To modernize a running system, you have to duplicate everything so that you can someday do a switchover.
For commerce tech, you switch, see what breaks, switch back and adjust for next try. You may have lost some sales. But probably just inconvenienced people.
When doing travel systems, something breaking is likely a lot of deaths.
A wide variety of decades-old aircraft, and even newer aircraft are often modernized versions of ancient aircraft models. All of them built and operated with the motto "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", because every change brings risk (and costs money).
There was also a lot of resistance to the idea that every aircraft should broadcast its position, heading, etc. because of privacy concerns. And as long as there are holdouts the tower can't rely on the information being available
Large infrastructure projects always take decades.
Look at the railroad development in EU for example. You have to invent a lot of tech (signaling, communication between trains, interoperability with old systems), build a lot of infrastructure, train a lot of people and roll it out at scale with the goal of zero accidents.
Yeah, but some of the next generation upgrades have already been successfully tested at some facilities and it's just a problem of updating the rest. Sure it will take years, but it shouldn't take a decade after successful testing in the field.
Some are specialized, some are diversified. Definitely public, I believe they all have to be listed on fedgov's contractor list? Some are obvious weapons contractors, some aren't (like extensions of big-name universities). If you see job listings for weapons development, cyber ops, secret-clearance software dev, cryptography, etc, that's a clue.
Because they can afford it. It's a redistribution tactic. You can also phrase it like this: college should be free for all to attend. Then, as long as you have a progressive tax scheme, the outcome is the same. Cheap for the poor, expensive for the rich.
Like a massage? You can't be serious. I would consider it a basic service like healthcare, power, or water, so it should be easily accessible, have certain quality standards and very affordable, basically a decision to go there shouldn't have any financial impact.. but surely that's ideal.
And yet whoever works in education is not appreciated all around the world. For some reason whoever teach children lives on small salary(often minimal wage) but with high requirements.
If you are an education provider, yes. If you are receiving education, I'd say it's totally different due to expected value added over the student lifetime.
According to the old story, the New York Times asked a famous bank robber why he robbed banks. The answer: Because that's where the money is.
The money for funding public and quasi-private (universities and hospitals) institutions has to come from somewhere. Making it equally affordable for everybody doesn't raise enough money to maintain operations. Same for funding the government.
Granted, I think all of those institutions are due for reforms, which have little chance of happening right now, but still, I think the basic funding equation can't be eliminated.
> The money for funding public and quasi-private (universities and hospitals) institutions has to come from somewhere. Making it equally affordable for everybody doesn't raise enough money to maintain operations. Same for funding the government.
That's what taxes are for: you take proportionally more from people with more assets. I find the entire conversation about "not wanting my tax dollars to pay for some millionaire's kids' education", because those millionaires would end up paying the difference in taxes (under a fair system) than they do now.
That's without even considering the perverse incentives at play when a wealthy parent can use the payment or withholding of payment for education as a way to control their kids. Just because a parent is wealthy it doesn't necessarily mean that the kid would have access to those funds, or that explicit or implicit requirements that could be imposed to access those funds would be reasonable.
Indeed, and I think we're not far apart on this. I would support funding of things like education and healthcare through progressive taxation, and making them free, or some nominal cost.
People who are crossing the border illegally are never going to come close to qualifying for a mortgage, at least in next 5-10 years.
But a different kind of immigration does affect the crisis, and it is on the other end. You can fast track permanent residency by investing money, around $1m, into a US business. So every corrupt technocrats, police and army higher ups, politicians, gang leaders, unscrupulous business people I know of from my native developing country own multiple houses for themselves, their spouses and kids in US and Canada. This is what is making homeownership more and more unaffordable for average Americans.
The link is about the number of people Border Patrol caught, and thus won't be using US housing (or will be doing so legally as refugees). It's safe to assume there are others who don't get caught, but it provides no information about whether this is increasing, decreasing or forms a significant portion of the population growth.
From 2007 to 2019 the estimated number of unauthorized immigrants was slightly declining[1], at the same time that the population of the US as a whole (and the housing shortage) was growing, so it certainly wasn't a significant part of the problem then. From 1990 to 2007, the unauthorized migrant population grew about 500k/year relative to about 3M/year total. Even unauthorized migrants accounted for 17% of the population like they did then, which is debatable, that still wouldn't account for all of the discrepancy between housing growth and population growth. So it is fair to ask for numbers that actually support the parents position.
Furthermore, the housing supply is supposed to be responding to demand. Its failure to do so is a problem regardless of where that demand is coming from. It has been clear that we have had a growing housing shortage for decades, but it took a generation of population turnover and insanely unsustainable prices before political pressure grew to the point to change regulations and allow the housing market to be able to even begin to respond. Without the migrant population growth there is a very good chance we would have still allowed the problem to get just as bad before we finally responded, it just would have taken a bit longer.
This talks about "encounters" at the border which really means how many people are caught at the border and are waiting for a hearing. To make the claim you want to make, you would need to know how many of those people actually get hearings and are admitted into the country.
Labor for public projects is so messed up that we basically can’t build anything without paying 10-100x what China would pay to do it. Eventually we simply get economically outcompeted, or maybe we invent robots to make the projects feasible again.
> or maybe we invent robots to make the projects feasible again.
In the introductory, "disruption" phase it will come in at about half the current cost. Then, once the current market and expertise has been destroyed, they can rack-in maximum profit by jacking up their prices, with added, predatory inconveniences, such as "cleaning costs".
It really isn’t. I’m as big a critic of China as anyone, but assuming its workers are all slaves who aren’t advancing up the tech chain is really dangerous, very stupid.
I didn’t say all labor was forced, I said they use forced labor. Which they do. Your middle of the road ultra-orthodoxy is the dangerous attitude here.
China doesn’t use forced labor for anything important. It’s mostly just a more extreme version of work in American prisons, although they focus more on the re-education than work aspect (it sounds like a good thing, but it isn’t). The people building bridges, viaducts, and tunnels, are not forced, are actually getting really skilled at it. China could stop all liaojiao and laogai tomorrow and virtually nothing would change about this.
There may have been a typo but your reading comprehension seems pretty horrible. Let me rephrase.
The choice is never between "Pay what it costs for people to live good lives" and paying less than that. The choice is between paying what the company can afford or having no job at all.
I'd prefer everyone be making enough money to buy a 2000 sqft house and groceries with enough left over for leisure but that option isn't on the table.
Company A makes Widget for $20. It takes 1 Employee B hour to make a Widget. Widgets cost Company A $8 to manufacture. After accounting for management overhead, logistics and the cost of storage, Company A clears $10 per widget. Company A can only afford to pay Employee B $10 to break even, this is not a living wage.
In this scenario, you'd prefer Widgets not exist and Employee B not have a job.
Since you're going to say, "Raise the price of Widgets!". $20 is the ideal price point for product, any more or less and the volume sold * profit falls and the possible wage for Employee B will drop.
