Coal miners in election 2016

[Simon_Jester]

No, it can't. For example the state wouldn't be able to provide new homes, if every other place is occupied or the amount of essentials is limited (like access to clean water, agriculturally usable land and so on). And having a job doesn't equal having work, that is needed and in demand. You end up with shops with five salespersons, where one or two would be enough.

Usually the economy is in a non-static condition, permitting people to find something to do in other places. The state wouldn't be able to provide new homes if every other place is occupied? That sounds strange. As if you can't build new homes. Meanwhile, I am interested to hear just what kind of situation it is that every single living space is occupied and there is no possibility to build more anywhere?

Probably only applies to places like Singapore or Vatican that physically run out of land.

Bear in mind that you do NOT want to actually physically use every little bit of land, not if you're going to use the resources of the Earth in a responsible manner. Leaving land to remain wild and 'natural' in trust for your citizens to enjoy is as vital as consuming those resources and building habitation, manufacturing or other buildings on that land. It would be a grotesque world indeed that didn't have green spaces or natural preserves.

Yes, but when you are building new homes to relocate people, you don't necessarily destroy more wild land than you create. Evacuating a coal mining town, abandoning its infrastructure, and moving everyone into new apartments on the outskirts of an existing city will not result in more land being "used" over the long run.

Because, as Tevar notes, the evacuated town will revert to wilderness within a generation or so.

[Elheru Aran]

Usually the economy is in a non-static condition, permitting people to find something to do in other places. The state wouldn't be able to provide new homes if every other place is occupied? That sounds strange. As if you can't build new homes. Meanwhile, I am interested to hear just what kind of situation it is that every single living space is occupied and there is no possibility to build more anywhere?

Probably only applies to places like Singapore or Vatican that physically run out of land.

Bear in mind that you do NOT want to actually physically use every little bit of land, not if you're going to use the resources of the Earth in a responsible manner. Leaving land to remain wild and 'natural' in trust for your citizens to enjoy is as vital as consuming those resources and building habitation, manufacturing or other buildings on that land. It would be a grotesque world indeed that didn't have green spaces or natural preserves.

Yes, but when you are building new homes to relocate people, you don't necessarily destroy more wild land than you create. Evacuating a coal mining town, abandoning its infrastructure, and moving everyone into new apartments on the outskirts of an existing city will not result in more land being "used" over the long run.

Because, as Tevar notes, the evacuated town will revert to wilderness within a generation or so.

You could also run roughshod over a national park and then leave it when the resources run out and expect it to revert to wilderness eventually, but that doesn't mean it's a *good* thing necessarily given all the crap that even a small town will have under the surface. Not like it'll be a Superfund site or whatever (though considering some of the stuff that coal-mining puts out...) but it's not like it's going to be a flourishing forest within a generation or two.

Though of course I do acknowledge the necessity of building new residences if you're going to relocate people, if there are none available for them to occupy. My objection was more to what I perceived as a rather cavalier attitude towards the environment on Stas' part that came off as "if there's space available, whatever it is, they might as well use it".

[LadyTevar]

Though of course I do acknowledge the necessity of building new residences if you're going to relocate people, if there are none available for them to occupy. My objection was more to what I perceived as a rather cavalier attitude towards the environment on Stas' part that came off as "if there's space available, whatever it is, they might as well use it".

If you're gonna move people, it is nice to have new housing available. However, right now, there's a housing glut in WV, both from the Fannie Mae collapse and from the fact no one can really afford to buy a house right now. I know of 8 houses within 5 blocks of me that have been empty 3yrs+, because no one can afford the pricetag.

Of course, when those houses are close to the river, on flat land, have 3+bedrooms, and are near schools, that does raise the price

[Elheru Aran]

I know of 8 houses within 5 blocks of me that have been empty 3yrs+, because no one can afford the pricetag.

