When I moved to America, I was surprised by the amount of fees. Fees to pick up garbage, visit a doctor, and drive on most highways.
The country I lived in had higher taxes, but almost no fees.
Americans seem dumb when it comes to taxes and fees.
It’s the illusion of freedom that Americans are obsessed with. The idea is that we are free to choose our insurance provider, doctor, utility provider, etc.
The reality is we are stuck with the insurance plan our employer provides or that we get on the healthcare marketplace and we go to the doctor that our insurance company partners with. Utility providers are restricted to whoever provides service at our address.
Add to that, Americans as a whole are extremely selfish. My Uber-conservative parents and in-laws would give us their last dollar but thumb their nose at the idea of helping someone they don’t know.
None of us have the actual numbers, but I would bet a hefty amount that if we just socialized everything that we already pay for, the bill each month would not be much different.
From everything I’ve seen, the bill would be cheaper.
My Uber-conservative parents and in-laws would give us their last dollar but thumb their nose at the idea of helping someone they don’t know.
You see that a lot with people on the right (it drives a lot of their opinions that put them on that side of things.) Fundamentally it is an inability to meaningfully experience people outside of their bubble as real people like the ones inside of it and rather than work to rationally overcome that limitation they simply treat everyone outside of that bubble like an object. Almost nothing the right does to others is an unreasonable or unacceptable way to treat an object and is usually something they would never do to someone they actually intuitively perceive as a real person.
While we can (and should) hold people responsible for working to rationally overcome those limitations, the reality is that we all have them to a greater or lesser degree and there will always be people who aren’t able to do better than they do now.
Not only is it unfair to them to maintain an environment wherein they are expected to have empathic abilities well beyond what they are able to manage (and to have them, fairly, be treated as though they are cruel and heartless for it, when if they only had to deal with situations within their grasp they’d actually be very kind and caring people) but pragmatically we just cannot expect to overcome the issues caused by that without making changes. Sociatally we cannot keep setting people up for failure and then being mad at them for the issues that failure causes.
NB it’s also important to acknowledge that none of us are able to perfectly experience strangers as exactly the same thing as people we know and love and that while people can suck more or less at this, all of us are being asked to be better at it than we reasonably can be.
Americans have a cultural dislike of taxes (for a wide array of reasons, including selection bias on who actually moved to America).
Thus, Americans (painting with a broad brush) tend to favor policies that charge people who do/consume a thing, rather than the tax base as a whole.
I find this immensely frustrating, but it is unfortunately true.
Also, many Americans dislike taxes because they don’t want “their” money being spent on people with whom they feel no affinity. It’s always going to be a problem in large countries with diverse populations.
And if it seems like I’m beating around the bush and phrasing this comment in charitable terms, it’s because I am. Deliberately.
There are some communities in the USA that consistently vote down funding any sort of public fire department through taxes. Obviously they still need a fire department, so their “solution” is “private fire companies” with a subscription model.
These private firefighters will show up to any fire and they’ll save lives … but after they pull you out they’ll let your house burn to the ground if you didn’t buy a fire protection plan from them.
Wow, I didn’t know places did that… that’s screwed up!
The premise is solid though. Charge the people that use the thing more than those that don’t. It all breaks down though because the people that use them the most are corporations and receive the largest tax incentives.
It breaks down because in nearly every instance, it’s just regressive taxation on poor people
Sounds great until you need an ambulance or firefighters to come save your ass.
Healthcare is something that should be socialized period. It’s road taxes and gas taxes that should be based on usage in that scenario.
We already have usage taxes on those and I am not sure those make sense either except it is so small (in terms of total budget) that I don’t think it is worth an argument.
I looked up my local city budget. Roads are actually a huge percentage of its expenses. Not much less than the entire city police department.
Sorry I was referring to toll roads.
I agree. People like this are like “please charge me subscription fees for everything I do.” These are the people that will pay car manufacturers to “unlock” heated seats, etc.
Yeah no matter how much you weaken that I am not going to believe it until you produce a detailed study proving it. Especially the bit about immigrants.
I mean, I’m not going to sit here and try to change your mind.
However, if you wanted to look into it, the field of study is called behavioral genetics and it’s incredibly controversial… But the research suggests that upwards of 50% of our behaviors are inherited genetically.
