American Economics Thread

J.Whitman

New Member
Registered Member
The most infuriating thing isn’t so much that they can’t fix the homeless problem but that they can and choose not to. The stuff they did in San Francisco a month ago is exactly the same kinda BS lower level officials in China used to pull to make them look good to higher officials in the 90s/early 2000s. I guess President Xi is upper management for California now?

You cannot solve the homeless problem in the United States because it´s driven by poor overall policy based on ideology and the wishes of the incompetent and self-serving elites in politics, business, media and bureaucracy. The electorial base is also to blame. The homeless problem in the USA is driven by these factors;

X) Closing of mental institutions = More mentally ill persons on the streets
X) The introduction of hard drugs = More drug addicts
X) Deindustrialization = More poor and working poor in service jobs
X) Neo-liberalism and less government intervention = Expensive rents and housing
X) Abolishment of family and nation through diffrent liberal policies = More people are forced to fend for themselves

In the 1970s Nordic countries had almost no homeless people. Nordic countries had alcoholics but they had an apartment and government paid their rent. They spent their days drinking at park-bench but that was all. Now Nordic countries have homeless everywhere although less so than the United States. China, a developing country, is solving some of these issus while the United States and Western Europe do not.

A lot of normal people with college degrees will eventually end up on the streets. That is the the consequence when people vote for morons and morons are given important positions in elite institutions. Americans, and Californians in particular, clearly want tent cities everywhere. This is what Americans want;


Americans do not want this;


Sadly...
 

Zhong"Geodaddy"Li

New Member
Registered Member
To be fair this isn't totally a Gavin Newsom or California lack of effort. There is significant influx of homeless population heading from out of state, so the increase is not organically driven by California. With the climate and higher political tolerance combined with social supports for tackling homelessness, its more favorable to be homeless in California versus some other states. Also, given the prices in California especially for housing the reality is $1.5 billion is a drop in the bucket when it comes to creating long term affordable housing and/or treatment programs for those who are on the street.
Essentially the US would have to implement a Hukou system to prevent migration, and then build distributed housing.
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
The US used to build government subsidized housing. Trump's father rather infamously used to be one of these builders. Then the government started doing subsidized loans for people to buy housing. Just another scheme to give money to the banks. Funding for government subsidized housing kept slowing down to a trickle and it became unaffordable for a lot of people to live in the cities.
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paiemon

Junior Member
Registered Member
X) Closing of mental institutions = More mentally ill persons on the streets
X) The introduction of hard drugs = More drug addicts
X) Deindustrialization = More poor and working poor in service jobs
X) Neo-liberalism and less government intervention = Expensive rents and housing
X) Abolishment of family and nation through diffrent liberal policies = More people are forced to fend for themselves

In the 1970s Nordic countries had almost no homeless people. Nordic countries had alcoholics but they had an apartment and government paid their rent. They spent their days drinking at park-bench but that was all. Now Nordic countries have homeless everywhere although less so than the United States. China, a developing country, is solving some of these issus while the United States and Western Europe do not.
I think the biggest challenge is there are two types of homeless people broadly speaking, who require two different solutions:

Group A is the working people or those down on their luck who are priced out of housing near reasonably vicinity due to lack of affordable housing supply be it gentrification, zoning policies, income not keeping pace, housing investors speculating, etc. The gap is they need housing geared towards their income, which is addressed simply through investing in supply targeted towards the demographic for affordability through government subsidized efforts. This really just really requires money, and political will to invest the money.

Group B is the people with mental health or substance addiction problems who are unhoused because their disruptive behaviour results in a lack of means to be housed or the ability to remain in housing if provided with one. The gap here is this group first needs professional treatment for the root cause of their behavior, but in western countries that requires their consent, which is not really forthcoming. You cannot just round them up and send them to the psych ward or the detox facility even if sufficient resources existed since that would be involuntary confinement. They need tough love, but unfortunately the rules and regulations prevent societal intervention on that scale (families may be able to intervene on an individual level). No matter how well intentioned the efforts of social workers and others, this group will remain unhoused unless active professional health interventions are taken. This group requires actions that take far more political will and restrictions on civil liberties, in addition to money.

Fundamentally, this is a political/cultural debate. Should reasonable housing (whatever that is defined to be) be available to all citizens at a price they can afford as a basis of society and secondly, should people be allowed to live however they wish, even if it means ruining themselves or should there be a line where that freedom is curtailed and societal intervention be taken.
 

HighGround

Senior Member
Registered Member
The US used to build government subsidized housing. Trump's father rather infamously used to be one of these builders.

Infamously an embezzler of state funds.

Then the government started doing subsidized loans for people to buy housing. Just another scheme to give money to the banks. Funding for government subsidized housing kept slowing down to a trickle and it became unaffordable for a lot of people to live in the cities.
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Gross oversimplification and it wasn't so much a government policy as it was a natural evolution and financialization of the US economy. It's funny though, people wonder why the government let this mess happen. They let it happen because it was wildly successful while it worked. "Government" was interested in increasing home ownership rate, and were oblivious to the shadow banking system that was grossly overleveraged.

