Future Skylines/Developments of the US

TheRifleman said:
BigPicture--- I agree with what everything you wrote. ---Except KMP comment on income Inequality being okay
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People put in varying degrees of effort and accept different levels of risk in life. Some people do not deserve the same thing as others.
 
TheRifleman said:
---Except KMP comment on income Inequality being okay
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Thanks, but I didn't say income inequality is OK.

That was actually my main point...that income stratification - meaning that some people will get paid more than others on the basis of what job they hold - is OK and natural (e.g., a brain surgeon will inevitably make more than a dental hygienist). But that income inequality is a different phenomenon, and it is not OK.

I was specifically trying to call attention to the difference between these phenomena. Income inequality is the term for unjust allocation of a nation's productivity growth. Meaning: lets say it takes two type of people to manufacture a Widget, person A and person B. They are both very hard working, but person A's job pays more because they had to go to school longer and their skills are more specialized, and person B makes less. In Year 1: person A makes $100,000/year and person B makes $30,000/year...and the two of them agree to this arrangement. In Year 5, however, the profit margin on Widgets has increased because Person A and B have been steadily becoming more productive at making widgets...except, Person A sneakily finds a way to hide this extra profit margin from Person B....and now, Person A makes $200,000/year, and Person B still makes $30,000/year. All the while, Person B busts his/her butt working just as hard or harder than Year 1.

That is income inequality, and it's exactly what's been going on in the US for the past 40-ish years. Productivity has gone up - we as a nation produce more using the same amount of input - but the average U.S. salary has NOT gone up in real terms. The answer to "where'd all that extra money we all collectively earned go?" is income inequality.
 
kmp1284 said:
People put in varying degrees of effort and accept different levels of risk in life. Some people do not deserve the same thing as others.
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And this is what I labeled income stratification. Which I have no problem with.

But this is not income inequality.
 
bigpicture7 said:
Thanks, but I didn't say income inequality is OK.

That was actually my main point...that income stratification - meaning that some people will get paid more than others on the basis of what job they hold - is OK and natural (e.g., a brain surgeon will inevitably make more than a dental hygienist). But that income inequality is a different phenomenon, and it is not OK.

I was specifically trying to call attention to the difference between these phenomena. Income inequality is the term for unjust allocation of a nation's productivity growth. Meaning: lets say it takes two type of people to manufacture a Widget, person A and person B. They are both very hard working, but person A's job pays more because they had to go to school longer and their skills are more specialized, and person B makes less. In Year 1: person A makes $100,000/year and person B makes $30,000/year...and the two of them agree to this arrangement. In Year 5, however, the profit margin on Widgets has increased because Person A and B have been steadily becoming more productive at making widgets...except, Person A sneakily finds a way to hide this extra profit margin from Person B....and now, Person A makes $200,000/year, and Person B still makes $30,000/year. All the while, Person B busts his/her butt working just as hard or harder than Year 1.

That is income inequality, and it's exactly what's been going on in the US for the past 40-ish years. Productivity has gone up - we as a nation produce more using the same amount of input - but the average U.S. salary has NOT gone up in real terms. The answer to "where'd all that extra money we all collectively earned go?" is income inequality.
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But widget makers are a dime a dozen and a perfectly capable one can be found for $30k. As they are employees and not shareholders, there is no logical reason to pay them anything more than what the market dictates they are worth.
 
kmp1284 said:
But widget makers are a dime a dozen and a perfectly capable one can be found for $30k. As they are employees and not shareholders, there is no logical reason to pay them anything more than what the market dictates they are worth.
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The whole point is that the market doesn't guarantee them a living wage.

If there weren't government minimum wage laws, they would live in squalor in tent cities on the outskirts of town. Because, you are right, KMP, there is no mechanism (other than min. wage) to stop that.

Economics alone isn't how we as a society operate. We have a democracy to agree on a set of values. The set of values that we agreed to live on between WWII and 1980 was that we should establish the concept of a living wage for the bottom strata. And we as a nation established that the bottom strata should track GDP growth. That worked fine for our country for most of the 20th century. The rich get to get richer when the GDP goes up. But the poor can still buy bread. Everyone wins, and the upper strata wins more because their slice of the GDP is more, but at least the lowest strata is just fine.

