981–990 of 1001 posts
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I'd say the bottom 50% live much more prosperously in Denmark than in the US.
The population of Denmark is lower than the Bay Area. Some things are just easier with a small population and land area and relatively homogenous population.
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So much this. We've see this over and over. If we get more productive the rentiers take it. We need to squash the rentier starting with land value tax. And stop taxing labour. Then you have the true choice because you can achieve financial autonomy through work and then tell the man where he can stick his job if he refuses to pass on enough of your value added. Cheaper land will see less people forced to work which w…
I think BI could mean the end of homes as an asset class. Mortgages will become a super low risk loan meaning that interest rates will go through the floor, in turn making home ownership supremely affordable. If everyone can afford a mortgage then why would anyone rent?
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Instead of Universal Basic Income, how about Universal Basic Food Stamps? It feels like, rather than a basic income, we need two orthogonal currencies: one for necessities (food, rent, utilities) and one for niceities. Everyone would just have two numbers in their bank account, for each of the country's two official currencies. Basic income would be paid in one, while all income from trade in the economy would be in…
It feels like, rather than a basic income, we need two orthogonal currencies: one for necessities (food, rent, utilities) and one for niceities. Everyone would just have two numbers in their bank account, for each of the country's two official currencies. Basic income would be paid in one, while all income from trade in the economy would be in the other. I think this would be bad, as you limit a persons ability to ch…
Money is a good way to avoid abject poverty, but it doesn't give poor people freedom, because poverty for most is a matter of education and socialisation. Basic income can pay your bills and put a roof over your head, but it won't create opportunity.
Nor will free markets. Left to its own unregulated devices, no form of social organisation is quite so good at destroying economic freedom for most of the population as a laissez-faire zero-regulation regime.
Most of the civilised world has affordable health care precisely because it offers financial freedoms that market-based "solutions" reliably try to destroy. The cost of health insurance in the US is literally crippling. It's a prime driver of personal bankruptcy, it makes would-be entrepreneurs think more than twice about setting up - and none of this is an issue in countries where public health care is available.
Likewise with student loans. Who has more freedom - a student with $100k of debt, or a student with no debt?
Who benefits from a generation of students with huge debt burdens? It's certainly not the students.
The real road to prosperity and economic freedom is a regulated market in a broadly prosperous economy with minimal cost of entry for entrepreneurs. That means easy and cheap access to investment funding, plenty of high quality blue sky government-funded seed R&D, a strong culture of academic research and independence, serious investment in public infrastructure, a broad variety of independent media, free unrationed access to world class educational resources, and seed level support for entrepreneurs and business creators from all social backgrounds.
It doesn't mean the "freedom" that makes the proverbial 1% extremely rich while everyone else's economic and personal freedoms are diminished.
Reducing or at best completely doing away with the necessity for people to travel to a place of work (both commuting and one-off business trips), i.e. solving the problem of cultural aversion to remote work that still is prevalent in most work environments, particularly - of all things - in Silicon Valley startups. Why is it that the world's brightest minds apparently still haven't solved the problem of physical location? Why do I have to be in a tremendously expensive location like San Francisco if I want to start a Silicon Valley kind of startup?
Solving the problem of commuting / requirement of being at a physical location at a particular time potentially could free up so many resources for both people and companies (which wouldn't have to pay office rent in an expensive area of town anymore) that funding a basic income would be cinch.
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Housing is almost impossible to fix at this point. Housing is seen more as an asset class than a social requirement (although, not everyone thinks this way there are enough people with money that it doesn't matter what they think, it is an asset class). The majority of the issues you highlight are caused by the amount of capital moving into real estate and the amount of resistance to change is directly proportional t…
A thought experiment: What about building a new city in the middle of nowhere, with the sole goal of extremely reducing living costs , and designing the laws specifically for that ,including making housing costs extremely cheap?