Of course, when those houses are close to the river, on flat land, have 3+bedrooms, and are near schools, that does raise the price

Yeah, the housing bubble isn't doing relocation any good. When your finances are already heavily invested in a home that you can't afford and you can't sell because there are no jobs drawing anybody to the area, you really don't have much chance to buy another house even if they're readily available elsewhere.

I'm seeing a similar phenomenon in my area (Atlanta suburbs)-- there are subdivisions half-full of empty houses, sitting pretty side by side on their identical lots. They're nice houses... but a lot of people can't afford them, or if they can afford them, they end up playing the role of absentee landlord, forever trying to rent them out or unload them.

Eventually, it's going to get to the point where you either need a lot of money or significant government intervention to buy a house... and pop goes the bubble, like (what was it?) 2008 all over again. But in growing areas like Atlanta, that bubble's going to take a LONG time to pop.

[Zaune]

And therein lies the problem. Short of spending public funds to buy up houses in these ex-mining towns by eminent domain just to raze them, how exactly does one go about engineering managed decline as opposed to the unmanaged sort?

I suppose the state could build a few call centres for the welfare office out there, if they still have any.

[Gandalf]

And therein lies the problem. Short of spending public funds to buy up houses in these ex-mining towns by eminent domain just to raze them, how exactly does one go about engineering managed decline as opposed to the unmanaged sort?

I suppose the state could build a few call centres for the welfare office out there, if they still have any.

Another solution is to basically pension off the area and wait for demographics to take care of the problem in a manner that is quiet, but quite ugly. People will either die of old age in the place they've lived their whole lives or move to greener pastures. It's what happens in parts of Australia. There are weird implications in the long run, given the status of states in the US, but it's not an insurmountable problem.

[Elheru Aran]

And therein lies the problem. Short of spending public funds to buy up houses in these ex-mining towns by eminent domain just to raze them, how exactly does one go about engineering managed decline as opposed to the unmanaged sort?

I suppose the state could build a few call centres for the welfare office out there, if they still have any.

Managed decline is not something that's going to really happen in the current status quo. It would require a fairly extensive state or federal investment, because no corporation is going to touch that kind of thing unless they get paid to do so.

But if I was going to do it?

You need a few different things: Somewhere for people to move to. Something for them to do so that they can afford their new life. And, the place they move to needs to have things to offer to them besides simply being a place to live.

The easy way might be to simply offer a reasonable payment for peoples' residences in the coal towns, a federal grant to carry them through the next few months, and favorable assistance along the lines of HUD grants for purchasing houses elsewhere. HUD is a pretty good deal and I'm not sure why more people don't use it. Basically, you buy a house that's a 'fixer-upper', and HUD helps cover some of the costs and cuts you a pretty good deal on the mortgage too. Of course, people don't naturally like to buy houses that they have to fix up to start with...

[Zaune]

Define "fixer upper". Some broken windows and a leaky roof would be one thing, even if you're trying to juggle renovating the place with work and family and so on, but I can see people being a bit leery of living in a motel for a month while contractors fix the wiring and the furnace and all the other stuff a total amateur shouldn't be dicking around with.

Otherwise, that sounds about right to me. Good luck getting a REpublican to sign off on it though.

[Elheru Aran]

Define "fixer upper". Some broken windows and a leaky roof would be one thing, even if you're trying to juggle renovating the place with work and family and so on, but I can see people being a bit leery of living in a motel for a month while contractors fix the wiring and the furnace and all the other stuff a total amateur shouldn't be dicking around with.

Otherwise, that sounds about right to me. Good luck getting a REpublican to sign off on it though.

And relocating to another place, especially if you have a whole bunch of people from your town moving there too... the competition for jobs will heat up. So that's another difficulty to deal with. Not insurmountable-- I'm sure that if you gave the government enough rope, it could find *something* for a lot of people to do-- but again... Republicans will never sign off on it.

[Zwinmar]

The problem with HUD is that you have to meet very tight requirements. Dad tried to get it once upon a time and they said no, even though he was a recent widower with two teenage boys in the house. The turn around and an uncle in that same town with a decent job, a wife that worked and three kids gets HUD by lying his ass off.