So the group of people that left Europe in search of the new world, and the group of people that sided with America and against England in the war, etc… Those are the people who reproduced and created American culture. Pioneering, willing to die in search of opportunity, oppositional, etc.
If you think about it it makes perfect sense.
I see. So what gene is the tax avoidance gene and does it have rules of inheritance? What chromosome is it on?
So the group of people that left Europe in search of the new world
Most of my ancestors arrived here in the 1880s. Pretty sure they knew that there was stuff here.
and the group of people that sided with America and against England in the war,
Well the majority of Americans are not descendants of the ~1 million whites that lived in the US at the time, I think it is a sweeping generalization to condense the entire american revolution as a tax revolt. Especially since there are about a dozen grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence. And frankly I find this all to be Lamarkian pseudoscience bigotry.
If you think about it it makes perfect sense.
If I wanted to use bigotry to justify nonsense with no reference whatsoever to facts I would still believe in God. I get that the People’s History of the United States has been blowing the minds of stoned edgy teens for a while now but maybe it’s time to put away childish things.
You don’t need to even laybit at genetics. The fact is that people tend to inherit the values and attitudes of their parents, who inherited theirs from their parents etc.
I don’t think we’re (all) dumb, I think we don’t have a choice.
Don’t take offense to them calling Americans dumb. It’s a generalization of our culture. Not you as a person.
Americans are dumb with how we deal with taxes and money and socialization of services.
Well it wouldn’t be the issue that it is if we had a system that was designed to at least be somewhat responsive to popular opinion. It’s not like anyone can just wave a magic wand and reform our antiquated system. It was very deliberately designed to be very difficult to change and there are powerful interests doing everything they can to make sure it that it doesn’t.
What zero regulation on utilities and property tax does to a mfer.
I’m from California and in the income tax bracket that would definitely pay fewer taxes in Texas, but I’m happy to pay more because I feel like we get a lot for our taxes here. There’s still waste, but we have so many social safety nets in comparison to other states it is well worth it. Not to mention the government has been running a budget surplus which is given directly back to Californians rather than pocketed by the government.
So I’m hearing you don’t want your tax money spent on giving people tanks to arrest children for having abortions? Then where do your taxes go?
Probably to some hippie stuff, like libraries, or roads, or a power grid that doesn’t shit the bed every year.
power grid that doesn’t shit the bed every
yearseason.Idk y’all’s power grid is as bad or worse than Ohio’s. Also get trains so us Midwesterners can demand them
Oh, no, I’m a Marylander, I’m just referencing Texas’s constant power grid problems. XD
Depends on the region, California has two major power companies. Southern California Edison who atleast tries to maintain everything and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) who are massive fuck ups. Edison is mostly in SoCal (minus San Diego) and PG&E is mostly NorCal.
SDGE is a massive fuck up too and have doubled their rates over the last couple years for the privilege
Not saying they aint bad byt atleast the power lines are being maintained.
Abortions, when required, I’m sure; because many people in California are humane.
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Texas had a budget surplus too. They decided to give it to people who own real estate.
Only landowners should be allowed to vote, right?
“Im happy to pay more” lol stay there, we are happy you are paying more as well
It’s less “paying more” and more about reallocating funds. If taxes pay for Healthcare, they don’t have to pay for Healthcare so they would be happy to pay more taxes, for example. If the roads are maintained they end up paying less for vehicle maintenance. If public transportation becomes more available they pay less in car maintenance and gas (and possibly able to get rid of their car entirely, a HUGE difference financially, which would come from a likely unnoticeable increase in taxes).
If the money goes to weapons or corporate benefits or legal costs fighting to defend unconstitutional laws in court for political theater (or, as a Florida resident, paying taxes to have migrants in Texas shipped to New York, which helps literally nobody except the person paid to move them), that doesn’t chip anything away from what taxpayers already pay for, so it’s just additional cost.
Almost like their regressive taxation is working exactly as planned
Been trying to point this shit out to people for at least a decade. Texas property taxes are insane. Every road they build or redo is full toll or has “express” toll lanes. My water bill has over $100 a month that are taxes no one talks about tacked onto it, which seem to go up every few months.
Everyone used to point out the low cost of living as why you wanted to live in Texas, but that hasn’t been true for a while. Been to New York, California and Colorado multiple times in recent years. Everything cost about the same. These are places the right wingers used to scream about how much more expensive they are. Decent neighborhoods around Austin or DFW cost just as much for housing as most “expensive” cities now and exise taxes are insane here. Anyone not making like a quarter mill+ a year is paying a way higher tax percentage in Texas than most states with income taxes.
