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I wasn't arguing for lowering the top end, I think it's fine as is. A broader bottom end may mean that it gets a bit harder to make it to that point, but in pr
by jpetso 11y ago
I wasn't arguing for lowering the top end, I think it's fine as is.
A broader bottom end may mean that it gets a bit harder to make it to that point, but in practice that's not where most of the resources for providing more/better housing would come from anyway. Ambitious people will find a way to make it to the top, while putting their wealth into self-directed charities and moonshot companies instead of government-controlled tax revenue. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and it can and will continue either way.
In the end it's the decision of the broad public, the "middle class" if you will, to determine how much we want to collectively spend on housing security, and how to create mixed-income communities to facilitate upward mobility and avoid creating poor-people slums or monocultural wealth enclaves. The main ingredient for that is (valuable city) land, so I don't believe technology can do much about improving things too much. Nonetheless we always have the option to contribute to affordable housing, universal basic income, yadda yadda. I don't think that's mutually exclusive with high-profile billionaire projects.
- sokoloff 11y ago> I wasn't arguing for lowering the top end, I think it's fine as is. Sorry. I was reading my own bias/worldview into it and taking as a given that there will always be people with negative net worth (debts in excessive of assets). You were clear enough in speaking to that as unnecessary, but I read right through that without really internalizing your point of view. (I still believe in any system where credit exists that there will always be some net debtors, but that doesn't give me the right to argue against a point of view you weren't espousing.)