Working Conditions and Benefits

But I do know that Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland all have a higher per capita GDP than the USA. (non-socialist Australia does too)Most if not all have higher productivity.And all are socialist.

The United States will be an interesting place with an economic progressive getting lots of airtime.We might have some real issue discussions.I'm economically conservative (I think unemployment insurance and many mandates tax job hiring thus hurt poor people prospects plus are benefits that are designed to help upper income people pay their bloated mortgages) on business regulatory issues, but the Republicans are a bunch of plastic cookie cutter drones (Paul Ryan only rehashes tired old crap and is portrayed as an "intellectual" in the media).I look forward to a Sanders win. It will force some real discussion of many issues.

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Part of the problem is that welfare and other support programs actually penalize people who get some work by cutting benefits by the amount they earn (leaving them with the cost and time invested in getting to and from) so it disincentives getting small time work.

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The United States doesn't have any welfare unless one counts the 3 million additional disability recipients since around 1990.If we had straight "welfare" (say $200 a month cash payment for anybody out of work),and the constitutional right to shelter, then people would be in good enough shape to get up off their feet pretty quick.The "welfare" in this country is prison. The "homeless shelter" programs we have in the United States are prison, daily emergency room visits, and selling drugs. Those that hang in for the long-haul (4-7 years) fake schizophrenia and "bi polar" , and take the pills.In London, there are 20,000 homeless people and all but 300 actually live in hotels. Only the people who want to live on the streets, do so. I'm not in favor of spending money on hotels, but I am in favor of a constitutional right to shelter. Regardless, London has a superior system that allows people to get up on their feet (the amount of business regulation in London, a Labor stronghold, is bad though, and jobs are tough to get. There is a centrist party, the Liberal Democrats, but I'm not sure how much less regulation on business' their towns have).

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What we see is that the US is reinventing\rediscovering a lot of socialist programs such as minimum living wage, overtime pay, paid sick leave and wage equality issues.

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I afraid so, and unemployment will go up quite a bit (at the lower end) because of it. On top of all the other drivers of lower income people and their misery. The upshot of it all is that, I think, poor people are really getting the point that life is miserable and birth rates really are falling. The Republicans picked a really bad time to go after birth control (2012) lol.

Nader said, a few year back, that Walmart would see its total bills go up from $315 per year to $317 if they paid everybody $10.50 and then he said the workers would spend most of it right back into the businesses, so they would loose very little money.Business wouldn't loose a huge amount by paying higher wages, and lower income people will spend it all (which creates jobs).On paper, the reasons are sound for raising the minimum wage. Seems like businesses almost break even.I really do think that the dynamics of the situation will lead to less job mobility. Unemployment rates aren't always 100% clear indicators for the ease or difficulty in poor people finding jobs. You can have low unemployment (like 4% for the last year) in places like Hawaii, but jobs are very hard to find for poor people.The minimum wage isn't the best way to raise wages. It artificially raises wages above the market rate, and that causes issues.Unemployment insurance (especially the way it is structured), social security FICA (the way it is inefficiently taxed punishes hiring), etc. all hurt employment of poor people.The minimum wage increase(bad as it is already) will combine with those and cause more hurt.

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Well, it's not a constitutional right, so you would have to create another Amendment. On what basis do you think that free housing be supplied and do you know how expensive that would be to house every human being in your country?

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In New York, a friend bought houses on Staten Island for around $70,000 (did some fixing up) and rented both halves (double sided house) out and got about $1,500 a month for each half ($3000 per month total). He made a killing as the government paid many times the value of the house over several years.Needless to say, the "subsidized housing" is expensive and is always subject to only a small amount of people getting it (after long waiting lists and lots of paperwork).In Houston, they have something called "bunk houses" which are around $180 per month and really nice (lots of space, clean, temperate). They are for-profit and hold around 200 people at one time. The Workers Co-op (or Du Drop inn as it was called as a slang name) was on prime downtown Houston real-estate. It sold in 2012 for about $400,000.Take the $100 billion home mortgage deduction (just for 1 year) and build enough "bunk houses" so that enough can be built that there will be a 100 million person capacity. I say let the rich or poor have the option of paying for a bunk-house. No paper-work, no b.s.You know why they won't do that? It will sink property prices (which is what our whole economy is based on - a totally unproductive waste, not to mention an environmental disaster). Nobody would want to borrow money from the bank to pay for a house if they can stay in a bunk house. Why pay for a big investment when it just sits there and sucks the individual dry as well as sucks the oxygen out of productive investments we could all be making? Most would not if they weren't essentially forced to.Another powerful issueSan Francisco just passed the $1 million mark (summer 2014) for the average home. The conservative Economist did a big special report back in May or June (2015) about how people would have enough mobility to move around to where a specific industry is clustered (cities have become meccas for certain skills and industry) if the rights for property owners to veto buildings from being built were ended. Prices would drop by 80%. The Economists talked about how 4 million people would live in San Francisco if it was possible. It is economic stupidity and extremely unproductive to hold people back from being able to move where their skills can be used. It's an economic bottleneck that kills our GDP about 15%.I found a small part of the article online.

