simple, because again, no one really can say how it is so simple, merely that it is, somehow. Economists also talk about this point often, and they also can't agree, generally speaking, on how to, or even if to, reduce the inequality gap. The best solutions I've seen are land value taxes, inheritance and estate taxes, and taxes on loans backed by stock; and among the worst are unrealized capital…
Economists are part of the problem. When the rich are getting richer and the poor work their asses off and still get poorer, then just about any solution is better and the more decent thing to do than keeping disagreeing about what is the best solution.