In my apartment, I paid $52-$68. My apartment was 3 times the size of the living space I propose, had 4-inch walls, and did not have any insulation; one entire long wall and one short wall (50% of my wall space), as well as the entire ceiling, was uninsulated and facing directly outside.
Were you paying a significant amount to heat/cool it by electricity? How long ago was this? I'm trying to figure out the source of your numbers.
I was a little wrong, my electric bill's service charge is $17.50. To make this clear, even if I flipped the main breaker for a whole billing period and used 0 kwh, I'd be charged $17.50+taxes, which consumes *MOST* of your figuring for the utility bill.
The fallacy I see you using is using a pure linear estimation on a electric bill for an apartment 3X the size of what you propose. MY point is that electricity costs aren't linear with apartment size.
The difference in electricity use between a ~750 sqft apartment and a 250 one is likely to be negligible. In most cases you're still looking at about the same time with the same lighting, the same computer or TV on the same amount of time, the same electricity demands for cooking, etc...
The poverty line is a relative poverty measure. It's a delineation at which we say people are poor because they look poor. It's distinct from absolute poverty, which is the delineation at which a person cannot afford the basic needs for living. The term "decent life", as you put it, is distinct from "subsistence".
It's still not a bullshit metric.
That's actually a function of risk control, and not cost. A larger apartment holds a higher-income tenant with less of a flight risk;
Not necessarily. Remember what I mentioned about static costs? There's a basic minimum cost for a functional bathroom or kitchen. Bathrooms/kitchens effectively cost more per square foot, and this price increases as they shrink. As the apartment itself shrinks, the proportion of the apartment that is bathroom/kitchen increases.
Bedroom/living room space is cheap in comparison.
I've seen as low as $0.62/sqft for a 900sqft area; I've seen some apartments as low as $330, but don't like the amount of risk in treating that as the norm.
Cheap apartments are likely to be old apartments. 900 square feet can be cheaper per sqft than 244. Think about it. For a 900 sqft apartment, you still only need to supply 1 each of: refridgerator, stove, sink, bathroom sink, toilet, bathtub or shower, etc... That 900 feet will be more expensive subdivided into 4 tiny apartments because there's more walls involved, and 4 times the appliances/equipment.
we're going to have a multi-year transition period where we've still got people on HUD because the landlords are figuring out what units to build *and* trying to manage finances and logistics in hiring construction to build them.
Don't forget that you'll have to address zoning and building codes. For example, Manhattan has a requirement that the smallest legal apartment is 400 sqft. Bloomberg wanted to reduce it to 300, you'd need to reduce it even more. Chicago stipulates that in any given development must average at least 500. It also has rules about how many apartments can be on the land, how many can be 'efficiency', how many parking spots must be provided, etc... Even Phoenix, AZ, my earlier example, has various rules that add up to ~400 square feet.
you have to plan and project, which is why there are pretty big error bars.
I don't disagree with the error bars. I simply disagree that they're in the right spots, assuming an
Why not ? Plenty of people when given the choice between being given, say, $50 and working to get $60 will work for that extra $10. There's a massive labour surplus, remember.
Marginal valuation of time. Costs of working. Right now you have people taking whatever they can get because otherwise they'd starve.
Realistically, I'll fully admit that while eliminating welfare cliffs will help push motivated people into working more, you will have others that will voluntarily leave the workforce.
As the labor market fluxuates, employers will probably find that they have to pay more to get workers in hot markets because they have to lure people in.
This is only on the bottom of the market, of course, where employers currently have the biggest power advantage over their employees. Get into 'actually pays taxes' levels of income, you're looking at professionals who already have power and dedication.
To put it another way - I normally get the OPPOSITE argument you're pushing - that too many workers would STOP working if a BIG is paid.
You say that any job should pay enough to live on. I say that not every worker is worth a 'living' wage. First problem - living wage for what? A single person? A nuclear family? A single mother with 3 kids? Add in unexperienced, low-qualification workers, and it takes some time to build the experience to be worth those kinds of wages.
Yes, the wage stagnation sucks. A lot of it is due to arbitrage and the outsourcing to China causing wage equalization for factory labor. That should be ending soon - Chinese wages have been shooting up like a rocket the last couple decades, and it's gotten to the point that building in China and shipping to the USA is 'sometimes' more expensive. As China's labor costs continue to rise, this becomes more common.
You are conflating the outcome of poorly structured welfare and decades of wage suppression (amongst many other issues, eg: reduction in worker protections) with the outcome of not having a BIG.
Ah. I view it more as I'm dealing with current reality. I support a BIG because I see it as addressing a number of problems. Sure, with enough reforms, we could probably eliminate the welfare cliffs. But there's also the administrative costs. Under a BIG, those should be much reduced. In addtion, as a libertarian, I'm opposed to government meddling - which is just what we're seeing with politicians proposing everything from limiting the amount of seafood people on welfare can buy to the types of goods and where they can withdraw money.
Welfare cliffs exist because people who "shouldn't" be reliant on it - ie: in full-time jobs - are. Welfare is supposed to be for people incapable of supporting themselves - ie:
A lot of them aren't in full time jobs, or their family are underemployed.
In a scenario where you go from no income (+welfare), to a liveable income, the complete withdrawal of the welfare component should have no meaningful impact (other than having to go to work everyday).
Do you have a meaningful method to ensure that 'livable incomes' are available? Or are we going to pay people a living wage even for what amounts to lazy make-work?
To be a bit more clear, I feel that the BIG also helps people move up in the job market-it's security when changing jobs, for example. So we start with a part time stocker, who, as he gains experience, moves up in his employment until his pay IS enough to live on.
The solution here is not more welfare, it is better paying jobs so that people who shouldn't be dependent on welfare - full time workers - are not.
Oddly, I'm not giving out a significant amount of additional welfare, I'm just changing the way it's structured.
Here in Australia, child support is available to families earning 150% of the median income. Families on median incomes would suffer
Yeah, people who think that 'gun locks' are safer than even 'residential security containers'* haven't really examined what it would take to get one off.