Exactly, I moved from TX to OR and the money saved is pretty crazy. Sure, income taxes are higher and other things cost a little more but it was overall a huge net positive in spending/saving.
Ribbit
Wowie! Who ever could have guessed that mass electing boot lickers and toadies of corporations and the super rich could ever result in the 99% being fucked over at every turn? I sure hope they have a good reason to not elect people with the working class’s interests at heart and not just because some lobbyists said liberal bad!
Haha fucking liberals, am I right, gang? What’s that mister mega donor? Right away sir. GARGLMRAUGHLMLHGHGHLH
I’m an American who has been living in Turkey for many years.
In Turkey, the political leaders in both sides of the aisle tell you not to pay income tax or property tax or payroll tax or any of the normal things Americans complain about. What is the result? An iPhone costs more than $3k. A ford focus that costs about $20k new in the US is over $50k in Turkey. EVERY package you receive is opened by the post office and inspected to see how much they can tax you. If you leave Turkey and want to bring the things you bought with you, you are taxed an exit fee… You can potentially be charged three or four times for the same item.
Whenever I hear Americans bitching about taxes it drives me insane. They have no idea what they’re asking for. The government needs money to function and they are going to get it one way or another…
I understand that the government needs money to function, I just want them to stop taking 30%+ of my income in order to buy billion dollar boats that shoot million dollar bullets.
I’m okay with the 30% so long as they stop using it to buy more and more expensive toys to murder brown children with. We’re not getting what we pay for as a society, but the idea that we can make that right by privatizing everything is ridiculous and just continuously doesn’t work.
Not only does the government needs money, services centralized in the hands of the government end up costing less because they have a monopoly and they don’t run them for a profit! Over here road insurance is private only for the vehicle, our insurance (you know, the stuff that costs a fortune to insure because breaking both legs costs more to the system than whatever car you’re driving) as road users costs peanuts in comparison to places where it’s the private sector that controls it.
Trains aren’t important because they make a lot of money. Trains are important because they make the land around them worth a lot of money. Businesses near train stations get more customers. People pay more for houses near train stations. Cities with strong transit systems have a higher GDP.
Despite this, England privatised its rail system and expects the rail companies to make a profit. Instead, English people are poorer and the government has less money.
England privatised its rail system
I have a dear friend from Docklands in London, who ran trains. We argue constantly about privatisation vs a government-run consolidated service like healthcare. He’s adamant that a mass transit system has to be run as a separate capitalist company, that it must be cash-positive, and that’s the only way to do it.
He also believes the Tube is overpriced, cramped, sweaty, and a really low value for money that is propped up by people who can’t afford to drive into London nor park once they arrive, and have no other choice.
Fun fact: Japan has privatised rail. The reason is works in Japan is that the rail companies own the land around the stations and charge rent on it
Most of the Japanese rail companies are subsidized to the hilt from mass bankruptcies and financial collapse.
services centralized in the hands of the government end up costing less because they have a monopoly
Where I live privately owned utility companies provide much cheaper services than govt. Also govt is very bad at providing them consistently (if people outside of big city lose electricity for example, they have to go and block nearest highway, otherwise govt just ignores their complaints)
I guess monopoly might be beneficial for some period of time but ultimately it’s bad, both in private and public sector.
Where I live privately owned utility companies provide much cheaper services than govt
where is that?
Ukraine
seems like rather exceptional circumstances at the moment, no?
Everything I described happened even before full scale invasion
how much heavy lifting is the phrase “full scale” doing in this sentence? when did this actually start?
What you said about Turkey is mostly true. Your causality is wrong. The reason Turkey is absurdly expensive and full of taxes is extreme amount of corruption caused by radical islamist government going full nepotism. Our head of economy was literally the groom of Erdogan for so many years.
Disclaimer: I am a Turkish dude who haplens to be an economics PhD student.
And plenty of people will continue to vote against their own interests, and the rest of us will be blamed for not compelling them to do literally anything that would actually help themselves out.
And plenty of people will continue to vote against their own interests,
When you take white supremacy into account, many of those people are voting FOR one of their primary self interests.
One of my main hobbies that I do with a group of 30ish guys most weekends, is filled with guys who just refuse to understand this. They’re all blue collar and refuse to realize they’re voting against their own interests.
