And yet we have such terrible poverty.
When I read stories about poor people in America, always there is lurking just below the surface the key element of scarcity. Not food. Not transportation. Not clothing. Not even, surprisingly, health care. The missing factor in all these broken lives is the simplest thing. Space. Some space to fucking sleep and live.
How can such a large country suffer from a bigger housing crisis than we find in jammed up dense countries like Singapore, South Korea, and India?
Why hasn't the market solved this problem?
Believe it or not, its not impossible to manufacture a living space in a factory and assemble it on site in a day, to provide extremely well made and affordable housing structures.
There is space enough in American cities if density is allowed to be increased. In other words if these fake "liberal" NIMBYs in American cities can be persuaded to give up the precious "character" of their neighborhoods, we can make space for everyone. CHEAP space.
Seriously, I wonder why this scarcity for quite many is not highlighted as failure of capitalism, why the bailout of banks with tax-money is not marked as "capitalism and free market has failed" just like communism is?
Capitalism is failing in a slow, insidious way.
Now, the market cannot solve a problem that is linked to human nature. Humans like living in dense areas rather than on the top of mountains, so space will be more and more expansive as density increase. Nothing unusual. Density also brings more jobs and more commerce so this is a cycle that goes with it.
This being said if you care nothing about living in a modern civilization it is perfectly possible to live far away from cities with very minimum expenses and a lot of land. Thats just not what people want.
Maybe "the market" is not a good tool to solve inequality.
The market did solve the problem and then we blew it by undermining the family unit so we have people dependent on the state with no significant family support.
> Believe it or not, its not impossible to manufacture a living space in a factory and assemble it on site in a day, to provide extremely well made and affordable housing structures.
The soviets tried this approach it doesn't work because you end up with a shitload of crappy communist housing blocks. The correct approach is to develop as much high end housing as possible which pushes all other houses down the depth chart. We want the poor living in houses that the rich used to own - not shittier houses.
At some point we have to realize that the issue isn't wealth or even inequality. The harsh reality is a significant number of the population has a several hundred dollar a day drug addiction and no means of taking care of themselves even if they were handed a blank check.
Well my elementary knowledge of economics suggests that the market equilibrium price is the intersection of the supply and demand curves. There is additional demand but at a price lower than can be supplied. It is not profitable to supply housing further, and some demand is not met. This will always be the case (according to my elementary understanding of economics).
That is where socialism comes in in most countries. Since profit motive cannot solve this problem, compassion motive can. Supplying low cost housing without disrupting the rest of the real estate market is managed in a variety of fashions in different countries to greater or lesser success.
Then there are things like medical expenses, debt, family members in need of support.
Because we don't just provide things to people because they are struggling or starving. They have to be literally dying, or appear to be in medical distress, and then we send a fire truck as a first responder, and then they go to the emergency room because we waited until they were dying to provide care, and then we rack up unpayable bills that raise health care prices.
I mean, we create the conditions that cause homelessness, and then literally criminalize the homeless. If that doesn't tell you how little of a shit we give about people in distress, I don't know what will.
America is a land of plenty only for people that already have plenty.
There needs to be a certain amount of communal spirit in your culture in order to make this work, though. People have to be comfortable with spending most of their time in common spaces such as parks, pubs, and Starbucks instead of hanging out in their own backyard. They also need to be willing to spend money (both publicly and privately) to keep those common spaces in good order.
This might become a non-issue even in America, though, as more and more people just sit in bed and stare at their phones instead of going out.
The lack of morality to vote for decent politicians. Why do US citizens claim to want medicare for all but vote for Democrats or Republicans who do not want medicare for all ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX5GSClA8z4&t=207
The lack of morality that private property should be spent to help other persons in need.
The lack of morality that allows an insane military budget and immoral lies and crimes and murder in other countries by political and military and economic warfare.
https://chomsky.info/1990____-2/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-has-been-at-war-93-of-...
We aren't natural. We don't need natural evolutionary states. We need unnatural, human-oriented, ethical states.
I don't need "unnatural, human-oriented, ethical states". I'm perfectly happy with a state where I can acquire as many resources as possible, even if that incurs a significant cost to others.
> Why hasnt the government solved this problem?
Maybe the government is not a good tool to solve inequality?
After all, what percentage of your salary before taxes goes to directly help the less fortunate with no middleman? Before you answer: You could probably do more.
Good point. In my birth country you must support your elderly parents by law. Even without the law 99% of families would.
The idea that the government should do it seems crazy.
The government only needs to step in where the elderly have no family, are unable to work, and private charity is not enough.
This means the government only deals with a tiny percentage of people.
In short, childhood trauma and lack of family support. Often the trauma comes from abuse from their family. These are not problems you can just throw money at.
> I question how much experience you actually have with either the poor or drug addicts.