1703720014665.png

But no, this wasn't "all part of the plan".

As for why government subsidize housing slowed to a trickle, it's because they sucked at it. Even after the 1968 Fair Housing Act, people hated public housing because it was bad. I'm not necessarily oppposed to government building public housing, but the government has been completely incompetent on a lot of policy in the last 20 years. So I'm not holding my breath.
 

TK3600

Major
Registered Member
Infamously an embezzler of state funds.



Gross oversimplification and it wasn't so much a government policy as it was a natural evolution and financialization of the US economy. It's funny though, people wonder why the government let this mess happen. They let it happen because it was wildly successful while it worked. "Government" was interested in increasing home ownership rate, and were oblivious to the shadow banking system that was grossly overleveraged.

View attachment 123104

But no, this wasn't "all part of the plan".

As for why government subsidize housing slowed to a trickle, it's because they sucked at it. Even after the 1968 Fair Housing Act, people hated public housing because it was bad. I'm not necessarily oppposed to government building public housing, but the government has been completely incompetent on a lot of policy in the last 20 years. So I'm not holding my breath.
I am a economically socialist, but I totally see why Americans oppose government intervention and like privitization. Government fucking sucks at it. It is no wonder people elected by popularity is inferior to people selected by merit. Therefore if current government adopt all socialist policy it would still fail.

If Chinese five year plan all end up like Chip Act then I would also say fuck socialism, give me the Republican small government. American have genuine bad impression of socialist policy because their government is incompetent.

Ultimately the failure of American economy is at political level, not economic system level.

US government and economic planning is like a cripple learning martial arts. You can teach the cripple the best martial art and it will fail to perform. Not because it it is learning wrong martial arts, but because it is unable to perform anything it was taught. Changing martial art style will not make a cripple fight better.
 
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In4ser

Junior Member
I too would never advocate a Chinese-style government for the US because it’s too culturally alien and will never work. Western countries, especially in the US, are built around liberalism which focuses upon individual empowerment which often comes at the expense of a strong and efficient government.

The West is culturally wired to see things from an ideological perspective to accept an alternative model. I suspect it’s from its Judeo-Christian roots which tends to classify everything as either good or bad with no middle ground.

That approach is simply too reductionist. While it may be great for deconstructing things into its basic elements like binary code or scientific principles, it doesn’t work for but how humans and society operate in real life. Case in point is the breaking down governance and society into one based around the individual and now even atomization of the individual into identities like gender, race or sexuality as a personality is entirely based upon these singular elements and not a composite.
 
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TK3600

Major
Registered Member
I too would never advocate a Chinese-style government for the US because it’s too culturally alien and will never work.

The West is culturally wired to see things from an ideological perspective. I suspect it’s from its Judeo-Christian roots which tends to classify everything as either good or bad with no middle ground.

That approach is simply too reductionist. While it may be great for deconstructing things into its basic elements like binary code or scientific principles, it doesn’t work for but how humans and society operate in real life. Case in point is the breaking down governance and society into one based around the individual and now even atomization of the individual into identities like gender, race or sexuality as a personality is entirely based upon these singular elements and not a composite.

I too would never advocate a Chinese-style government for the US because it’s too culturally alien and will never work.
Tough luck. They can either adapt or go down path of Qing. There is no excuse. China did not get a competent government on a whim. It had 100 years of pain and suffering. Americans will change their culture when it has no other choice.
 

In4ser

Junior Member
Tough luck. They can either adapt or go down path of Qing. There is no excuse. China did not get a competent government on a whim. It had 100 years of pain and suffering. Americans will change their culture when it has no other choice.
Honestly, I see Civil War as the most probable outcome and solution to America’s problems. Too much inefficiencies, divisions and corruption that is systemic which cannot be solve by reforms. Only way that happens is if you tear everything down and start over from the ground up.

Maybe you could avoid that if you had a dictator like Augustus to impose necessary reforms with an iron fist to save the nation, but I have my doubts.

The founding myth of the US is rebellion and opposition to tyranny that revolution and/or civil war is much more likely.
 

ansy1968

Brigadier
Registered Member
Honestly, I see Civil War as the most probable outcome and solution to America’s problems. Too much inefficiencies, divisions and corruption that is systemic which cannot be solve by reforms. Only way that happens is if you tear everything down and start over from the ground up.

Maybe you could avoid that if you had a dictator like Augustus to impose necessary reforms with an iron fist to save the nation, but I have my doubts.

The founding myth of the US is rebellion and opposition to tyranny that revolution and/or civil war is much more likely.
To think about it bro, now I know the reason why Mao launch the Cultural Revolution.
 
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