Other tool options include pry bars, dremels, etc...
Short of a safe, gun locks are more for protecting children than preventing thieves.
*IE those small gun 'safes' that I don't consider to actually be a safe.
Oh darn it, forgot about that little definition problem - I don't consider those safes. They're 'residential security containers'. This is an actual gun safe.
You really need a lock that passes through the firing chamber if you want to store your gun safely.
No you don't. You do realize that the same 'simple tools' used to open the RSCs in that article can also be used to remove cable locks and such, right?
Indeed, it's one of the problems with most actual 'gun locks' that attach to the firearm - because they're smaller, they're easier to defeat. A bit harder if you don't want to scuff up the gun, but if you're using that somebody can pick the lock of an RSC, or use 'simple tools' to force one open, as a reason you need an actual gun lock, then you're committing a fallacy because equally simple tools can be used to remove the gun lock. For example, most that pass through the chamber are really only using a simple cable of smallish gauge, and those aren't that hard to cut through.
Even if you don't need to shoot, how many of you have opened up a battery case to discover that one has corroded and damaged your device?
Once. In a device that I had forgotten about for over a decade. They make batteries that won't leak, but running out of juice is a concern even if it can operate on a single coin cell for over a year.
There's actually lots of batteries in gun accessories - flashlights, even some scopes. But those tend to be around AA sized.
A gun locker, much less a gun safe, is a much much better option than gun locks. Back in the day consumer reports checked a number of them - they managed to fire approximately half the guns with the lock still on. For two of them, they found that pulling the trigger was easier with the 'trigger lock' on.
Unless the police and military adopt smart gun technology, then you arent going to get civilians to adopt it.
This is my stand on it. Thus far every 'smart gun' proposal has had even the most anti-gun police department lobby incredibly hard to make sure they were completely exempt from it. Despite police officers having a known rate for being killed by their own firearms taken away from them. It's something like 3 a year.
Personally, I figure that any criminal who manages to gain a firearm will also manage to unlock or rekey it to himself given time, if not bypass the system completely, so it's only useful in the 'immediate' time frame.
Anyways, I've done some research on this. Thus far, I'm familiar with 3 types of 'smart gun'. First, the oldest. Known as 'Magna-Trigger', this system uses a magnetic ring worn on a finger as a safety. Advantages: Non-electronic, reliable, fairly cheap(~$500 for complete setup), works through gloves and such. Has actually saved officer lives. Disadvantages: Only available for a few makes of firearm, it's a retrofit. The 'keys' are actually universal - if you have a magna-trigger ring, you can fire any magna-trigger firearm. So if a criminal manages to disable an officer, take the firearm AND the ring, he can fire the gun. If you want to be able to fire with either hand without moving the ring, you need to buy 2 rings($60 each). Second, RFID - either a ring or a watch. Substantially more expensive, I only know of models that fire.22LR, and that kicks a pistol that should cost under $400 up over $2,000, plus the watch is another $800 or something crazy like that. Upside - still generally reliable, you get a pimping watch. Downsides - from the description, if you're struggling for control of the firearm you've likely activated it. IE the criminal who has taken it from you can still shoot you with it as long as he or you doesn't move away quickly enough. If you're instinctively trying to grab the gun, your hand/wrist is likely close enough to arm the pistol. Third - fingerprint. Just as expensive as RFID. Has the advantage that it doesn't require other equipment. On the other hand, the finger scanners tend to be fiddly - work about half the time per read even when clean, and if they're dirty, good luck. The reader generally mucks with the ergonomics of the pistol - it's no longer as comfortable to hold. Also only available in.22lr. Can't be used while wearing gloves, or when it's too cold/hot out.
A note on the.22lr thing: When I did some math, I figured that going to 9mm, the most common self-defense round, and about the lightest of the 'most common 5', I figured that the electronics of any 'smart' gun are likely to experience about an order of magnitude more shock with each firing - shock being a rapid change in acceleration. Combine this with a demand that the device would have to withstand tens of thousands of these shocks, and I wouldn't be surprised if the main reason they're only offered in.22lr wasn't that the maker has to start somewhere - but because anything heavier rapidly killed the electronics.
Summary: No way in hell are the police, or anybody else interested in protecting things, voluntarily taking them anytime soon.
Hey, you do realize that I was mostly agreeing with you, right? $6k/year vs $7k, a bit more pessimistic about expenses, but willing to force a bit lower standard of living on people. IE I think things are a bit more expensive, but I'm meaner.
Interesting write-up, by the way, did you do it for school? Doctorate or economics course?
Federal poverty line is a bullshit number.
I'd argue it's not really bullshit, no more bullshit than your number. I added your chart up and came up with ~$525, which is amazingly close to my $500 estimate.
Let's consider utilities. ~$25, including your 'risk buffer'? Not in a single person household! My electric bill's connection fee is higher.
To not put too fine of a line on it - the poverty line is an eminently livable income in most of the country. It's not past having to economize, but you no longer have to worry about every cent. You can live a decent life there.
I do expect people to learn, readily, if they're not already fiscally-responsible accountants. They're poor, not retarded).
No argument from me.
The Federal poverty line for a single individual is around $12k, and the numbers I give are well below that.
Are your figures for a single person household? I find that unlikely; I couldn't keep my electricity on with what you've allotted to ALL utilities. It starts making sense at around 4 people. $100 for food for the month? I might, and this is a big, might be able to do that. The military basic allowance for subsistence is $368.29. I agree that's generous, but it's a figure, and military types tend to be very active(I had a desk job and still needed more than 2k calories/day due to my fitness regime).
224sqft. Enough for a 6'x9' bedroom (I actually spend much of my time in a room that size, with a futon, a computer desk, a 32 inch TV, video games...) and a 10'x9' common room, plus a bathroom and small kitchen tacked on. Low-income apartments have a median cost per square foot of roughly $1, although I've seen as low as 60 cents; with the risk reserve, I accounted $1.33/sqft.
I assume you mean something like $1/square foot per month as the cost? Median rental price for a studio/1 bedroom is $769/month.