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BUY land, advised Mark Twain; they’re not making it any more. In fact, land is not really scarce: the entire population of America could fit into Texas with more than an acre for each household to enjoy. What drives prices skyward is a collision between rampant demand and limited supply in the great metropolises like London, Mumbai and New York. In the past ten years real prices in Hong Kong have risen by 150%. Residential property in Mayfair, in central London, can go for as much as 55,000 ($82,000) per square metre. A square mile of Manhattan residential property costs $16.5 billion.

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Even in these great cities the scarcity is artificial. Regulatory limits on the height and density of buildings constrain supply and inflate prices. A recent analysis by academics at the London School of Economics estimates that land-use regulations in the West End of London inflate the price of office space by about 800%; in Milan and Paris the rules push up prices by around 300%. Most of the enormous value captured by landowners exists because it is well-nigh impossible to build new offices to compete those profits away.

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The costs of this misfiring property market are huge, mainly because of their effects on individuals. High housing prices force workers towards cheaper but less productive places. According to one study, employment in the Bay Area around San Francisco would be about five times larger than it is but for tight limits on construction. Tot up these costs in lost earnings and unrealised human potential, and the figures become dizzying. Lifting all the barriers to urban growth in America could raise the country’s GDP by between 6.5% and 13.5%, or by about $1 trillion-2 trillion. It is difficult to think of many other policies that would yield anything like that.

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Hence the second trend, the proliferation of green belts and rules on zoning. Over the course of the past century land-use rules have piled up so plentifully that getting planning permission is harder than hailing a cab on a wet afternoon.
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Zoning codes were conceived as a way to balance the social good of a growing, productive city and the private costs that growth sometimes imposes. But land-use rules have evolved into something more pernicious: a mechanism through which landowners are handed both unwarranted windfalls and the means to prevent others from exercising control over their property. Even small steps to restore a healthier balance between private and public good would yield handsome returns. Policymakers should focus on two things.

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First, they should ensure that city-planning decisions are made from the top down. When decisions are taken at local level, land-use rules tend to be stricter. Individual districts receive fewer of the benefits of a larger metropolitan population (jobs and taxes) than their costs (blocked views and congested streets). Moving housing-supply decisions to city level should mean that due weight is put on the benefits of growth. Any restrictions on building won by one district should be offset by increases elsewhere, so the city as a whole keeps to its development budget.

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Second, governments should impose higher taxes on the value of land. In most rich countries, land-value taxes account for a small share of total revenues. Land taxes are efficient. They are difficult to dodge; you cannot stuff land into a bank-vault in Luxembourg. Whereas a high tax on property can discourage investment, a high tax on land creates an incentive to develop unused sites. Land-value taxes can also help cater for newcomers. New infrastructure raises the value of nearby land, automatically feeding through into revenueswhich helps to pay for the improvements.

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Neither better zoning nor land taxes are easy to impose. There are logistical hurdles, such as assessing the value of land with the property stripped out. The politics is harder still. But politically tricky problems are ten-a-penny. Few offer the people who solve them a trillion-dollar reward.
Space and the city | The Economist

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The bulk of the article can't be read. I'll have to go by memory (it was May 30 2015). But it said that if the hideous bitching rights (my words) - to stop (especially tall) buildings - were done away with then the average home in San Francisco would drop to $200,000 (from $1,000,000+) and parts of London would no longer be overvalued by 850%. New York would have lots of office space and prices would plummet by over 70%.We would see an economic boom.The housing scam is the worst scam going. I can't think of anything (non social issue related)worse - from an economic perspective. Most scams force scarcity in an unnatural way, and this is the worst.Most voters own houses and politicians (like "tough guy" Trump) will always buy votes with the economically destructive mortgage deduction. Politicians hand out presents to voters and sell out our future.