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Unfortunately, the original article needs a subscription to read.
Loads for me on FF mobile, here’s the full article::
Those coming to Texas for a tax break may want to turn around if they are not in the top 1 percent of earners.
A recent post on Reddit’s main economic forum included a 2018 graphic that shows Texans pay more taxes than Californians unless they are in the top 1 percent. The post is one of the highest-rated in the last month on the social media platform. It is unclear why the post was shared now.
LOOK IT UP: How much is your city spending on corporate tax deals?
The graphic is of data from the sixth edition of the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy’s “Who Pays” series, which tracks tax data for all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The last time the nonprofit released data was in 2018, but it is expected to release updated findings later this year.
Texans in the bottom 20 percent of income earners — those earning less than $20,900 — pay 13 percent of their income in state and local taxes, while those in the top 1 percent of income earners — those earning $617,900 or more — pay only 3.1 percent.
In California, the bottom 20 percent of income earners — those earning less than $23,200 — pay 10.5 percent in state and local taxes, while the top 20 percent — those earning $714,400 or more — pay 12.4 percent.
Texas was the second-most regressive tax state, behind only Washington. Low-income taxpayers bear a disproportionate share of the tax burden in those states, according to the nonprofit. California, meanwhile, is the most progressive tax state because people in higher tax brackets pay higher tax rates.
THE LATEST: How expensive are Texas colleges? Here’s how much tuition costs
“Every state has some regressive taxes on the books,” said Carl Davis, a research director at the nonprofit. “Whether that be sales tax, motor fuel tax, tobacco tax, even property tax is somewhat regressive.”
However, unlike other states, Texas has no “progressive counterbalance,” Davis said, because there is no state income tax.
Robert Peroni, a tax professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, noted that the “Who Pays” series appears to base its results on real-world data and policy. Nothing substantial has changed in the state tax-wise since 2018, Peroni said. However, all think tanks have their own viewpoints, with the nonprofit leaning liberal, Peroni added.
For its data, the nonprofit relied on IRS income tax data, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey, sales tax data and property tax data from sources like the Census Bureau, Davis said.
Despite Texas’ reputation as a “low-tax, low-government state,” Peroni said most of its residents are high-taxed. States with income taxes do more to lower inequality, according to Peroni.
MORE: Texas teachers collectively pay more than any other state in school supplies
“We don’t have that; we’ve never had it, as far as I know,” Peroni said of a state income tax. “That makes it very hard to solve this inequality problem. When they say Texas is a very regressive state, it means if you’re low income, you spend 100 percent of it, you spend it. Some of it is tax-exempt, but most of that spending is taxed by sales tax.”
Peroni said there doesn’t seem to be a politician or political party in the state willing to propose a state income tax.
“State income tax seems to be a third rail politically in Texas and is rarely proposed even by the most liberal politicians,” Peroni said. “It makes it very hard to change the structure.”
I don’t have a subscription, just hit refresh and then stop loading the page (X in chrome) to keep the paywall from stopping you. Works for tons of websites paywalls, give it a shot.
Incredible trick. It worked! Not only did it work, it stopped a lot of trash from loading in. Thank youuuu!!!
Welcome! I just learned it recently myself, it’s been extremely effective, enjoy
If you’re using FireFox, the Tranquility Reader extension gives you a handy button to show only the content. It also suppresses the nag screen.
Safari also has a reader mode, but I’m on a PC right now and I’m too lazy to go and check.
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THANK YOU. Had to scroll almost to the bottom for this.
This is just a fancy way of saying Texas has more state and local taxes, sales tax, etc to make up for the lack of an income tax. Those taxes tend to hit the lower income folks more. This isn’t news at all to anyone.
It’s indeed news to someone, namely idiots in Texas who think they live in a low tax haven.
It is obvious to people who know but it is good to verify and call it out.
Second highest property taxes in US last time I checked.
Only second? Who the hell is first? Texas gotta step up their game
New Hampshire. Also no sales tax
So many people work in Massachusetts for the higher pay and more opportunity but live across the border in New Hampshire for the cheaper land/houses. Then they see their taxes: they don’t always realize it means you pay the higher NH property taxes PLUS the higher MA income taxes … and they still miss out on the MA safety net and other benefits
I pay $700/month to live in my own house
It’s a goddamn shame that Texas is such a political shithole of a state. The land is beautiful, (most) of the people are awesome, the food’s great. But it’s literal hell to try to exist there.
