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icantfindaname posted:the solution is socialized public housing. also nationalize everything else too. full communism now Honestly I'd settle for micro-apartments becoming more of a thing in the US. At this point I'd live in a closet with a mini fridge in one corner and a shitter in the other if it meant that I could get out of my parent's house and wouldn't need to rely on roommates.
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Feb 12, 2016 01:12
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Lacrosse posted:Re: Micro apartments, the reason people in Seattle hate them so much is because those 200 sq ft closet is going for $900+/mo. If they were actually affordable it wouldn't be an issue, but as it stands now a lot of people blame them for other rents in the area increasing. I'm not following this logic. How would adding more apartments (even lovely overpriced ones) make the rent on other more expensive properties go up? You'd think the opposite would happen because of increased competition and lower demand.
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Feb 12, 2016 16:33
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Radbot posted:Or features like formaldehyde in the drywall, and PVC pipes instead of copper ones. New buildings are by no means always better. Plus from what I hear (from older contractors) the general craftsmanship of new homes has slowly gone to poo poo over the past few decades as developers constantly try to find quicker and cheaper ways to get houses up.
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Feb 12, 2016 23:16
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AKA Pseudonym posted:So now that Trump has revealed himself to be a true blue protectionist why is the stock market still going up? Because investors are idiots and the stock market's ups and downs rarely have any basis in objective reality.
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Jan 25, 2017 03:53
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axeil posted:to be fair, people did this with obama too. people thought he was this super leftist even though in the guy's own book he talks about the importance of building consensus and working with political opponents to craft policy that may not be exactly what he wants but will still get the job done. Dude, his campaign slogan was "Hope and change" and he'd supported single payer in the past. It was hardly unreasonable to think he'd be at least a little more progressive than he turned out to be. Plus his campaign did very little to correct this misconception, which was kind of a dick move.
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Jan 27, 2017 18:10
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cheese posted:If this Wall happens and its an actual boondoggle (it will be a boondoggle), and an insane tariff affects the day to day life of Americans, Trump is going to get demolished in 2020 by whatever empty pantsuit the Democrats run. Book(er) it. On the flip side if the wall causes few problems other than being a money sink (not a huge issue considering how much we spend on bombs and such) and the trade war causes only negligible price increases while forcing even a few symbolic company's to relocate locally it could become the feather in his cap that rockets him into a second term. readingatwork fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jan 28, 2017 |
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Jan 28, 2017 01:43
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BrandorKP posted:No one who bothered to read his book should have been surprised. Paraphrased cause I gave my copy away: "I am going to disappoint them" and "I would have been a Republican in the eighties" Are things that are in there. He told everybody what he was. Anybody upset about him being exactly what he said he was is a bit daft. "Hey now. If you ignore all the lies told by both Obama and his surrogates before the election and look at these two lines from his book you could have easily deduced that he was going to stab you in the back on every meaningful issue. It's really the voters own fault for being so easily conned if you think about it."
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Jan 28, 2017 18:36
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BrandorKP posted:I got almost exactly what I wanted at the time voting for him. Wait. You wanted seven wars, an unaccountable financial sector and a surveillance state that knows every time you've picked your nose in the last decade?
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Jan 29, 2017 00:25
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asdf32 posted:For first world workers the consensus is that trade is probably a wash at worst. Got any sources on this? Because most people's actual experiences are the opposite.
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Jan 30, 2017 20:47
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SHY NUDIST GRRL posted:Well we had a constitutional crisis in a fraction of the time I expected so the recession is on track to happen this year. Economic repercussions always take a bit of time to manifest so my money is on 2-3 years from now. Though at the end of the day it will boil down to what he fucks with and when. If he keeps focusing on abusing immigrants for the next year or two it could be a bit further out than people think.
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Jan 31, 2017 17:24
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caps on caps on caps posted:trade is overall good against poverty Prove it.
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Feb 3, 2017 00:24
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Hey remember when globalization was going to make the middle class stronger because companies were going to open thousands of US factories so they could sell in newly opened foreign markets?
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Feb 7, 2017 19:04
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Mozi posted:Every system has benefitted the rich and powerful the most, but this is the first one that has the side effect of benefiting the poor as well. It's also the first to enrich the wealthy to this degree in addition to crushing the labor movement on a global scale. Oh! And it also made the wealthy elite international entities unaccountable to any one government. So that's pretty cool too.
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Feb 7, 2017 19:08
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Ytlaya posted:Like, it seems destined to average out to almost everyone except the super rich just being "normal poor" even if fewer people are literally starving in the streets. This assumes that the wealthy will stop robbing people once they've finished destroying the world's middle classes.