From there, I think you'd want a few things: - Henry George-style taxation by the local city on land values - Maximize the place:non-place ratio. Maximize space for parks, buildings, plazas and minimize space for parking lots, roads for cars etc. - Small lot sizes, row houses, and 4-6 story apartment buildings with excellent noise insulation - Dense enough so that cars are not necessary most of the time. Saves lots of land and the costs of operating cars
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I have chronic fatigue that, until treated, was quite disabling. I have some other more private health concerns that add up to about twice my rent. If you have a chronic health condition, access to health care is a major and fundamental concern: I just left a job that was killing me, and am temporarily unemployed, and COBRA with a $500 premium is my cheapest option by far. If I hadn't spent the last year saving as mu…
Why isn't buying a subsidized ACA policy an option?
Either way I had a $2500 out of pocket max on my old plan that I usually met in January. $6k a year in premiums + $2500 out of pocket + some out of network costs is a relatively palatable deal.
"What can startups do to increase prosperity for everyone?" I think cheap quality housing is a huge area that would help everyone. Taxes and housing together eat up the vast majority of the earnings most people make. What could make a difference? - applying technology to building denser housing. for example, imagine cheap robotic excavation, so every house and building could bury all their parking lots and long term…
Regardless of basic income, fixing housing is super important since it's one of the biggest drains on everyone's income and the fixed nature of it suggests that just giving everyone more money will cause a lot of that money to just end up in landlord's pockets. I think a lot of the change must be policy change though and cannot be purely free-market oriented since there is a public interest in seeing more housing sto…
Are they not providing a valuable service? I mean you say this as if it's blatantly obvious that this is a negative consequence.
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I was thinking about that, and about the story of Ferguson Missouri, where some huge portion of the (largely African American) population had arrest warrants over petty fines that had blossomed through late fees and default judgements into financial catastrophes levied by the (largely middle class white) municipal government, with the last few suggestions.
Instead of Universal Basic Income, how about Universal Basic Food Stamps? It feels like, rather than a basic income, we need two orthogonal currencies: one for necessities (food, rent, utilities) and one for niceities. Everyone would just have two numbers in their bank account, for each of the country's two official currencies. Basic income would be paid in one, while all income from trade in the economy would be in…
1. Buy allowed item with necessity dollars.
2. Merchant credited with nicety dollars.
3. Return item to merchant.
4. Receive refund as X% of the nicety dollars.
1. Buy $X banana with necessity dollars.
2. Merchant credited with nicety dollars.
3. Give $Y rebate card to merchant.
4. Receive rebate in nicety dollars.
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I'm truly sorry to hear that. I don't see why narcolepsy should be a problem, especially in our area. I mean sure, meetings and stuff like that might be harder to do, but our industry is/should be lenient to things like office hours. There have been tons of times where I go to the office at "late hours" (e.g. 1+ PM), and as long as I turn in my deliverables on time (or let my lead know I won't be able to), there is n…
I don't see why narcolepsy should be a problem, especially in our area. I mean sure, meetings and stuff like that might be harder to do, but our industry is/should be lenient to things like office hours. I blame scrum. Or, more specifically, people who drink the cool-aid and don't understand the actual purpose. I've interviewed at I-don't-even-remember-how-many companies that claim to offer extremely flexible hours,…
Congratulations, you have now saved 10 minutes per day for everyone in the office. Oops, now they have to come up with some other reason for everyone to be physically present at 9 AM sharp.
"Flexible hours" have always been BS at almost every company I have worked for.
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You know those capsule hotels in Japan? I could easily see the same thing being implemented, except as appartments, in the US. - You get there, strip down, leave your stuff in a locker, put a clean bathrobe on. - Go to your room to sleep, browse the web on a tablet, watch a movie. - Go to one of the many restaurants to eat a breakfast, lunch or dinner. - Go to one of the many theatre rooms, to watch a movie, watch a…
Those capsule hotels aren't meant for long-term occupancy. Such extreme confinement may be a dream for you but I think most people would consider it torture. Nevertheless, I do think it's worth trying as temporary housing. I certainly might be willing to drop into one for a night or two if I had a job interview somewhere.
- Freedom to come and go at will
- Security for personal possessions
- Safety for all occupants
- Affordable price with utilities
- Permanent mailing address
It may well be that renting your own coffin is psychologically better than borrowing someone else's couch, or camping out somewhere. But once you've been in it for a while, you're eventually going to want enough room to stretch out without banging into a wall.
If you reduce your maximum occupancy by a factor of 32 on the same floor area, you would probably increase duration of tenancy from days or weeks to years.