If you must know my experience I did youth work for inner city kids from 1999-2006 in Langley BC. I then lived and worked in the Vancouver DTES from 2006-2017. I have several close friends and family members who work at Insite Injection Clinic, Portland Hotel Society, HIV/Aids Clinic at St. Paul Hospital, and the Odyssey and Nexus programs in downtown Vancouver.
Perhaps you are unaware what life on the streets is like.
Edit: also, I never said I was a "majority" that has an expensive addiction. I said the number of people is significant - which it undoubtedly is.
Poverty is the inability to know how or be able to survive at a minimum comfortable level in our society.
The causes are many, such as lack of education, addiction, early parenthood, good role models, lack of good health and many more I can't even begin to imagine.
So giving people stuff and housing is only a temporary solution. The solution is so much more and it takes years to get ahead of it.
Look at Venezuela, they tried to solve their poverty problem very simply by basically giving people food and shelter without fixing the fundamental problem of lack of knowledge and the other problems that cause poverty and now they are in worst trouble than ever and yet in theory they had the financial resources to fix the problem.
What you mention is just a start and poverty will always be unless the more fundamental problems are fixed.
Here most elderly either gets support in their own home by professionals (by the local government) or at a home with professional care (run by the local government).
I'd rather spend time with my family on our own terms and not because I have to support them.
You have to keep in mind that everything in the US (health care, education, food industry (which causes the health problem)) is harnessed just for one single purpose: Make money for the share holders. Subsequently the US goverment doesn't serve the people and their interest, it serves the interest of these big companies.
This whole system is optimized for making money for the select few, not to cater for the society by and large. Therefore it creates these unfortunate side effects.
Assuming the natural resources you might want to exploit are living beings, you have to maintain an equilibrium in the environment or you can get resource starvation, which then impacts you directly, either as increased costs or an end to the goods entirely. You can easily see this in things like elephant/rhino poaching, where the unregulated demand will eventually result in no more supply at all. Even slavery requires considering the costs of maintaining the slaves, as if the slaves deteriorate, they won't be as productive, and it will cost you more to acquire new ones. Or if you attempt to take over some new lands, but your diseases wipe out the native population, now you don't have the natives to use as slaves anymore.
In respect to the American economy today, inequality and exploitation can lead to several problems. 1) Lack of skilled workers, 2) ballooning health care prices and increased taxes, 3) political unrest leading to trade problems, not to mention limited business growth, 4) overthrow of government, 5) state taking over commercial entities, 6) economic collapse , 7) massive refugee crisis. Oh wait, that's Venezuela. For us it's just the first few.
No matter what, you will eventually have to consider the costs to others if you want to acquire unlimited resources.
This entire statement just blows my mind.
Getting people to build enough expensive homes for rich people seems to be an already solved problems. People already build homes as expensive as the market will bear and and the rich buy not one but 2 of them or even more and rent them out to others less rich than themselves. The only way to get people to build a glut such as to devalue their own product would be to provide tax incentives or kickbacks effectively funding rich peoples houses with tax money from the middle class.
Supposing you decided to do this building a glut of "top end" housing enough to move the needle as far as price would be an insanely expensive endeavor. Millions of dollars per unit.
There are 74 million single family homes in the US building out 10% more all at the top end at 2 million per would cost 148 trillion dollars. This is actually more than the 25 trillion it would cost just to give every household their own free 200k house.
Building 1% of the present housing supply would only cost a laughable 14.8 trillion and would barely move anyone up much beyond making it easier for the upper middle class to move from nice house to awesome.
The truly funny thing is that no matter how much top end housing we build the poor would never live in the houses the wealthy used to live in because we would literally let it rot to the ground before the rich would sell it to them for anything like they could afford not because they have a several hundred dollar a day drug addition but because they don't have enough wealth to pay for what it actually costs to build and maintain a nice large rich persons house.
Ultimately if we want there to be a bigger supply of affordable housing then we will build more for 100-200k not mansions for 2-5million because poor people can afford the first and you can build 10-50 of one for the cost of the other. It's simple math.
As a final note if we charitably say several hundred is 3-400 a several hundred dollar a day drug habit is between 109k and 146k per year.
The only people that have several hundred dollar a day drug habits for very long are drug lords and CEOs that are fueled by cocaine.
I’m sorry I can’t give you a better answer being on my phone.
But, Venezuela’s current crisis has about as little to do with commoners working as you could find in a modern-day country. As a small example, how would the arrival of a new president fit into your (kind of derogatory) theory? What evidence do you have for your assertion?
I'm assuming you were referring to survival of the fittest, which is commonly misunderstood to be survival of the strongest.
What survival of the fittest actually means is survival of those most adaptive to change, which is not at all what you are describing.
I'm not going to judge you on moral grounds. Instead, consider what would happen if everyone lived like that. What kind of world would we have? I think it would be a hellish dog-eat-dog world.
