2 ms·

STILL too vague - _most_ of the federal budget goes to SS and medicare / medicaid. Potholes are almost exclusively a local-level thing, so calling them "america

STILL too vague - _most_ of the federal budget goes to SS and medicare / medicaid. Potholes are almost exclusively a local-level thing, so calling them "american" taxes is a bit off, you'd be thinking more about state and municipal taxes at that point. The impediment that sucks up ~40% of CPI is housing, and that is overwhelmingly constrained by really crappy zoning and building regulation at the local level. Not much the federal government can do against that without going full constitutional crisis or amendment.

Swizec 2y ago
> _most_ of the federal budget goes to SS and medicare / medicaid Okay but social security isn’t the government’s money, it’s ours. The program is profitable afaik (gets more than it pays out). Govt is just holding/managing the money and needs to track it as debt when they use that money for anything other than giving to people.
- JackYoustra 2y ago
  All of the government's money is our money? Not sure what this means.
majormajor 2y ago
> The impediment that sucks up ~40% of CPI is housing, and that is overwhelmingly constrained by really crappy zoning and building regulation at the local level. Not much the federal government can do against that without going full constitutional crisis or amendment. Housing cost in popular areas/major cities is not solely an American problem. So a lot of the American-specific stories about why it's high - "zoning", "parking requirements", "NIMBY's" aren't fully satisfying. Few places have solved it. Big successful cities often keep growing around the world which means constantly increasing demand which means an affordability trend that rarely goes in the right direction. In a classically-efficient market, where those with the $$$ to do major development projects often substantially overlap with those who have major $$$ stake in prices staying high, few things are more necessary than housing so why wouldn't we expect the price to approach the max that individuals could bear? Removing regulation isn't enough, IMO, since nobody with the money to make major investments in housing wants to rock the price boat too quickly or suddenly. You need proactive regulation on both pricing and public development efforts to undercut the current market.
- JackYoustra 2y ago
  I mean we literally have studies on this that show you're mostly wrong, no need to handwave: - the developers point is pretty clearly wrong, see: https://x.com/josh_coven/status/1853501120783790255 https://x.com/josh_coven/status/1853501120783790255 - developer productivity lag is due to land use regulation: https://www.nber.org/202502/digest/stagnation-us-construction-productivity https://www.nber.org/202502/digest/stagnation-us-constructio... I have more if you have more questions...

Swizec 2y ago

> _most_ of the federal budget goes to SS and medicare / medicaid Okay but social security isn’t the government’s money, it’s ours. The program is profitable afaik (gets more than it pays out). Govt is just holding/managing the money and needs to track it as debt when they use that money for anything other than giving to people.

JackYoustra 2y ago
All of the government's money is our money? Not sure what this means.

majormajor 2y ago

> The impediment that sucks up ~40% of CPI is housing, and that is overwhelmingly constrained by really crappy zoning and building regulation at the local level. Not much the federal government can do against that without going full constitutional crisis or amendment. Housing cost in popular areas/major cities is not solely an American problem. So a lot of the American-specific stories about why it's high - "zoning", "parking requirements", "NIMBY's" aren't fully satisfying. Few places have solved it. Big successful cities often keep growing around the world which means constantly increasing demand which means an affordability trend that rarely goes in the right direction. In a classically-efficient market, where those with the $$$ to do major development projects often substantially overlap with those who have major $$$ stake in prices staying high, few things are more necessary than housing so why wouldn't we expect the price to approach the max that individuals could bear? Removing regulation isn't enough, IMO, since nobody with the money to make major investments in housing wants to rock the price boat too quickly or suddenly. You need proactive regulation on both pricing and public development efforts to undercut the current market.

JackYoustra 2y ago
I mean we literally have studies on this that show you're mostly wrong, no need to handwave: - the developers point is pretty clearly wrong, see: https://x.com/josh_coven/status/1853501120783790255 https://x.com/josh_coven/status/1853501120783790255 - developer productivity lag is due to land use regulation: https://www.nber.org/202502/digest/stagnation-us-construction-productivity https://www.nber.org/202502/digest/stagnation-us-constructio... I have more if you have more questions...