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@Savant
The cost of living is way out of whack.Standard of living has increased.The average house now is 400kThat's because they've gotten bigger.Education costs tens of thousands when before it's a few hundred or thousandBecause it leads to higher pay.The minimum wage in the 70s was 15 bucks after inflation and is only 7 and change now. Wages just tread water and have barely gone up after inflation over decades.Real compensation has increased, matching the rise in productivity.Healthcare was was less now it's 18% of our gdp, which also isn't competitive with other countries who spend half as much and cover everyone with less wait times and better in general.Life expectancy has continued to rise.
I don't know why, but you are going gang busters on rationalizing a poor running economy and government.
you say healthcare is okay even though we spend twice as much as other countries and way more than we use to, because life expectancy has increased. ok, sure, that helps justify it a bit. but even libertarians and conservatives who want to provide everyone healthcare have healthcare plans that would significantly reduce the size our or healthcare bloat. why not advocate that? both parties have good ideas to reduce costs, there's no reason to rationalize leaving it the way it is just because life expectancy has risen. plus, even by that metric, the USA is away behind other countries on life expectancy too, yet every other developed country provides healthcare to everyone at half the cost with shorter wait times in general.
you are also rationalizing on education too. just because education leads to higher paying jobs doesn't mean the outrageous cost is justifiable. in boomer days, schools were funded like k through 12, so education was super cheap also like they do in some other countries. the conservatives privatized it and put the pressure on individual students, ballooning costs. we could go back to that model or we could outlaw student tuition loans and only have student pay a percent of their income. these would be bring costs down, or at least to a managemenable level. there's no reason it has to be so unmanageable.
where on earth do you get that compensation has risen to match productivity? do a basic Google search. if the minimum wage had increased with productivity, it'd be above twenty bucks an hour. there's no reason it should be half of what it was after inflation compared to the 70s.
houses have gotten bigger but that stilll doesn't justify the costs of 400 freaking thousand on average. there's a housing shortage so instead of rationalizing the costs yet again, you should be promoting building more houses. there's lots of ways to put downward pressure on housing costs that don't involve hand outs, you should be coming up with ideas instead of rationalizing.
you say healthcare is okay even though we spend twice as much as other countries and way more than we use to, because life expectancy has increased. ok, sure, that helps justify it a bit. but even libertarians and conservatives who want to provide everyone healthcare have healthcare plans that would significantly reduce the size our or healthcare bloat. why not advocate that? both parties have good ideas to reduce costs, there's no reason to rationalize leaving it the way it is just because life expectancy has risen. plus, even by that metric, the USA is away behind other countries on life expectancy too, yet every other developed country provides healthcare to everyone at half the cost with shorter wait times in general.
you are also rationalizing on education too. just because education leads to higher paying jobs doesn't mean the outrageous cost is justifiable. in boomer days, schools were funded like k through 12, so education was super cheap also like they do in some other countries. the conservatives privatized it and put the pressure on individual students, ballooning costs. we could go back to that model or we could outlaw student tuition loans and only have student pay a percent of their income. these would be bring costs down, or at least to a managemenable level. there's no reason it has to be so unmanageable.
where on earth do you get that compensation has risen to match productivity? do a basic Google search. if the minimum wage had increased with productivity, it'd be above twenty bucks an hour. there's no reason it should be half of what it was after inflation compared to the 70s.
houses have gotten bigger but that stilll doesn't justify the costs of 400 freaking thousand on average. there's a housing shortage so instead of rationalizing the costs yet again, you should be promoting building more houses. there's lots of ways to put downward pressure on housing costs that don't involve hand outs, you should be coming up with ideas instead of rationalizing.
you say standard of living has increased, sure, even poor people can have a decent life as long as they can work 40 hours a week, mostly... but that doesn't justify all the things that we could easily bring the costs down on being so out of reach compared to boomer days. you're a smart guy, instead of rationalizing so much, you should be coming up with solutions.
