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Fixing America

acbytesla

Penultimate Amazing
Joined
Dec 14, 2012
Messages
36,570
There are lots of problems that need to be addressed. There always are and there always will be. But I'm convinced addressing one of them will go a long ways in addressing many of them. That problem is affordable housing.

We can get people off the street if they can afford rent. Inexpensive housing will make American employees less expensive to hire. It will make it more desirable for companies to manufacture in the US than abroad.

I know, easier said than done. But it's a lot easier than people think. We need to start by eliminating zoning laws that restrict mult-mamily building and MIL apartments and increase public transit. Millions of homes and apartments must be added to the market.
 
The fundamental problem is America's access to a huge military, making it always possible to avoid dealing with problems at home by trying to fix problems abroad - militarily.
As a result, Americans have started to think that problems at home need to be solved the way problems abroad are- hence the militarization of the police, protection of powerful individuals aligned with the State in disregard for the rule of law, and the constant propaganda war to keep the population fighting each other or minorities rather than those in power: it's called The Colonial Boomerang.

True change is not possible while Americans can be told that they don't have to change, because they have the power to change the world to make it serve their needs.
 
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The fundamental problem is America's access to a huge military, making it always possible to avoid dealing with problems at home by trying to fix problems abroad - militarily.
As a result, Americans have started to think that problems at home need to be solved the way problems abroad are- hence the militarization of the police, protection of powerful individuals aligned with the State in disregard for the rule of law, and the constant propaganda war to keep the population fighting each other or minorities rather than those in power: it's called The Colonial Boomerang.

True change is not possible while Americans can be told that they don't have to change, because they have the power to change the world to make it serve their needs.
I'm not sure I buy that. But I do agree that the US has a bloated military budget. We have many systemic issues that make change difficult.
 
Beyond voting, people do not get involved much in poltics. They just assume big money controls everyhting and we can just sort of ignore it all and live out our simple lives between elections.

That thinking will never get us proper public transporatation. Therefore all the homes and cities we build will all be dicatated by cars.

I noted recently in Denver CO and St Louis MO they have strange little stip malls appearing in suburbia. They have restaurants and stores that sell useless crap, home goods and maybe hobby stuff. Yet they try to build it somehow like a European shopping district, where you walk in the outdoor mall. Yet, there are cars there, and they clutter the streets first and then the smallish lots scattered around the edges, where the people in the evening fill up the lots and have dinner and maybe some entertainmnet, a movie theater somewhere in one corner of the development.

No bus will take you there.

All built around the car. I went to Omaha to hear Tim Walz in a little concert arena there, with all those stores around it, but on two sides of a busy road. People would move cars to shop the both sides. Ringo appeared in the arena a month after Walz.
 
As for getting more housing built, hell that's easy: make it worth somebody's while, as in profitable. Tax breaks, subsidies, cheap loans, all the usual carrots. Zoning difficulties? Make 'em go away with federal development grants to the cities that need help (they all do, just ask them).

The US's gargantuan wealth is there to be tapped. When the faucet is opened even just a little, you'll be astounded by all the thirsty mouths crowding under it -- not liberal or progressive or socialist mouths, but rock-ribbed Rpublican bidnessman mouths. And why not?

(No no, General, you can't have any more 12th generation fighters now! Stop clinging! Later, we'll let you have a lovely new tank. Won't that be nice?)
 
There are lots of problems that need to be addressed. There always are and there always will be. But I'm convinced addressing one of them will go a long ways in addressing many of them. That problem is affordable housing.

We can get people off the street if they can afford rent. Inexpensive housing will make American employees less expensive to hire. It will make it more desirable for companies to manufacture in the US than abroad.

I know, easier said than done. But it's a lot easier than people think. We need to start by eliminating zoning laws that restrict mult-mamily building and MIL apartments and increase public transit. Millions of homes and apartments must be added to the market.
This kind of socialism will never fly in America, how does any of this benefit the rich and holders of capital in general. Remember as a capitalistic country capital is the king of all and this is better than socialism or communism.
 