The difference between your opinion and mine is as simple as setting the minimum wage to some neutral index, like a .000000001 of GDP growth (I'm too tired to get the # of zeros right).

But we're corrupt policymakers. We set minimum wage = to some set value that is guaranteed to be obsolete a year after its set. Why not just set it equal to an index? The only answer to that is intentional exploitation.

Your argument that everyone should just try harder makes absolutely no sense. We need people to clean toilets. We can't do without those people. And it's a narrowing pyramid of roles at each successive strata.
And there's this concept called asymmetric bargaining power...a CEO can singlehandledly set toilet cleaner's wages...but it would take some sizeable percentage of them to agree to strike to prevent that. Even right wing economists agree to asymmetry of bargaining power; even they agree society would collapse without setting some sort of a minimum wage. This is NOT supply/demand 101....THAT is when you buy a pair of shoes, and you and the seller have equal bargaining power, and the fair price adjusts itself.

So why not just agree to pay minimum wage based on an index and not a set minimum wage value? I'll tell you why: because minimum wage obsolescence is how CEOs pad their cost performance statistics to make themselves look better to stockholders. It's called cheating - it means they're not actually running their companies better, but they're making it look like they are. I really hope you're not an investment analyst.

There is NO reason not to set minimum wage equal to a GDP growth-based index.
 
bigpicture7 said:
The whole point is that the market doesn't guarantee them a living wage.

If there weren't government minimum wage laws, they would live in squalor in tent cities on the outskirts of town. Because, you are right, KMP, there is no mechanism (other than min. wage) to stop that.

Economics alone isn't how we as a society operate. We have a democracy to agree on a set of values. The set of values that we agreed to live on between WWII and 1980 was that we should establish the concept of a living wage for the bottom strata. And we as a nation established that the bottom strata should track GDP growth. That worked fine for our country for most of the 20th century. The rich get to get richer when the GDP goes up. But the poor can still buy bread. Everyone wins, and the upper strata wins more because their slice of the GDP is more, but at least the lowest strata is just fine.

The difference between your opinion and mine is as simple as setting the minimum wage to some neutral index, like a .000000001 of GDP growth (I'm too tired to get the # of zeros right).

But we're corrupt policymakers. We set minimum wage = to some set value that is guaranteed to be obsolete a year after its set. Why not just set it equal to an index? The only answer to that is intentional exploitation.

Your argument that everyone should just try harder makes absolutely no sense. We need people to clean toilets. We can't do without those people. And it's a narrowing pyramid of roles at each successive strata.
And there's this concept called asymmetric bargaining power...a CEO can singlehandledly set toilet cleaner's wages...but it would take some sizeable percentage of them to agree to strike to prevent that. Even right wing economists agree to asymmetry of bargaining power; even they agree society would collapse without setting some sort of a minimum wage. This is NOT supply/demand 101....THAT is when you buy a pair of shoes, and you and the seller have equal bargaining power, and the fair price adjusts itself.

So why not just agree to pay minimum wage based on an index and not a set minimum wage value? I'll tell you why: because minimum wage obsolescence is how CEOs pad their cost performance statistics to make themselves look better to stockholders. It's called cheating - it means they're not actually running their companies better, but they're making it look like they are. I really hope you're not an investment analyst.

There is NO reason not to set minimum wage equal to a GDP growth-based index.
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One thing you are missing from your Thesis:
Is the valuation of the U.S. dollar (Per Gold Standard) Before it was taken off.
Dollar determines the price mechanism for goods and services.

Interest rates determine the value of the US Worker productivity--because at the end of the day that Paycheck needs to pay his bills for Food, Housing energy costs.

There is a serious disconnect with our Govt/FED on understanding why Interest rates are pinned so low for so long.
 
TheRifleman said:
One thing you are missing from your Thesis:
Is the valuation of the U.S. dollar (Per Gold Standard) Before it was taken off.
Dollar determines the price mechanism for goods and services.

Interest rates determine the value of the US Worker productivity--because at the end of the day that Paycheck needs to pay his bills for Food, Housing energy costs.