Selecting the median city, Phoenix, AZ, the cheapest advertised studio is Calle Central, $349, for 300 square feet. Looking at 4 bedroom places - Lake Pleasant Village. $650 for 740 square feet. We go from $1.16/sqft to $0.88/sqft. Bigger apartments are cheaper by area. Another argument for roommates.
This makes sense - the costs for an apartment are nonliner - there are static costs to consider. A larger fridge or range isn't that much more expensive than a small one. Sometimes cheaper, as some of the smallest places will use reduced size appliances that actually cost more because not enough of them are used for economy of scale. A 2 bedroom needs a bathroom same as a studio. Same with climate control and everything else.
So odds are, if they're living alone, they're already eating into your reserve, especially if they have an apartment as small as you propose.
That means $1,100/month (in 2013) plus aid to feed and clothe your kids.
I'll note that I didn't address kids, but a family of two would be $1k/month under what I proposed, so I don't understand what got you hot and bothered. That's only a 10% difference.
This is tied to the total income, and essentially to the per capita income, which always [wordpress.com] grows [wa.gov] (GDP [dol.gov] is the same number).
Eh, my estimate of $500 was just that - an estimate. It can easily be tuned, for various reasons.
By the by, being in the military counts as "Resident". On top of your military pay, you'd have the dividend going home
It means they can't really under-pay, because then they just won't get workers.
You are conflating poorly structured welfare and the results of decades of wage suppression with a BIG.
Either you need to re-look up what 'conflating' means or you're not understanding what I'm saying. "Conflating" means "combine two or more things into one". I'm NOT doing that. I'm proposing replacing nearly all forms of 'welfare' with a BIG.
The only people who should need welfare are the unemployed. Even the worst, lowest-paid minimum wage job should produce a liveable income at least equivalent to any BIG.
Except that's not the situation, and between differences in productivity and living costs(for example, number of dependents), it's not practical to set minimum employment standards high enough to cover 'all' situations.
No we aren’t. Not even close. Even the worthless official unemployment numbers for the US show 6%+ unemployment. Real un- and under-employment is probably well into the %teens, if not more.
6% is actually very good. Just look at Europe. While yes, theoretically it could be better(remember that the BIG idea is also intended to increase employment, and that's without getting into the other policies I'd put in place), I view it like eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse - it's impossible to get 100% of it.
Your policy will continue the upwards transfer of wealth, the reduction of social mobility, the ongoing destruction of the middle classes through wage suppression and not improve unemployment.
Bullshit. You have completely failed to support this argument.
Oh, I've been waging a constant battle on a couple other sites. One's mostly a scifi board, the other's a gun board. I have to tailor the material a bit differently between the two. Especially on the scifi board, I have to constantly educate(because we keep getting new posters) on how a *limited* government is different from a *weak* one.
Oh, and if you ask 10 libertarians on where the limits should be, you'll get at least 12 different answers.
One of the ones I've been seeing pop up a lot lately is the idea that, as a libertarian, I must worship Ayn Rand. As you say, she was an idiot. Not even a libertarian.
It's the best I can do. 600,000 homeless, 18 million starving children, 48 million starving Americans; I can make all that go away, but I can't put everyone in a luxury apartment. The worst case is livable.
It's still cheaper than the current situation. Homeless people cost something like $40k/year.
$500/month is only $6k/year. Put 4 people into an apartment/house, that's $28k/year, right on the federal poverty line.
I spent a career in the military. I've had everywhere from 100 roommates to my own house. Many of us went to college, and dormed with others. If you're on the bottom economic rung, an apartment/house of your own should not be expected.
Neither was she a libertarian. She rejected what overtures the libertarians of her day made; her philosophy is quite at odds with libertarian views once you start digging in.
The note of pragmatism is very astute and I'm not sure if you noticed on your own or are familiar with my posting history. I am, indeed, a pragmatic person. I'm also fairly moderate - and tend to dislike extremes.
Indeed. I've been described as 'less of a fundamentalist libertarian and more of a pragmatic minarchist'.
I agree with pretty much everything you say. One way to put how I feel about it - in seeking to maximize 'liberty' you have to realize that there are multiple aspects of liberty. One can separate this into "social" and "economic" liberties. One must have taxes in order to fund the government, but the amount you collect can vary. Obviously, the less you collect, the more economic freedom. However, if an individual or family doesn't have a certain amount of economic means, this artificially restricts their social liberty - they're too busy trying to keep a roof over their heads. So you run into the situation where, with a proper tax structure, you can minimally decrease economic liberty in order to drastically increase social liberty.
That, and back on the topic of this thread; investing in our children is a good thing.
The problem with private charities are that they're actually very inefficient. They tend to overcompensate for a few famous cases, and miss a lot of others. The government at least provides a central point and helps avoid duplication. Indeed, that's why I support a BIG type system - eliminate even more duplication of benefits, reduce administrative overhead.
Then, we have people who have an IQ (not the best metric but let's just use it for now, if you'll allow it) below something like 60.
Indeed, it's not a good metric, mental disabilities come in nearly every flavor. I have an aunt who's stuck at approximately a 9 year old level. She's over 60 years old. Yes, she used to work - assembling sprinkler parts if I remember right. She loved that job even if the pay approximated prison wages*.
I know another kid who suffered oxygen deprivation during birth - very smart, for the most part, but the uncompensated for damage seemed to target his navigation centers. Could get lost in a gas station parking lot.
It has to be individual. I'd go with a two-factor metric: 1. How likely is the kid to *PASS* the regular class. 2. How likely is the kid to disrupt the other students. The more of the former, the less the latter, the more likely I'd place him in the regular class.
*Yes, it's legal to not pay mentally disabled people minimum wage if it's under the aegis of specific programs.
Indeed. I've seen AC writing the usual 'not willing to work' thing. My thoughts are that they're kids. Libertarian theory is that competent adults should be free to chose their actions. Kids are neither. Their 'job' is to learn in school, and our job is to give them the tools necessary to do so. Yes, using the government *if necessary*. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to get them a good education in the first place so they can be competent when they become an adult than it is to try to deal with it later, such as via criminal courts and welfare.