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Feb 7, 2017 19:22
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White Rock posted:Now people are recognizing that failure, and turning to populist nationalism and protectionism, which will fail Nobody HAS a solution, which is why people are desperately turning to alternatives Why is protectionism destined to fail? It may not be perfect but it was the normal way of doing business for centuries.
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Feb 7, 2017 19:53
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JeffersonClay posted:What do you mean by reasonable labor standards? Are you talking about 1st world occupational health and safety or wages? If it's just the former, there's still going to be a huge (if shrinking) wage differential. If it's both, then there's no functional difference between that and a tariff, except tariffs can at least theoretically get spent by the government on needed things. In any case, both of these policies would hurt the majority of the US poor because they will be forced to pay higher prices for goods and they won't see wage increases because they don't work in manufacturing. Should we burden the poor here with higher prices so that The poor elsewhere have better working conditions? I don't think there's an easy answer there. I think there's an easier case to be made for environmental regulations, just because the impacts are global. Wait. So now that we're talking about making companies treat foreign workers well we can't do it because it will hurt the US poor? I thought free trade was a charity designed to help Indonesian sweatshop laborers? Also is there any real evidence to suggest that the money people save in lower prices is greater than the money they loose due to decreased wages and benefits? Because I have yet to see any.
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Feb 8, 2017 00:38
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JeffersonClay posted:Yes there's a strong consensus among academic economists that the gains outweigh the losses. You've asserted this several times but I have yet to see you cite any real studies. At best you'll point to a poll that says "economists agree free trade good", which is probably true, but this isn't the same as an actual study showing "While free trade drives down wages X%, people save Y% in goods and services". Having the later is important since it lets me look at the data and determine if the economist in question is blowing smoke up our asses. quote:Our safety net is bad, and theirs is far worse. Protectionism would exacerbate both problems. OK I'm going to make you explain this one. How does protectionism make the safety net worse? If anything the opposite is true in that free trade let's capital move wherever it pleases in order to avoid paying it's fair share in wages and taxes. EDIT: ISeeCuckedPeople posted:YOU. JUST. NEED. TO. REDISTRIBUTE. THE. WEALTH. Good luck getting the That aside, even IF you can get some redistribution done you still have the issue of labor being crippled by this arrangement. You MIGHT have something somewhat tenable in the long term if you truly opened up all borders and let workers move, work, and unionize across nations, thus allowing individuals to move to where the jobs and benefits are best. However that solution itself has problems (the wealthy still have too much bargaining power and long term communities will no longer exist), and for many very obvious reasons it's not going to happen anyways (xenophobia, culture clash, the wealthy not wanting international unions, etc). readingatwork fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Feb 8, 2017 |
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Feb 8, 2017 03:41
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asdf32 posted:Brexit A decision that only existed because the political class put it in front of people in the first place in some weird attempt to give the EU public legitimacy. Had they known that the people might choose to leave the vote would have happened. So it's not the greatest example. Plus you can argue that the reason brexit won was because people were frustrated with their lack of power in global affairs.
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Feb 8, 2017 16:41
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MiddleOne posted:Uh, Reagan? Thatcher? Nixon? TRUMP????? The power of the middle class isn't zero but it's not exactly high either. Most economic policies happen in spite of public opinion rather than because of it. For example, no one making under 6 figures was clamoring for NAFTA, but it happened anyways.
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Feb 8, 2017 16:52
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Oakland Martini posted:Speaking of NAFTA, the poorest households actually benefit the most from NAFTA and other free trade agreements with poorer countries because they disproportionately consume cheap, imported goods. Consequently, protectionist trade policies, e.g. Trump's border adjustment tax proposal, hurt poor families the most. So we've decimated unions and the middle class and made the rich wealthier than they've ever been so the poor can save 8% a year? Also if Trump's plan actually brings back manufacturing how much will these people gain in increased wages? I never see that part of the equation dealt with. readingatwork fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Feb 8, 2017 |
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Feb 8, 2017 17:34
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JeffersonClay posted:Less spending and more saving wasn't some happy byproduct of the recession, it was a cause of the recession. What unholy orifice are you pulling this from? The cause of the recession was widespread fraud among the investor classes where they went out of their way to make lovely loans, mix them with good loans, and then sell them off before they whole thing exploded taking down both the good and bad loans together. "Consumer saving" has literally nothing to do with it.
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Feb 14, 2017 02:39
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JeffersonClay posted:Looks like we got a lot better at mitigating recessions after ww2. That's because we regulated the banks in the aftermath of the Great Depression.
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Feb 16, 2017 00:32
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OhFunny posted:Christ. He's going to tear apart the whole international trade system down. Good.
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Mar 2, 2017 05:45
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Crowsbeak posted:Either it brings back manufacturing or causes another world wide depression which he gets blamed for. Plus it will cost rich people a lot of money, which is always nice.
