6 ms·

If people worked less and spent more time with their friends and loved ones they would be happier. As a consequence anti depressants would go down, happiness an

by acd 6y ago

If people worked less and spent more time with their friends and loved ones they would be happier. As a consequence anti depressants would go down, happiness and well being go up. For that we need to change the banking system which puts people in debt. Ie working to pay of debt is voluntary wage debt enslavement. The previous sentence is controversial. Most still want status quo vs radical change.

indigochill 6y ago
>For that we need to change the banking system which puts people in debt. The banking system doesn't put people into debt by itself. People voluntarily take on debt for reasons such as to attain a college degree because they are told the long-term benefit is worth it. So rather than go after the banking system, I think it would be more fruitful to go after the reasons people voluntarily take on debt. What are those, and how can we make them more affordable with something other than debt?
- hugey010 6y ago
  I'd argue that many people aren't being paid enough to participate in the society they were born into. Therefore taking on debt for daily expenses is involuntary.
  - dv_dt 6y ago
    A growing underclass isn't paid enough to get basics of life like healthcare or being consistently fed - it's beyond not being able to participate, for many to even exist is backsliding.
- jbay808 6y ago
  Hmm, sort of. Let's look at mortgages. If I want to buy a house without a mortgage (or with a limited, affordable mortgage), I still need to be able to outbid other buyers who might have no qualms about taking on an unaffordable debt. So even if I'm just making an individual decision for myself not to go into debt, I'm severely influenced by the behaviour of other members in society, and how much banks are willing to lend to them.
  - indigochill 6y ago
    >I still need to be able to outbid other buyers who might have no qualms about taking on an unaffordable debt It's still not the bank's fault that people will voluntarily enter unsustainable agreements because they think they need to live in overpriced areas. The banks in this scenario are merely an accessory to financial suicide. So I think my point still stands: how do we break up this obsession with living in overpriced areas? Improved remote work opportunities? Better cultural opportunities outside major metropolitan areas?
    - derg 6y ago
      Build more housing in the major metropolitan areas to meet demand is a fantastic start to it all. Look at how much is built in the big desirable cities. It's not enough, which is driving up prices to absurd levels (looking at you specifically San Francisco in particular). Decommodify housing where possible and take away it's ability to devolve into strictly a monetary investment vehicle. >Better cultural opportunities outside major metropolitan areas? There is so much historical inertia behind the cultural opportunities in many places that this one will be hard to do and take an inordinate amount of time I think.
    - karatestomp 6y ago
      > It's still not the bank's fault that people will voluntarily enter unsustainable agreements because they think they need to live in overpriced areas. Difficulty: houses are more expensive near good schools, because demand is higher, so you can't get away with cheaper housing without harming your children's future prospects. And no, it's not mostly a funding thing, so just distributing funds more evenly won't fix it. It has a lot more to do with selection bias, of which housing prices are a major part.
      - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
        Housing prices haven't been based on the underlying asset for decades. An expensive home is a place to live and sleep, but it's also: 1) a ticket of admission into a good school district 2) a ticket of admission to a local economy with well-paying jobs 3) a retirement investing account I do think changing the way schools are funded will help the first point, and the rise of remote-work will help with the second point, but as to the third point - who knows. There are too many government incentives to buying a home that I don't think it'll change any time soon.
- z2 6y ago
  Debt to me is just something that buys time by making things immediately available. I think it's healthy only if it supports real growth. For a person, if they need money now to buy an education, home, or other thing that will be put to productive use, debt is valuable they don't need to save up for years at a less productive state first. Same for companies -- 'responsible' debt can unlock growth by meeting obvious and pressing demand today. The future is unclear, so this is of course riddled with traps and competitive pressures, but at least there is a chance that money today rather than tomorrow is a good thing, if your returns can beat the interest rate you pay. The more predatory side of taking on excessive debt, because one's back is against the wall or one wants to make an impulse purchase, gives you very little additional time (e.g. weeks or months instead of years). This kind of debt is dangerous.
  - CalRobert 6y ago
    True, and indeed swapping a $2k a month rent payment for a $1k a month mortgage payment (that ends after 15 or 30 years) can make sense. But people have different tolerances for risk and to me securing multiple years of debt with the roof over my head scares the shit out of me. I bought my house about 60% cash, 40% an unsecured personal loan I could default on without losing my house. This is only because my house was insanely cheap, though.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ecoled_ame 6y ago
not everyone has or wants friends and loved ones. time spent alone would increase happiness too.
wdn 6y ago
What we need is rewrite the law to reward saving instead of penalize savings. In the US, there is no incentive to save, because it got penalize first by inflation, then you happen to have a capital gain, dividend or interest on your savings, you get tax again. However, if you get into debt like a mortgage, which lock you in for 30 or more years, you get to deduct your mortgage interest. Property tax is deductible as well.
