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When Nirvana first moved from their small Washington town to Seattle, they were able to pay their rent + everything else from working minimum wage jobs for 2 we

When Nirvana first moved from their small Washington town to Seattle, they were able to pay their rent + everything else from working minimum wage jobs for 2 weeks a month. They had time to practice music and pursue their art. In an era where working a full time job is not enough to pay the cost of living, arts and culture no longer exist except as hobbies for rich kids. Seattle successfully exterminated their entire arts, music, and culture scene by raising the cost of living sky high.

closewith 9mo ago
> In an era where working a full time job is not enough to pay the cost of living, arts and culture no longer exist except as hobbies for rich kids. In Ireland _today_, we are in an era where working as a nurse, paramedic, firefighter, teacher, etc have become unable to pay the cost of living, leaving them to exist only as hobbies for the rich kids who can be subsidised by their parents or immigrant labour willing to be exploited to avoid deportation. Is health not wealth? Education? Safety? Or does only the arts deserve this subsidisation?
- jimnotgym 9mo ago
  > Is health not wealth? Education? Safety? Or does only the arts deserve this subsidisation? Isn't that a false dichotomy? We can only afford health or the arts?
  - closewith 9mo ago
    No, it’s not that we can only afford one. It’s that we’re choosing to ring fence funding for one while allowing the others to erode in real terms. Ireland already greatly subsidises health, just not to a level that keeps pace with the cost of living. That’s why nurses and doctors are emigrating, and why recruitment and retention are constant crises. The arts scheme isn’t the problem in isolation, but when the State recognises that market income alone isn’t sufficient for artists to live, but doesn’t apply the same logic to other socially critical professions, it's definitely a questionable policy.
- kiba 9mo ago
  The problem with a UBI is not the UBI itself, but the fact that landlords could just raise their price. You need to solve the contradiction within the economy in order to make UBI works. The current way our taxation policy work is to tax labor and capital, which is the basis of our economy, while flinching away from taxing land, which derives much of its value from the surrounding economic activity rather than an owner's effort. By the way, the UBI is an old idea. In the 19th century, it was known as the Citizen's Dividend.
  - limagnolia 9mo ago
    If cities allowed more supply to be constructed, landlords couldn't just raise the price.
    - WesolyKubeczek 9mo ago
      I know of cities where real estate development is rampant, sometimes to the detriment of quality, and yet apartment prices are soaring.
      - parineum 9mo ago
        That's because, in the places where housing is expensive, it's expensive because a _LOT_ of people want to live there. It's a pipe dream that you can out build demand in these places. Reducing prices of housing in nice places to live (by any means, including building) will only result in more demand up until that insatiable demand is satisfied. Nice places to live can't support all the people that want to live there. Because demand is, for all intents and purposes, insatiable, the dollar value of housing/property isn't based on supply and demand because supply can't practically be increased to affect demand. Instead, the price is related to what a prospective buyer can afford to pay _every month_ and, thus, is related to interest rates. Interest rates go down, prices go up to the point where a prospective buyer's mortgage payment would be the same. People who bring up the (un)affordability of housing are never talking about Oklahoma, they're talking about the Bay Area, Southern California, New York City, Seattle, Portland, etc. All places that are so desirable, they can't practically support everyone that wants to live there.
