Gregory's ServerYES THIS PLEASE
Not politically feasible? KEEP YAMMERING ABOUT IT until the overton window shifts. MAKE it politically feasible!
(Update: apparently they already do this in some countries -- all the more reason to press for it here.)
 75 comments
@woozle tie the minimum wage to bosses pay and let them loose to argue for their increases  @sashin How 'bout... Green War -- one that doesn't pollute (avoid burning or exploding stuff) and is waged primarily using the tools of the plutonomy against itself.  @woozle Totally. I wrote a whole thread about this about a year ago, but some bad interactions caused me to set my account to private by default and auto-delete old posts, sadly. Anyway, my point was that this is the perfect use for big data. It’s totally technically feasible. It needs a catchy name. Oh wait, my post went the other direction, that is hyper local minimum wages, so that anyone who worked in a place would be able to afford a 2 room apartment within a 20 minute walk. So adjust the minimum wages regionally, not the rents, although I’d say doing both tactics simultaneously ain’t a bad idea.  My proposal is similar: minimum wages are tied to food, housing, and daycare prices within a 60 minute commute to the business using public transit. If the business owners want lower wages, they can work to increase housing supply and argue to get better mass transit to their workplace. @JessTheUnstill @woozle nice idea, but you are a little naive on how landlords & companies that own real estate think... all apartments will simply be cut up into studios & "lofts" with a bathroom/shower area that doubles as a kitchen @codebyjeff @woozle I was thinking a similar thing. ‘Rent’ depends significantly on the size and location of the property. It’s not rational to insist that a four-bedroom apartment within walking distance of the centre costs the same as a studio in the suburbs requiring hours of expensive travel to work. It is possible that a more complicated formula could be made to work, though.  @woozle from what I've seen as a renter and underpaid employee, most business owners have rental properties too... I wish this would work though. Maybe it would work anyway... At least force people to be more respectful about our right to exist. @Langhamian @woozle IDK if it's most business owners also have rental properties, but I'm sure there's a significant overlap between the bosses and the landlords.  Also establish a legal ratio of CEO pay to regular employee pay. Companies that pay their CEOs more will get a steep tax penalty. @Methylcobalamin @woozle  @whybird @woozle @codebyjeff @bennomatic This is getting really complicated. That's one of the things I like about Georgism, the proposal is simple and feasible.  @woozle section 42 workforce housing kinda works in the opposite direction: the rent can go up iff the area's median income goes up.  Yet, low and stable cost of living *is in small business interest*. I made the case here a while back: @woozle You do this via Section 8 Housing vouchers at the state level. Once the government (Republicans) start balking about the line item, you'll know you've hit the right people with the right numbers. aseriously, get all the people you know Medicare is why Senator Klobuchar just passed a price cap on insulin. Yeah, sure, it'll win a few votes, but touting reduced deficit spending will get more, and that's a chunk of change. @woozle the capitalists keep us from rising up by making us fight each other instead of them we could return the favor Why don't we just force the politicians to work for minimum wage. This. This is how it should have always been. Bunch of useless bastards the all of them. The country works in spite of their meddling, not because of them. Although these days it feels more like an unplugged fan; it's spinning but there's no life in it. Don't mind me, showing my punk / anarchist side just a 'lil bit. @woozle this meme with spidermen pointing fingers at each other... @HeliosPi @woozle https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-featd-article-081417.html  Here's my scheme, not that yours is bad in any way, mind you - Tax vehicles on the number of miles commuting to work. Make the employer pay it. Such a scream would go up, it would trouble all the right people: employers who pay shyte wages and employees drive long miles.. Both of these would be better solved by a Land Value Tax and Dividend. Read Progress and Poverty by Henry George. By taxing the unimproved value of land, you force people into more efficiently using it or else the government would seize it and sell it to someone who would. The tax would be redistributed after covering the cost of local amenities. @woozle  @woozle speaking about opening the overton window:   @woozle I think this would triple or quadruple the minimum wage where I live. So hell yeah! Edit: I meant the minimum wage not rents lol   @largess @woozle @SiR_GameZaloT Housing needs to not be a market, yes. (Been saying that for awhile now.) If we can get the owner-classes to start fighting with each other, though, that next step might be easier. (That said, I'm open to considering any concrete plans of action.)  @woozle this is already happening. There are employers in various countries whose operations are frustrated by their employees inability to find affordable rent or housing. The capitalist class is not one homogeneous mass but heterogeneous, often contradictory groups. But what's happening now in some places is that big capitalists, who had no previous interest in housing, are now buying housing en masse to rent out to their employees. This might increase as more work from home too. @JamesieMcJamesFace That's partly helpful and partly worrisome -- more capitalist control of housing is definitely not a good direction. We don't want a return to "company towns" (which I believe still exist in some places). Allowing an employer to also be landlord to their employees should be seriously illegal. @kdj8 Looks to me like a post with a screenshot; usually Tumblr has... more lines and indentations and stuff?.. but I'll adjust the image description.  @woozle I'd also tie people's compensation to CEOs etc compensations / stock option value: then let them choose:   @woozle I like the idea, but it needs to account for variance in quality. The problem is that it'd lead to a cheapest viable housing situation. They can't charge more for higher quality materials so they'd attempt to maintain profit margins by simply making things as cheap and unsafe as possible. Also, anyone with an "above average" income wouldn't have the option to spend it on "better" housing (however they define it) because no-one would build anything with "above average" construction. re building codes: in theory yes. In practice no. Folks who've been paying attention to the housing problem in US cities are universally going "yeah, it's because of the building codes". It's just not possible to build the housing we need. City / state govt's are VERY reluctant to change anything (I'm unsure why) despite how it would solve problems, but also it's actually HARD because they're an intertwined mass. 🧵 1/? @masukomi (Yes, this is definitely a problem. Will wait for the rest of your thread before responding in detail.) regulating rents is inherently tied to new housing, because there aren't enough units. The problem of only luxury apts being built wouldn't be solved because the housing regs make it unprofitable to build anything else & capitalism rules the day (ugh). regarding EXISTING stuff, a capped rent will result in lower quality maintenance, lower quality replacement parts, and less of both. 2/? @woozle in NYC we've seen landlords simply refuse to rent apartments that are rent controlled and take it as a tax loss (oversimplified). There are some immoral but very logical financial reasons they do this. Tiny Apts WOULD be a great option, but that brings us back to housing codes. Ex. NYC requires every bedroom to have a window so that you can escape in a fire. This prevents empty office buildings from being converted because every floor's center ends up filled with empty space 3/? @woozle Honestly there are a TON of really great ideas for fixing housing and making it affordable, & lots of proof that many will work from other countries. BUT they require a complete overhaul of housing regulations (incredibly hard) AND legislators who actually care about making life better for people instead of lining their pockets and gaining power (incredibly rare). :( It's a 💩 situation. @masukomi It's true, this would be a bandaid solution, and the rentiers are overequipped with bandaid-removal tools. It's going to take a revolution in government, ultimately. Housing shouldn't even be a market. Basic needs of any kind shouldn't be a market. @woozle Hard Agree. I'm not actually against there being _A_ market for housing, but i think it should be _A_ market for folks that can, and want to spend more, AFTER we've made sure everyone has a safe roof over their heads that won't be taken away because they dare to be "too poor" or get injured or sick or whatever. I think the US is rapidly going to swap to full on fascism, but after that we can hopefully overthrow that + the BS we're currently simmering in. If we survive. ;) Follow-up thought: someone in another thread-branch pointed out that greedlords could just make the apartments super-tiny. I suggested that maybe the maximum rent should therefore be per square foot, to prevent this kind of thing -- in which case people with more to spare could get larger places. ...so there would be some choice opened up by having more money... assuming that's even a good thing.   @androcat It's clear we've got a lot of solutions to work with -- now it's just a matter of organizing more effectively to make the politicians responsive to us instead of to the money people. |
@woozle Sounds good to me. If shit gets more expensive, people should get paid more. If they don't want to pay people more, don't charge more for shit.