Noah says it is pure coincidence that healthcare cost decrease after passage of ACA was "coincidence"?
I have a strong reaction against that statement.
I'm not sure how I would go about gathering the data to look into this, but as someone who has worked in nine different countries and has seen both the utter insanity and the amazing capabilities of the American healthcare system I look forward to an informed examination of this issue.
Peter Drucker suggested you cannot improve what you cannot measure, in the case of healthcare perhaps just the threat of measurement was enough to curb some of the worst abuses.
I googled around and found that YIMBY and Abundance have common features. YIMBY is a Cri De Cour by the young middle class over being locked out of the American Dream of home ownership. Abundance is an extension into trying to get other shit done. It all seems like a very middle class project that may not resonate with folks down the economic ladder. Seems like politics today requires hate and fear to get traction.
When housing supply increases, all rents go down (see Seattle, Austin and most recently Jersey City) which helps renters, not only middle class home owners. And when housing supply increases, and lowers prices in economically strong cities, more people, of all income and job levels, can move to that city, increasing their own income and the GDP of the city.
+1 to un-paywalling the critique of Sandeep's Abundance review. I've seen his review referenced multiple times, so it would be useful to have a short hand to reference.
Well one thing we learned today is that at least one of the authors of “Abundance” is staggeringly ignorant of macroeconomics and the role of an independent central bank.
In commenting on the discussion of mechanisms to finance housing, monetary policy is possibly the worst way to manage disequilibria in the real economy, given its infamous long and variable lags. Managing the real economy by trying to pump money through the financial sector is like trying to manage your diet by burning down your local supermarket. The financial sector is often more of a barrier than a bridge to the real economy, and monetary policy is a crude instrument that works by damaging the economy that it is being used to fix. A negative sales tax is a much more direct way of injecting money into the demand stream than is fiddling around with interest rates and the money supply. We need mechanisms that directly address the specific nature of the shocks we are trying to manage. A negative sales tax (or value-added tax) would affect the real economy immediately and could be precisely targeted by sector when desirable. Of course, a sales tax could be either positive or negative depending on the stage in the business cycle being addressed. This kind of mechanism would provide monetary and fiscal authorities much greater leeway to attack other problems, such as housing. It should be noted that although a positive sales tax is regressive, a negative sales tax would be highly progressive.
Regarding the inflation discussion. Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods and services yes? Which is exactly the problem we saw after COVID tremendous amounts of fiscal stimulus and constrained supply chains.
One solution is to reduce the monetary supply (or fiscal stimulus) which pulls money from the economy and drives up interest rates.
The other is to increase the supply of goods and services. So doing something like getting rid of burdensome red tape and excessive fees would stimulate housing production without effecting interest rates.
All that being said we should have pulled back unspent fiscal stimulus once we realized inflation was a problem. That would have solved the inflation problem while also helping the debt problem.
Getting rid of the red tape is pretty much always a good idea. Let's produce more goods and services that people want to consume, economic growth is good.
Here is the latest anti-Abundance piece. You know, Noah, you should go on Nathan Robinson's Current Affairs podcast. That would make for a deeply entertaining and informative episode, I think.
That was a boring standard Bernie-bro/Mamdani-stan, high taxes, redistribution left populist degrowth socialist critique, based only on the fact that the book points out how stupid all those leftist policies are and doesn’t blame everything on corporations.
Yeah, pretty much. I just like that Noah usually cites concrete examples disproving each point when he responds to that kind of thing. I don’t have the capacity nor the expertise to do so, myself.
I generally like Nathan Robinson and Current Affairs, and I myself am a progressive, but I get deeply annoyed by the types of leftist crap you’re referring to. It fucks up my side of the aisle!
I don't exactly know why but "Abundance" sort of sticks in my craw. Maybe because I live in what the median American would consider abundance. From my idle reading of comments on abundance I think I know what is desired. I guess I should read words from the author's mouth.
Noah says it is pure coincidence that healthcare cost decrease after passage of ACA was "coincidence"?
I have a strong reaction against that statement.
I'm not sure how I would go about gathering the data to look into this, but as someone who has worked in nine different countries and has seen both the utter insanity and the amazing capabilities of the American healthcare system I look forward to an informed examination of this issue.
