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What do those four areas have in common, incredible levels of government manipulation and funding. Seriously, the areas where the government subsidizes, buries

What do those four areas have in common, incredible levels of government manipulation and funding. Seriously, the areas where the government subsidizes, buries under regulation, or bleats about during election season, are all areas that suffer higher than normal costs increases.

seibelj 8y ago
Yes, and a lot of left-leaning people continue to think that “just a bit more government regulation and subsidies” and they’ll get it right - this time for sure! Housing - build more and higher density. Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality. Education - stop letting 18 year olds take out $200k in loans for poetry degrees. It’s almost like industries protected from essential market functions become disasters! Who would have thought?
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  >Education - stop letting 18 year olds take out $200k in loans for poetry degrees. This sounds like government regulation? >Housing - build more and higher density. How do you account for the fact that not really anybody is making housing for the poor or low income, affordable housing because it's not profitable? There's plenty of demand, but extremely low supply. Would that be accomplished with government regulation and subsidies? >Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality. Richest country on Earth ever, and we need to be frugal and maybe skip our insulin prescription this month. I don't think Government is the problem, the extreme want for extraordinary wealth and power created by this system of unchecked runaway Capitalism and that very influence of corruption on almost every representative is the problem.
  - seibelj 8y ago
    > >Education - stop letting 18 year olds take out $200k in loans for poetry degrees. > This sounds like government regulation? No - the reason students can take outrageous loans is that the government enforces that they always get paid back. There is no bankruptcy discharge for student debt. Consequently, universities increase prices as the government allows students to take more debt. No bank in the world would provide a $200k loan for a poetry degree if it could be discharged in bankruptcy. > >Housing - build more and higher density. > How do you account for the fact that not really anybody is making housing for the poor or low income, affordable housing because it's not profitable? There's plenty of demand, but extremely low supply. Would that be accomplished with government regulation and subsidies? The amount of red tape and bureaucracy required for building new housing, and other requirements like minimum lot sizes, makes it more economical to build higher-end units. But even with that, more total supply filters down and helps stabilize prices, including the lower end. The ultimate left-wing fantasy is rent control, as if regulating prices by government fiat magically solves the problem. > >Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality. > Richest country on Earth ever, and we need to be frugal and maybe skip our insulin prescription this month. No, but if you were able to shop around for a major, but scheduled, surgery such as a hip replacement, you may choose a cheaper option if you were appropriately incentivized. People already fly to foreign countries to get procedures done, because travel, hotel, and the procedure are still cheaper and higher-quality than the American healthcare system.
- chmod775 8y ago
  European view here. We're pretty much all left-leaning from an US-perspective. > Housing - build more and higher density. Zoning is an incredibly hard science. Hardly any country on earth manages to get this right. Solutions are often also highly specific to local parameters. Though admittedly, the US has glaring issues with some housing areas being super spread out and low density outside of city centers. > Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality. The problem of making healthcare universal and affordable has been solved plenty of times around the globe already. Obama's administration made a huge leap in the right direction, but there's more track to cover and