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Mar 2, 2017 06:03
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Squalid posted:If you might ever have reason to buy a car, or telephone, or microwave, or refrigerator, or an a/c, a trade war will cost you a lot of money. I rent so three of those aren't an issue and I can downgrade my phone and car the next time I'm buying if necessary. I'll be fine, as will most people making under seven figures. Also I seriously doubt that prices would go up all that much. Labor is expensive but it's only so much of the cost of a product. Remember, before NAFTA in the 90s we had much more restrictive trade policies but people still had TVs and the like. Plus people made more because they didn't have to compete with third world sweatshops where people make $2 an hour.
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Mar 2, 2017 06:46
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Orange Devil posted:Is your thesis here that the people making over seven figures will not be fine? They won't starve, but they will loose a bunch of the money they've been making by artificially pushing the price of labor down. Paradoxish posted:Yes, it's definitely the middle and lower classes that are well positioned to absorb fiscal shocks, said no one ever. If manufacturing comes back and (more importantly) unions can flex their power again the lower and middle classes will make more money which would allow them to absorb any price increases. JeffersonClay posted:Wrong, these costs will directly affect your rent. How? Rent seems far more affected by speculation in the housing market and supply shortages than anything else right now. Or is the difference between a $500 apartment in South Dakota and the exact same apartment in Cali for $2500 caused by South Dakota apartment companies buying their materials from Mexico? quote:Wrong, You might be fine with less, but that doesn't mean every other non-millionaire doesn't care about losing purchasing power you solipsistic poo poo. Having a decent paying job is more important than cheap TVs. Until the left grasps this they will continue to lose elections. quote:Wrong, cheap labor is not the only reason trade leads to lower prices. Such as? quote:Wrong, before NAFTA we had free trade agreements with dozens of countries. Yes I know. I have no problem with trade as an abstract concept. My gripe is with the way trade has been used over the past several decades as a way to enrich the wealthy while robing labor of any ability to fight capital.
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Mar 2, 2017 15:19
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Crowsbeak posted:It might be that they are worse than conservatives at least conservatives admit they want people to suffer. No they're definitely worse. At least conservatives acknowledge that problems exist. Dr. Fishopolis posted:You see, people who live in shanties could simply move if only they had the will. Perhaps the poor are lazy and simply prefer not to work? Yeah, that bugged the crap out of me too. Where are these poors supposed to get the money to move all their stuff halfway across the country? Once there how do they find work when shelters are full, they have no connections, and many businesses won't hire someone without a permanent address? Then, once they get their Wallmart greeter gig how are they supposed to afford an apartment when min wage gets you less than half of what you need to survive in many states? But hey some poor bastard in Bangladesh has it worse so those problems don't count I guess.
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Mar 3, 2017 21:07
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This is a great interview. My only real gripe is with the attitude that we can't actually change policy now because of retaliation. gently caress that pussy bullshit. America is an economic behemoth and most countries would get crushed if they tried to play that game.
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Mar 3, 2017 21:34
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Honestly they should just increase Social Security payments up to a guaranteed living wage (including poor people who didn't make a lot over their lives) so that retirement planning is about making your senior years nicer rather than desperately trying to avoid dying in poverty.
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Mar 8, 2017 15:56
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call to action posted:So do people looking to have kids these days just not care that their kids will probably never work a "real" job, or...? Most people don't make their babbymaking decisions based on a hypothetical job market twenty years in the future.
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Apr 10, 2017 20:06
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:Lol if you think most baby decisions are more than "I'm tired of all these contraceptives and I'm married/in a relationship anyways, we'll see what happens" "Well it's just what you do at this point in life." call to action posted:Maybe they should, it's not really a hypothetical that the job market in 20 years is going to be a disaster for those unlucky enough to be born with the right resources/skills/connections Counterpoint: Kids are a valuable resource and support system for when people get older so asking people not to have children could hurt them in the long run. Also, its impractical to expect people to die alone just because the economy MIGHT be rough when the kids get out of college. That's just not how people operate. A better idea would be to demand that the government do its loving job and support more than just the top 10%.
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Apr 10, 2017 22:35
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BrandorKP posted:Appealing to the consensus of reasonable experts is a different beast than an appeal to authority. You might have a point if economics wasn't such a laughably corrupt and terrible field.
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Apr 11, 2017 19:25
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Confounding Factor posted:and productivity is way down, despite everyone claiming they are working so hard Mmmmmhmmm...  shrike82 posted:It's kinda true about immigrants though. Yes, constantly being a heartbeat away from abject poverty/deportation will do that to you.
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Apr 13, 2017 02:30
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Subjunctive posted:Why 12-18 months? Because we tend to get a recession every decade or so.
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Jun 25, 2017 22:30
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