Why I refuse to say the system is broken

[Recursion]

I'll add to that: lack of access to a toilet is essentially identical to the "extreme poverty" graph.

This is absolutely the best time to be alive in human history. The Washington consensus worked. Globalized regulated capitalism worked. Populism is an attempt to destroy the greatest thing that ever happened to the human race. I oppose it.

[BeyondGeography]

1. Plus those $4,500/mo 1-bedroom apartments are so cool!

[Recursion]

2. I wouldn't know. I've always had shared housing.

I don't know where people got the idea that affording your own apartment at any point was normal. It's certainly not normal worldwide.

[BeyondGeography]

3. I'm from New York, my city is gone

Where are you from?

[Recursion]

6. DC. Your city has been gone for 200 years

Take Long Island City, where Amazon is moving to

In 1880 it was a farming village

In 1900 it was a bedroom town

In 1920 it was movie studios

In 1940 it was dockyards

In 1960 it was factories

In 1980 it was skid row

In 2000 it was hipsters and banks

In 2020 it will be Silicon Valley East

In 2040 it will be something else

Neighborhoods change, constantly. Fighting that is a fool's errand.

[BeyondGeography]

8. Rent rules have been gutted for the last 25 years

and we’ve lost about 300,000 affordable apartments. You can read about it here:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/20/nyregion/affordable-housing-nyc.html

But we’ve danced this dance before with you and judging from your OP such facts matter not at all.

[Recursion]

10. As wages rise so do rents. It's meaningless to talk about one rising without the other (nt)

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Wages have NOT risen relative to cost of living for decades.

There has been some wage rise, but the lower middle class and poor wages have essentially not risen much at all when buying power is factored in.

Yes, a new car or new pocket computer (smart phone) has more features for a buck these days, so people are somewhat assuaged from the stagnation, but wage stagnation is there all the same.

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/04/5-facts-about-the-minimum-wage/

[Recursion]

16. Yes, they absolutely have: in tandem. Real wages have been roughly stagnant

Which means they have been rising in lockstep with the cost of living.

One of the problems is that the median new home size in 1979 was 950 square feet, and in 2019 it's 4800 square feet.

[riverine]

4. You know who agrees with us?

"the world is more prosperous than ever before and yet our societies are marked by uncertainty and unease," the president wrote that, "it is important to remember that capitalism has been the greatest driver of prosperity and opportunity the world has ever seen."

President Barack Obama

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/obama-defends-capitalism-international-free-trade-economist-essay/story?id=42614080

[Recursion]

5. U2's Bono also said it well

Capitalism is not immoral — it’s amoral. It requires our instruction... Capitalism has taken more people out of poverty than any other ‘ism’. But it is a wild beast that, if not tamed, can chew up a lot of people along the way.

That's exactly right

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Absolutely. Capitalism is the best but only when well regulated, directed, and progressively taxed.

When it leads to the current levels of wealth and income inequality, it is untenable and dangerous. In the past this has lead to revolutions.

It can be fixed peacefully. It must be.

[Ferrets are Cool]

14. This

[BeyondGeography]

7. The New Gilded Age sucks

If you dare to speak up against rampant inequality and runaway housing, health care and education costs, it doesn’t make you anti-capitalism. Now is not the time for empty paeans to the status quo or blanket condemnations of populism. Unless you think everything is hunky dory. We need much better capitalism.

[Recursion]

11. FFS did you even look at the graphic. Everything *is* hunky dory

This is absolutely the best time to be alive in human history. Whatever we've been doing, we need a lot more of it.

[BeyondGeography]

12. Alrighty then!

Who ya thinking about supporting in 2020 there, Recursh?

[Recursion]

13. Andrew Yang!

https://www.yang2020.com/

[Ferrets are Cool]

17. I disagree vehemently.

But arguing with you will be useless, so I will leave it be.