Government regulations have entirely destroyed the living conditions for low-income single people

Posted by jaundiced_baboon@reddit | Libertarian | View on Reddit | 35 comments

The lifestyle low-income singles should live:

Rent small SRO apartment for < $500 per month
Eat cheap street food for every meal
Bike to work in urban area

The lifestyle low-income singles actually live

Live at home with Mom and Dad (because SROs are illegal)
Blow paycheck on fast food or spend tons of free time cooking (because street food is mostly illegal)
Drive to work in shitbox car and waste your money and gas, car insurance, and vehicle maintenance because you can't afford to live in the city

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Legitimate_98@reddit

Our current state of affairs:

- Seniors like the baby boomers want the youth to become doctors because they are sick of immigrants being their doctors. Youth from the USA cannot afford to go to medical school because it costs too much. So the only viable option often is to have people who live in countries where it does not cost $300k to become a doctor be their doctor via immigrating here. Ever notice many of the doctors in major hospitals are from places like India? You know... A country where living with your parents until your 30s is very normalized?

- You are told to work hard. But all it takes is one ER bill and you could wipe out many months worth of savings.

- Oh you want to invest in the stock market? Welp if the stock is shorted by the rich (cough cough Gamestop circa 2021) then the rich can make it so you cannot buy or sell that stock. Remember when Citadel and company literally told Robinhood and other firms to not allow clients to buy or sell Gamestop? And who went to jail? Nobody? But lower class dude smoking a joint gets 2 years in the clink?

Our entire capitalist "system" is a myth. Nobody actually believes working hard and saving will get you where you want these days. The days of working hard and getting rich by saving and investing have disappeared. The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. This is by design by the rich. I can see why people support causes like Bernie Sanders or Occupy Wall Street.

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read-before-writing@reddit

Capitalism isn't a myth, it's just misunderstood. Working saving and investing will get you there. Our problems right now are that we are competing to buy houses against some very rich people who are buying many properties. Rentier capitalism. Housing became more commoditized. Even if we go thru periods with less profitability for investment we are in a situation now with huge disparity between rich and poor. So that clawing your way out of poverty is now harder than it was for previous generations. One job isn't enough. But it's still the same capitalism we've always had, the rich make money off the poors backs, the rich don't labor they just make decisions, which can be really stressful to be fair. And they can screw up and lose too. Yes it's by design by the rich and always has been.

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Legitimate_98@reddit

I'm not sure where to start. So we have a system we call capitalism that once was less of the rich having more of a % of money and less grip on the housing market... The system changing vastly over time from being what Adam Smith wanted to a system where a couple of rich fat cats can stop people from buying and selling stocks (Gamestop in 2021)...?

Capitalism is a myth. It makes the illusion that you can work your way out of a system while the people who own the means of production can make a single phone call to change policy. Capitalism can be define as the means of production being in the hands of the rich. That is what happened in 2021 with people like me (average Joe) not being able to sell or buy shares of certain stocks. Can you imagine a world where the working class got to delegate what the rich got to buy or sell in their portfolio?

Back in the 1950s we had less wealth inequality that we do now. We were still under a capitalist system but the reason the average Joe had more financial mobility was because of socialistic policies that were wanted by the masses under President FDR.

Check out the comment section on subreddits that are overrun by capitalists. There are people out there who say to totally gut all government assistance for merit based scholarships/grants because those are socialism... So someone who is smart and wants to work to become a doctor and has all of the checkmarks for medical school except for the $300k college bill to be paid is just out? Too bad for them to be born in a capitalist system if they are poor even if they are very smart and want to work? Many of these subreddits I'm talking about say only rich people's kids should go to college/become doctors.

I'm in the school of thought of having a 4th economic system. Capitalism cannot function. Socialism is to some degree dysfunctional. Communism has dysfunction within it. I have my ideas of us maybe having a 4th economic system if anyone cares to hear about it?

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Mountain-Papaya-492@reddit

I'd like to hear it because I think you're both right in some ways. Personally I think the balance has shifted too far and would want more equilibrium between capital and labor.

I mean it's hard denying there's a problem when we currently have an authoritarian demagogue in power. The system we have is creating too many economic losers.

And If enough people fall under then you get extremism being an alluring alternative to those economic losers. There's a disconnect in our economy.

Numerous studies show that the most important thing for economic success is what position you start in. Who you know, and your environment/upbringing.

Sure there are outliers but if you start poor, you'll most likely die poor. And if we're creating more of those poor immobile people then that's a problem if you want a more liberty oriented country.

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Legitimate_98@reddit

I'll msg you. Too much text apparently for a comment.