Peter Drucker suggested you cannot improve what you cannot measure, in the case of healthcare perhaps just the threat of measurement was enough to curb some of the worst abuses.
I googled around and found that YIMBY and Abundance have common features. YIMBY is a Cri De Cour by the young middle class over being locked out of the American Dream of home ownership. Abundance is an extension into trying to get other shit done. It all seems like a very middle class project that may not resonate with folks down the economic ladder. Seems like politics today requires hate and fear to get traction.
When housing supply increases, all rents go down (see Seattle, Austin and most recently Jersey City) which helps renters, not only middle class home owners. And when housing supply increases, and lowers prices in economically strong cities, more people, of all income and job levels, can move to that city, increasing their own income and the GDP of the city.
im at dying at plane crash age.... ouch
+1 to un-paywalling the critique of Sandeep's Abundance review. I've seen his review referenced multiple times, so it would be useful to have a short hand to reference.
Well one thing we learned today is that at least one of the authors of “Abundance” is staggeringly ignorant of macroeconomics and the role of an independent central bank.
In commenting on the discussion of mechanisms to finance housing, monetary policy is possibly the worst way to manage disequilibria in the real economy, given its infamous long and variable lags. Managing the real economy by trying to pump money through the financial sector is like trying to manage your diet by burning down your local supermarket. The financial sector is often more of a barrier than a bridge to the real economy, and monetary policy is a crude instrument that works by damaging the economy that it is being used to fix. A negative sales tax is a much more direct way of injecting money into the demand stream than is fiddling around with interest rates and the money supply. We need mechanisms that directly address the specific nature of the shocks we are trying to manage. A negative sales tax (or value-added tax) would affect the real economy immediately and could be precisely targeted by sector when desirable. Of course, a sales tax could be either positive or negative depending on the stage in the business cycle being addressed. This kind of mechanism would provide monetary and fiscal authorities much greater leeway to attack other problems, such as housing. It should be noted that although a positive sales tax is regressive, a negative sales tax would be highly progressive.
What would Scott Sumner say...
Other countries keep their costs so low through a variety of methods. The primary method is rationing.
Also they tend to pay healthcare professionals a lot less.
I believe a doctor in the UK tends to average at about $170k a year, a doctor in the US about $260k a year.
That and the US has a lot more chronic health problems because of higher obesity rates. So that drives a lot of spending as well.
I suspect heroic end of life care might be a factor as well, but I'm not sure.
Oh and Medicaid tends to pay below cost. So be careful with that as well.
Regarding the inflation discussion. Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods and services yes? Which is exactly the problem we saw after COVID tremendous amounts of fiscal stimulus and constrained supply chains.
One solution is to reduce the monetary supply (or fiscal stimulus) which pulls money from the economy and drives up interest rates.
The other is to increase the supply of goods and services. So doing something like getting rid of burdensome red tape and excessive fees would stimulate housing production without effecting interest rates.
All that being said we should have pulled back unspent fiscal stimulus once we realized inflation was a problem. That would have solved the inflation problem while also helping the debt problem.
Getting rid of the red tape is pretty much always a good idea. Let's produce more goods and services that people want to consume, economic growth is good.
Here is the latest anti-Abundance piece. You know, Noah, you should go on Nathan Robinson's Current Affairs podcast. That would make for a deeply entertaining and informative episode, I think.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/abandon-abundance
That was a boring standard Bernie-bro/Mamdani-stan, high taxes, redistribution left populist degrowth socialist critique, based only on the fact that the book points out how stupid all those leftist policies are and doesn’t blame everything on corporations.
Yeah, pretty much. I just like that Noah usually cites concrete examples disproving each point when he responds to that kind of thing. I don’t have the capacity nor the expertise to do so, myself.
I generally like Nathan Robinson and Current Affairs, and I myself am a progressive, but I get deeply annoyed by the types of leftist crap you’re referring to. It fucks up my side of the aisle!
I don't exactly know why but "Abundance" sort of sticks in my craw. Maybe because I live in what the median American would consider abundance. From my idle reading of comments on abundance I think I know what is desired. I guess I should read words from the author's mouth.