In short, it is now because people aren't trying to get HUD, its their policies are a load of shit full of nepotism.

[Simon_Jester]

See, that's the thing- if HUD were seriously funded and set up to actually do what we need it to do, there wouldn't be a problem. Insofar as there is, it's because we've got this mutant pennypinching mindset running half the brain of our government. And when your policies are set by people who hate helping people and pinch pennies... you set controls in place, which in turn limit access. And limited access to the help means the help often goes to the most skillful liars and cheats.

This is why one of the most cost-effective forms of welfare is to just say "fuck it, cut literally everyone a check, and if they're rich enough not to need it, take it back out in the form of taxes at the end of the year."

Ironically, greater generosity can achieve greater efficiency than trying to begrudge every dollar you use for a purpose.

[MKSheppard]

Google the "Adams Fork Energy" project in Mingo County, WV.

It's been going on life support for a long time, and if it ever enters service, it'll consume 3 million tons of coal to produce 6.5 million barrels of gasoline a year.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

See, that's the thing- if HUD were seriously funded and set up to actually do what we need it to do, there wouldn't be a problem. Insofar as there is, it's because we've got this mutant pennypinching mindset running half the brain of our government. And when your policies are set by people who hate helping people and pinch pennies... you set controls in place, which in turn limit access. And limited access to the help means the help often goes to the most skillful liars and cheats.

This is why one of the most cost-effective forms of welfare is to just say "fuck it, cut literally everyone a check, and if they're rich enough not to need it, take it back out in the form of taxes at the end of the year."

Ironically, greater generosity can achieve greater efficiency than trying to begrudge every dollar you use for a purpose.

It's also the one form of welfare that conservatives will actually support. It was Milton Friedman who proposed the negative income tax, after all.

If I were emperor of the world, I'd set up a 50-50-50 system. 50% subsidy rate for every dollar you make below $50K, and a 50% tax rate for every dollar above. Someone making $50K would pay no income tax, someone making $100K would pay $25K, and someone making $1MM per year would pay $475K. There would be no special rate for dividends and long-term capital gains, and there would be no deductions or credits. Short-term trades would incur a 1 cent fee if closed out sooner than 12 months. Anything the government wants to subsidize, they would cut a check. Instead of a deduction for mortgage interest, they would simply make a principal payment twice per year on your primary residence. If people in the government want to keep subsidizing oil and gas companies at the rate they currently do, they'll need to cut them a check for $10+ billion and we'll see how long that shit lasts.

There would be no corporate tax rate, as the owners of companies would pay that through the 50% income tax rate (unrealized cap gains will need to be taxed for this to work). It would make the USA an attractive place to house HQ's, and would not disadvantage small to medium sized companies that cannot afford to hire armies of accountants and lobbyists to get the lowest rates. This would also eliminate (and reverse) the tax incentives for multinationals to ship jobs overseas. The federal government would be mandated to run a surplus that pays down the federal debt when GDP growth is above its 100-year average and mandated to run a deficit when it is below (austerity always makes economic problems worse).

Under this scheme, you could completely eliminate social security and all forms of welfare, so the cost would not be much higher than our current system. The tax bill for wealthy people would go up a little, except wealthy people who derive their income from the financial industry. Theirs would go up a lot, as it should.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Actually, crunching the numbers it looks like the break-even would have to be set at $40K per year, so $20K for people with no income.

[Elheru Aran]

Actually, crunching the numbers it looks like the break-even would have to be set at $40K per year, so $20K for people with no income.

That... isn't going to get you very much in some places. You're going to have to adjust for cost of living or something.

I mean, back when I lived in Tennessee, I would've been delighted to make 20K a year. I would've been able to make rent, do my laundry, get my groceries and gas, maybe even put a little money aside, with ease. The blessings of living in the middle of a small town.

Here in Georgia? That 20K won't stretch nearly as far. Housing costs are much higher (unless you want to live in what amounts to a hovel), and I have to drive almost everywhere.