Moreover, teaching 91% of the students doesn't mean they're not in effect cherry-picking,
How? It's not like the public schools even exist anymore in those districts. I doubt they're 'cherry picking' any more than public schools do - where they'll suspend/expel any 'problematic' students at the slightest excuse(see 'zero tolerance' policies).
After Katrina, whole districts were wiped out. To put it bluntly, the reason why 91% of students go to charter schools in New Orleans today is that 90% of the public schools were gone. Yes, it probably does suck for the 9% of kids going to schools that were still intact enough - facility and faculty, to remain open.
So it's not really a case of the schools 'kicking' the worst 9% back to public school, it's based on geography.
Even if they were kicking the worst 10% out, I'm not sure that I wouldn't argue that it's for the best. The worst, oh, 2-5% of students are likely to be disruptive - harming the educational achievement of their peers. Removing them to a teaching environment designed for them is probably for the best.
Not it's not, because that money isn't being spent for the sole purpose of facilitating the underpayment of workers.
Ah. Had to re-read this to catch what you meant. No, a BIG is not intended to 'facilitate' underpayment of workers. Think about it this way as well: If the business doesn't offer enough pay, a BIG supported worker isn't going to work there. He or she doesn't NEED to work that badly. That being said, you can end up with people like me - semi-retired that doesn't need to work much or make much to make up the income I want to live like I want. I'm cheap.
No, this is arse-about-face. The primary objective should be to have as many people as possible in real, productive, well-paid, work.
And how is a policy of ensuring that workers aren't trapped in low paying jobs or facing welfare cliffs where earning extra money actually costs them income not a step towards your primary objective?
One example was a single mother with 2 kids - her effective income experienced a local maximum at a full time minimum wage job - any more and it would cost her roughly $11k in income. She had to earn more than $70k/year before she actually made more money.
Actually, I'd argue that we're about as close to 'as many people as possible'. So yeah, time to take care of people 'with welfare', but we need to do so in a way that's cheap and effective, without, like I said, putting cliffs in the benefits that block them from entering the workforce. My policy for that is a BIG.
It's not anecdotal. Gas engines can last quite awhile, particularly under good maintenance.
There's an old dude out there who has put a documented million miles on his gasoline car. Lots of maintenance, obviously, but he apparently always went to the dealership, mostly the same one, so the logs are independently collected. Still on the original engine as of the million mile mark.
Quality gasoline engines can last decades and hundreds of thousands of miles.
Can put an end to all homelessness and hunger in the US pretty much right now. Nobody cares.
When you add up the costs of homeless shelters, police, damage, emergency rooms(due to illness caused/made worse by being without shelter), jail space, court costs, etc... Each homeless person costs roughly $40k/year. Between private parties, city, state, and federal governments.
Homeless people are expensive. It's actually cheaper to spend the $10k-20k to put them up in permanent housing, without requiring things like 'you have to pass a drug test first!' Living on the street sucks. Of course they're going to keep using drugs until they're off them!
Yes, we can solve homelessness NOW, and it wouldn't even cost us a cent. As a practical minarchist, I support that move.
What about shorter trips? 5-10 minutes gets me to the grocery store; given that I'm likely to be loaded down with bags when I leave, not having to shift transports twice would be a real time saver.
For getting to the transport hub most of the time you should be able to get by with a vehicle even smaller than smart cars. Other times you might want the storage area of a SUV when you're going to the airport on vacation.
That being said, automatic ordering combined with automatic delivery and manual requests would also be 'nice'. You could even have a custom vehicle I could haul the groceries out of that releases my stuff while keeping other people's food secure.
A UBI is basically a subsidy for business by proxy.
That's a bit of a stretch, I think. By that standard anytime the government spends money it's a subsidy for business by proxy.
The idea remains - simplify the welfare system by eliminating the means-testing and most of the eligibility checks (keep citizenship/legal residence). While it might cost a little more money because it will still subsidize people who make 'some' money, it should actually save it in the long run by eliminating welfare cliffs which discourage people from working.
If we're still running into a problem of 'not enough jobs', then we can do the job guarantee.
Higher up, bluefoxlucid proposed a variation/specific plan for a UBI - Universal Basic Income. Eliminating welfare cliffs like you described is one of the driving benefits for such a system.
Basically, you pay a higher tax rate on earned income right off the bat, but because you're being paid each month, working for an income should always be a net positive on your income and therefore quality of life.
This is just yet another illustration of the privatization fallacy: that privatizing public services somehow makes them more efficient and cheaper NO MATTER WHAT. I've never been able to understand the reasoning behind
Hell, I consider myself a libertarian and I don't believe this. I mean, I'm always open for examining the possibility, but a lot of 'privatization' amounts to paperwork games. Especially when federal or state laws are such that the employees of contractors need to be paid much the same as state workers, need to be union(if possible), etc...
Let's consider, say, a police department. They come in various sizes, of course. Let's look at their motor pool. Let's say that the police vehicles are driven so much that they need an oil change every 2 weeks. Let's start really small: Town that barely has police. They have 3 cars. Having their maintenance, including oil changes, done by a local shop or dealership makes sense. Take it up a step: Moderate city. ~100 cars. Now it makes sense to have a dedicated motor pool employee who spends most of his time doing scheduled maintenance(I'm figuring on ~30 minutes per car every two weeks). It may or may not be cheaper to have the dealership do that many oil changes. Large city: 1k+ cars. Now the motor pool is a department of it's own and has lots of employees.
Alternate: Combine the police motor pool with the rest of the city. IE the same guys who change the oil and keep the snow plows running also keep the police cars running.
Whatever is cheapest, preferably over the long run, wins. If you ever notice that a company is so dependent upon government services that it wouldn't exist without the government, you might want to consider 'insourcing'.
Slashdot Mirror
In my apartment, I paid $52-$68. My apartment was 3 times the size of the living space I propose, had 4-inch walls, and did not have any insulation; one entire long wall and one short wall (50% of my wall space), as well as the entire ceiling, was uninsulated and facing directly outside.