You may believe that the world is already that way, but at the moment, there is a lot of kindness, compassion and consideration too. Instead of that, if everyone had the attitude of "I got mine, f* you", the world would be unimaginably worse than it is now.
Moreover, that kind of living is unsustainable in the long run. If you collect as many resources as possible to the detriment of others, sooner or later others would try to snatch those back from you, even by violence.
Thinking otherwise is delusional.
That’s common as well if they can mostly look after themselves and only need say a weekly visit from a nurse.
I think the only difference is the children are expected to pay.
It’s maybe half live with their kids and the rest live independently.
> or at a home with professional care
This is common when they need full time care. But this is usually only a small % and not for long.
And again the kids pay.
> I'd rather spend time with my family on our own terms and not because I have to support them.
That’s one way to think about it.
My perspective is my parents supported me for 16 years and so I have a duty to support them.
I think it is good for character, helps people to appreciate life, and helps build meaningful relationships. It also means grandparents get to spend lots of time with their grandchildren.
And if you think he meant human nature, I would say that generally, by nature, humans are kind and share with those they see as their people, but the complete opposite with anyone outside that group. Since the market is made up of people only in the abstract to most people, I would say that that nature doesn't tend toward equillibrium between individuals either.
I only hope you won't meet some day a man who wants to "acquire as many resources as possible, even if that incurs a significant cost to others" on a dark alley.
Speaking as an Asian, I grew up in a culture where parents, and elders in general, are super-important. Things are changing now, but many of us are still very close to our parents.
In old-school thought, taking care of one's parents is seen not as an obligation, but as an opportunity to serve them, and to repay them (in some small measure) for the love and care we have received from them in our childhood.
When my grandfather passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in his 60s, my father was distraught that he did not get an opportunity to serve him.
My point is, many of us view the situation differently - not as a burden, but as an opportunity.
However, it is undeniable that sometimes it can be a burden, and for those situations, it would have been excellent to have the government take care of the elderly, as it is done in your country.
Edit: A typo.
If you don't want to follow anyone's rules but your own, I recommend living completely on your own in the wilderness, off the grid and all that. Only then are you responsible only for yourself.
Think of it like a hockey team. If your 4th line Center isn't good enough (or you don't have one) you're better off to add a player that is better than your BEST Center because that improves your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th line. Improving your worst Center only improves your 4th line. Its like that but houses instead of players.
Doing nothing will not remove poverty. Still some work is needed at least to bring up natural resources and work on other areas... yes - everything needs some work. Just sitting and complaining will not make anyone richer.
The math says you fix housing affordability by building more mansions. Poor people can't afford them and the actual price change is so small for the massive investment that its insane.
Building enough to push 250k houses to 200k would cost more money than the entire GDP and poor people still couldn't make the down payment.
Increasing the housing supply by 1% once again would imply building 7 million homes. Your top end homes cost 2-5 million. This is once again trillions of dollars.
Your post is like saying that in order to ensure everyone can afford groceries we ought to build more 5 star restaurants instead of giving out food stamps.
You could rent a house in the middle of nowhere Tennessee for a couple hundred dollars a month if you wanted.
The problem is instead housing in places that people actually want to live.
"scarcity" being supply, and "wealth" being supply of money which translates to demand for housing. "demand" is people's willingness to purchase something.
> Building enough to push 250k houses to 200k would cost more money than the entire GDP and poor people still couldn't make the down payment.
You have it exactly backwards. Like I say, you're too focused on the literal cost. 250k vs 200k is entirely based on supply and demand.
Lets say we want low income people to be able to afford 2 bedroom 1k sq/ft apartments. To achieve that we need to build more 3-5 bedroom 2k sq/ft places. The wealthy will want the nicer apartments which reduces demand for the 2 bedroom place and that's how they become affordable.
"Mansion" is entirely subjective. Its just a way to refer to the nicest homes available.
Well-being is based on production and production is not a zero-sum game. We can have low-income people living in high-end housing. All we have to do is keep building nice homes.
Hugo Chávez was brought to power by direct mandate of the underrepresented poor. He nationalized many industries which included the country's oil assets.
He used them to create large-scale social programs to help the poor. It seemed like a great success but once oil prices collapsed the whole situation fell apart because the fundamental problems with poverty were never addressed and we see the result now. An economy that's in chaos. The poor are in worst shape than when Chávez was elected. Not only do they not have what they need but now they have a president, Maduro, that's not fixing the problems because it helps him stay in power by blaming the problems on other sources other than his government.
Poverty can't just be fixed by giving people things. I don't know the answer but it starts by making sure everyone knows how to make a living in the society they live in. Yes, there's a fraction of the people that will never be able to get out and those are the ones you help with food, shelter and whatever else they need but you hope that that's a small minority of the segment.
There are no simple answers.
In any case, there are many examples in nature where a small percentage of the males do a very disproportionate amount of the mating.