From: matus (matus@snet.net)
Date: Thu Apr 10 2003 - 10:35:32 MDT
> matus wrote:
> >>On Wed, Apr 09, 2003 at 02:56:04AM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>I've never seen a society getting richer that got (internally)
> >>>worse. I'd rather a country be run by rich hoodlums that by
> >>
> >>Define "internally worse". That rapid growth of GDP seems
> correlated with
> >>increasing inequality seems well-accepted (debate is over how much the
> >>inequality matters.) The US has kept on getting richer over
> the last few
> >>decades, but income in the bottom segment has fallen in absolute
> >>terms (module
> >>the existence of stuff which couldn't be bought before... but
> >>food and housing
> >>are basics.)
> >
> >
> > Do you mean to imply that food is more expensive, and getting
> more expensive
> > all the time? I find that hard to believe.
>
> Are you going to address housing and the other implied
> necessities or just harp on your understanding of food
> abundances (but not necessarily food prices).
Quite frankly I prefer to speak only on things I know of and have a
reasonably decent understanding of, is that so wrong? Perhaps if others on
this list made an effort to do that more, the single to noise ratio on this
list would be a litter more preferable.
I could of course reply to you 'are you going to address or concede the
point that food is obviously more abundant and cheaper than ever before?'
If I have no home
> or cooking facilities the types of food I can buy are also
> severely limited and per unit of nutrition much more expensive.
Again, the blame of the oppresive tyrannical governments that control most
3rd world nations, not the fact that we dont have enough cheap nutritious
food. Governments, I might add, that you tend to disagree with the US
removal of. But let me ask you this, which would you rather have
1) enough food to survive and no house
2) a house but starve to death.
I think the choice is clear, the fact that even the poorest of the poor in
the worst countries get 30% more calories today than they did 30 years ago
is clearly an extropic starting point. 1st, lets keep people from starving
to death, THEN lets give them a warm place to sleep. But to do either of
these at any reasonable rate, you must get rid of the murderous despotic
governments that rule and enslave these people.
> Are you going to attempt to say that the cost of living in say
> 1970 dollars has not risen and risen dramatically in the last 32
> years?
>
That being said, Ill comment on it since you are so concerned with what I
think of the cost of residence. Though I have not investigated this in
depth, I find it somewhat reasonable to assume that it may be increasing,
given land and property are probably the most definitely finite resource
around. Where other resources get cheaper as we are able to produce and
acquire them better, and we dont look to be running out of them anytime
soon, land is a different story. There is only so much land on the coast of
California, so that land will necessarily get real expensive. Similiarly
there is only so much reasonably buildable land as well, so it stands to
reason as the amount of buildable land decreases, costs increase. The
growing number of regulations imposed on building requirements certianly
helps to raise this cost dramatically as well. However, technology has also
enabled costs of construction to continually decrease, but when buying
propery, its the land that is the biggest cost of the acquisition typically.
The only thing I can see to change this trend is more available land, which
would either mean less regulations on building (heights and distances
between buildings and such) or water based floating platforms, underground
dwellings, or cheap access to space.
But, I would challenge your assertion that 'cost of living' has increased
'dramatically' in 1970 dollars in the last 32 years. Assuming cost of
living includes food, clothing, housing, etc, I would wager it has decreased
primarily because 1) food, clothing, etc have decreased so much and 2)
people in densely populated areas just live in smaller places. But I would
welcome any evidence you can provide to support your claim.
Michael Dickey
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