As for getting more housing built, hell that's easy: make it worth somebody's while, as in profitable. Tax breaks, subsidies, cheap loans, all the usual carrots. Zoning difficulties? Make 'em go away with federal development grants to the cities that need help (they all do, just ask them).

The US's gargantuan wealth is there to be tapped. When the faucet is opened even just a little, you'll be astounded by all the thirsty mouths crowding under it -- not liberal or progressive or socialist mouths, but rock-ribbed Rpublican bidnessman mouths. And why not?

(No no, General, you can't have any more 12th generation fighters now! Stop clinging! Later, we'll let you have a lovely new tank. Won't that be nice?)
no, that is the worst way to do it. That way, you are just shovelling money at property developers, as has been the case for decades. It's how both Trump and Trump senior made most of their money.

make massive public housing projects, and rent at the very low end of the market - this kills tow bords with one stone: provide housing and force the other landlords to lower their rents to stay in business.
Plenty of European cities have figures this out.
It's cheaper than subsidies, creates wealth and a steady income for the city, makes it attractive or people and companies. In every sector, there should be a state-run alternative to the private sector.
 
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This kind of socialism will never fly in America, how does any of this benefit the rich and holders of capital in general. Remember as a capitalistic country capital is the king of all and this is better than socialism or communism.
One of the things that infuriates me most about current capitalism isn't the greed of the super-wealthy, it's their short-sightedness. If they weren't so impatient for maximum gains ASAP now now now now, they could end up with more while letting things operate at a reasonable pace in a reasonable way. Forcing a company to operate recklessly and slash their workforce or lower quality to get a single quarter return of 20% then go under is idiotic when they could let the company operate sensibly for the long term and return 5% this quarter, and next, and next, and next, and go on for years and years. They'd get more in the long run if they could just be patient! But these people are chopping down young fruit trees for the firewood instead of letting them grow into orchards that would bear much more valuable crops of fruit for hundreds of years. Impatience is a kind of stupidity, and in a smart would people would never be impatient with investment.
 
no, that is the worst way to do it. That way, you are just shovelling money at property developers, as has been the case for decades. It's how both Trump and Trump senior made most of their money.

make massive public housing projects, and rent at the very low end of the market - this kills tow bords with one stone: provide housing and force the other landlords to lower their rents to stay in business.
Plenty of European cities have figures this out.
It's cheaper than subsidies, creates wealth and a steady income for the city, makes it attractive or people and companies. In every sector, there should be a state-run alternative to the private sector.
Look that would undermine the value of too many peoples houses and be politically unacceptable. Boomers would rather their grandkids be homeless than lose value on their homes.
 
no, that is the worst way to do it. That way, you are just shovelling money at property developers, as has been the case for decades. It's how both Trump and Trump senior made most of their money.

Who is shoving money at property developers? If it's a willing market, then this is certainly the way to go. Government just makes things worse.

make massive public housing projects,
Please, no.
 
Look that would undermine the value of too many peoples houses and be politically unacceptable. Boomers would rather their grandkids be homeless than lose value on their homes.
Ugh, and that's another thing that irritates me: that so many people use their homes as investments. They shouldn't be: homes should be for living in, ideally large chunks of/the majority of a person's wealth wouldn't be their home. Sadly that isn't the case. And yes, I know it's not everybody's fault, most people can't help but use their home as an investment because they don't have the means to do otherwise. But it's still a bad thing IMO. It causes people to make foolish and sometimes downright evil policy choices because they have to protect the assumed dollar value of their house.
 
and now post all the cases where private real estate developers have built overpriced broken deathtraps -
no?

guess you weren't serious, then.
If they actually did that, then they likely faced legal consequences. When the government does it, no one is ever held responsible. Incentives, my dude.
 
