My argument the entire time has been on a square foot basis, and I've been bringing up the square foot note since the beginning as justification for the larger than inflation increase.

So please don't change my argument.

For reference, here is the table I utilized.

https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/housing2.png

It is the internet, so it's entirely possible I've been duped by a bullshit graph since anybody can create them.

It's a chart, as everybody seemed so inclined to want to follow before (since comparing a single year to a single year can result in some discrepancies...kind of like comparing stock market returns from 1929/1930 to present instead of 1925 just to exclude the depression).

That statement does not mean that there are zero homes being built which are aimed for low income individuals. It is a statement of trends, postulating that the reason homes are getting bigger is because a larger percentage of them are being built for people with higher wealth (Alternately, this may also be indicative of things such as a shift in house building trends away from Urban areas, which tend to be small and high cost, towards more rural areas). This means that low income individuals may be presented with fewer or worse choices. This is basically textbook gentrification that I'm speaking of, so it isn't really an out there concept. Areas with a large number of low earning individuals are renovated to suit more middle class tastes, driving up land values and pricing low income individuals out of the area. You see new construction being built which has a solid value proposition for middle class individuals (good cost/sq ft), driving up rents for people who do not own houses and suddenly you have multiple trends being explained without doing anything to help those in poverty.

So, how do cheap houses and tiny houses factor into this?

I mean, if people are being priced into living in a 300sqft box in a trailer park and told that the existence of these boxes is somehow evidence that there is no economic injustice in relation to wages or living costs... I think that is pretty self-evidently fucked. Tiny houses are shit (especially if you are more than one person). RV parks are often shit. I don't think there is evidence of anything here. The existence of shit houses does nothing to speak to the presence of economic injustice. To quote myself from the beginning of this conversation:

"This shouldn't even be a part of the conversation, because under this line of logic, there is no such thing as economic injustice as long as the workers are alive (more or less). Obviously, this is faulty reasoning. As previously stated, income inequality should be examined not through looking at whether a low level worker owns a TV, but whether their pay is what would be expected in a just economy. When a company is making billions of dollars as one of the most successful companies in the world, they probably shouldn't be paying their workers minimum wage as they kill themselves over doing physical labor at an inhuman pace."

We should not be examining whether shitty, cheap housing exists, we should be examining whether the work you do is affording you a just standard of living. This is a complicated question, but answering a much dumber question doesn't help us get anywhere closer to the end of this argument.

What is a just standard of living though?

That's the million (billion...trillion???) dollar question.

I guess my issue with this has always been, who is the decider of said standard. I've lived in situations in my own life below what some people see this standard as, and personally been ok. That is a single scenario, and obviously doesn't apply to all, but it makes me struggle to visualize why the lowest absolutely must be higher (generally with the mindset that the high are too high).

I've also struggled with the actual implementation of policies designed to help the poor. While there are absolutely areas where selfish people will take advantage in our world, something about many of these policies has never come off to me as trying to actually help these people permanently get out of their situation. Many of our fixes have always just been, ok, these people are poor as shit, let's just give them a little money and call it good.

I've also struggled substantially with the vast quantity of people being helped. It seems like we want to try helping 50% of the population, rather than perhaps focusing on the 10% that are REALLY struggling.

I think the most messed up thing to me isn't even that we have billion dollar companies paying minimum wage in the US.

It's that we have billion dollar companies paying people like a dollar a day to make shit for them in other countries.

And that is very much a conversation that should be had (when I'm not about to go to bed). However, like I said, answering a much dumber and much easier question, gets us no closer to the million dollar answer. The argument over whether home price is growing alongside square footage is absolutely meaningless to answer any question about economic justice or poverty.

Personally, I'm not overly worried about the costs of new construction. The main issue is that we need a lot more houses (or housing in general) moreso than the cost of the houses that are being built. In relation to housing costs, the issues that I am concerned with relate to things such as gentrification, soaring rent prices, homelessness, housing shortages, lending behaviors and negative outcomes associated with housing (such as eviction, and standard of living issues (insects, lead, etc)).

We as a society should aim to improve negative outcomes. Well, many cities are in the middle of a housing shortage, a homelessness crisis or are subject to vast standard of living issues (see: Flint for example). Lets start with fixing these issues and see where it gets us. How are we going to afford it? Tax the rich. Redistribute income.

I have an honest question for you. If somebody fights to change this horribleness, but themselves participates in many of the very acts that are the issue, are they just as bad?

One of my very issues with Bernie Sanders for instance, is the guy is a multimillionaire who owns 3 houses. It just feels like he preaches, but doesn't really follow the things he says are a problem. Who on Earth needs to own 3 separate houses? I get it, he has proposed taxes on the Uber wealthy, but ultimately has assigned an arbitrary amount to begin these net worth taxes, which conveniently wouldn't have any impact to him and his 3 home lifestyle. He speaks how the rich really haven't done that much to truly deserve all of their wealth, but when pushed about the enormous amount he has made by simply writing a book, he has gotten defensive and indicated it isn't a crime to write a book.

His campaign got in trouble for praising higher wages, but upon raising the wages, they dropped the hours that people were working as it turns out, even they couldn't afford higher wages. I mean, I guess this opens the possibility to work multiple lower hour jobs, but that can be very difficult to juggle.

While I can appreciate wanting a better world, I massively struggle to believe that somebody who himself is elite and continues to live an elite lifestyle really cares about the general population.

*awaits comment that Trump is horrible too* (even though I agree and my comment has nothing to do with that)

I do try to read up at least some on politicians. It's generally headlines, which obviously can be used just to get people interested in raunchy stuff.

The 45% tax you refer to is the estate tax, which doesn't impact the person who earned the money initially...at all. It impacts the people who ultimately inherit it. Further, while he is pushing to lower the exemption amount, he still only wants to lower it to $3.5M (which I presume is for individuals and $7M for married couples vs 11/22 right now). Meaning the majority (if not all) of his wealth will be exempt even from the estate tax (and thus taxed at 0%).

I don't even really understand how it got so high in the first place. Back in 2008 the amount was only $2M, and has went up drastically since then (and even doubling with this last big tax change).

I was referring to the annual wealth tax being pushed by numerous candidates.

It still just seems like arbitrary figures to me though. It puts this amount out there and basically implies having that amount of wealth is absurd, unnecessary, etc. But apparently having 3 homes doesn't fit that criteria.

Regarding his not being a millionaire for long, he absolutely has qualified for a pension of I believe 80% of his salary ($130k/year) for quite some time now. The present value of a pension of this amount is quite substantial (although as he continues to age it is likely actually going down).

He has been a millionaire for a lot longer than 2 years, as present value of any pension benefits you are due should absolutely be factored into net worth calculation.