- dahart 9mo ago
  > does only the arts deserve this Baby steps. Everyone deserves it, but getting there in one step is politically impossible almost everywhere in the world. Nobody’s saying only the arts deserve subsidies. It’s just easier to justify. But if we want everyone to have basic income, we need to applaud whenever it happens, even if it’s a small subset, and argue they deserve it and that we should have more of it. Complaining about the unfairness of artists being subsidized demonstrates and adds to the political difficultly. If we accept that it’s unfair for a subset, then we might never get basic income since the rich don’t need it and many don’t want it.
  - closewith 9mo ago
    > It’s just easier to justify. It definitely isn't. In fact this is so polarising that I wonder if it's an attempt to poison the concept of basic income for decades to come.
    - jimnotgym 9mo ago
      Is it so polarising in Ireland, or just hn?
      - closewith 9mo ago
        Good question. The public consultation was 97% in favour, although half the respondents were receiving the pilot payment at the time. Following the announcement of Budget 2026 last October, I think this expenditure came into sharp focus, as the budget was considered to be almost hostile to workers and families, and anecdotally I think it has become more controversial since. That said, it is not unpopular, just polarising.
        deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
        dahart 9mo ago
        Overwhelming consensus is polarising? How so? It sounds like the exact opposite of polarising.
- bugglebeetle 9mo ago
  Ireland’s affordability problems are almost exclusively centered around its housing crisis and they need to just commit themselves to over-supply induced wealth destruction for the landlord class and older generations. Thankfully, there demographics also support such a move.
maccard 9mo ago
I live in a fairly expensive city in the UK. Working minimum wage for 2 weeks will pay for a room in a flat share, plus my households food and required bills. It’s not much of a life but the same still stands in many cities.
- ace32229 9mo ago
  That's what, £1100 per month? How can you survive on that in an expensive city?
  - maccard 9mo ago
    £1100/mo is about the minimum I could get by on in Edinburgh, yeah. It’s a room in a flat share with bills, £60/week on food, and £150/mo for “everything else”. It’s about as low as I think you could do. The person I replied to was talking about Nirvana in the 90s - when they were working part timeminimum wage jobs that’s roughly the life they’re living. If you go to Liverpool (which significantly punches for musical history), it’s actually manageable on 20hr/weeek minimum wage. You’re not talking sustaining a family or anything, but that life has been gone for 40 years at this point.
CGMthrowaway 9mo ago
Citation needed. "Cobain thought Seattle was too expensive a place to live. He couldn’t even afford his Olympia apartment, and was evicted for not paying rent while he was recording Nevermind.”[1] "They supported themselves through food stamps, sleeping on porches."[2] [1]https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/music/that-magic-moment-30-years-ago-when-nirvana-and-nevermind-forever-changed-seattle/ https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/music/that-magic-... [2]https://www.livenirvana.com/interviews/9307rh/index.php https://www.livenirvana.com/interviews/9307rh/index.php

