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> The bureaucratic red tape is one of the artificial restrictions. My point being that bureaucracy does not inherently need to be so bad as to be perceived fro

> The bureaucratic red tape is one of the artificial restrictions. My point being that bureaucracy does not inherently need to be so bad as to be perceived from the outside as slow and inefficient. Chinese rail and construction were built while dealing with Chinese bureaucracy; yet, they were able to build much more, much faster, for much cheaper. The reasons why the bureaucracy are too slow usually boil down to some combination of: too many stakeholders with veto rights, stakeholders granted too much time to review, too many stages of review. Lots of these issues are emblematic of a lack of strategic direction at the public level, where coordination of all the elements needed for good-quality housing are set up for developers who are then sold charters for the actual construction and then public governance gets out of the way; instead of forcing developers to come up with all the elements themselves and overcome all the stakeholder vetos. > People do go into the trades for the right salaries. Their salaries did rise. And with the rise in compensation, so did the cost of construction (because "non-tradeable", but I disagree that it is inevitable as such, because labor can be imported) and therefore the cost of housing. Net loss. Like it or not, affordable goods and services are usually built on the backs of cheap labor; leadership can decide to either import labor or build cultures that glorify labor, American leadership (outside of agriculture) largely decided to sit on its hands and do neither, with large compensation rises (and concurrent cost rises) as a result. Where labor is neither imported, glorified, nor adequately compensated, there are currently major hiring crises in America, specifically teaching and policing.

worstspotgain 2y ago
> My point being that bureaucracy does not inherently need to be so bad Indeed, and my point is that it's this bad on purpose. The nominal reasons are the ones you listed and more, but they're just a front. > And with the rise in compensation, so did the cost of construction (because "non-tradeable", but I disagree that it is inevitable as such, because labor can be imported) and therefore the cost of housing This is pretty much exactly what I wrote, minus the fact that it's non-tradable because of another restriction. Here's how it works algebraically. Let C_x be the coefficient for the amount spent on x by consumers and P_x by producers: Rent = RentTrueCost * RentOverpriceFactor LocalSalary = Rent * C_Rent + TradablesPrice * C_Tradables + NonTradablesPrice * C_NonTradables NonTradablesPrice = TradablesPrice * P_Tradables + NonTradablesPrice * P_NonTradables + LocalSalary * P_Salary => NonTradablesPrice = (TradablesPrice * (P_Tradables + C_Tradables * P_Salary) + RentTrueCost * RentOverpriceFactor * C_Rent * P_Salary) / (1 - P_NonTradables - C_NonTradables * P_Salary) Notice the "zooming effect" from P_NonTradables and C_NonTradables. The more local producers and consumers rely on non-tradable goods and services, the bigger the increase in local prices resulting from a small increase in RentOverpriceFactor. That's because the supply chain has to pay the "rent tax" at every step. From the carpenter, to the carpenter's waiter at the diner, to the carpenters that built the diner and the waiter's house, etc.

worstspotgain 2y ago

> My point being that bureaucracy does not inherently need to be so bad Indeed, and my point is that it's this bad on purpose. The nominal reasons are the ones you listed and more, but they're just a front. > And with the rise in compensation, so did the cost of construction (because "non-tradeable", but I disagree that it is inevitable as such, because labor can be imported) and therefore the cost of housing This is pretty much exactly what I wrote, minus the fact that it's non-tradable because of another restriction. Here's how it works algebraically. Let C_x be the coefficient for the amount spent on x by consumers and P_x by producers: Rent = RentTrueCost * RentOverpriceFactor LocalSalary = Rent * C_Rent + TradablesPrice * C_Tradables + NonTradablesPrice * C_NonTradables NonTradablesPrice = TradablesPrice * P_Tradables + NonTradablesPrice * P_NonTradables + LocalSalary * P_Salary => NonTradablesPrice = (TradablesPrice * (P_Tradables + C_Tradables * P_Salary) + RentTrueCost * RentOverpriceFactor * C_Rent * P_Salary) / (1 - P_NonTradables - C_NonTradables * P_Salary) Notice the "zooming effect" from P_NonTradables and C_NonTradables. The more local producers and consumers rely on non-tradable goods and services, the bigger the increase in local prices resulting from a small increase in RentOverpriceFactor. That's because the supply chain has to pay the "rent tax" at every step. From the carpenter, to the carpenter's waiter at the diner, to the carpenters that built the diner and the waiter's house, etc.