patrick.net

4X says

What other methods do you see as viable options for improving our economy?

I'd like to toot my tax horn and say we should tax commercial site values a lot and improvements not at all (other than for various footprints -- mainly shadowing and local traffic impact) . This would encourage development and move some if not much land out of idle hands to people willing and able to put the land to work at more optimal uses.

Canadian-style single-payer insurance with Japanese-style cost controls.

~80% of the population should have access to a natural-gas powered bus grid that runs ~80% of the buses at 10-15 minute intervals. Right now our oil trade deficit is worse than our goods import:

Nukes. A lot. Plus a new manhattan project for solar and battery technology.

Apparently 1 out of 4 people in jail in the world are in the US. We should probably legalize drugs and do some urban redevelopment. The redevelopment of the previous century didn't turn out that well but perhaps that's because we did it on the cheap. It should be possible to house anyone in our major inburbs for $400/mo for a nice 2 bedroom garden apartment. That is around $250,000 of fixed improvements carried at the government's cost of money at 2%.

Education could use some more investment too.

So, that's energy, education, healthcare, housing, local transportation, crime, urban redevelopment. It's a start. We've got the money -- 20% of this country owns almost 90%+ of the wealth -- but lack the unity of will.

The question kinda becomes where's the wealth creation opportunities for the 80% of the population that doesn't have a good education. I don't have an answer for that. Perhaps with our productivity we don't need wealth creation (ie jobs) for everyone. A basic life without luxuries isn't that capital intensive to just dole out. I understand this idea is contentious and reasonable people can disagree : )

Education. Everything else follows. I think kids should be in school 9-5, 50 weeks a year, and they need to be educated in fundamentally different ways, not the industrial era “3 Rs”.

The terrible truth is that there is no equality where natural aptitude is concerned. All the college credits in the world are not necessarily going to create a fleet of high minded, highly skilled magnates in lucrative, cutting edge careers. I do agree, however, that real gains could be made in revamping the public school system. It's too much of a one-size-fits-all, high-volume mill with a lousy quality control department, from K-12 and on through Universities/Technical Colleges.

That said, scratch 50 weeks a year. A disproportionate amount of a person's life is spent in classrooms as it is. Look around -- there are more than enough hyper-educated cataleptic automatons out there in careers they'd blow in a second if only their Lotto numbers came in.

There's too much theory and not enough practice, which is where one finds a real education. I hear of students (my neighbor is a Biophysics Prof) simply navigating coursework by gratifying a professor's ego/agenda in order to get their ticket punched. There should be more focus early on in discovering what field of study within which a student might naturally excel and bring something to. Probably the best way to do that is to place students in environments/situations outside of the classroom where certain aptitudes might have a chance to emerge/evolve.

Call me a dreamer, but personal fulfillment is an essential economic underpinning and driver. If you had a working public full of more people who truly loved their work, the result would be a more sound economy, very possibly less consumer debt, better product, and an overall better social fabric.

Troy says

4X says

What other methods do you see as viable options for improving our economy?

I’d like to toot my tax horn and say we should tax commercial site values a lot and improvements not at all (other than for various footprints — mainly shadowing and local traffic impact) . This would encourage development and move some if not much land out of idle hands to people willing and able to put the land to work at more optimal uses.

So you are saying that land that is sitting and not being used should be tax heavily to encourage its usage?

4X says

So you are saying that land that is sitting and not being used should be tax heavily to encourage its usage?

Ideally all land underdeveloped land (compared to its zoning) should be redeveloped or abandoned to the city, no?

This is just a standard Georgist boilerplate position. Density is good in that it can make for more efficient (walkable) neighborhoods and a variety of lifestyles. Manhattan was kinda brilliant in setting aside such a large chunk of the island while encouraging density everywhere else. Zone more density and you can zone more parks, too. Win-win.

Here's what Churchill said in 1909 on this topic:

"The greater the population around the land, the greater the injury the public has sustained by its protracted denial. And, the more inconvenience caused to everybody; the more serious the loss in economic strength and activity -- the larger will be the profit of the landlord when the sale is finally accomplished. In fact, you may say that the unearned increment on the land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the service, but to the disservice done. It is monopoly which is the keynote, and where monopoly prevails, the greater the injury to society the greater the reward to the monopolist. This evil process strikes at every form of industrial activity. The municipality, wishing for broader streets, better houses, more healthy, decent, scientifically planned towns, is made to pay more to get them in proportion as is has exerted itself to make past improvements. The more it has improved the town, the more it will have to pay for any land it may now wish to acquire for further improvements."