issues to fix before the US's healthcare system becomes comparable to a say, European, equivalent. They never got the chance to finish this though. > Education - stop letting 18 year olds take out $200k in loans for poetry degrees. Generally having education governed by free market forces, thus giving the best education to the highest bidder, kind of goes against the US's slogan of (equal) opportunity. Not to mention all the other issues with that idea. Again, just copy any of the plenty of countries with a better system. And don't give me any of that "But the US is a larger country and thus those solutions wouldn't work". What happened to divide and conquer? Just have administration sit at state level and you get to pretend the US is really 50 smaller countries - divide further as needed (some countries like Germany use this strategy to divide administration of their education system as well). Also there's plenty of countries with a number citizens in a comparable order of magnitude with working systems.
  - randomdata 8y ago
    > kind of goes against the US's slogan of (equal) opportunity. No more than the government not providing access to private yachts to all citizens. Equal opportunity doesn’t mean equal buying ability.
    - chmod775 8y ago
      Wow. This is incredibly disingenuous. You don't need a yacht to compete with others. You do need education though.
      - 8y ago
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  It seems that if people were allowed to do whatever they wanted with housing, with no possibility of it being forced to change, then the predictive entrenchment would strongly incentivize the creation of new areas and developments. Right now nearly all of the US is relatively undeveloped. A quick ddg search puts the figure at 3% of the US as being urbanized. And I think in times past it's very likely that this entrenchment did play a major role. There was a time when we had some rather modern and well developed cities with great standards of living, and then a whole chunk of land that was completely inhospitable and filled with often hostile native inhabitants. Yet instead of the United States becoming an extension of Philadelpha, New Amsterdam/New York City, and Boston, a figuratively and literally rich nation expanded outward independent of these hubs.
- lellotope 8y ago
  Not sure if I'm left-leaning or not, but the problem is that we need increased competition. The reason why this is a problem is that sometimes it means decreased regulation, and sometimes it means providing more government services and more regulation. But that doesn't really fit well into the two major political parties. For example, I'd probably seen as even more radical about healthcare than what you're writing--I'd advocate eliminating licensure laws and radically reorient the mission of the FDA in part by removing its regulatory authority over a lot of things it currently. But I also advocate sharply reducing patents and copyright terms, and rolling out federal and municipal broadband. I also think public education needs a lot more funding. It seems like political discussions in the US become oriented around protecting entrenched business interests, or protecting citizens through increased regulation.
nerdponx 8y ago
Sort of. Usually "regulation" in these areas ends up being a messy compromise between ideologues, with any economic subtlety left by the wayside. Edit: in the case of education and medical, administrative costs are growing tremendously. Not sure if that's because of excessive government regulation but it would be interesting if someone could untangle that.
- seibelj 8y ago
  If you want an extremely accurate and often hilarious book on what’s wrong with healthcare, I recommend “Overcharged”. If anything it taught me that everything is negotiable with health insurance. https://www.amazon.com/Overcharged-Americans-Much-Health-Care/dp/1944424768 https://www.amazon.com/Overcharged-Americans-Much-Health-Car...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rcpt 8y ago
Then why are beef, gas, water, and cars affordable?
fjsolwmv 8y ago
Yes, areas that suffer higher than normal cost increases, are areas that capture the attention of the public and government, because those are the areas that have important concerns to address.