- chameleon_world 6y ago
  Are there other countries that have some kind of system like this in place?
  - wdn 6y ago
    I think Canada has the same systems. Singapore don't penalize saving and you see how competitive they are. More importantly, they have a lot of savings.
    - pbourke 6y ago
      Canada has the Tax Free Savings Account, which can be used like a Roth IRA (long-term investing without taxes due at withdrawal) or like a regular savings account. It's an after tax account, but earnings are, as the name says, tax free regardless of type. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-free_savings_account https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-free_savings_account
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  Tax policy isn't sexy but it's really at the heart of most of our problems. Personally, I'd love to see a political push to ease back income taxes and capital gains taxes (why are we disincentivizing working and saving?), and implement either a VAT or a progressive consumption tax instead, which discourages spending beyond one's means. We could also take away corporate income taxes, and replace them with hefty Pigovian carbon taxes (to offset negative externalities), and land value taxes (as they're non-distortionary).
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
I just want a salary high enough to retire at some point and not have to worry about surprise medical costs in the short term. Oh, also enough for a family, oh also enough for good schooling for my children, oh also enough to live in a good area. At the end of the day this all adds up to millions of dollars for what my parents and grandparents could easily afford on mediocre pay by today's standards. It means I spend all day every day thinking about career moves. If I'm sittin here on Slacker News I'm not gaining knowledge or skills to move ahead. I can easily see this causing one to feel isolated and trapped which isn't good for mental health.
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  > I just want a salary high enough to retire at some point and not have to worry about surprise medical costs in the short term. Oh, also enough for a family, oh also enough for good schooling for my children, oh also enough to live in a good area. You've unfortunately picked up a wrong country to continue living (and possibly retire). Many european countries offer all of this, US currently none. Unless you jump into career rat race, but even then you are 1 severe illness/accident away from financial ruin. Apart form the last point about good area. Depends on what is good for you. If its good for everybody, its unreasonable to expect that it can be available to many. That's unrealistic... anywhere
  - CalRobert 6y ago
    The jackpot is being European, working in the bay for a while earning a huge salary with 8 roommates and socking away savings worth a lifetime's income or more in, say, Greece, then heading back to Europe to have a family.
ketamine__ 6y ago
> If people worked less and spent more time with their friends and loved ones they would be happier. Daniel Kahneman argues that people optimize for satisfaction over happiness. If we had UBI many parents would choose to spend extra time with their children instead of friends. That may not make them happier. https://qz.com/1503207/a-nobel-prize-winning-psychologist-defines-happiness-versus-satisfaction/ https://qz.com/1503207/a-nobel-prize-winning-psychologist-de...
CalRobert 6y ago
Debt is dangerous. Debt, combined with artificial constraints on necessities (like housing) doubly so. We pretty much tell people "it's illegal to build a cheap home" and "btw we can offer you a 30 year mortgage on these nice fancy homes". It feels a bit like the supply of housing and the supply of debt are both manipulated to make sure people work as hard as possible but without revolting. Living free and clear of debt is extremely hard; the places you can build a home without restriction are generally not near decent jobs, and the places near decent jobs make it more or less illegal to build homes (and those you are allowed to build have to meet labrynthine requirements about outdoor space, parking, density, etc. - certainly the sorts of homes normal people could afford to build with the cash they have aren't allowed in the major metros). Of course, those who already own homes have a strong incentive to preserve the housing cartel, as it increases the value of their asset (which they can then sell when they retire and move somewhere cheap with no jobs) So far as I can tell the best path out is remote work and a low cost of living area, but that's open to rather few people and I have a suspicion wages will drop as more people gravitate towards this option and there's more competition. Not to mention that we explicitly encourage young people to throw away 4 years of their life _and_ take on massive debt before starting. I'm not sure a degree, a pile of debt, and 4 years of opportunity cost are worth more than your wits and a clean slate.
- ip26 6y ago
  It's mostly illegal to build a cheap home because they can be deathtraps. I believe house fires used to be one of the top killers in the country; today, firefighters only spend 1% of their time fighting fires. In any case, property prices in high CoL locations is mainly the cost of the land. I've visited homes in the midwest nicer than almost anything I ever saw in the Bay Area that cost 200-300k.
  - WWLink 6y ago
    This is exactly it. I rent a house that costs $900,000 and it’s a 60 year old death trap. Just like most of the other houses in the neighborhood. It was built when LA County was more of a “build baby build!” Place lol. When you buy a house here it’s more like you’re buying a $900,000 piece of land and getting a free house in the deal. Those houses are practically worthless and a lot of new buyers tear them down and build a new one. I’d guess that doing that costs a few hundred thousand. But most of the time I see that, the new houses are way better quality. If you wanted to bare minimum meet code, it’d probably still be cheaper to build a new house than to refit the old one.