Were you paying a significant amount to heat/cool it by electricity? How long ago was this? I'm trying to figure out the source of your numbers.
I was a little wrong, my electric bill's service charge is $17.50. To make this clear, even if I flipped the main breaker for a whole billing period and used 0 kwh, I'd be charged $17.50+taxes, which consumes *MOST* of your figuring for the utility bill.
The fallacy I see you using is using a pure linear estimation on a electric bill for an apartment 3X the size of what you propose. MY point is that electricity costs aren't linear with apartment size.
The difference in electricity use between a ~750 sqft apartment and a 250 one is likely to be negligible. In most cases you're still looking at about the same time with the same lighting, the same computer or TV on the same amount of time, the same electricity demands for cooking, etc...
The poverty line is a relative poverty measure. It's a delineation at which we say people are poor because they look poor. It's distinct from absolute poverty, which is the delineation at which a person cannot afford the basic needs for living. The term "decent life", as you put it, is distinct from "subsistence".
It's still not a bullshit metric.
That's actually a function of risk control, and not cost. A larger apartment holds a higher-income tenant with less of a flight risk;
Not necessarily. Remember what I mentioned about static costs? There's a basic minimum cost for a functional bathroom or kitchen. Bathrooms/kitchens effectively cost more per square foot, and this price increases as they shrink. As the apartment itself shrinks, the proportion of the apartment that is bathroom/kitchen increases.
Bedroom/living room space is cheap in comparison.
I've seen as low as $0.62/sqft for a 900sqft area; I've seen some apartments as low as $330, but don't like the amount of risk in treating that as the norm.
Cheap apartments are likely to be old apartments. 900 square feet can be cheaper per sqft than 244. Think about it. For a 900 sqft apartment, you still only need to supply 1 each of: refridgerator, stove, sink, bathroom sink, toilet, bathtub or shower, etc... That 900 feet will be more expensive subdivided into 4 tiny apartments because there's more walls involved, and 4 times the appliances/equipment.
we're going to have a multi-year transition period where we've still got people on HUD because the landlords are figuring out what units to build *and* trying to manage finances and logistics in hiring construction to build them.
Don't forget that you'll have to address zoning and building codes. For example, Manhattan has a requirement that the smallest legal apartment is 400 sqft. Bloomberg wanted to reduce it to 300, you'd need to reduce it even more. Chicago stipulates that in any given development must average at least 500. It also has rules about how many apartments can be on the land, how many can be 'efficiency', how many parking spots must be provided, etc... Even Phoenix, AZ, my earlier example, has various rules that add up to ~400 square feet.
you have to plan and project, which is why there are pretty big error bars.
I don't disagree with the error bars. I simply disagree that they're in the right spots, assuming an
Why not ? Plenty of people when given the choice between being given, say, $50 and working to get $60 will work for that extra $10. There's a massive labour surplus, remember.
Marginal valuation of time. Costs of working. Right now you have people taking whatever they can get because otherwise they'd starve.
Realistically, I'll fully admit that while eliminating welfare cliffs will help push motivated people into working more, you will have others that will voluntarily leave the workforce.
As the labor market fluxuates, employers will probably find that they have to pay more to get workers in hot markets because they have to lure people in.
This is only on the bottom of the market, of course, where employers currently have the biggest power advantage over their employees. Get into 'actually pays taxes' levels of income, you're looking at professionals who already have power and dedication.
To put it another way - I normally get the OPPOSITE argument you're pushing - that too many workers would STOP working if a BIG is paid.
You say that any job should pay enough to live on. I say that not every worker is worth a 'living' wage. First problem - living wage for what? A single person? A nuclear family? A single mother with 3 kids? Add in unexperienced, low-qualification workers, and it takes some time to build the experience to be worth those kinds of wages.
Yes, the wage stagnation sucks. A lot of it is due to arbitrage and the outsourcing to China causing wage equalization for factory labor. That should be ending soon - Chinese wages have been shooting up like a rocket the last couple decades, and it's gotten to the point that building in China and shipping to the USA is 'sometimes' more expensive. As China's labor costs continue to rise, this becomes more common.
You are conflating the outcome of poorly structured welfare and decades of wage suppression (amongst many other issues, eg: reduction in worker protections) with the outcome of not having a BIG.
Ah. I view it more as I'm dealing with current reality. I support a BIG because I see it as addressing a number of problems. Sure, with enough reforms, we could probably eliminate the welfare cliffs. But there's also the administrative costs. Under a BIG, those should be much reduced. In addtion, as a libertarian, I'm opposed to government meddling - which is just what we're seeing with politicians proposing everything from limiting the amount of seafood people on welfare can buy to the types of goods and where they can withdraw money.
Welfare cliffs exist because people who "shouldn't" be reliant on it - ie: in full-time jobs - are. Welfare is supposed to be for people incapable of supporting themselves - ie:
A lot of them aren't in full time jobs, or their family are underemployed.
In a scenario where you go from no income (+welfare), to a liveable income, the complete withdrawal of the welfare component should have no meaningful impact (other than having to go to work everyday).
Do you have a meaningful method to ensure that 'livable incomes' are available? Or are we going to pay people a living wage even for what amounts to lazy make-work?
To be a bit more clear, I feel that the BIG also helps people move up in the job market-it's security when changing jobs, for example. So we start with a part time stocker, who, as he gains experience, moves up in his employment until his pay IS enough to live on.
The solution here is not more welfare, it is better paying jobs so that people who shouldn't be dependent on welfare - full time workers - are not.
Oddly, I'm not giving out a significant amount of additional welfare, I'm just changing the way it's structured.
Here in Australia, child support is available to families earning 150% of the median income. Families on median incomes would suffer
Yeah, people who think that 'gun locks' are safer than even 'residential security containers'* haven't really examined what it would take to get one off.
Other tool options include pry bars, dremels, etc...
Short of a safe, gun locks are more for protecting children than preventing thieves.