seibelj 8y ago

Yes, and a lot of left-leaning people continue to think that “just a bit more government regulation and subsidies” and they’ll get it right - this time for sure! Housing - build more and higher density. Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality. Education - stop letting 18 year olds take out $200k in loans for poetry degrees. It’s almost like industries protected from essential market functions become disasters! Who would have thought?

prolikewh0a 8y ago
>Education - stop letting 18 year olds take out $200k in loans for poetry degrees. This sounds like government regulation? >Housing - build more and higher density. How do you account for the fact that not really anybody is making housing for the poor or low income, affordable housing because it's not profitable? There's plenty of demand, but extremely low supply. Would that be accomplished with government regulation and subsidies? >Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality. Richest country on Earth ever, and we need to be frugal and maybe skip our insulin prescription this month. I don't think Government is the problem, the extreme want for extraordinary wealth and power created by this system of unchecked runaway Capitalism and that very influence of corruption on almost every representative is the problem.
- seibelj 8y ago
  > >Education - stop letting 18 year olds take out $200k in loans for poetry degrees. > This sounds like government regulation? No - the reason students can take outrageous loans is that the government enforces that they always get paid back. There is no bankruptcy discharge for student debt. Consequently, universities increase prices as the government allows students to take more debt. No bank in the world would provide a $200k loan for a poetry degree if it could be discharged in bankruptcy. > >Housing - build more and higher density. > How do you account for the fact that not really anybody is making housing for the poor or low income, affordable housing because it's not profitable? There's plenty of demand, but extremely low supply. Would that be accomplished with government regulation and subsidies? The amount of red tape and bureaucracy required for building new housing, and other requirements like minimum lot sizes, makes it more economical to build higher-end units. But even with that, more total supply filters down and helps stabilize prices, including the lower end. The ultimate left-wing fantasy is rent control, as if regulating prices by government fiat magically solves the problem. > >Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality. > Richest country on Earth ever, and we need to be frugal and maybe skip our insulin prescription this month. No, but if you were able to shop around for a major, but scheduled, surgery such as a hip replacement, you may choose a cheaper option if you were appropriately incentivized. People already fly to foreign countries to get procedures done, because travel, hotel, and the procedure are still cheaper and higher-quality than the American healthcare system.
chmod775 8y ago
European view here. We're pretty much all left-leaning from an US-perspective. > Housing - build more and higher density. Zoning is an incredibly hard science. Hardly any country on earth manages to get this right. Solutions are often also highly specific to local parameters. Though admittedly, the US has glaring issues with some housing areas being super spread out and low density outside of city centers. > Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality. The problem of making healthcare universal and affordable has been solved plenty of times around the globe already. Obama's administration made a huge leap in the right direction, but there's more track to cover and issues to fix before the US's healthcare system becomes comparable to a say, European, equivalent. They never got the chance to finish this though. > Education - stop letting 18 year olds take out $200k in loans for poetry degrees. Generally having education governed by free market forces, thus giving the best education to the highest bidder, kind of goes against the US's slogan of (equal) opportunity. Not to mention all the other issues with that idea. Again, just copy any of the plenty of countries with a better system. And don't give me any of that "But the US is a larger country and thus those solutions wouldn't work". What happened to divide and conquer? Just have administration sit at state level and you get to pretend the US is really 50 smaller countries - divide further as needed (some countries like Germany use this strategy to divide administration of their education system as well). Also there's plenty of countries with a number citizens in a comparable order of magnitude with working systems.
- randomdata 8y ago
  > kind of goes against the US's slogan of (equal) opportunity. No more than the government not providing access to private yachts to all citizens. Equal opportunity doesn’t mean equal buying ability.
  - chmod775 8y ago
    Wow. This is incredibly disingenuous. You don't need a yacht to compete with others. You do need education though.
    - 8y ago
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
It seems that if people were allowed to do whatever they wanted with housing, with no possibility of it being forced to change, then the predictive entrenchment would strongly incentivize the creation of new areas and developments. Right now nearly all of the US is relatively undeveloped. A quick ddg search puts the figure at 3% of the US as being urbanized. And I think in times past it's very likely that this entrenchment did play a major role. There was a time when we had some rather modern and well developed cities with great standards of living, and then a whole chunk of land that was completely inhospitable and filled with often hostile native inhabitants. Yet instead of the United States becoming an extension of Philadelpha, New Amsterdam/New York City, and Boston, a figuratively and literally rich nation expanded outward independent of these hubs.
lellotope 8y ago
Not sure if I'm left-leaning or not, but the problem is that we need increased competition. The reason why this is a problem is that sometimes it means decreased regulation, and sometimes it means providing more government services and more regulation. But that doesn't really fit well into the two major political parties. For example, I'd probably seen as even more radical about healthcare than what you're writing--I'd advocate eliminating licensure laws and radically reorient the mission of the FDA in part by removing its regulatory authority over a lot of things it currently. But I also advocate sharply reducing patents and copyright terms, and rolling out federal and municipal broadband. I also think public education needs a lot more funding. It seems like political discussions in the US become oriented around protecting entrenched business interests, or protecting citizens through increased regulation.

nerdponx 8y ago

Sort of. Usually "regulation" in these areas ends up being a messy compromise between ideologues, with any economic subtlety left by the wayside. Edit: in the case of education and medical, administrative costs are growing tremendously. Not sure if that's because of excessive government regulation but it would be interesting if someone could untangle that.

seibelj 8y ago
If you want an extremely accurate and often hilarious book on what’s wrong with healthcare, I recommend “Overcharged”. If anything it taught me that everything is negotiable with health insurance. https://www.amazon.com/Overcharged-Americans-Much-Health-Care/dp/1944424768 https://www.amazon.com/Overcharged-Americans-Much-Health-Car...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

rcpt 8y ago

Then why are beef, gas, water, and cars affordable?

fjsolwmv 8y ago

Yes, areas that suffer higher than normal cost increases, are areas that capture the attention of the public and government, because those are the areas that have important concerns to address.