by acd 6y ago

indigochill 6y ago

>For that we need to change the banking system which puts people in debt. The banking system doesn't put people into debt by itself. People voluntarily take on debt for reasons such as to attain a college degree because they are told the long-term benefit is worth it. So rather than go after the banking system, I think it would be more fruitful to go after the reasons people voluntarily take on debt. What are those, and how can we make them more affordable with something other than debt?

hugey010 6y ago
I'd argue that many people aren't being paid enough to participate in the society they were born into. Therefore taking on debt for daily expenses is involuntary.
- dv_dt 6y ago
  A growing underclass isn't paid enough to get basics of life like healthcare or being consistently fed - it's beyond not being able to participate, for many to even exist is backsliding.
jbay808 6y ago
Hmm, sort of. Let's look at mortgages. If I want to buy a house without a mortgage (or with a limited, affordable mortgage), I still need to be able to outbid other buyers who might have no qualms about taking on an unaffordable debt. So even if I'm just making an individual decision for myself not to go into debt, I'm severely influenced by the behaviour of other members in society, and how much banks are willing to lend to them.
- indigochill 6y ago
  >I still need to be able to outbid other buyers who might have no qualms about taking on an unaffordable debt It's still not the bank's fault that people will voluntarily enter unsustainable agreements because they think they need to live in overpriced areas. The banks in this scenario are merely an accessory to financial suicide. So I think my point still stands: how do we break up this obsession with living in overpriced areas? Improved remote work opportunities? Better cultural opportunities outside major metropolitan areas?
  - derg 6y ago
    Build more housing in the major metropolitan areas to meet demand is a fantastic start to it all. Look at how much is built in the big desirable cities. It's not enough, which is driving up prices to absurd levels (looking at you specifically San Francisco in particular). Decommodify housing where possible and take away it's ability to devolve into strictly a monetary investment vehicle. >Better cultural opportunities outside major metropolitan areas? There is so much historical inertia behind the cultural opportunities in many places that this one will be hard to do and take an inordinate amount of time I think.
  - karatestomp 6y ago
    > It's still not the bank's fault that people will voluntarily enter unsustainable agreements because they think they need to live in overpriced areas. Difficulty: houses are more expensive near good schools, because demand is higher, so you can't get away with cheaper housing without harming your children's future prospects. And no, it's not mostly a funding thing, so just distributing funds more evenly won't fix it. It has a lot more to do with selection bias, of which housing prices are a major part.
    - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
      Housing prices haven't been based on the underlying asset for decades. An expensive home is a place to live and sleep, but it's also: 1) a ticket of admission into a good school district 2) a ticket of admission to a local economy with well-paying jobs 3) a retirement investing account I do think changing the way schools are funded will help the first point, and the rise of remote-work will help with the second point, but as to the third point - who knows. There are too many government incentives to buying a home that I don't think it'll change any time soon.
z2 6y ago
Debt to me is just something that buys time by making things immediately available. I think it's healthy only if it supports real growth. For a person, if they need money now to buy an education, home, or other thing that will be put to productive use, debt is valuable they don't need to save up for years at a less productive state first. Same for companies -- 'responsible' debt can unlock growth by meeting obvious and pressing demand today. The future is unclear, so this is of course riddled with traps and competitive pressures, but at least there is a chance that money today rather than tomorrow is a good thing, if your returns can beat the interest rate you pay. The more predatory side of taking on excessive debt, because one's back is against the wall or one wants to make an impulse purchase, gives you very little additional time (e.g. weeks or months instead of years). This kind of debt is dangerous.
- CalRobert 6y ago
  True, and indeed swapping a $2k a month rent payment for a $1k a month mortgage payment (that ends after 15 or 30 years) can make sense. But people have different tolerances for risk and to me securing multiple years of debt with the roof over my head scares the shit out of me. I bought my house about 60% cash, 40% an unsecured personal loan I could default on without losing my house. This is only because my house was insanely cheap, though.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ecoled_ame 6y ago

not everyone has or wants friends and loved ones. time spent alone would increase happiness too.

wdn 6y ago

What we need is rewrite the law to reward saving instead of penalize savings. In the US, there is no incentive to save, because it got penalize first by inflation, then you happen to have a capital gain, dividend or interest on your savings, you get tax again. However, if you get into debt like a mortgage, which lock you in for 30 or more years, you get to deduct your mortgage interest. Property tax is deductible as well.

