ErikVandeWater

> Property taxes are a large source of funding for these investments.

The idea isn't to get rid of property taxes and do without that revenue; the idea is to tax things that aren't beneficial that we want more of.

I think our perspectives are different on how much of a handbrake bad policy is on the market's ability to create what people want.

Whether something is disturbing or not doesn't say much about whether it's a good idea, just that it is different from the conventional.

Around the world, governments act like abusive parents. If people could migrate freely (creating a competition for residents), much more people would live without the abuse of authoritarian governments.

It's a false dichotomy to say the only two options are walkable and cramped, and spacious and car-dependent.

> I love that so many people are convinced everyone but them is doing nothing and somehow getting paid for it.

That's not the point. The point is what they are producing isn't contributing value to our lives, or actually creating negative value. Building highways looked very productive on paper in the 50's, but now we live in car dependent sprawl, and we continue to pay people to maintain that sprawl when we could have walkable cities that are human friendly.

Is there a fundamental reason that cuts would have to be to benefits? Why not cut xx% of the government budget anywhere but pensions?

In 6 months drivers killed more pedestrians than all the people that died on 9/11.

Your comment is just vague talking points. I see literally no one justifying poisoning the environment and the town by saying this is an acceptable cost of the free market.

Blaming MBAs for this instead of the JDs that are writing and enforcing the laws is also silly.

Finally, almost everyone from the federal down to the local is running unsustainable deficits, so there is clearly a lack of forethought in spending. I would argue we have the opposite problem you are suggesting. Everyone's happy to spend money thoughtlessly because it's someone else's money.

> While there is certainly much to criticize in these areas, you would think one solution to this issue would be to advance a society in which women are valued equally to men.

Women are valued moreso than men. Men are 10x more likely to die at work, have little to no access to domestic violence shelters, and if war comes, the only people who will be conscripted to potentially die will be men.

Disappointing the article didn't specify the marketing that was used to sell the cameras five years ago. Obviously planned obsolescence is bad, but I'd like to know how misleading they were when selling the product.

> someone had been convicted of a crime

The issue isn't that people who commit crimes can hide their past, but that "corrections" facilities to not rehabilitate criminals into law-abiding members of society.

Having a criminal past follow someone for their entire life is a surefire way to make sure they can't find legal ways of making money.

> the new net wage is $23 an hour.

> At that higher wage, more people will apply for the job. The increased supply of labor will allow the boss to pay less than $10 an hour; it might suffice to pay only $7.

How is the boss taking advantage of the increased supply of labor that is conditional on increased pay, if that boss is short changing on pay vs the market?

If all other restaurants have increased net wages, this boss will run short on waiters.

> States have become more ambitious in their policies for tackling the insulin affordability crisis because the scale of the problem continues to grow and the federal government seems capable of taking only limited action to address it.

As if the federal government isn't the one causing the shortage in the first place.

> It cost my mother $150.

Sure, but by being taxpayers, your parents already paid a substantial portion of the cost forward by paying for the healthcare of other people. Perhaps they were net takers from the system, but presumably people on HN have parents that are net contributors to the system.