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Morrans_Gaze@reddit

This nails the symptoms but misses the diagnosis. SROs weren’t banned because they were unsafe, they were banned because wealthier people didn’t want to see the poor. Street food didn’t vanish because it was unhealthy, it got crushed by restaurant lobbyists and overregulation.

The car trap? That’s not bad luck. It’s design. Suburbs, zoning laws, and gutted public transit force low-income workers into cars they can’t afford, just to function.

This isn’t regulation gone wrong, it’s regulation doing exactly what it was meant to do: erase cheap, independent ways of living so you're locked into debt, dependence, and silence.

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mmelectronic@reddit

You got it wrong, in section 8 a girl and boy can’t share a bedroom, so since you need 3 bedrooms for that good steady government money thats all they want.

The divorced dad efficiency above the liquor store/bar / pizza place only exists in old ass buildings.

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Morrans_Gaze@reddit

Your Section 8 point doesn’t actually disprove what I said, it proves it.

That “girls and boys can’t share a room” rule isn’t some neutral guideline, it’s a justification. A sanitized excuse that developers, bureaucrats, and politicians can point to while they funnel public money into projects that are profitable only for them. It’s not about protecting kids. It’s about shaping the market to exclude people who don’t fit the mold.

The divorced dad above the liquor store? The immigrant family renting a room? The broke student in a garage? Those lives don’t fit the official script, so the system writes them out.

The old buildings still allow it because they were built before the trap was perfected. Everything new is designed to exclude by law, by code, by zoning. The goal isn’t safety. It’s control.

So no, this isn’t just an unfortunate side effect of housing policy. This is the policy. The rules are doing exactly what they were built to do: erase low-cost, independent living so you have no choice but to plug into their system, into debt, surveillance, and silence.

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Practical_Advice2376@reddit

Good post! Nothing creates issues like governments with too much power being funded by lobbyist.

The only option is to take power away from the government. Anything they can make legal, they can make illegal. You have to have 1st/2nd amendment type laws for all sort of activities to have a fair system.

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GangstaVillian420@reddit

Good luck with that argument. On Reddit, the only solution to government created issues is more government. Apparently, the more power a government has, the less corrupt it is.

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Imaginary-Win9217@reddit

I still think I genuinely believed this in my Liberal days. "We believe the government is corrupt and nonfunctional, so we must expand it and give it a higher income via taxation!" Giving a broken toy a higher voltage won't fix it.

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Practical_Advice2376@reddit

I get on here less and less. It's a deep cesspool of cluelessness.

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read-before-writing@reddit

This whole premise is a bit off. Low income people learn how to cook and do their own car maintenance. I have money now and I still fix my crappy car and cook meals without it taking much time. If you have low income, blow your money on fast food and car mechanics I'm sorry for you but at the very least you can learn to cook and start saving money there. Nobody is gonna hand it to you, and yes the cards are stacked against the poor. The entire concept of capitalism is that people with money can make more money without laboring, if you don't have money you have to claw your way out and may never be able to, and those with capital will be making money off your back the entire time. Capitalism only works for the rich when the poor pay that price, and if you make bad choices like blowing your meager money on fast food that is priced for convenience vs cooking affordable food, you may be stuck there longer.

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reverendcanceled@reddit

The free hand of the market allows for the market to determine the price of housing. It also allows billion dollar corporations (such as Blackstone) to buy single family homes and then only lease them. it also allows them to pay vastly over market price for them. This aligns with absolutist libertarian views.

I'd get behind a law that gives a ratio limit to rental spaces versus privately owned spaces. I'd also agree with reduction in regulations for building. Namely the pseudo-environmental regulations NJ has.

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Vidi_veni_dormivi@reddit

billion dollar corporations (such as Blackstone)

Those corporations largely exist due to government influence. They navigate and exploit regulations, while engaging in extensive lobbying, often shaping legislation to align with their own interests. They resemble oligarchs more than private enterprises.

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Imaginary-Win9217@reddit

There are some market distortions I'm on board with too. IP (but only after a MAJOR overhaul), fraud laws, and a minor form of antitrust are the big ones. All of them do need reform first, especially IP.

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reverendcanceled@reddit

Sorry, what's IP?

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Imaginary-Win9217@reddit

Intellectual property, the right to media. Currently (in the US) it's life of property owner plus 70 years, which is absolutely bonkers. It used to be 14 years, but Disney got it pushed back every time Mickey (Steamboat Willie) was about to be released, and they finally lost in 2023. Steamboat Willie is now in the public domain, and I happened to be in Disney on the day it got released.

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