541–550 of 817 posts
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> It has nothing to do with spending money without raising taxes. Where do you think Biden's trillions in extra spending is coming from? Not from raising taxes.
The US has been deficit spending basically every year since 1929. Its impact on inflation is pretty questionable. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=Tk32
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> Our local businesses don't have enough workers due to unattainable housing. due to not paying enough
There is no workforce. It's not a matter of paying more, it's a lack of workers aka families. The average age of someone living on Cape Cod has increased every year for decades. The cost of housing after COVID went from "unreasonable" to "insane". Local businesses and towns are throwing money at the few young people still here in an attempt to recruit workers but there just isn't enough to handle the scale up for sum…
Because they are not paying them enough- hence the need for J1 workers
Very difficult to change because, in the "Pax Neoliberalia" world we live in, profits are Sacrosanct - and the higher the capital concentration, the holier so. But some straightforward fixes: 1. Flood the market with affordable state housing, Austria-style - with the bonus of building new, boosting the national economy. 2. Create very progressive (rapidly rising) taxes based on property value - making untenable the c…
Inflation is not the result of profits, gouging, etc. It's the result of funding the deficit by running the printing press. (Or the modern equivalent, creating debt backed by nothing.) The proof is the observation that endemic inflation only happens in countries with fiat money systems.
More generally anything that increases the money supply. Non-fiat monetary systems have suffered from inflation due to debasement of the currency or an influx of precious metals use to create coins (e.g. when gold from the new world flooded the Spanish economy).
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I would argue the Canadian one of Ottawa. Ottawa isn't cheap, but it is not anywhere near Toronto or Vancouver.
Right, it really should say anchor cities and not capital IMO. Those may coincide sometimes, but not always.
Does anyone know other good reads to get a better understanding?
[1] https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/at/Documents/...
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The problem in the US is pretty obvious. We are the time period where the largest generation of Americans (the boomers) are at the retirement, or about to retire point, at the same time the Zoomers, which are a decent sized generation, are entering the housing market. Over the next several decades as the boomers die off or move to retirement homes the housing supply will increase substantially, and the value of prope…
I see the same cause, but to me Boomers aren't limiting supply as much as many are relying on passive income to maintain luxury lifestyles. When they downsize, they're going to move to retirement homes that have $4-6K/mo rents at the midrange. As they die, and pass on their property, their kids will just retire young and rents will still rise, along with the prices of luxury goods. I'll believe that house prices are…
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Actually I listened to an interesting talk yesterday by Peter Zeihan, just discovered he has some interesting ideas. One of his theories is that the reason we have globalization isn't economic but it was rather America's attempt to win and keep allies during the cold war. You could participate in a global world trade network and economy (kept safe and maintained by American military might) as long as you were willing…
combine that with fossil fuels making transportation too cheap for their real environmental costs; agree
Yes, the situation is dire. I live in Lisbon as a foreigner for more than 12 years now. We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city. Luckily, we have an older contract that cannot be changed as easily as newer ones. I'm not thrilled by the possibility that our landlord might cancel it some day, however, e.g. for relatives to move in. Rents in t…
Airbnb and uber for all their benefits have taken away a lot of urban planning capabilities of local govts. At the same time, they expose the general unwillingness of local govts to accomodate the need of the population or those who bring in economic value (tourists, transplants). If you are becoming a tourist hub, then create an off-town tourist area and add a convenient transit line/people mover to the central part…
Hotels are usually limited because they are unpleasant neighbors for actual residents. It’s not really a surprise that’s the main issue people have with AirBnB rentals.
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> The nice thing about indoor space is that we can make pretty much as much of it as we'd like. What? Have you ever been in Lisbon? The city is pretty dense as it is. You could mostly just build higher, and that has its limits too, depending on the structure and foundation. Adding more housing outside the core of the city might not be attractive enough. And increasing the density of people also means you need to incr…
40 story skyscrapers with apartments in the city center should solve the issue.