*IE those small gun 'safes' that I don't consider to actually be a safe.
Gun safes aren't so safe either,
Oh darn it, forgot about that little definition problem - I don't consider those safes. They're 'residential security containers'. This is an actual gun safe.
You really need a lock that passes through the firing chamber if you want to store your gun safely.
No you don't. You do realize that the same 'simple tools' used to open the RSCs in that article can also be used to remove cable locks and such, right?
Indeed, it's one of the problems with most actual 'gun locks' that attach to the firearm - because they're smaller, they're easier to defeat. A bit harder if you don't want to scuff up the gun, but if you're using that somebody can pick the lock of an RSC, or use 'simple tools' to force one open, as a reason you need an actual gun lock, then you're committing a fallacy because equally simple tools can be used to remove the gun lock. For example, most that pass through the chamber are really only using a simple cable of smallish gauge, and those aren't that hard to cut through.
Even if you don't need to shoot, how many of you have opened up a battery case to discover that one has corroded and damaged your device?
Once. In a device that I had forgotten about for over a decade. They make batteries that won't leak, but running out of juice is a concern even if it can operate on a single coin cell for over a year.
There's actually lots of batteries in gun accessories - flashlights, even some scopes. But those tend to be around AA sized.
A gun locker, much less a gun safe, is a much much better option than gun locks. Back in the day consumer reports checked a number of them - they managed to fire approximately half the guns with the lock still on. For two of them, they found that pulling the trigger was easier with the 'trigger lock' on.
Unless the police and military adopt smart gun technology, then you arent going to get civilians to adopt it.
This is my stand on it. Thus far every 'smart gun' proposal has had even the most anti-gun police department lobby incredibly hard to make sure they were completely exempt from it. Despite police officers having a known rate for being killed by their own firearms taken away from them. It's something like 3 a year.
Personally, I figure that any criminal who manages to gain a firearm will also manage to unlock or rekey it to himself given time, if not bypass the system completely, so it's only useful in the 'immediate' time frame.
Anyways, I've done some research on this. Thus far, I'm familiar with 3 types of 'smart gun'. .22LR, and that kicks a pistol that should cost under $400 up over $2,000, plus the watch is another $800 or something crazy like that. Upside - still generally reliable, you get a pimping watch. Downsides - from the description, if you're struggling for control of the firearm you've likely activated it. IE the criminal who has taken it from you can still shoot you with it as long as he or you doesn't move away quickly enough. If you're instinctively trying to grab the gun, your hand/wrist is likely close enough to arm the pistol. .22lr. Can't be used while wearing gloves, or when it's too cold/hot out.
First, the oldest. Known as 'Magna-Trigger', this system uses a magnetic ring worn on a finger as a safety. Advantages: Non-electronic, reliable, fairly cheap(~$500 for complete setup), works through gloves and such. Has actually saved officer lives. Disadvantages: Only available for a few makes of firearm, it's a retrofit. The 'keys' are actually universal - if you have a magna-trigger ring, you can fire any magna-trigger firearm. So if a criminal manages to disable an officer, take the firearm AND the ring, he can fire the gun. If you want to be able to fire with either hand without moving the ring, you need to buy 2 rings($60 each).
Second, RFID - either a ring or a watch. Substantially more expensive, I only know of models that fire
Third - fingerprint. Just as expensive as RFID. Has the advantage that it doesn't require other equipment. On the other hand, the finger scanners tend to be fiddly - work about half the time per read even when clean, and if they're dirty, good luck. The reader generally mucks with the ergonomics of the pistol - it's no longer as comfortable to hold. Also only available in
A note on the .22lr thing: When I did some math, I figured that going to 9mm, the most common self-defense round, and about the lightest of the 'most common 5', I figured that the electronics of any 'smart' gun are likely to experience about an order of magnitude more shock with each firing - shock being a rapid change in acceleration. Combine this with a demand that the device would have to withstand tens of thousands of these shocks, and I wouldn't be surprised if the main reason they're only offered in .22lr wasn't that the maker has to start somewhere - but because anything heavier rapidly killed the electronics.
Summary: No way in hell are the police, or anybody else interested in protecting things, voluntarily taking them anytime soon.
Hey, you do realize that I was mostly agreeing with you, right? $6k/year vs $7k, a bit more pessimistic about expenses, but willing to force a bit lower standard of living on people. IE I think things are a bit more expensive, but I'm meaner.
Interesting write-up, by the way, did you do it for school? Doctorate or economics course?
Federal poverty line is a bullshit number.
I'd argue it's not really bullshit, no more bullshit than your number. I added your chart up and came up with ~$525, which is amazingly close to my $500 estimate.
Let's consider utilities. ~$25, including your 'risk buffer'? Not in a single person household! My electric bill's connection fee is higher.
To not put too fine of a line on it - the poverty line is an eminently livable income in most of the country. It's not past having to economize, but you no longer have to worry about every cent. You can live a decent life there.
I do expect people to learn, readily, if they're not already fiscally-responsible accountants. They're poor, not retarded).
No argument from me.
The Federal poverty line for a single individual is around $12k, and the numbers I give are well below that.
Are your figures for a single person household? I find that unlikely; I couldn't keep my electricity on with what you've allotted to ALL utilities. It starts making sense at around 4 people. $100 for food for the month? I might, and this is a big, might be able to do that. The military basic allowance for subsistence is $368.29. I agree that's generous, but it's a figure, and military types tend to be very active(I had a desk job and still needed more than 2k calories/day due to my fitness regime).
224sqft. Enough for a 6'x9' bedroom (I actually spend much of my time in a room that size, with a futon, a computer desk, a 32 inch TV, video games...) and a 10'x9' common room, plus a bathroom and small kitchen tacked on. Low-income apartments have a median cost per square foot of roughly $1, although I've seen as low as 60 cents; with the risk reserve, I accounted $1.33/sqft.
I assume you mean something like $1/square foot per month as the cost? Median rental price for a studio/1 bedroom is $769/month.