[Simon_Jester]

If the guaranteed minimum income doesn't provide a living wage, it creates problems- but they're the same problems that already exist anyway with so many jobs not paying a living wage. And welfare doesn't pay a living wage NOW, remember.

Also, I'm pretty sure that's $20000 for literally everyone, including dependents. So you're not stuck worrying about how to support an ailing wife and two children on that $20000 income, you're worrying about how to support them on $80000.

[We miiiight want to rethink the details on that one, if only so filthpiles like the Duggars can't procreate their way into a fortune. Maybe the income for dependents should decrease as a function of how many dependents someone has, on the theory that while two can't live as cheaply as one, eight can probably live almost as cheaply as seven]

[Elheru Aran]

...huh, 80K for a family of four is a *very* adequate living, to say the least, pretty much anywhere you are. Almost too much perhaps. My wife and I are making ends meet at approximately ~24K. Being able to put away 50+K a year would be highly generous.

A more likely situation-- you only get the full payout when you are of age, children get a sliding scale based on age and how many are born? Say an infant gets ~1000 a year or whatever's sufficient for diapers and formula or baby food, a middle-schooler gets ~3000, high schooler ~8000 (I have done no math whatsoever here so this is just off the top of my head). However as you add on more kids, after say the first two you get progressively lesser amounts, and after the first... say, five or six, the number drops off sharply.

The fact is though that the latter notion of dropping off income after dependents go past a certain number would cause quite a few sections of the population to kick and scream. It suggests, to a certain degree, using the income to incentivize population control.

Of course, if they have to use this income to pay for health insurance as well that could minimize some issues. But I don't quite have the time to think this through as much as I'd like...

[Zaune]

That... isn't going to get you very much in some places. You're going to have to adjust for cost of living or something.

I mean, back when I lived in Tennessee, I would've been delighted to make 20K a year. I would've been able to make rent, do my laundry, get my groceries and gas, maybe even put a little money aside, with ease. The blessings of living in the middle of a small town.

Here in Georgia? That 20K won't stretch nearly as far. Housing costs are much higher (unless you want to live in what amounts to a hovel), and I have to drive almost everywhere.

That's one of the advantages to Universal Basic Income as opposed to Negative Income Tax, which is what Arthur_Tuxedo is talking about. Basically, if everyone in the US got a given dollar amount per year tax-free and no questions asked, that would be beneficial even if you can't live off it entirely.

Hmmm. I wonder what it actually costs to administer Social Security, TANF and food stamps and so on?

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Actually, crunching the numbers it looks like the break-even would have to be set at $40K per year, so $20K for people with no income.

That... isn't going to get you very much in some places. You're going to have to adjust for cost of living or something.

I mean, back when I lived in Tennessee, I would've been delighted to make 20K a year. I would've been able to make rent, do my laundry, get my groceries and gas, maybe even put a little money aside, with ease. The blessings of living in the middle of a small town.

Here in Georgia? That 20K won't stretch nearly as far. Housing costs are much higher (unless you want to live in what amounts to a hovel), and I have to drive almost everywhere.

It's important not to set the amount so high that people can live wherever they want or it will inflate the cost of housing. If you want to get by on the UBI, you'll probably have to live in the sticks or live a very simple lifestyle.

There would also need to be controls on the amount for dependents for the reasons Simon mentioned.

UBI does make it easier near the bottom of the job spectrum by not reducing the benefits by 50 cents on the dollar but that does make the scheme more expensive and would give money to people who definitely don't need it.

[Kingmaker]

That's one of the advantages to Universal Basic Income as opposed to Negative Income Tax, which is what Arthur_Tuxedo is talking about. Basically, if everyone in the US got a given dollar amount per year tax-free and no questions asked, that would be beneficial even if you can't live off it entirely.

For any UBI, there's an equivalent NIT + taxation scheme that yields identical outcomes. The practical differences between UBI and NIT - aside from the peculiarities of administration - is that the people advocating NIT tend to be more conservative and less optimistic/ambitious.