no, that is the worst way to do it. That way, you are just shovelling money at property developers, as has been the case for decades. It's how both Trump and Trump senior made most of their money.

make massive public housing projects, and rent at the very low end of the market - this kills tow bords with one stone: provide housing and force the other landlords to lower their rents to stay in business.
Plenty of European cities have figures this out.
It's cheaper than subsidies, creates wealth and a steady income for the city, makes it attractive or people and companies. In every sector, there should be a state-run alternative to the private sector.
There's another thing you need to do to ensure the highlighted emulates the best European developments, make sure they are mixed income developments. If they're only available for the poor in society they will be neglected and become unliveable. But with a mixture of social classes in them they'll have a good chance of succeeding.
 
One of the things that infuriates me most about current capitalism isn't the greed of the super-wealthy, it's their short-sightedness. If they weren't so impatient for maximum gains ASAP now now now now, they could end up with more while letting things operate at a reasonable pace in a reasonable way. Forcing a company to operate recklessly and slash their workforce or lower quality to get a single quarter return of 20% then go under is idiotic when they could let the company operate sensibly for the long term and return 5% this quarter, and next, and next, and next, and go on for years and years. They'd get more in the long run if they could just be patient! But these people are chopping down young fruit trees for the firewood instead of letting them grow into orchards that would bear much more valuable crops of fruit for hundreds of years. Impatience is a kind of stupidity, and in a smart would people would never be impatient with investment.
That's the inevitable end state for any capitalist society. Short-termism rules in any system that is set up only to satisfy the owners of capital.
 
As for getting more housing built, hell that's easy: make it worth somebody's while, as in profitable. Tax breaks, subsidies, cheap loans, all the usual carrots. Zoning difficulties? Make 'em go away with federal development grants to the cities that need help (they all do, just ask them).

The US's gargantuan wealth is there to be tapped. When the faucet is opened even just a little, you'll be astounded by all the thirsty mouths crowding under it -- not liberal or progressive or socialist mouths, but rock-ribbed Rpublican bidnessman mouths. And why not?

(No no, General, you can't have any more 12th generation fighters now! Stop clinging! Later, we'll let you have a lovely new tank. Won't that be nice?)
How do grants make zoning issues go away? Also, it often congressmen not the generals clamoring or defense spending. Can't have that base or defense related factory closing in my district after all.

As for all of you clamoring for defense cuts, well, first you have to negotiation our way out of all those treaties that require us to defend half the world.

In terms of actually budget, sorry but we also need to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and social security, and the military and raise taxes. But again, sorry, not just on the rich, they don't have enough money, its got to be on everyone. Let's do it the way every other country does, a VAT.

 
There's a topic for a separate thread, for sure. But you'll need to bring a train load of specifics.
Its been done, on this board, mostly bad ideas, one of the reasons it won't happen. The "fixes" with the most popular support will almost certainly be worse than the problems.
 
One of the things that infuriates me most about current capitalism isn't the greed of the super-wealthy, it's their short-sightedness. If they weren't so impatient for maximum gains ASAP now now now now, they could end up with more while letting things operate at a reasonable pace in a reasonable way. Forcing a company to operate recklessly and slash their workforce or lower quality to get a single quarter return of 20% then go under is idiotic when they could let the company operate sensibly for the long term and return 5% this quarter, and next, and next, and next, and go on for years and years. They'd get more in the long run if they could just be patient! But these people are chopping down young fruit trees for the firewood instead of letting them grow into orchards that would bear much more valuable crops of fruit for hundreds of years. Impatience is a kind of stupidity, and in a smart would people would never be impatient with investment.
I worked for Boeing. That's what happened there.
 
