- m101 parentIf you exclude mortgage payments or rent then living in London is probably cheaper than living in most places in the US. We don’t have significant real estate taxes, my annual expenses on housing exc rent or mortgage payments (energy, service charge, internet, water, council taxes) is around 7-8k$. If you want health insurance it’s another 200-300$ a month but we have the nhs (albeit it is terrible for anything non-life threatening).
- On a tangent to the article- I quit my career just over two years ago now: same age as author, live in London too. The hardest thing about not working is the social life that work gives you. Whilst we may think that work is for money, it is also for 1) filling our time, and 2) spending time with people. Yes, some people are definitely a net-negative interaction, but most people are actually positive to one’s day, but in one of those “you need to not work for a year to know it” way.
Amongst other reflections I have:
1) a pay-check does give you a sense of validation. This took some getting through
2) it’s been challenging working out what I will actually end up doing with myself. There were periods where I put more pressure on myself to do so. I still don’t know what will do.
3) the process of doing things because they are fun takes some getting used to when one’s entire life was built around doing something useful to others
4) when one lives off of savings it’s almost easier to spend as it feels like you didn’t suffer for it. Getting depressed at work makes it easier to spend more money outside of work
5) the “number” people need to retire (or not work for extended periods) is probably less than people realise
6) not working in finance (amongst all the moral corruption everywhere) has generally made me happier in part because I can live in a way which is more in-keeping with my values over having constantly breach them for work reasons
7) owning my calendar is a big freedom. I don’t have to ask a boss if I can do something all the time. No need to explain yourself.
8) not constantly having to submit to a boss is huge. One can really grow this way, as constant repression to other people’s whims is soul crushing and shows just how close employment is to slavery (especially in finance with golden handcuffs)
- There's a big difference between:
"creating goods of actual value"
and
"creating goods of actual value for any price"
I don't think it's controversial that these things are valuable but rather the cost to produce use things is up for discussion, and the real problem here. If the price is too high now, then there will be real losses people experience down the line, and real losses have real consequences.
- Couple comments having read gist of comments here:
1) It's not about bad regulation either: it may be impossible to design good regulation
"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." - Friedrich Hayek
2) Everyone agrees that controlling bad externalities is good. The point is at what cost?
3) Regulation isn't the only answer to things. Perhaps the issue is private property isn't properly enforced? Perhaps things could be solved through insurance schemes? There are many complex systems that have been solved without the use of government mandated regulation
- There are many comments on here trying to justify why EVs lose value quickly. Why is it simply not the case that the price falls quickly because the market only clears at lower prices? Perhaps the demand curve just isn't there for EVs as it is for ICE vehicles?
In which case: no it's not that they're amazing - it's that they are less desirable than ICE vehicles.
(I used to own a Tesla now I'm back on a hybrid, and delighted about it)
- I would love to see this navigating central London on a Saturday night. It is a mind draining nightmare.
Also, the small streets which are one car wide, and where one often needs to look far ahead to see whether there's a gap for you to sneak into whilst letting other cars by, will also be good to see handled.
- For those looking for a fix to US healthcare I think it's something like this:
- (user incentive to reduce cost) insurance is structured as co-pay of [20+]% on all expenses, no exceptions
- (price transparency) require healthcare providers to quote upfront for care, via API/website/phone/in-person. Price paid by anyone is the same except for expenses related to billing. E.g
- (create competition) enable creation of small scale clinics, testing facilities, and laboratories
And for God's sake, get the government out of it!!
One (social) system that may work well is the South Korean one: private provision of healthcare services; government run insurance scheme with mandatory payments by those that can afford to pay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_South_Korea
I love markets, but health insurance really is a tough one given the govt can't seem to let people make their own mistakes on healthcare, so I think it might make sense to make it govt run.
Edit: the thing to acknowledge here is that it probably won't push the frontier of healthcare as much as the current US system does, but at least it would be high quality and affordable (not people's largest or second largest expense item).
- Yes, agreed. So force them to leave the market over imposing financial penalties. Financial penalties correlate with correcting poor business behaviour, but also they correlate with poor regulator incentives towards revenue over harm.
My general point is how do we ensure governments are honest wrt to the consumer. Removing financial incentives towards revenue generation for them might actually be a step in that direction.