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> When I was young, I had roommates. I don’t think every working person should be able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment. Not everyone working minimum wage is d

> When I was young, I had roommates. I don’t think every working person should be able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment. Not everyone working minimum wage is doing it "when they were young." Do you really think it's a good objective for a 55 year old cook for a non-profit organization to be living with room mates? Would you want that? The solution is there if you are willing to reduce the wealth generated by investment properties for an already much wealthier investment class. How do you justify your priorities ethically?

pb7 6y ago
> Do you really think it's a good objective for a 55 year old cook for a non-profit organization to be living with room mates? Would you want that? This, like many others, does not sound like a job that warrants minimum wage so no.
- bonestormii_ 6y ago
  It's not an example chosen at random. It's a real example.
  - prepend 6y ago
    It may be real, I believe you, but cool for non/profit isn’t a mandatory job.
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  Double min wage is $16/hour. If the recommended rent is 30% of your income... well, the most you could afford on twice minimum wage is $768. Where I'm at the cheapest rentals are 900 or so (rural utah). Seems to me it takes almost 3x minimum wage just to really be able to live comfortably, and many will never get to that level, because they already work 2-3 jobs just to keep a roof over the heads of their children. There's a reason that $75k is the 'happiness level', it really is the lowest of the low wages that will make someone feel like they're not poor and 'needy' and over-worked, etc... That should be our goal, to get us to that level for everyone over 25 who isn't in school. (Or able to reach that w/ a full-time job (even at McDonalds) + GBI/UBI)
rayiner 6y ago
> The solution is there if you are willing to reduce the wealth generated by investment properties for an already much wealthier investment class. How do you justify your priorities ethically? Do you think the world works according to ethical priorities or market forces? Imagine if engineers could use similar logic as political theorists. We could will our airplanes to fly by setting the right priorities!
- bonestormii_ 6y ago
  Market forces are real, but can be regulated to align with our priorities. It's not a matter of explaining "how the world works." The market works how we design it to work. If it is unregulated, it frequently reflects exploitation. You make a quip about engineers and political theorists, but fail to explain why a market cannot be regulated in order to benefit society in general. We do it all the time.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Regulation doesn't change market forces. Regulation adds additional elements which in combination with the market forces moves the market to a different equilibrium. It's like pushing on a balloon--you can't change the physics, but you pushing on the balloon in different ways will produce different results dictated by those physics. The difference between those two views of the world is the difference between political theorists and engineers. A political theorist asks questions like "how do you justify your priorities?" An engineer asks "how much do I have to give up on this one priority in order to achieve this other priority?" Engineers deal with a world where achieving every priority means giving up some other priority. Applying this logic to your statement exposes the flow: "The solution is there if you are willing to reduce the wealth generated by investment properties for an already much wealthier investment class." Sure, things like price control prioritize affordability at the expense of "wealth generated by investment properties." If that was it nobody would argue against price control. So why do so many people oppose price controls? (The answer is not, I'm sorry to say, that many people simply want owners of investment properties to be rich.) See: https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-does-economic-evidence-tell-us-about-the-effects-of-rent-control/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-does-economic-eviden... > Rent control appears to help affordability in the short run for current tenants, but in the long-run decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative externalities on the surrounding neighborhood. These results highlight that forcing landlords to provide insurance to tenants against rent increases can ultimately be counterproductive.
prepend 6y ago
I want saying that only young make minimum wage, I was saying that I’ve been there and I understand. Of course 55 year old me doesn’t want roommates, but if I have to do it for a few years then I will.

pb7 6y ago

> Do you really think it's a good objective for a 55 year old cook for a non-profit organization to be living with room mates? Would you want that? This, like many others, does not sound like a job that warrants minimum wage so no.

bonestormii_ 6y ago
It's not an example chosen at random. It's a real example.
- prepend 6y ago
  It may be real, I believe you, but cool for non/profit isn’t a mandatory job.
gremlinsinc 6y ago
Double min wage is $16/hour. If the recommended rent is 30% of your income... well, the most you could afford on twice minimum wage is $768. Where I'm at the cheapest rentals are 900 or so (rural utah). Seems to me it takes almost 3x minimum wage just to really be able to live comfortably, and many will never get to that level, because they already work 2-3 jobs just to keep a roof over the heads of their children. There's a reason that $75k is the 'happiness level', it really is the lowest of the low wages that will make someone feel like they're not poor and 'needy' and over-worked, etc... That should be our goal, to get us to that level for everyone over 25 who isn't in school. (Or able to reach that w/ a full-time job (even at McDonalds) + GBI/UBI)

rayiner 6y ago

> The solution is there if you are willing to reduce the wealth generated by investment properties for an already much wealthier investment class. How do you justify your priorities ethically? Do you think the world works according to ethical priorities or market forces? Imagine if engineers could use similar logic as political theorists. We could will our airplanes to fly by setting the right priorities!

bonestormii_ 6y ago
Market forces are real, but can be regulated to align with our priorities. It's not a matter of explaining "how the world works." The market works how we design it to work. If it is unregulated, it frequently reflects exploitation. You make a quip about engineers and political theorists, but fail to explain why a market cannot be regulated in order to benefit society in general. We do it all the time.
- rayiner 6y ago
  Regulation doesn't change market forces. Regulation adds additional elements which in combination with the market forces moves the market to a different equilibrium. It's like pushing on a balloon--you can't change the physics, but you pushing on the balloon in different ways will produce different results dictated by those physics. The difference between those two views of the world is the difference between political theorists and engineers. A political theorist asks questions like "how do you justify your priorities?" An engineer asks "how much do I have to give up on this one priority in order to achieve this other priority?" Engineers deal with a world where achieving every priority means giving up some other priority. Applying this logic to your statement exposes the flow: "The solution is there if you are willing to reduce the wealth generated by investment properties for an already much wealthier investment class." Sure, things like price control prioritize affordability at the expense of "wealth generated by investment properties." If that was it nobody would argue against price control. So why do so many people oppose price controls? (The answer is not, I'm sorry to say, that many people simply want owners of investment properties to be rich.) See: https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-does-economic-evidence-tell-us-about-the-effects-of-rent-control/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-does-economic-eviden... > Rent control appears to help affordability in the short run for current tenants, but in the long-run decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative externalities on the surrounding neighborhood. These results highlight that forcing landlords to provide insurance to tenants against rent increases can ultimately be counterproductive.

prepend 6y ago

I want saying that only young make minimum wage, I was saying that I’ve been there and I understand. Of course 55 year old me doesn’t want roommates, but if I have to do it for a few years then I will.