Selecting the median city, Phoenix, AZ, the cheapest advertised studio is Calle Central, $349, for 300 square feet. Looking at 4 bedroom places - Lake Pleasant Village. $650 for 740 square feet.
We go from $1.16/sqft to $0.88/sqft. Bigger apartments are cheaper by area. Another argument for roommates.
This makes sense - the costs for an apartment are nonliner - there are static costs to consider. A larger fridge or range isn't that much more expensive than a small one. Sometimes cheaper, as some of the smallest places will use reduced size appliances that actually cost more because not enough of them are used for economy of scale. A 2 bedroom needs a bathroom same as a studio. Same with climate control and everything else.
So odds are, if they're living alone, they're already eating into your reserve, especially if they have an apartment as small as you propose.
That means $1,100/month (in 2013) plus aid to feed and clothe your kids.
I'll note that I didn't address kids, but a family of two would be $1k/month under what I proposed, so I don't understand what got you hot and bothered. That's only a 10% difference.
This is tied to the total income, and essentially to the per capita income, which always [wordpress.com] grows [wa.gov] (GDP [dol.gov] is the same number).
Eh, my estimate of $500 was just that - an estimate. It can easily be tuned, for various reasons.
By the by, being in the military counts as "Resident". On top of your military pay, you'd have the dividend going home
Yes ?
It means they can't really under-pay, because then they just won't get workers.
You are conflating poorly structured welfare and the results of decades of wage suppression with a BIG.
Either you need to re-look up what 'conflating' means or you're not understanding what I'm saying. "Conflating" means "combine two or more things into one". I'm NOT doing that. I'm proposing replacing nearly all forms of 'welfare' with a BIG.
The only people who should need welfare are the unemployed. Even the worst, lowest-paid minimum wage job should produce a liveable income at least equivalent to any BIG.
Except that's not the situation, and between differences in productivity and living costs(for example, number of dependents), it's not practical to set minimum employment standards high enough to cover 'all' situations.
No we aren’t. Not even close. Even the worthless official unemployment numbers for the US show 6%+ unemployment. Real un- and under-employment is probably well into the %teens, if not more.
6% is actually very good. Just look at Europe. While yes, theoretically it could be better(remember that the BIG idea is also intended to increase employment, and that's without getting into the other policies I'd put in place), I view it like eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse - it's impossible to get 100% of it.
Your policy will continue the upwards transfer of wealth, the reduction of social mobility, the ongoing destruction of the middle classes through wage suppression and not improve unemployment.
Bullshit. You have completely failed to support this argument.
Oh, I've been waging a constant battle on a couple other sites. One's mostly a scifi board, the other's a gun board. I have to tailor the material a bit differently between the two. Especially on the scifi board, I have to constantly educate(because we keep getting new posters) on how a *limited* government is different from a *weak* one.
Oh, and if you ask 10 libertarians on where the limits should be, you'll get at least 12 different answers.
One of the ones I've been seeing pop up a lot lately is the idea that, as a libertarian, I must worship Ayn Rand. As you say, she was an idiot. Not even a libertarian.
It's the best I can do. 600,000 homeless, 18 million starving children, 48 million starving Americans; I can make all that go away, but I can't put everyone in a luxury apartment. The worst case is livable.
It's still cheaper than the current situation. Homeless people cost something like $40k/year.
$500/month is only $6k/year. Put 4 people into an apartment/house, that's $28k/year, right on the federal poverty line.
I spent a career in the military. I've had everywhere from 100 roommates to my own house. Many of us went to college, and dormed with others. If you're on the bottom economic rung, an apartment/house of your own should not be expected.
Ayn Rand was not very bright.
Neither was she a libertarian. She rejected what overtures the libertarians of her day made; her philosophy is quite at odds with libertarian views once you start digging in.
The note of pragmatism is very astute and I'm not sure if you noticed on your own or are familiar with my posting history. I am, indeed, a pragmatic person. I'm also fairly moderate - and tend to dislike extremes.
Indeed. I've been described as 'less of a fundamentalist libertarian and more of a pragmatic minarchist'.
I agree with pretty much everything you say. One way to put how I feel about it - in seeking to maximize 'liberty' you have to realize that there are multiple aspects of liberty. One can separate this into "social" and "economic" liberties. One must have taxes in order to fund the government, but the amount you collect can vary. Obviously, the less you collect, the more economic freedom. However, if an individual or family doesn't have a certain amount of economic means, this artificially restricts their social liberty - they're too busy trying to keep a roof over their heads. So you run into the situation where, with a proper tax structure, you can minimally decrease economic liberty in order to drastically increase social liberty.
That, and back on the topic of this thread; investing in our children is a good thing.
The problem with private charities are that they're actually very inefficient. They tend to overcompensate for a few famous cases, and miss a lot of others. The government at least provides a central point and helps avoid duplication. Indeed, that's why I support a BIG type system - eliminate even more duplication of benefits, reduce administrative overhead.
Full disclosure: I will be on the ballot in 2016. I'm am running to represent my district as a Senator in the State of Maine.
Wow. I've considered doing that myself. How crazy is it?
Then, we have people who have an IQ (not the best metric but let's just use it for now, if you'll allow it) below something like 60.
Indeed, it's not a good metric, mental disabilities come in nearly every flavor. I have an aunt who's stuck at approximately a 9 year old level. She's over 60 years old. Yes, she used to work - assembling sprinkler parts if I remember right. She loved that job even if the pay approximated prison wages*.
I know another kid who suffered oxygen deprivation during birth - very smart, for the most part, but the uncompensated for damage seemed to target his navigation centers. Could get lost in a gas station parking lot.
It has to be individual. I'd go with a two-factor metric: 1. How likely is the kid to *PASS* the regular class. 2. How likely is the kid to disrupt the other students. The more of the former, the less the latter, the more likely I'd place him in the regular class.
*Yes, it's legal to not pay mentally disabled people minimum wage if it's under the aegis of specific programs.