I’m going there this Christmas, and perhaps celebrating NYE in Austin. Looking forward to the food, sights, and the people
If you enjoy scenic drives, you’ll be really close to The Devil’s Backbone which is an awesome highway that travels across some giant limestone cliffs. My wife and I always made time for it whenever we went out there.
Thanks! This looks awesome
Ribbit
Cost of living (housing, food, energy/gas) is higher too though. I wonder what the PPP of California and Texas are. Well I don’t have to wronder anymore, according to 2019 numbers California has a higher PPP than Texas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_adjusted_per_capita_personal_income
Edit: Nvm, it’s the PCPI. But I guess that’s what I’m really looking for. Per capita personal income * purchasing power of the dollar in that state.
I have no problem with paying taxes. I would pay more if it went to things that actually mattered instead of to corporate pockets. Universal healthcare, better schooling and teacher wages, public transportation, a power grid that doesn’t go out when it’s needed most, actual road maintenance instead of just cones blocking off most of the lanes with no workers.
Edit: Also have the super wealthy pay their share as well.
I would pay more if it went to things that actually mattered
The really fun part of this is that if we all banded together and negotiated as one nation of almost 400 million people almost everything would be cheaper than if we all negotiate separately. Everything could be better and cheaper, but the “freedom” of the US is the freedom of every antelope to negotiate on its own with the local pride of lions. It’s the freedom to get forced into bad deals with the threat of homelessness, it’s the freedom to starve, it’s the freedom to work and scrimp and save your whole life and then have all that wiped out by medical bills after an accident that’s someone else’s fault.
Mother of fuck if all the local governments teamed up on infrastructure it would be the worse nightmare I could imagine. I would quit in a second.
The only way at all public infrastructure moves forward (I do a lot of work in that sector) is in smaller governments that don’t have the leverage to sabotage their own projects. I wish I was lying. The bigger the local government the more of a cost disease obsolete crap they get. I don’t drink the water in Toronto for a reason. I know the shysters who built their stuff.
Smaller governments are willing to update their specs, they are open to ideas that make their equipment last longer, they have an incentive to having working systems instead of backcharges.
Also fun fact I have openly threaten one of those government contract cockroaches to tattle on him to every anti-government media source I could find unless he fixed the specs of a system.
As someone who works in the industry, do you have a theory as to why virtually all of our peer democracies are so much better and more cost efficient at building big public infrastructure?
Nothing obviously jumps out at me, but I am middle management and probably don’t have the bird’s eye view you’d want to make sense of it.
For those who don’t know, it’s been an objective fact for several decades now that virtually all of our peer democracies build big public infrastructure better, faster and cheaper than we do in the US.
And it wasn’t always this way. We used to be able to get shit done, but something happened in the last few decades.
And before anyone says anything, I am not taking political sides here. I don’t know what the answer is, I’m just making an objective and well-documented observation.
As someone who works in the industry, do you have a theory as to why virtually all of our peer democracies are so much better and more cost efficient at building big public infrastructure?
You are assuming that they are. From what I see for every airport that is so glorious it is an affront to the gods there is raw sewage being poured on the ground an hour drive away. Countries are good at peices of infrastructure, sometimes. Japan is famous for this but only because no one is mentioning their powerlines or snail mail system or their M2M over fax nonsense. The Israelis got water management down pat but best not to talk about East Jerusalem. Generally speaking the US has better sewage systems than say the UK but rail not so much.
And it wasn’t always this way. We used to be able to get shit done, but something happened in the last few decades.
Yes, as a whole humanity is getting worse at infrastructure. There is plenty of blame to go around. I imagine it is a variation on cost disease. We only have so many technical people and if they are all working on Faceboot and Twatter they aren’t optimizing the traffic lights.
In particular what would make my job easier and give the taxpayers a break:
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Allow long term maintenance calculations to be used in bidding. If company A is bidding say 100k and company B is bidding 90K but company A can prove that their solution will cost less in the long run, factor that in by some equation. There are dozens of ways I know how to lower my upfront cost and increase taxpayer long term cost. I would rather not do any of them.
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No more incentives to use local businesses. I know it sounds all cute and green on paper but in practice it creates monopolies and corruption. If the best water pumping system I can find for your town is in the another country please let me buy it.