One of the things that infuriates me most about current capitalism isn't the greed of the super-wealthy, it's their short-sightedness. If they weren't so impatient for maximum gains ASAP now now now now, they could end up with more while letting things operate at a reasonable pace in a reasonable way. Forcing a company to operate recklessly and slash their workforce or lower quality to get a single quarter return of 20% then go under is idiotic when they could let the company operate sensibly for the long term and return 5% this quarter, and next, and next, and next, and go on for years and years. They'd get more in the long run if they could just be patient! But these people are chopping down young fruit trees for the firewood instead of letting them grow into orchards that would bear much more valuable crops of fruit for hundreds of years. Impatience is a kind of stupidity, and in a smart would people would never be impatient with investment.
Yes, exactly!

It is capitalism killing the golden goose. One of the most important driving force in the economy is consumerism. By demanding an overwhelming piece of the pie, they are eliminating the ability of the middle class and poor to consume at levels they use to. This drives down demand. Wealthy people do not spend at the rates that the poor and middle class do. They also spend it on boutique one off products that poorly contribute to the economy. A 400 million dollar yacht is an extremely poor contribution to the economy. So is a 100 million dollar high rise apartment in Manhattan. Or a 40 million dollar G5. The money flips too slowly.

The purchasing habits of a singular wealthy person does not help the economy as well as 400 middle class people.
 
There are lots of problems that need to be addressed. There always are and there always will be. But I'm convinced addressing one of them will go a long ways in addressing many of them. That problem is affordable housing.

We can get people off the street if they can afford rent. Inexpensive housing will make American employees less expensive to hire. It will make it more desirable for companies to manufacture in the US than abroad.

I know, easier said than done. But it's a lot easier than people think. We need to start by eliminating zoning laws that restrict mult-mamily building and MIL apartments and increase public transit. Millions of homes and apartments must be added to the market.
We can get working people off the street if they can afford rent. The simplest and best way to do that is to build more housing for whoever can pay for new housing. The more housing there is, the more cheap housing there is. But this only applies to people who can hold down a job and pay rent.

What do you do to get people off the street, who are too insane, or too committed to their addiction, to hold down a job and pay rent? Here in Portland, we either encourage them to camp on the street, which is bad for everyone, or we house them with people who can hold down a job and pay rent, which is even worse for everyone.
 
Its been done, on this board, mostly bad ideas, one of the reasons it won't happen. The "fixes" with the most popular support will almost certainly be worse than the problems.

How much is wrong with the US constitution? The US has been operating under the same constitution longer than any other country that has a written one. The only glitches it has presently are the electoral college and the 2A, and of those the former can be neutralized by legislation and the latter by regulation -- although the constitution contains brief, adequate instructions on how to amend it. All in all, the US constitution is one of the best things the good old Age of Reason ever produced.

OT out, clear ether
 
One of the things that infuriates me most about current capitalism isn't the greed of the super-wealthy, it's their short-sightedness. If they weren't so impatient for maximum gains ASAP now now now now, they could end up with more while letting things operate at a reasonable pace in a reasonable way. Forcing a company to operate recklessly and slash their workforce or lower quality to get a single quarter return of 20% then go under is idiotic when they could let the company operate sensibly for the long term and return 5% this quarter, and next, and next, and next, and go on for years and years. They'd get more in the long run if they could just be patient! But these people are chopping down young fruit trees for the firewood instead of letting them grow into orchards that would bear much more valuable crops of fruit for hundreds of years. Impatience is a kind of stupidity, and in a smart would people would never be impatient with investment.
"In the long run we are all dead" - John Maynard Keynes

Everybody is short-sighted, but some are more short-sighted than others. A business owner who pushes for 'maximum gains ASAP now now now now' will probably kill the business and end up worse off - as you say. OTOH one who doesn't push for anything will probably also end up worse off. The trick is to find the right balance, and let capitalism do its magic. To become insanely rich you don't have to play the long game, but you do have keep building. Start early and grow your wealth until you hit the big time, then keep going.

