If you haven't heard of this, this touches on a major groundbreaking study that shows socioeconomic status plays a much larger role than previously predicted in terms of a child's IQ potential. Definitely worth a read / skim—the short Q&A at the end gives some practical insights.
If so:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/phoenix-may-uninhabitable-20-years-124326100.html
Phoenix May Be Uninhabitable In 20 Years
Probably a very aggressive (i.e., liberal) estimate, but this is definitely a concern and a strong enough argument to at least not invest in and real estate in this given region.
Thought this touched on an interesting caveat that Scott touched on in a recent podcast.
Once you stratify out the NEETs, the men today are actually some of the most liberal and educated men by any objective standard compared to men of prior generations.
The main issue is that socioeconomic mobility has plummeted, and many women still aspire to be stay at home mothers (or at least be in a position to be able to choose to be one at any point).
I mean how is it not obvious to people asking why people aren't having kids?
So many people still live at home or have multiple roommates going into their 30s.
Because boomers made it illegal to build housing, we had decades long periods of underbuilding that led to major housing shortages (especially at regional levels) leading to skyrocketing housing prices.
The vast majority of people our age trying to buy a home would unironically put themselves at high risk of overleveraging and being housepoor by buying a home.
You need to save 80k+ liquid cash to be able to put down a sizable downpayment on the median priced home to lower overleveraging risk, and median rent is like 2k (even more if you want to live in a safe area of any major city).
Childcare is another 2k+ a month.
Not to mention, basically the only industries that supply jobs that pay the wages needed to raise kids are going through major labor compressions.
Furthermore, we're constantly bombarded with news how all our jobs will be displaced with AI. Meanwhile, our government seems keen on eliminating any remaining safety nets that remain in society.
You effectively need some combination of the following to make it work without incurring substantial risk:
I think the funniest irony of it all is oftentimes these podcasters don't even have kids themselves!
What irritates me most is that it always devolves into some gender flame war where blame is placed on either sex—OR somehow blaming Gen Z / Millennials for being lazy or some bullshit—instead of focusing on the obvious socioeconomic factors behind it.
Anyways, what do you all think? I think it's just overly discussed rage bait for engagement purposes.
I think it's important for people to recognize that the Kamala / Biden campaign was extremely flawed in glossing over a lot of very real material hardships that the American people were going through. Not only were many of these concerns not addressed by their campaign, they chose to double down and talk about how great the economy was instead, e.g.:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wvtPvn_ycTE
I don't know if there's anything Kamala really could've done that would've made an appreciable difference, and the best solution really would've been for Democratic leadership to take some initiative earlier on and force a formal primary to occur.
Strategically, this was the worst thing they could've done, as it really just gave the easiest layup for Trump to run on 'Make America 2019 Again'.
By no means do I think this is a good argument to vote for Trump, but the American people likely interpreted the rhetoric they were seeing as akin to kicking a man while he's down.
All in all, shame on Jill and Joe Biden for putting their egos above democracy; shame on Democrat leadership for lacking any sense of initiative and bailing on hosting a primary.
They can take the fucking haircut, even if it's 20-40+%.
Scott keeps asking why "the money money makes is more noble than the money work makes", and saying the best tax is the one that's least taxing. We've already got the answer from Milton Friedman. He called the land value tax the least bad tax.
Economics got fucked up back in the early 1900s when they purposely lumped land with capital so it would hide what was being taken from the commons.
The simplest way to put, it (I woke up one morning fixated on this): I build a shed on my land and my assessment goes up. The guy beside me sits on a vacant lot, builds nothing and there's actually a disincentive for him to even build anything as he'll be taxed more. To me that's messed up.
It isn't just land that should be taxed, it's all the commons we as a society have created. Spectrum, finite, handed to whoever got the licence. Orbital slots, finite, given free to whoever launched first. The pipes and the grid, no second pipe is ever coming to your house so there was never competition, so unless your city collects it their economic rent is privatized.
Now its AI data centers get parked where government already paid for the fiber and now they take local water, pull on the electrical grid everyone shares. Charge them the rent and half the trillion-dollar valuations evaporate, because a lot of that number is the free ride.
Same with Musk, the world decided in the sixties orbit was a common asset, then handed the slots out for nothing. It's not that he's a villain, the rent flows to the position not the man. We gave it away. See Fred Harrision (today's land tax advocate) detail about Musk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_YymZgh3bk )
Income is income, Scott said it himself. Except the landlord's isn't even income, it's a transfer, the value from the whole community going to the owner of the land from the benefits created around said land and from the current credit expansion in the economy. If we tax things properly then we won't have the crazy inequality based off common resources and people actually get rewarded for their efforts.
Until that, land takes all the gains and we common folk pay money on our incomes.