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You said you wanted it to be a constitutional right, which means everyone will be supplied with a flop house, I mean, a bunk house. So why would anyone be purchasing these tiny houses?

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The constitutional right was in essence an issue of "homeless shelters" being available in more than (presently) 2% of towns, and infact it should be a constitutional rights issue.

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The housing market is terrible, but I'm failing how to see dropping miniature homes all over the place is somehow going to reverse that. You will still have people who desire more for themselves, and as such you will still have a class divide. Actually, it may even exacerbate the class divide.

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The demand, and price, for housing is high because it has been made scarce.As for "bunk-houses", I'm not talking about miniature homes (even the smallest still cost like $40,000 with all the regulations that go with it), but I'm talking about barracks (with a locker). Something like some of the pictures in these photos.barracks - Search$400,000 was the price for a place that housed 200 people in downtown Houston (right where the Greyhound station is). Private run, private owned. Housed 200 people! It was $9 a night ,or $50 a week, or $180 a month. It was always full. People always were waiting at 7AM to see if any beds were available (people have to have payment in by 7AM), and it was rare for somebody to come in later and actually get a bed.There are more bunk houses in Houston but I am not sure where.The best place for a poor person is actually Houston, though Texas has a bad reputation.

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Also, if rich people are allowed to buy them then that implies they also have the luxury of buying all of them, selling them, and marking up prices to fleece the poor.

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I struck up a conversation with a property owner (and landlord of multiple investment properties) in Utah and I was shocked that he knew exactly what I meant when I asked him about "bunk-houses". He said Salt Lake City used to have them but "It was too easy for drug dealers to live, so the community decided easy low cost rent is a bad idea". He said St. George Utah has them but they are always full. Ogden also has a bunk house ($100 a month) but it is always full.He was a property owner, so he had a vested interest. But his criticism of them is that "drug dealers" (a figure of speech for poor people btw) aren't encouraged to go get work when they can pay a cheap bill and get immediate rent.

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You would also have the problem of creating ghettos on a scale reminiscent of the Bowery slums, because no one would want a bunk house. They would only do it out of necessity. And poverty and crime go together like butter on toast. If we look at government intervention now, a la Section 8 housing, you have atrocious living conditions and rampant crime. Now extrapolate that disaster a few million times.

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The one in Houston had an officer there (paid by the rent bill of $180 per month) from 5 PM to 5 AM. There were a ton of employees there.The real concern a non-corrupt person would have is the same concern about single-payer health care. If you reduce the cost of an industry that makes up such a large part our GDP, then will the consumer $$$ go elsewhere or will the economy simply shrink?I will take productivity over inflated costs any day of the week, any month of the year, any year of the decade, and any decade of the century. Any moment, any time.Consumer dollars purchasing something fundamentally unproductive and unnecessary hurts us in the long run.The politicians that tell the truth get "naturally selected" out (they loose elections) so often (like 100%) that there isn't really a voting um "market" for the things I am talking about. You won't ever hear the bunk house issue come up because no politician in their right mind would even think of it as some election winning formula. It just doesn't enter their mind. Police officers have told me they wish bunk houses were available, as it would reduce assault crimes by enabling parties in unfriendly domestic situations to be separated quickly and easily. But I had to bring the issue up to get their response. There is like a 0% awareness of this issue.

Google Maps I don't understand google maps very well. The 2316 Austin Street is the Homeland Security across the street from 2310 (the site of the former "du drop inn" "Workers Co Op"I read a newspaper article saying it sold in 2012 for $400,000. The hotel owners were constantly trying to buy the site.Now what was once a spot for 200 people ($150 per month till 2008 then $180 per month) is replaced by a perhaps 10 apartments.New Orleans projects destroyed in Katrina are being replaced by high price condos.Public land in New York (with only 22 square miles) has been given away like crazy. Amazingly. The population of Manhattan has dropped from 2 million in 1955 down to 1.6 million today and there were deliberate decisions to put poor people (minorities were a target) far from the island. Far Rockaway in Queens is where most (over 50%!) housing programs presently are located.Manhattan should be 4 million today if the population was allowed to rise with the nation since the 1950s.