Indeed. I've seen AC writing the usual 'not willing to work' thing. My thoughts are that they're kids. Libertarian theory is that competent adults should be free to chose their actions. Kids are neither. Their 'job' is to learn in school, and our job is to give them the tools necessary to do so. Yes, using the government *if necessary*. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to get them a good education in the first place so they can be competent when they become an adult than it is to try to deal with it later, such as via criminal courts and welfare.
Moreover, teaching 91% of the students doesn't mean they're not in effect cherry-picking,
How? It's not like the public schools even exist anymore in those districts. I doubt they're 'cherry picking' any more than public schools do - where they'll suspend/expel any 'problematic' students at the slightest excuse(see 'zero tolerance' policies).
After Katrina, whole districts were wiped out. To put it bluntly, the reason why 91% of students go to charter schools in New Orleans today is that 90% of the public schools were gone. Yes, it probably does suck for the 9% of kids going to schools that were still intact enough - facility and faculty, to remain open.
So it's not really a case of the schools 'kicking' the worst 9% back to public school, it's based on geography.
Even if they were kicking the worst 10% out, I'm not sure that I wouldn't argue that it's for the best. The worst, oh, 2-5% of students are likely to be disruptive - harming the educational achievement of their peers. Removing them to a teaching environment designed for them is probably for the best.
Not it's not, because that money isn't being spent for the sole purpose of facilitating the underpayment of workers.
Ah. Had to re-read this to catch what you meant. No, a BIG is not intended to 'facilitate' underpayment of workers. Think about it this way as well: If the business doesn't offer enough pay, a BIG supported worker isn't going to work there. He or she doesn't NEED to work that badly. That being said, you can end up with people like me - semi-retired that doesn't need to work much or make much to make up the income I want to live like I want. I'm cheap.
No, this is arse-about-face. The primary objective should be to have as many people as possible in real, productive, well-paid, work.
And how is a policy of ensuring that workers aren't trapped in low paying jobs or facing welfare cliffs where earning extra money actually costs them income not a step towards your primary objective?
One example was a single mother with 2 kids - her effective income experienced a local maximum at a full time minimum wage job - any more and it would cost her roughly $11k in income. She had to earn more than $70k/year before she actually made more money.
Actually, I'd argue that we're about as close to 'as many people as possible'. So yeah, time to take care of people 'with welfare', but we need to do so in a way that's cheap and effective, without, like I said, putting cliffs in the benefits that block them from entering the workforce. My policy for that is a BIG.
It's not anecdotal. Gas engines can last quite awhile, particularly under good maintenance.
There's an old dude out there who has put a documented million miles on his gasoline car. Lots of maintenance, obviously, but he apparently always went to the dealership, mostly the same one, so the logs are independently collected. Still on the original engine as of the million mile mark.
Quality gasoline engines can last decades and hundreds of thousands of miles.
Can put an end to all homelessness and hunger in the US pretty much right now. Nobody cares.
When you add up the costs of homeless shelters, police, damage, emergency rooms(due to illness caused/made worse by being without shelter), jail space, court costs, etc... Each homeless person costs roughly $40k/year. Between private parties, city, state, and federal governments.
Homeless people are expensive. It's actually cheaper to spend the $10k-20k to put them up in permanent housing, without requiring things like 'you have to pass a drug test first!' Living on the street sucks. Of course they're going to keep using drugs until they're off them!
Yes, we can solve homelessness NOW, and it wouldn't even cost us a cent. As a practical minarchist, I support that move.
What about shorter trips? 5-10 minutes gets me to the grocery store; given that I'm likely to be loaded down with bags when I leave, not having to shift transports twice would be a real time saver.
For getting to the transport hub most of the time you should be able to get by with a vehicle even smaller than smart cars. Other times you might want the storage area of a SUV when you're going to the airport on vacation.
That being said, automatic ordering combined with automatic delivery and manual requests would also be 'nice'. You could even have a custom vehicle I could haul the groceries out of that releases my stuff while keeping other people's food secure.
A UBI is basically a subsidy for business by proxy.
That's a bit of a stretch, I think. By that standard anytime the government spends money it's a subsidy for business by proxy.
The idea remains - simplify the welfare system by eliminating the means-testing and most of the eligibility checks (keep citizenship/legal residence). While it might cost a little more money because it will still subsidize people who make 'some' money, it should actually save it in the long run by eliminating welfare cliffs which discourage people from working.
If we're still running into a problem of 'not enough jobs', then we can do the job guarantee.
Higher up, bluefoxlucid proposed a variation/specific plan for a UBI - Universal Basic Income. Eliminating welfare cliffs like you described is one of the driving benefits for such a system.
Basically, you pay a higher tax rate on earned income right off the bat, but because you're being paid each month, working for an income should always be a net positive on your income and therefore quality of life.
This is just yet another illustration of the privatization fallacy: that privatizing public services somehow makes them more efficient and cheaper NO MATTER WHAT. I've never been able to understand the reasoning behind
Hell, I consider myself a libertarian and I don't believe this. I mean, I'm always open for examining the possibility, but a lot of 'privatization' amounts to paperwork games. Especially when federal or state laws are such that the employees of contractors need to be paid much the same as state workers, need to be union(if possible), etc...
Let's consider, say, a police department. They come in various sizes, of course. Let's look at their motor pool. Let's say that the police vehicles are driven so much that they need an oil change every 2 weeks.
Let's start really small: Town that barely has police. They have 3 cars. Having their maintenance, including oil changes, done by a local shop or dealership makes sense.
Take it up a step: Moderate city. ~100 cars. Now it makes sense to have a dedicated motor pool employee who spends most of his time doing scheduled maintenance(I'm figuring on ~30 minutes per car every two weeks). It may or may not be cheaper to have the dealership do that many oil changes.
Large city: 1k+ cars. Now the motor pool is a department of it's own and has lots of employees.
Alternate: Combine the police motor pool with the rest of the city. IE the same guys who change the oil and keep the snow plows running also keep the police cars running.
Whatever is cheapest, preferably over the long run, wins. If you ever notice that a company is so dependent upon government services that it wouldn't exist without the government, you might want to consider 'insourcing'.