There is a serious disconnect with our Govt/FED on understanding why Interest rates are pinned so low for so long.
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While interest rates and inflation does erode purchasing power, you are missing the entire point of keeping interest rates low.

As stated multiple times in the past, the reason why interest rates were kept low is so that people do not save and instead spend. In a depressed economy, you have to drive up consumer demands and the only way to do that is to make money cheap and readily available. Rising consumer demands = demand for employees = job creation. If you quickly raise interest rates, you will end up suppressing the recovery as people pull back on spending.

Furthermore, the depreciation of the US dollar, while eroding the purchasing power of US Americans also makes US goods more competitive and more attractive as it becomes cheaper. In other words, this would increase demand for US goods internationally. Again, this would create jobs for the US workers which would also eventually increase their wages when the unemployment rate falls (and thus would increase their purchasing power via higher income).

Finally, keeping interest rate low and allowing inflation helps in repaying back fixed rate loans by refinancing with lower interest loans to pay off higher interest debt or decrease the interest rate for those who have floating rate loans. By spending a smaller proportion of their income on accruing interests, consumers can spend more on goods and services which would help prop up demand.
 
kmp1284 said:
People put in varying degrees of effort and accept different levels of risk in life. Some people do not deserve the same thing as others.
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There's the old kmp! While there are of course exceptions, I know you're aware that the vast majority of the wealthy in this country are either born into money or opportunity.

While building 800ft towers isn't going to do much to fix this, can we agree that Boston could use more housing stock (particularly on transit lines) in order to bring pricing down enough to accommodate somewhat lower incomes? A city benefits from diversity.
 
Justin7 said:
There's the old kmp! While there are of course exceptions, I know you're aware that the vast majority of the wealthy in this country are either born into money or opportunity.

While building 800ft towers isn't going to do much to fix this, can we agree that Boston could use more housing stock (particularly on transit lines) in order to bring pricing down enough to accommodate somewhat lower incomes? A city benefits from diversity.
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For one week only! I'll just never be able to wrap my head around the concept of a living wage for no-skill jobs. A slightly higher minimum wage is more than appropriate(and it probably should be indexed in some manner). The simple fact is that minimum wage jobs should be looked upon as a place to start in the workforce, not to spend an entire career. If one is only willing to exert minimal effort and take no risk, why then should they be compensated at a level beyond the minimum required by law or what the market dictates?
 
Justin7 said:
There's the old kmp!
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I have been enjoying this back and forth over the last few days. TRM has embraced a bunch of democratic talking points, KMP has gone all-in on the republican side, and they are hashing it out with no regard to the irony of it all. It's all quite delicious.
 
kmp1284 said:
For one week only! I'll just never be able to wrap my head around the concept of a living wage for no-skill jobs. A slightly higher minimum wage is more than appropriate(and it probably should be indexed in some manner). The simple fact is that minimum wage jobs should be looked upon as a place to start in the workforce, not to spend an entire career. If one is only willing to exert minimal effort and take no risk, why then should they be compensated at a level beyond the minimum required by law or what the market dictates?
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I'm actually perfectly willing to live with this.

Tying the min. wage to an index is key. The rest of the career ladder will fill in (in terms of salary growth with increased skills).

This has been a couple of days of good compromise on this thread : )
 
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San Fran

San-Francisco-Skyline-Rendering-2017-North.jpg
 
DZH22 said:
I have been enjoying this back and forth over the last few days. TRM has embraced a bunch of democratic talking points, KMP has gone all-in on the republican side, and they are hashing it out with no regard to the irony of it all. It's all quite delicious.
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+1. It is funny to watch them tear each other apart.
 
First wooden high rise going up in Portland.

Framework-by-LEVER-Architecture-1-889x677.jpg


Looks great

Its absolutely nothing compared to whats proposed in London though. Oakwood tower.

300m-wooden-skyscraper-at-barbican-oakwood-tower-by-plp-and-university-of-cambridge_dezeen_1568_0.jpg


Hopefully we could get something on this level in the US one day.
 
And jesus I just went back through the thread to look over some of the cities and page 1 starts off well and page 2 is an absolute black hole clusterfuck. Do not go there lol.
 
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