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Backcharges are now banned. If you are unhappy with what was delivered give the company a chance to make it right or blackball them for a decade. There are better things to do with our time than waste it with lawyers trying to remember what was said casually in a meeting three years ago.
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No more requiring a PE unless someone can prove that a PE is required and at the same time do not let PE boards decide licensing. PEs are scarce, thus cost more. Because they are scare they can’t train new ones. Additionally since they cost so much and improvements can’t be made because no one is willing to pay for specs to be upgraded. That is why you have specs calling for components that haven’t been made in decades and why innovations don’t move around the sector.
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Solve the problem, not the secondary effects. For example right now we have crap electricity at a site and I am struggling with all motors overheating. Upgrade the electrical feeding the site instead of demanding that I deal with impact. “Can’t you solve it in software?”. No Johnathan, I can’t software a solution to a motor melting for being demanded to give constant torque with 3rd world grade electricity.
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The top down pyramid model has been proven to be the most wasteful and slow to innovate. It only exists because it is easy. Stop using it to build infrastructure. Just because a kid knows a bit about cement doesn’t mean they are experts on welding.
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Stop farming work out. Deal with one company. That company buys it from a catalog or they build it themselves.
Almost all the problems you listed are just symptoms of going with the lowest bidder for everything. It’s similar to why so many start ups turn into ponzie schemes when VC money is involved. If you set achievable goals on a realistic timelime no one will invest in your company because there are 10 other people willing to lie to get the money. This is how most medical start ups went broke while Theranos was worth 9 billion.
Same with infatructure projects. Some town official who doesn’t even know which end of a screw driver goes in the electical outlet listens to (at best) a few proposals and chooses one. None of those proposals are going to give an honest cost by cost assesment compared to the other options. It comes down to the person making the decisions choosing who to trust. If one guy says it will need 10k a year in maintenance and the other says 100k who do you believe?
The only way to know for sure is to have your own people who you trust to verify information. But paying a knowlegeable staff like that is expensive; and people who don’t understand how complex this stuff can get will be angry at “double spended”. As in, why pay anyone in house when they aren’t actually “doing” anything like the private companies creating the proposals.
Why wouldn’t I give an honest answer? A dishonest answer is going to make me miserable. Most of the processes my company makes we make so much that we can give good estimates on total yearly cost. It would be easier for me to just hand over that data vs making up new fraudulent data that could survive a court challenge. As Mark Twain mentioned, if you tell the truth you don’t have to remember a damn thing. Besides they would easily be able to point to the numbers going over budget and demand free parts or free service.
Your idea about having your own people is why I yelled in my other comment. Those people are the worst. The more my customer understands the more problems their system will have. I know one horse towns in deliverance country using systems that smash the recommended operating lifespan and I know places that have all this local talent who are down monthly.
Doctors make the worse patients, lawyers make the worse plaintiffs, and inhouse engineers make the worse clients. The more the design is tampered with the less likely it will work right. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and open up your chest cavity and start poking around, maybe try to get your kidneys to work faster. That is what it is like dealing with the local engineering “talent”. They are overconfident, weight in on stuff that they don’t understand, follow ancient specs, and pretty much every other sin of engineering you can list.
Put another way. If me and my coworkers are working on process X all day every working day with hundreds of sites do you think we may know more than a person who deals with a single instance of the process? Phoenix Arizona is another great example. They have the most bottom of the barrel catty in-house engineering team of any city in the US. Kinda people who measure the paint thickness on a motor with calibers, demand a repainting if it is off by a milimeter, then leave it in direct sun, and are shocked when the motor overheats.
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Ironically, your country could raise taxes a whole lot for the rich, making them somewhat uncomfortable. The next step for them would be: put all of the wealth in another financial paradise. There’s plenty of those.
But let’s say every country coordinates to control cash flows, that would be quite pretty ngl
I’m not denying we do live in a special corrupt time, but government is inherently inefficient due to its scope and wage pressure from private industry 1
Changes in real world wage movements across sectors account for about a third of the rise in the cost of U.S. government services between 1959 and 1989, while relatively slower productivity in the public sector acccounts for the remaining two-thirds. Even though it is slower, however, the productivity record still is positive even in the labor intensive government sector. Consequently Baumol argues that the public’s likely future objection to necessary increases in the share of expenditures over the next 50 years will betray a fiscal illusion unless policymakers take pains to dissolve it.