chameleon_world 6y ago
Are there other countries that have some kind of system like this in place?
- wdn 6y ago
  I think Canada has the same systems. Singapore don't penalize saving and you see how competitive they are. More importantly, they have a lot of savings.
  - pbourke 6y ago
    Canada has the Tax Free Savings Account, which can be used like a Roth IRA (long-term investing without taxes due at withdrawal) or like a regular savings account. It's an after tax account, but earnings are, as the name says, tax free regardless of type. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-free_savings_account https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-free_savings_account
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
Tax policy isn't sexy but it's really at the heart of most of our problems. Personally, I'd love to see a political push to ease back income taxes and capital gains taxes (why are we disincentivizing working and saving?), and implement either a VAT or a progressive consumption tax instead, which discourages spending beyond one's means. We could also take away corporate income taxes, and replace them with hefty Pigovian carbon taxes (to offset negative externalities), and land value taxes (as they're non-distortionary).

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago

I just want a salary high enough to retire at some point and not have to worry about surprise medical costs in the short term. Oh, also enough for a family, oh also enough for good schooling for my children, oh also enough to live in a good area. At the end of the day this all adds up to millions of dollars for what my parents and grandparents could easily afford on mediocre pay by today's standards. It means I spend all day every day thinking about career moves. If I'm sittin here on Slacker News I'm not gaining knowledge or skills to move ahead. I can easily see this causing one to feel isolated and trapped which isn't good for mental health.

saiya-jin 6y ago
> I just want a salary high enough to retire at some point and not have to worry about surprise medical costs in the short term. Oh, also enough for a family, oh also enough for good schooling for my children, oh also enough to live in a good area. You've unfortunately picked up a wrong country to continue living (and possibly retire). Many european countries offer all of this, US currently none. Unless you jump into career rat race, but even then you are 1 severe illness/accident away from financial ruin. Apart form the last point about good area. Depends on what is good for you. If its good for everybody, its unreasonable to expect that it can be available to many. That's unrealistic... anywhere
- CalRobert 6y ago
  The jackpot is being European, working in the bay for a while earning a huge salary with 8 roommates and socking away savings worth a lifetime's income or more in, say, Greece, then heading back to Europe to have a family.

ketamine__ 6y ago

> If people worked less and spent more time with their friends and loved ones they would be happier. Daniel Kahneman argues that people optimize for satisfaction over happiness. If we had UBI many parents would choose to spend extra time with their children instead of friends. That may not make them happier. https://qz.com/1503207/a-nobel-prize-winning-psychologist-defines-happiness-versus-satisfaction/ https://qz.com/1503207/a-nobel-prize-winning-psychologist-de...

CalRobert 6y ago

Debt is dangerous. Debt, combined with artificial constraints on necessities (like housing) doubly so. We pretty much tell people "it's illegal to build a cheap home" and "btw we can offer you a 30 year mortgage on these nice fancy homes". It feels a bit like the supply of housing and the supply of debt are both manipulated to make sure people work as hard as possible but without revolting. Living free and clear of debt is extremely hard; the places you can build a home without restriction are generally not near decent jobs, and the places near decent jobs make it more or less illegal to build homes (and those you are allowed to build have to meet labrynthine requirements about outdoor space, parking, density, etc. - certainly the sorts of homes normal people could afford to build with the cash they have aren't allowed in the major metros). Of course, those who already own homes have a strong incentive to preserve the housing cartel, as it increases the value of their asset (which they can then sell when they retire and move somewhere cheap with no jobs) So far as I can tell the best path out is remote work and a low cost of living area, but that's open to rather few people and I have a suspicion wages will drop as more people gravitate towards this option and there's more competition. Not to mention that we explicitly encourage young people to throw away 4 years of their life _and_ take on massive debt before starting. I'm not sure a degree, a pile of debt, and 4 years of opportunity cost are worth more than your wits and a clean slate.

ip26 6y ago
It's mostly illegal to build a cheap home because they can be deathtraps. I believe house fires used to be one of the top killers in the country; today, firefighters only spend 1% of their time fighting fires. In any case, property prices in high CoL locations is mainly the cost of the land. I've visited homes in the midwest nicer than almost anything I ever saw in the Bay Area that cost 200-300k.
- WWLink 6y ago
  This is exactly it. I rent a house that costs $900,000 and it’s a 60 year old death trap. Just like most of the other houses in the neighborhood. It was built when LA County was more of a “build baby build!” Place lol. When you buy a house here it’s more like you’re buying a $900,000 piece of land and getting a free house in the deal. Those houses are practically worthless and a lot of new buyers tear them down and build a new one. I’d guess that doing that costs a few hundred thousand. But most of the time I see that, the new houses are way better quality. If you wanted to bare minimum meet code, it’d probably still be cheaper to build a new house than to refit the old one.