For example you could start at age 12 learning how to code on a cheap home computer like the Spectravideo SV-328. Write a game in BASIC and send the listing to a magazine, who pays you $500 for it. This gives you a taste of what you could earn as a programmer.

So you hone your skills during your teen years, then at age 24 (in 1995 when the internet is just starting to enter the home) you get an idea for an online service similar to the Yellow Pages. You start a company with your brother and another guy who's willing to put up $8000. You combine a free Navteq database with a Palo Alto business database, and go looking for clients. Before long you have dozens of cities in the system, and more investors interested.

Then you hit the bigtime. You get $3 million in investments, and strike deals with The New York Times, Knight Ridder, and Hearst Corporation. By 1998 you have 160 newspapaers on board, and then in 1999 Compaq Computer takes an interest in your business. They pay $305 million for it, and your share comes to $22 million. Yay, you're now a multimillionaire before your'e 30! Time to stop working and put your fortune into a safe investent so you can live the rest of your life in quiet luxury, right?

No, that's thinking way too small. Now you have enough money to sink into larger ventures. You use $12 miilion to create an online banking system, again getting other investors onboard to grow the business. Soon it's become the preferred way of paying on eBay, who decide they need control of it so they purchase the company for $1.5 billion, of which you get $175 million. Billionaire status is now in sight!

Now you have more money than you know what to do with. But you have some ideas. You and a freind get the crazy idea of sending stuff to Mars, and try to buy a cheap rocket from Russia. This doesn't pan out though, so you start your own rocket company from scratch - hoping to provide commercial launch services. You also discover a small startup attempting to convert expensive sports cars to electric. "Cool", you say, "The world needs to get off fossil fuels and I want to help with that!". Before you know it you've poured everything you have into two very risky ventures. No turning back now, it's do or die...

But what do you get in the end? $22 million is plenty, why keep going when you don't need insane wealth? Because it's often not just - or even - about the money. If it was then you would just quietly amass more while enjoying a life of luxury. You won't achieve anything great, but also won't get in the news and have half the world screaming about how immoral you are for not squandering any money you come across. But that would be short-sighted.

True visionaries look beyond what they have and push for a better future, even though it may be risky. If they are smart they may achieve things nobody though possible - things that could make life better for everyone, but nobody else had the drive and initiative to make real. But they can't do that without money - insane amounts of it. Any large corporation must - by its very nature - be worth an insane amount. If you have a large piece of it then you will also will be insanely rich - at least on paper. That's how capitalism works. If you want control of the busuiness then you have to own it.

The most 'valuable' car company in the World right now currently has a market cap of US$1.24 trillion. Imagine if you had 22% of that (oops, only 13% now 'coz you needed money to buy Twitter, and the stock options you were supposed to get for growing the company more than 10x were blocked by an opportunist invester with only 9 shares. Just as well you have other businesses because despite being the 'richest man in the world' you have received zero compensation from the company you poured half your fortune into). Imagine if you had poured your heart and soul into doing vitally important work, only to be excoriated and worse for being a selfish bastard billionaire.

In truth, the vast majority of short-sighted selfish bastards are smaller investors looking to make 'maximum gains ASAP now now now now' on the stock market, who have no interest in what the companies they are 'investing' in do apart from how it affects the stock price. Pump it up, sell high and buy low, move on to another one when it implodes - who cares about the harm. But nobody's talking about them.
.
 
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We can get working people off the street if they can afford rent. The simplest and best way to do that is to build more housing for whoever can pay for new housing. The more housing there is, the more cheap housing there is. But this only applies to people who can hold down a job and pay rent.

What do you do to get people off the street, who are too insane, or too committed to their addiction, to hold down a job and pay rent? Here in Portland, we either encourage them to camp on the street, which is bad for everyone, or we house them with people who can hold down a job and pay rent, which is even worse for everyone.
Unconditional housing worked in Finland.
 
