5 ms·

Ever been to Detroit? In some ways, in some places, the collapse is already well-underway. Ruins all around.

by Kinnard 10y ago

saturdaysaint 10y ago
Yeah, I ate there last night. It was hard to get a table at several restaurants and I almost got bumped into by a few Poke-hunters.
eclipxe 10y ago
Comment would have been spot on 4-5 years ago. While Detroit hasn't become an amazing place, it has recovered from its lows a bit.
- Kinnard 10y ago
  Au contraire, the ruins are still there, they surround all the strips and islands of recovery.
  - internaut 10y ago
    It's an eerie image, the desolate ruins inhabited by nothing but lolloping sandshrews ;-) Probably can't find a pokestop either... There was even an article written.
adventured 10y ago
Except there's very little data supporting that claim. Quite the opposite in fact. - The middle class has continued to get richer for about 40 years, moving up rather than down. That move up has caused the middle class to contract. - US household assets are up by $27 trillion since the peak in 2006/2007. For comparison sake, that gain alone is equivalent to 2/3 of all the wealth in the EU. - US household balance sheets have improved dramatically in the last six years. The household debt to income ratio has declined by a lot, home equity has continued to climb. This contrasts with most of the rest of the developed world, in which households have been rapidly accumulating vast amounts of debt (mostly on mortgage debt accumulation). - Full-time job openings are near record highs. - Full-time job employment is at a record high. - Unemployment has plunged dramatically since the peak of the great recession, including on the U6. The U6 is back to a normal level for the last 30 years, and is back to where it was before the great recession. - The labor force participation rate is finally climbing again. The majority of the losses suffered there were from retirement anyway. - Wages have been growing modestly well for the last two years, after enough slack was removed from the labor pool. - Manufacturing is near an all-time record high on output. - US median net wealth is higher than Germany or Sweden. - US median disposable incomes are the highest in the world outside of Switzerland. - US GDP per capita is back to being #5 in the world (soon to be twice that of Japan by comparison, and ~40% higher than Germany), which is rather extraordinary given the issues the nation just went through. Where's the evidence to support this inbound great collapse? The sole issue that stands out meaningfully is the national debt. That's only going to get easier to manage as rates on debt fall over the next several years. The US has vast spare taxing capacity that very few developed nations have, the US middle and upper-middle class is among the lowest taxed out of that group; the US rich could easily be taxed several points higher without it significantly impacting the economy.
- tsunamifury 10y ago
  I pay nearly 48% tax to state federal and city, and it does significant damage for my ability to grow in the Bay Area. There is no room to be taxed more, in fact the tax rate here hinders the middle and upper middle class from saving effectively for a down payment, doing actual damage to the region.
  - webXL 10y ago
    Oh, believe me, there's room to be taxed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/24/how-your-disposable-income-compares-to-other-peoples-around-the-world/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/24/how-y... ;) Some people look at that map and think "look at all that income just being disposed of! Just think of what governments could do with all that cash!"
    - SilasX 10y ago
      Those people are wrong, and there isn't room: tax revenues has been roughly constant across enormously varying [1] rates. An increase in rates will scare marginal workers (people near retirement, moonlighters, the lower-earning member of a couple) off the labor market, and direct more efforts into reclassifying consumption as a business expense, canceling much of the increase in revenues, while leaving significant economic waste in its wake. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law
  - venomsnake 10y ago
    It is expensive to be unmarried, well earning and human in the US (I think that tax rate is almost impossible to achieve for a family). I recommend you to become a corporation ...
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      It's actually less expensive; it's just the payoff happens when other people's children start paying for future social security, medicare, and medicaid checks.

Ever been to Detroit? In some ways, in some places, the collapse is already well-underway. Ruins all around.

by Kinnard 10y ago

Ever been to Detroit? In some ways, in some places, the collapse is already well-underway. Ruins all around.

Yeah, I ate there last night. It was hard to get a table at several restaurants and I almost got bumped into by a few Poke-hunters.

eclipxe 10y ago

Comment would have been spot on 4-5 years ago. While Detroit hasn't become an amazing place, it has recovered from its lows a bit.

Kinnard 10y ago
Au contraire, the ruins are still there, they surround all the strips and islands of recovery.
- internaut 10y ago
  It's an eerie image, the desolate ruins inhabited by nothing but lolloping sandshrews ;-) Probably can't find a pokestop either... There was even an article written.

adventured 10y ago

Except there's very little data supporting that claim. Quite the opposite in fact. - The middle class has continued to get richer for about 40 years, moving up rather than down. That move up has caused the middle class to contract. - US household assets are up by $27 trillion since the peak in 2006/2007. For comparison sake, that gain alone is equivalent to 2/3 of all the wealth in the EU. - US household balance sheets have improved dramatically in the last six years. The household debt to income ratio has declined by a lot, home equity has continued to climb. This contrasts with most of the rest of the developed world, in which households have been rapidly accumulating vast amounts of debt (mostly on mortgage debt accumulation). - Full-time job openings are near record highs. - Full-time job employment is at a record high. - Unemployment has plunged dramatically since the peak of the great recession, including on the U6. The U6 is back to a normal level for the last 30 years, and is back to where it was before the great recession. - The labor force participation rate is finally climbing again. The majority of the losses suffered there were from retirement anyway. - Wages have been growing modestly well for the last two years, after enough slack was removed from the labor pool. - Manufacturing is near an all-time record high on output. - US median net wealth is higher than Germany or Sweden. - US median disposable incomes are the highest in the world outside of Switzerland. - US GDP per capita is back to being #5 in the world (soon to be twice that of Japan by comparison, and ~40% higher than Germany), which is rather extraordinary given the issues the nation just went through. Where's the evidence to support this inbound great collapse? The sole issue that stands out meaningfully is the national debt. That's only going to get easier to manage as rates on debt fall over the next several years. The US has vast spare taxing capacity that very few developed nations have, the US middle and upper-middle class is among the lowest taxed out of that group; the US rich could easily be taxed several points higher without it significantly impacting the economy.

tsunamifury 10y ago
I pay nearly 48% tax to state federal and city, and it does significant damage for my ability to grow in the Bay Area. There is no room to be taxed more, in fact the tax rate here hinders the middle and upper middle class from saving effectively for a down payment, doing actual damage to the region.
- webXL 10y ago
  Oh, believe me, there's room to be taxed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/24/how-your-disposable-income-compares-to-other-peoples-around-the-world/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/24/how-y... ;) Some people look at that map and think "look at all that income just being disposed of! Just think of what governments could do with all that cash!"
  - SilasX 10y ago
    Those people are wrong, and there isn't room: tax revenues has been roughly constant across enormously varying [1] rates. An increase in rates will scare marginal workers (people near retirement, moonlighters, the lower-earning member of a couple) off the labor market, and direct more efforts into reclassifying consumption as a business expense, canceling much of the increase in revenues, while leaving significant economic waste in its wake. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law
- venomsnake 10y ago
  It is expensive to be unmarried, well earning and human in the US (I think that tax rate is almost impossible to achieve for a family). I recommend you to become a corporation ...
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    It's actually less expensive; it's just the payoff happens when other people's children start paying for future social security, medicare, and medicaid checks.