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- Path: sparky!uunet!dtix!darwin.sura.net!uvaarpa!murdoch!Turing.ORG!eric
- From: eric@Turing.ORG (Eric Prestemon)
- Newsgroups: sci.econ
- Subject: Re: American underclass
- Message-ID: <1992Aug26.223828.28086@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
- Date: 26 Aug 92 22:38:28 GMT
- References: <BtK4Jy.2uz@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>
- Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
- Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
- Lines: 45
-
- In article <BtK4Jy.2uz@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> you write:
- >
- >I have always wondered why the U.S, the richest country in the world in
- >terms of per capita GNP, is having such a hard time solving the problems
- >of homelessness, urban poverty, drugs, etc..
- I wonder the same things...
-
- >(1) Is rent control is places like N.Y a large part of the problem in terms
- >of distorting the housing market?
- I wrote my undergraduate Econ research paper on Rent Control. The answer
- to the above question is *clearly* in the affirmative. Rent control
- doesn't even help the tenants who live in RC'ed apts, in the long run.
- >
- >(2) Do you think that either Clinton or Bush are *** serious *** about
- >addressing these problems?
- Opinion: Bush doesn't care, Clinton may care, but neither will do
- anything. Votes are won by $, not individuals, and people who live in
- inner cities don't contribute to parties/campaigns, simple as that.
- Senators like Metzenbaum and T. Kennedy, who seem to care, are probably
- doing more harm than good, so maybe it's for the best.
- >
- >(3) Is there any way that these problems can be ameliorated without a large
- >tax increase?
- Yes, I can think of many ways, the simplest being stopping gov't
- interference. The idea of "Enterprise Zones" is simply to stop
- interference in areas where business can't support the government
- sucking money from it. This idea may help in poverty stricken areas,
- but there is a lot of other methods the gov't can use. Like getting
- rid of the current welfare situation, where for every $ earned at work,
- 90-95 cents of welfare is lost. Pretty insane. (It used to be over $1)
-
- I care very much about these issues, and feel that people with low
- opportunities are being held down by a governemnt which claims to help
- them. Legalizing drugs would also probably help these areas, too.
-
- I have considered starting a non-partisan,minimal politicing, mailing
- list to answer exactly these questions , which our current political system
- seems to repeatedly fail to deal with. Any en/discouragement out there,
- or pointers to a similar list?
-
-
-
- --
- Eric Prestemon (ecp2z@virginia.edu)
- "Jesus saves! Gretzky steals! Gretzky scores!"
-