Private industry is also super inefficient, and then cuts massive corners on everything.
the reason private industry doesn’t have the reputation for inefficiency that government has is nothing to do with private industry’s actual efficiency. It’s a combination of the fact that most of the decisions private companies make are behind closed doors whereas government stuff is public and something I call selective collectivism, which is to say that when government fucks up that’s a reflection on government as a whole but when private industry fucks up we only fault that individual company and not private industry as a whole.
It’s a magic feature of capitalism, the ability to convince people that any failure is limited to a single entity.
It’s why so many people underestimate the deaths attributable to capitalism. We all know where the buck stopped under Stalin. In the contemporary US, who is responsible when people die in underregulated workplaces or the equivalent? Is it the state? The company? The industry? We can’t decide, but we don’t blame capitalism, even if that structure drives the suffering.
hell, if we’re gonna be historical about it why is the USSR and communism as a whole responsible for the Ukraine famine but capitalism isn’s responsible for the Irish or Bengali famines? About 5 million dead between the two of them, all due to decisions by capitalist-democratic-imperialist governments. But that just doesn’t count because we don’t talk about it.
100%
average health care company: proceeds to spend mammoth quantity of resources on advertising, especially for drugs
As by design. What a joke of a country.
The problem with California is that while they have a massive Democratic majority, they have absolutely no intent of acting like the social welfare alternative Democrats are nationally claiming to be.
Democrats have full power in California, yet it’s a place full of poverty and homelessness, where poor people are screwed over hard, where housing initiatives are literally destroyed, and “undesirables” are soft-quarantined in Skid Row.
California is a place where the rich benefit and the poor suffer. Democrats chose to make that happen, and they choose to perpetuate it. Progressive efforts in California amount to nothing but lip-service, it’s a blue-painted right-wing state. The only conservative things it rejects is religion.
How long have you lived in California?
I’m sick of hearing these sweeping generalizations from people who have never lived here. We have amazing social welfare programs when compared with the rest of the US. We have state grants for college, tuition waivers, scholarships and programs for different populations including the most disdvantaged. We have Medi-Cal, which improved so much since the Obama admin that it covers ten times more than my parents’ private insurance did when I was a kid. This includes addiction treatment and mental health. (This is actually a federal requirement so not sure why CA should be any different). Methadone, suboxone (again, federal, as Biden just increased access to suboxone doctors), rehab, ER, ambulance, derm, psychiatry, inpatient psych, birth control, reproductive care, etc. However, the city/county you live in needs to have that healthcare infrastructure before Medi-Cal can pay for it, and geographically, much of this state is pretty conservative. To your “point” about progressivism being “lip service,” our metro areas have large enough populations to counter that. I mean, idk if you ever paid attention in high school civics, but geography and population density are two different things. The San Juaquin valley is pretty red, but it consists of…Fresno. The advantages we have here are astronomical compared to Medicaid in other states, especially red states. Not to mention housing, food programs, K-12 and pre-K education, reproductive rights. The way we handled covid was far better than most of the country, but Pelosi got her hair done when she shouldn’t have so I guess it doesn’t count. Oh, and homeless people exist, so I guess all the rest of it is invalid too. Which is exactly why education is so important. Decent higher education teaches you to think for yourself and identify what’s true and what’s not, instead of buying into rhetoric. They call it “media literacy” and it’s taught in our state subsidized colleges. Good luck with all those book bans though.
But no one can convince someone of reality when they’d rather believe clickbait. This is America - no state is going to have social welfare that is anywhere near as extensive as it should be, and no state in the union is “progressive.” California is only doing the absolute bare minimum of what a decent direct democracy should be doing for it’s people, and even that is just so fucking radical that the rest of the country seems to think we’re Sodom and Gomorrah (while simultaneously arguing about how we’re not liberal enough. Hmmm.) So it’s just disingenuous to argue that it’s “not progressive enough” when that’s just…not even a thing in the US. But if whining about someplace they’ve never been, that has such a high GDP that it probably subsidizes their own state, is so much fun for people then who am I to try to stop their bitching. If you want to have perfection be the enemy of progress, then I guess that’s on you.
I’ve visited. Your state is a shithole with some walled gardens and towers of gold. Your streets smell of piss and worse, there are tents everywhere people can get one up without the cops immediately coming over to throw them out. And that’s how you intend to keep it, because you have no interest in housing the unworthy.
