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Government is also heavily involved in car manufacturing and air travel those have become much cheaper. The real reason is non-scaling vs scaling, IP like tech

by dtech 5y ago

Government is also heavily involved in car manufacturing and air travel those have become much cheaper. The real reason is non-scaling vs scaling, IP like tech and entertainment and internet are incredibly cheap to scale. Manufacturing has also become a lot cheaper and automated. In contrast, things that are supply constrained (housing) or mostly depend on human labour have become expensive. A nurse spends approximately the same time per patient as 100 years ago, a car requires a fraction of the human labour compared to 100 years ago.

nickpp 5y ago
Houses are supply constrained not because they're expensive to build (there technology helped) but because it's incredibly difficult to be allowed to build, due to... you guessed it - the countless rules and regulations. There is a deficit of qualified nurses not only because it takes time and money to train one but also because you are not legally allowed to hire one even if you find it, without the necessary papers and certifications. More regulations! So even if I agree with you - the human labor cost has increased and things dependent on it have become more expensive, the supply is artificially constrained by regulations as well. Imagine if it was illegal to hire programmers without a certification from a government approved body. Would we still enjoy this explosion of incredibly cheap software in everything?
kiba 5y ago
Cars are very expensive, not because of the car in themselves, but the infrastructure and land use policies required to make them convenient. Think of parking lots and roads. A more compact society would simply be less costly to maintain, and you can use public transit to scale transportation. Housing is only very expensive because of land use policies and we don't build enough of them. Once we have a more liberal land use policies, then maybe labor costs will start to matter.

by dtech 5y ago

nickpp 5y ago

Houses are supply constrained not because they're expensive to build (there technology helped) but because it's incredibly difficult to be allowed to build, due to... you guessed it - the countless rules and regulations. There is a deficit of qualified nurses not only because it takes time and money to train one but also because you are not legally allowed to hire one even if you find it, without the necessary papers and certifications. More regulations! So even if I agree with you - the human labor cost has increased and things dependent on it have become more expensive, the supply is artificially constrained by regulations as well. Imagine if it was illegal to hire programmers without a certification from a government approved body. Would we still enjoy this explosion of incredibly cheap software in everything?

kiba 5y ago

Cars are very expensive, not because of the car in themselves, but the infrastructure and land use policies required to make them convenient. Think of parking lots and roads. A more compact society would simply be less costly to maintain, and you can use public transit to scale transportation. Housing is only very expensive because of land use policies and we don't build enough of them. Once we have a more liberal land use policies, then maybe labor costs will start to matter.