Why is the answer to everything in this country hiking up prices instead of physical change and upgrades? (Congress, minimum wage)
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For example I was reading the sanitation department in NYC wants to raise alternate side parking ticket fees because it will keep the city “healthy, safe and clean”.
Where does this thinking come from that hiking up prices solve anything?
When it comes to any issue in this country, think about first how someone could possibly be benefiting from the status quo, and then you'll have your answer.
The whole tax system needs a huge reform, and all these little nickel and dime things in the bigger picture are just additional ways to generate revenue. Every city does it - it just depends what form you want it to come in. For some, its higher property tax rates (very popular in no income tax states), for others, its higher income tax, and the best one yet, make everything dependent on market prices.
For example I was reading the sanitation department in NYC wants to raise alternate side parking ticket fees because it will keep the city “healthy, safe and clean”.
Where does this thinking come from that hiking up prices solve anything?
How does "physical change and upgrade" happen without a cost?
I don't think "physical change and upgrades" can be bought with "less waste and more efficiency."
"Physical change and upgrades" takes cash up front or borrowed money. "Less waste and efficiency" may be a result, like with better-faster tools or fewer people, but I expect that "less waste and more efficiency" has been tried and repeated over and over many times in most places. There is not an infinite amount of savings without a reduction in products or services.
I mean you know the prices of everything increases right? And I don't mean just rent and labor and things like that. If you're building something, materials cost more money because prices always increase. If sanitation wants to do more to keep the streets clean, it needs to bring in more money. It might buy more sanitation trucks. Sanitation trucks are not free. And the trucks are more expensive now than they were years ago. Ago the maintenance on these is more expensive that it was years ago. COL increases every year, so wages should appropriately increase every year. If the entire cost to run a government increases every year because COL wage increases occur every year and materials/parts for keeping a city running increase every year, why is it fair for the government to keep running on a budget that reflects costs from years ago?
Cars are more expensive every year, yet public transit agencies receive the same funding and collect the same ticket prices for a long time.
Congresspeople give themselves raises every single year to match inflation, yet hold the rest of the people down with minimum wage that has not matched inflation for years.
CEOs give themselves raises and bonuses every year, while either giving no or little raises to the employees actually running the business day to day.
The cost to fix a road increases every year as the materials used to fix the road increase every year. Therefore, the funds used to fix those roads should increase equally every year.
Basically, the conclusion is capitalism. Capitalism allows companies to set whatever price they want for a product. Governments require those products to function. However, people don't want to pay more even though the government can't afford anything anymore. The argument is usually "I don't make enough to pay more." And I agree. But that's where we're at in late stage capitalism before it fails: the people who buy the goods and use the services of capitalism are reaching a point where we can no longer fund the capitalist system because all the money is sitting at the top with CEOs and shareholders, rather than with the workers. So tax bases are dwindling, people are unable to pay the costs to run their own governments, and we're all falling apart like Humpty Dumpty.
Basically, the conclusion is capitalism. Capitalism allows companies to set whatever price they want for a product.
Profits always leads to inflation. The extra money (coming out of thin air) over the cost of production has to come somewhere, and it can be traced to government printing money (fiat currency, which comes from thin air) eventually making trickling its way up through the economic cycle.
Also the economic make-up of the U.S. has shifted from creating capital (manufacturing) to shifting capital (service industry). Price and value have become disjointed as the shift took place.
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
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Profiteering is how the country rolls. It will eventually destroy us.
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