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Those sound like specific anti-vagrancy efforts rather than the state not feeding those that are starving in a systematic way, but I don't know anything about your laws.

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In the United States, it is a crime to stop moving in a most cities. It is called "loitering". It is a crime to sleep almost anywhere (Rhode Island is an exception where there is are some sort of rights to lay down in parks and possibly sidewalks too). Shelters (for men especially) are extremely rare and when they are present, they are always full. The few, who get to stay in them, must come late and leave really early. Loitering will remain an issue. It is always an issue.Homeless people consider it a MAJOR relief to be arrested, so most cities have policies where they just write big fines (Los Angeles and Hawaii routinely give out $1000 or higher loitering fines) and won't arrest homeless people UNLESS it is a trespassing charge.Also.Since almost all homeless people, in extreme desperation, have taken "advantage" of the endless government-funded legions of mental doctors available to get a quickie "bi-polar" or "schizophrenia" diagnosis, they have already disqualified themselves from far more jobs than they would loose by having a criminal record alone.They really have nothing to loose and everything to gain (shelter, showers, sleep, maintained health, etc.) by getting arrested.They have to trespass to get arrested though.Also SNAP (the food stamp program) has rules that require a person to work 20 hours a week to get the benefits, so few people sleeping on the streets get them. There is an exemption if a person gets a mental diagnosis and a letter from a doctor, but doctors usually won't write the letter unless a person takes their medication. Then a person is disqualified for life from SNAP if they ever had a drug charge (that covers almost all homeless people as they have to sell drugs to try to survive PLUS they start to take drugs - when they have access to them - and alcohol to help cope with the severe suffering they endure as living homeless).Food is the least of the problems homeless suffer from though.The biggest problem, by far, is disqualification from jobs.In the United States, massive hospital bills - from endless hospitalizations - are also a significant issue that homeless people have to deal with. If they somehow manage to get a job, a large amount gets automatically docked each and every check.Most homeless spend a lot of time behind bars while going through the very long process to get Social Security Disability or SSI benefits. The irony is that after most homeless people finally get approved for Disability, their conditions always improve to such a significant extent health-wise(despite being older and in much reduced physical and mental shape after the long ordeal), once they get their monthly check, that they immediately want to go to work.They want a job. But there is a catch.The catch is that they will looses their hard-fought Disability benefits (essentially for years at least) and they have an immense fear of falling down on their luck again without any safety net whatsoever.This is the situation in the United States of America.We are about the most retarded country in the world when it comes to our policies toward poor people. You are from the U.K. so you won't have a clue what goes on here. Most of our crime is caused because we treat poor people like dirt. We pass laws that guarantee that people will be poor criminals. Almost every policy our politicians implement only makes the criminal situation worse. Everything they do (and it is a lot) makes poor people criminals. Everything we don't do (policies that would be a no-brainer - like shelter and a safety net) causes crime to skyrocket.I really do think that all this endlessly stupid policy being proposed (and implemented)is one big social experiment just to see the "blind leading the blind" follow each other.When was the last time a U.S. politician passed a policy that actually reduced the systematic criminalization of being poor?When was the last time there was policy implemented that actually had a chance of reducing crime?(Notice I didn't even mention how our economic growth is STILL based on inflated housing prices and people borrowing against their mortgages to finance purchases - DESPITE the crash of 2008!)(Add that to the government borrowing, with temporary near-0% interest rates, and that's all our "growth")(subtract immigration growth to our economy and our GDP really is negative per capita growth)

We hear all the time about how "dangerous the mentally ill are" and how they "need treatment".Then the government refuses to fund shelter programs (which would keep those "dangerous people" off the streets) while instead enacting policy that makes it worse than a criminal sentence to be diagnosed with a mental illness.And incase that isn't enough, policy is enacted to make sure that mental records (of doctor visits, diagnoses, notes, etc.) get sent to a federal database ASAP so the disqualifications are ensured to be caught in background checks.Gee, that will sure reduce crime.O and did I mention that one of the policies is to make it an additional (additional!) crime to possess a gun if a person has a diagnosis.No wonder "gun running" is such a hot black market.No wonder prisons are such a hot industry.God help us all!