closewith 9mo ago

> In an era where working a full time job is not enough to pay the cost of living, arts and culture no longer exist except as hobbies for rich kids. In Ireland _today_, we are in an era where working as a nurse, paramedic, firefighter, teacher, etc have become unable to pay the cost of living, leaving them to exist only as hobbies for the rich kids who can be subsidised by their parents or immigrant labour willing to be exploited to avoid deportation. Is health not wealth? Education? Safety? Or does only the arts deserve this subsidisation?

jimnotgym 9mo ago
> Is health not wealth? Education? Safety? Or does only the arts deserve this subsidisation? Isn't that a false dichotomy? We can only afford health or the arts?
- closewith 9mo ago
  No, it’s not that we can only afford one. It’s that we’re choosing to ring fence funding for one while allowing the others to erode in real terms. Ireland already greatly subsidises health, just not to a level that keeps pace with the cost of living. That’s why nurses and doctors are emigrating, and why recruitment and retention are constant crises. The arts scheme isn’t the problem in isolation, but when the State recognises that market income alone isn’t sufficient for artists to live, but doesn’t apply the same logic to other socially critical professions, it's definitely a questionable policy.
kiba 9mo ago
The problem with a UBI is not the UBI itself, but the fact that landlords could just raise their price. You need to solve the contradiction within the economy in order to make UBI works. The current way our taxation policy work is to tax labor and capital, which is the basis of our economy, while flinching away from taxing land, which derives much of its value from the surrounding economic activity rather than an owner's effort. By the way, the UBI is an old idea. In the 19th century, it was known as the Citizen's Dividend.
- limagnolia 9mo ago
  If cities allowed more supply to be constructed, landlords couldn't just raise the price.
  - WesolyKubeczek 9mo ago
    I know of cities where real estate development is rampant, sometimes to the detriment of quality, and yet apartment prices are soaring.
    - parineum 9mo ago
      That's because, in the places where housing is expensive, it's expensive because a _LOT_ of people want to live there. It's a pipe dream that you can out build demand in these places. Reducing prices of housing in nice places to live (by any means, including building) will only result in more demand up until that insatiable demand is satisfied. Nice places to live can't support all the people that want to live there. Because demand is, for all intents and purposes, insatiable, the dollar value of housing/property isn't based on supply and demand because supply can't practically be increased to affect demand. Instead, the price is related to what a prospective buyer can afford to pay _every month_ and, thus, is related to interest rates. Interest rates go down, prices go up to the point where a prospective buyer's mortgage payment would be the same. People who bring up the (un)affordability of housing are never talking about Oklahoma, they're talking about the Bay Area, Southern California, New York City, Seattle, Portland, etc. All places that are so desirable, they can't practically support everyone that wants to live there.
dahart 9mo ago
> does only the arts deserve this Baby steps. Everyone deserves it, but getting there in one step is politically impossible almost everywhere in the world. Nobody’s saying only the arts deserve subsidies. It’s just easier to justify. But if we want everyone to have basic income, we need to applaud whenever it happens, even if it’s a small subset, and argue they deserve it and that we should have more of it. Complaining about the unfairness of artists being subsidized demonstrates and adds to the political difficultly. If we accept that it’s unfair for a subset, then we might never get basic income since the rich don’t need it and many don’t want it.
- closewith 9mo ago
  > It’s just easier to justify. It definitely isn't. In fact this is so polarising that I wonder if it's an attempt to poison the concept of basic income for decades to come.
  - jimnotgym 9mo ago
    Is it so polarising in Ireland, or just hn?
    - closewith 9mo ago
      Good question. The public consultation was 97% in favour, although half the respondents were receiving the pilot payment at the time. Following the announcement of Budget 2026 last October, I think this expenditure came into sharp focus, as the budget was considered to be almost hostile to workers and families, and anecdotally I think it has become more controversial since. That said, it is not unpopular, just polarising.
      - deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
      - dahart 9mo ago
        Overwhelming consensus is polarising? How so? It sounds like the exact opposite of polarising.
bugglebeetle 9mo ago
Ireland’s affordability problems are almost exclusively centered around its housing crisis and they need to just commit themselves to over-supply induced wealth destruction for the landlord class and older generations. Thankfully, there demographics also support such a move.

maccard 9mo ago

I live in a fairly expensive city in the UK. Working minimum wage for 2 weeks will pay for a room in a flat share, plus my households food and required bills. It’s not much of a life but the same still stands in many cities.

ace32229 9mo ago
That's what, £1100 per month? How can you survive on that in an expensive city?
- maccard 9mo ago
  £1100/mo is about the minimum I could get by on in Edinburgh, yeah. It’s a room in a flat share with bills, £60/week on food, and £150/mo for “everything else”. It’s about as low as I think you could do. The person I replied to was talking about Nirvana in the 90s - when they were working part timeminimum wage jobs that’s roughly the life they’re living. If you go to Liverpool (which significantly punches for musical history), it’s actually manageable on 20hr/weeek minimum wage. You’re not talking sustaining a family or anything, but that life has been gone for 40 years at this point.

CGMthrowaway 9mo ago

Citation needed. "Cobain thought Seattle was too expensive a place to live. He couldn’t even afford his Olympia apartment, and was evicted for not paying rent while he was recording Nevermind.”[1] "They supported themselves through food stamps, sleeping on porches."[2] [1]https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/music/that-magic-moment-30-years-ago-when-nirvana-and-nevermind-forever-changed-seattle/ https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/music/that-magic-... [2]https://www.livenirvana.com/interviews/9307rh/index.php https://www.livenirvana.com/interviews/9307rh/index.php