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>Regulation isn't causing this; automation is causing this. Neither regulation nor automation is causing this. Political-economic suppression of labor and pro

>Regulation isn't causing this; automation is causing this. Neither regulation nor automation is causing this. Political-economic suppression of labor and productive enterprise in favor of rent-seeking is causing this. Let's imagine an alternate universe in which different political choices were made. For instance, in the alternate universe, Elon Musk started a techno-progressive political party and swept into power in 2008, with a program calling for: * Massive housing construction in urban areas * Full repair of our famously-crumbling infrastructure * Intercity Hyperloops for America's coastal corridors * Light-rail and subway construction in the major cities * Rural broadband everywhere * Single-payer healthcare * Reducing the underlying costs of health-care through better disease prevention * Reducing the underlying costs of health-care through regenerative medicine designed to fight (and someday stop) aging-driven disease and death Now, the major economic impact here is going to be massive, truly humongous amounts of growth in the state sector, most of it spent directly on employing people to reduce the carrying costs of the economy, increase productivity, and serve immediate human needs. Most of the specific projects to do so are things that we, in this universe, recognize and understand; the more radical projects that we don't already understand how to accomplish promise radical returns. Putting aside how Elon Musk pays for it all, it would absorb a lot of what is, in our universe, excess labor in the construction and STEM R&D sectors. It would raise wages in the most direct way possible: by buying up labor and paying it to do stuff. It would also increase demand for manufactured goods, leading to either more manufacturing employment or more automation R&D. That alternate universe is the economically normal universe -- this is what we've been fooled into forgetting. In that universe, unemployment, low growth rates, and low returns on investments in physical production indicate that useful inputs to production are lying fallow, useful stuff that could get done is not getting done. Our universe is the weird one, in which relatively high unemployment and low growth are considered the normal state of affairs, with corrective intervention to use the idle resources sounding weird or impossible. The simplest reason someone would actually prefer our universe to Elon Musk's high-tech, job-filled, high-wage alternate universe is because they want labor to be cheap because they make their money from rents on monopolies, land, natural resources, and access to capital, and expensive labor is a threat to rents in general.

noir_lord 10y ago
See also housing crisis in the UK.
civilian 10y ago
> Putting aside how [President] Elon Musk pays for it all, facepalm you can't compare the side effects of a massive government spending plan without looking at that! It'll all come out eventually. Either we borrow, and tax our future generations, or we tax more businesses now, which would also repress business activity and American competitiveness. There's a few items that could be solved with the market. Like: Remove city's zoning laws with a federal mandate, to encourage the market to build urban housing. You don't need the gov. to do it, just remove the limitations. Disallow internet providers from offering kickbacks to condo/apartment managers to open up the market. We should probably tax semi trucks & cars with snow tires more, because they're the ones that cause 90% of the damage to highways. In order to justify light-rail & subway construction, we really need to look at the costs involved. And the costs are getting out of hand, and are way more expensive in the US than in other countries. http://www.citylab.com/commute/2011/11/1-billion-doesnt-buy-much-transit-infrastructure-anymore/456/ http://www.citylab.com/commute/2011/11/1-billion-doesnt-buy-... Your Massachusetts background is showing.
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  America got out of the Great Depression and WWII with deficit spending. Sure we wouldn't be able to spend as much as then, but $900 billion could go a long way towards paying for these projects http://theweek.com/articles/624334/how-world-war-ii-reveals-actual-limits-deficit-spending http://theweek.com/articles/624334/how-world-war-ii-reveals-...
  - civilian 10y ago
    That's a myth, granted a myth that was taught in all of our history classes. The Great Depression was going to end anyway. Here's a paper that discusses just that: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2123226?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents http://www.jstor.org/stable/2123226?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont... and here's CATO's discussion of it. (I'm showing my bias now.) http://www.cato.org/blog/did-new-deal-help http://www.cato.org/blog/did-new-deal-help The thing is--- when does the deficit spending stop?! Our economy is doing decently now, and we're still deficit spending. I don't think that our political system is structured in a way where we can responsible deficit spend and then take back the surplus in the future.

noir_lord 10y ago

See also housing crisis in the UK.

civilian 10y ago

> Putting aside how [President] Elon Musk pays for it all, facepalm you can't compare the side effects of a massive government spending plan without looking at that! It'll all come out eventually. Either we borrow, and tax our future generations, or we tax more businesses now, which would also repress business activity and American competitiveness. There's a few items that could be solved with the market. Like: Remove city's zoning laws with a federal mandate, to encourage the market to build urban housing. You don't need the gov. to do it, just remove the limitations. Disallow internet providers from offering kickbacks to condo/apartment managers to open up the market. We should probably tax semi trucks & cars with snow tires more, because they're the ones that cause 90% of the damage to highways. In order to justify light-rail & subway construction, we really need to look at the costs involved. And the costs are getting out of hand, and are way more expensive in the US than in other countries. http://www.citylab.com/commute/2011/11/1-billion-doesnt-buy-much-transit-infrastructure-anymore/456/ http://www.citylab.com/commute/2011/11/1-billion-doesnt-buy-... Your Massachusetts background is showing.

Apocryphon 10y ago
America got out of the Great Depression and WWII with deficit spending. Sure we wouldn't be able to spend as much as then, but $900 billion could go a long way towards paying for these projects http://theweek.com/articles/624334/how-world-war-ii-reveals-actual-limits-deficit-spending http://theweek.com/articles/624334/how-world-war-ii-reveals-...
- civilian 10y ago
  That's a myth, granted a myth that was taught in all of our history classes. The Great Depression was going to end anyway. Here's a paper that discusses just that: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2123226?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents http://www.jstor.org/stable/2123226?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont... and here's CATO's discussion of it. (I'm showing my bias now.) http://www.cato.org/blog/did-new-deal-help http://www.cato.org/blog/did-new-deal-help The thing is--- when does the deficit spending stop?! Our economy is doing decently now, and we're still deficit spending. I don't think that our political system is structured in a way where we can responsible deficit spend and then take back the surplus in the future.