Some of the wines that come out of way southern Illinois are actually really, really good and vineyards are genuinely gorgeous. I also really love Carbondale, that’s a great small town. A criminally underrated part of the country, and another place I wouldn’t mind living 😅

I’d spend the next thirty years happily working for my agency if they’d move some of us (or let me move) to Chicago, incredibly good rent prices in a cool city plus that relatively high locality adjustment is an absolute dream.

well now that you mention, my IBS is pretty debilitating sometimes…

We have reliably known, for at least a decade, that significant commuting is a net negative on individual and public health. With the cost of living in the DC being as extreme as it is, many people are forced into supercommuting practices, which has significant negative health consequences in the long-term. It’s fantastic that so many people can opt out of commuting, it’s an amazing development for individual and public health.

I would be completely fine in going to the office like I do now after my year probation is up if I could get an equivalent unit for the same price in a similar neighborhood in DC (absolutely no shot) or my pay was doubled so I could afford DC.

A huge number of federal employees, like myself, can’t afford to live in DC or the inner suburbs without making untenable sacrifices. I live in Baltimore and commute because of that, but the expectation is that after a year, I telework or go hybrid, so I put up with it. I imagine that making people go back into the office with the commutes that they have will massively impact on employee retention and overall quality of life, especially considering federal employees’ relatively low pay. I’m glad the unions are fighting this, and hopefully most of us can stay remote/hybrid forever.

Please tell me, what heritable conditions am I talking about?

You know, this is a good perspective. I’ll go do more research.

Eugenics? I’ve said nothing about reproductive control, completely outside of the discussion.

do the people that get out have meaningfully better outcomes (after adjusting for assumed better income due to being in a more economically vibrant area), or are they still income-adjusted, just as sick and unproductive? additionally, since we’re talking cyclical, are their children better off than they were, or are they actually worse off because poverty is largely unbreakable, it just moved around

oooh sorry my value system emphasizes factoring externalities into total costs and benefits and recognizing that interventions across the board are largely ineffective and thus i come up with different responses to problems and that scares you so you call me names oooh

multiple interventions have been mentioned in these comments. they don’t work. what is your idea?

I’m an economist by training (if not by practice), I have student loans, and they were 1000% worth it because the wage (and mobility!) premium for having a master’s is much much more than the lack of full-time work I missed out on. I’m very familiar with reality.

What’s wrong with recognizing that all people deserve safety, peace, and comfort, irrespective of their (lack of) economic productivity? Not everyone has potential, that’s okay, they should still be well-cared for and thought of.

Free or low-cost college education is accessible in many places. Georgia for example, provides tuition-free public university for any undergraduate in-state student who meets the requirements. UGA and Georgia Tech are very, very good schools.

Also, the vast majority of Americans do not and will never have student loans. It’s an uncommon problem. Additionally, per the Cleveland Fed, there’s a wage premium of 84% for students who are college-educated versus those who aren’t. Even with the opportunity cost, it’s largely worth it going to college (and so many people going to college, we see their revealed preferences despite the cost).

https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-commentary/2012/ec-201210-the-college-wage-premium

oh and tens, if not hundreds of millions of Americans should be written off. they’re unpleasant, unproductive, unimaginative, and/or unintelligent. the negative external costs are higher than their economic value. it does little good to keep them in the workforce, pay them to stay unemployed and quiet, we will all be better off

Untrue, the rich and powerful know that a highly educated workforce, even if it costs more to pay them, are for more productive (meaning more profit), have longer healthspans (meaning less money paid out by insurance), and work more hours and into older age (meaning less retirement). Elites, at least those with any economic sense, want a highly educated, productive workforce, which is why tax policy encourages spending of hundreds of billions, if not more, on education every year.

The students don’t care, the cycle won’t break because these students aren’t going to put the momentum to break it because they understand that their life will not meaningfully, materially improve even if they do get a decent education. They’ve been largely locked into poverty, permanently, and there’s no interventions that can break that. It’s best to provide palliative, post-education resources to make sure that they’re comfortable, safe, and out of the way.

okay let’s not use foxbaltimore.

Per the school district, their 2022-2023 budget is $1.62 billion. They also say they have 76,000 students. That’s $21,300 per student.

https://www.baltimorecityschools.org/node/1597

https://www.baltimorecityschools.org/district-overview

I’m not blaming the school district, system, teachers, or administration. I’m fact, I think most of them are highly competent, caring, and intelligent individuals who want their students to thrive and succeed.

And those community center and after school programs? They improve math skills (good!) but that’s the end of their effectiveness. They have no impact on attendance or behavior, like at all. They don’t work.

https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/staying_on_track_testing_higher_achievement.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4597889/

These resources don’t meaningfully improve outcomes. This tons of funding isn’t improving outcomes. What do you want to do? It’s not working.

My point is, the cycle can’t be broken. It will never meaningfully get better.

Absolutely not, “stay out” was a poorly worded phrase, I was thinking along the lines of basically pay them to stay unemployed, play video games, have a good time, etc. and give them a good home in exchange for not engaging in criminal behavior.

One in five adults in the United States have a literacy level at or below level 1 of the PIAAC literacy proficiency levels. People at those levels can be considered, for all intents and purposes, illiterate. That number is one in three Baltimoreans. At the same time, the average spending per student in Baltimore is $21,000, an incredibly high number.

Many of these kids and now adults have no home life promoting the value of education, are mentally delayed and stunted due to poor pregnancy and childhood health conditions, have poor impulse and behavioral control, but they innately understand from a young age that they will likely never have any social or economic mobility that will allow them to live a meaningfully better life than their parents.

There is likely no help or recourse for these children or their children or anything else. There’s nothing to be done because nothing can be done. No intervention, no matter how comprehensive, intense, or well-targeted, will meaningfully improve outcomes because these children have reached their full potential.

Low literacy and behavioral issues lead to increased prevalence of criminal activity and other associated antisocial behavior. This costs the city of Baltimore billions of dollars a year in economic costs, due to the fact that it takes a person with a lot of grit, determination, and relatively high tolerance of risk to move here, be economically productive, and raise a family, creating a high barrier for the best and brightest (even with Johns Hopkins). This city is relatively will-integrated and deeply affordable compared to the rest of the East Coast. It should be booming and rapidly growing, but it isn’t.

Well what is to be done if education is irreformable and the kids will never amount to much? Simply put, the city/state/federal government should simply pay them to stay out of society, live comfortably, and avoid interaction with the rest of us. The cost of the integration into the broader economy and society of Baltimore of these kids is far too high relative to their expected lifetime productivity and sociability. Instead, we should pay them to stay out, and let the rest of us create a future here.

https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp?section=1&sub_section=3

https://map.barbarabush.org/map/

https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/baltimore-city-schools-spending-per-student-2022-enrollment-performance-kirwan-new-york-boston-washington

if you’re within 10 minute walk of Union Station or your work is right off the red line, Baltimore is absolutely possible if you live in Midtown, Bolton Hill, or Mount Vernon. Those parts of Baltimore have reasonably good public transit. I’m a GS-7 and that’s exactly what I do. It’s provided me a lot of breathing room and I’m able to save money. Otherwise, a group home in DC is going to be your best option.

https://cityservices.baltimorecity.gov/resources/FY23_SOTA_final.pdf

love those neighborhoods’ architecture, but this is a critical chokepoint in the northeast corridor and building the tunnel is absolutely vital to ensuring broader connectivity and would provide long-term economic benefits to Baltimore

what about it? the general consensus is that it probably had a modest effect on reducing crime but probably works better when used in limited contexts with other inventions. furthermore, ensuring order in a community is a valuable goal in and of itself.