How much is wrong with the US constitution? The US has been operating under the same constitution longer than any other country that has a written one. The only glitches it has presently are the electoral college and the 2A, and of those the former can be neutralized by legislation and the latter by regulation -- although the constitution contains brief, adequate instructions on how to amend it. All in all, the US constitution is one of the best things the good old Age of Reason ever produced.

OT out, clear ether
I would disagree on the US constitution being a good thing. It's biggest effect is to carry forward and legitimise the worst of the corruptions of the old English system, all to ensure slavery was retained against the will of the people.

And nearly every single one of the proections it allegedly affords to citizens are non-existent in reality because the only mechanisms to enforce those protections were placed squarely in the hands of rich people whose interests were specifically to be found in destroying said protections.

The biggest mistake in US politics was made in 1865 when the Republican party failed to realise that a constitution that caused the civil war was unfit for purpose. They should have tore it up and implemented a new, democratic, one.
 
The reason why the Captains of US industry think incredibly short term is because they can't believe they have not yet been dragged from their burning mansions and put against the nearest wall by a righteous uprising workers. So they assume it will happen any moment, so they need to make money NOW, to pay for their bunkers and mercs.
 
How much is wrong with the US constitution? The US has been operating under the same constitution longer than any other country that has a written one. The only glitches it has presently are the electoral college and the 2A, and of those the former can be neutralized by legislation and the latter by regulation -- although the constitution contains brief, adequate instructions on how to amend it. All in all, the US constitution is one of the best things the good old Age of Reason ever produced.

OT out, clear ether
It's had twenty-odd amendments in that time, and needs more now. So it's not 250 years old at all.
 
Fixing Amercia?

That train left the station once and for all with the last election. At least for the foreseeable future.
 
How much is wrong with the US constitution? The US has been operating under the same constitution longer than any other country that has a written one. The only glitches it has presently are the electoral college and the 2A, and of those the former can be neutralized by legislation and the latter by regulation -- although the constitution contains brief, adequate instructions on how to amend it. All in all, the US constitution is one of the best things the good old Age of Reason ever produced.

OT out, clear ether
The US constitution was progressive at the time that it was written, but IMHO it's showing it's age. I think that the biggest flaw is that it views the USA as a collection of states. This is obsolete in the present age. I spent 6 years working in a different state than I lived in and my interests are much more in common with the people across the river than with people who live in other parts of my state. The end result is that people in states that are largely rural have a disproportionate amount of power in Congress (in particular, in the Senate) and a hugely disproportionate amount of power in presidential elections.

The authors considered holding political office to be performing a public service which people would do for a few years and then get back to their lives, so they didn't put a lot of limitations on holders of offices (no term limits, little clarification on what immunity, if any, govt. officials should have from prosecution for acts committed while they were in office).
 
a powerful way to establish Public Housing is to make it inheritable
That's a powerful way to keep people living at the bottom. You want people in public housing to be boosted and get on their own, to empty that place for the next person who needs a helping hand.
 
One of the things that infuriates me most about current capitalism isn't the greed of the super-wealthy, it's their short-sightedness. If they weren't so impatient for maximum gains ASAP now now now now, they could end up with more while letting things operate at a reasonable pace in a reasonable way. Forcing a company to operate recklessly and slash their workforce or lower quality to get a single quarter return of 20% then go under is idiotic when they could let the company operate sensibly for the long term and return 5% this quarter, and next, and next, and next, and go on for years and years. They'd get more in the long run if they could just be patient! But these people are chopping down young fruit trees for the firewood instead of letting them grow into orchards that would bear much more valuable crops of fruit for hundreds of years. Impatience is a kind of stupidity, and in a smart would people would never be impatient with investment.
Henry Ford understood this basic principle. He paid his workers well not out of altruism but because he understood that it would help expand the market place for Ford cars, increasing the economies of scale and increasing profits. Today there seems to be this obsessive desire to drive down costs even if that means somewhere down the road there's no longer a market for your good and services.
 
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