What you have are a lot of programs with a lot of names that are supposed to sound like they do something. You have a lot of things to mention.
What you don’t have are results, or an interest in getting results.
I live in Norway. I know what a democracy with solid welfare should look like, even when it’s never perfect.
I also know why you’re not getting the results you should:
You don’t believe you should make it THAT easy to just not be homeless. You simply don’t believe in just paying to build the buildings and handing out the keys. It’s not the way you want to solve it.
So, when all is said and done, and another decade has passed; You stilll won’t have solved it and you likely still won’t want to solve it.
California is only doing the absolute bare minimum…
You said it yourself.
You’re from fucking Norway, of course your standard of living is way better than anywhere in the US. It all sucks over here, but California is marginally better, which to Americans is leagues better than other states. It’s sad, we are forced to fight for Breadcrumbs. The town I live in in Oregon has the highest amount of homeless people per capita. Other states and cities may not because they bus homeless people to partocular cities in California and in Oregon, or throw them in jail. Homelessness is a US issue.
Republicans will give you all the social conservatism capital will tolerate, while Democrats will give you all the social progress that capital will tolerate. It’s a very fuckin’ narrow window.
Capital wants to build more in Cali. Residents don’t.
Capital is right, again.
Any time capital is “right” from the point of view of human well-being, it is a coincidence. Our needs are secondary and only important to the degree that they affect capital. Capital will never provide adequate housing on its own because it depends on the realistic threat of homelessness to exploit the working class and extract vastly more value could be obtained without coercion.
Capital would provide adequate housing right now but zoning laws prevent it
Some capital does. Some capital opposes building in Cali. I mean, it’d (rightfully) destroy the value of a lot of beautiful homes used in part as investment vehicles. Otherwise, why would anyone be concerned with property values?
Am i crazy or is real estate an asset but not generally considered capital colloquially?
I get your take, that people use homes a investments, strongly oppose the icept that homes should appreciate in value
Depends on who you’re talking to, I think. I don’t know that there’s a colloquial consensus.
As an LA resident this is only like half true.
Your problem is that the parties have shifted so far right, most of the democratic support in California would actually be centrist republicans.
California is overwhelmingly not super liberal, though there are notable exceptions.
There is no easy fix for poverty and homelessness in CA. It should legitimately be a national level issue given that the homeless populations here are near to small size city.
CA has grown all it could in the last 6 decades and now is contracting. I moved here 20 years ago and the grown is absolutely staggering.
The biggest problem CA has with housing is that it’s housing and zoning policies cater to people who (or whose grandparents) moved to Cali in the 50s and 60s. “Neighborhood character” is defended by even nominally left-wing demagogues in California.
You fix housing costs by creating more places to live. Californians rejected this to such an extent that Newsom had to take a nuke, statewide, to local zoning ordinances.
I moved where I am 4 years ago. I was able to afford it by working hard as fuck and saving every penny. I didn’t inherit shit from my parents and we came to US in late 90s.
Am I a shitty person for not wanting a homeless housing anywhere near my neighborhood? Fuck it, I’ll take it one further - I don’t even want apartment buildings anywhere near me.
I’m not an exception. Vast majority of people around me are immigrants with similar stories.
am I a shitty person
Yes
The shittiness stems from the motivation.
I don’t want homeless people because nobody should be homeless. You don’t want homeless people because you think they’re gross.
We are not the same.
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I worked my ass off to get my degrees and professional license plus getting a foothold in the industry and so on. I barely made it - and I have all the advantages in the world. It’s really really hard to succeed even if you have everything going for you. The “make your own luck” and bootstraps mentality is pure hubris IMO. They want to pretend they are special and didn’t have any support I guess.
This is your daily reminder that no politicians have your best interest at heart. You can say one party is better than the other but they’re both bought and owned and you didn’t get to put in a bid.
No both sides on this. The right has made serious and consequential moves to eliminate rule of law. It will not return once removed.
One side actively tries to take basic human rights from people, and the other doesn’t. They both may have been bought, but only one is actively trying to make sure groups of people don’t exist
Right. The republicans are like the cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck while democrats are like the cop standing to the side watching.
That’s not necessarily true. The good cop isn’t really trying to look out for you, he’s just there to make the bad cop more effective, but they both want the same thing from you.
