This is a bit of a problem in the Boston area. City regulations require new housing to include stuff like low-income units, which means the other units have to be sold for a higher price (i.e. luxury condos). According to the Boston Globe this has led to a shortage of middle-tier housing being built. IIRC (always dubious with numbers) this has resulted in something like 80k fewer units being built in Boston. Mayor Walsh has supposedly been looking into removing some of the regulations/restrictions.
Critical thinking
Bad decision-making leads to bad results.
Campaign finance reform. Debate on every other issue doesn’t matter as long as the lawmakers can be legally bribed.
The western drought.
I (respectfully) disagree with the “long-term” part of this. I think the biggest problem facing America is the western drought, which I’m assuming has some relationship to climate change. Maybe I’m being Chicken Little, but I keep seeing disturbing news about Lake Mead (and Powell, by inference). This is a fairly large portion of the water supply for the Southwest, and Hoover dam is responsible for a good portion of the power generation in the area. And it’s drying up. Apparently the PTBs have accepted that it will soon drop below the outflow pipes and have built a bathtub drain in the bottom to suck the remaining water out. As near as I can find, experts claim this pushes the problem back to 2025. That’s nine years away. I don’t think of this as long term.
So, what happens when 20 million people have no water in their homes? I really wish Stranger on a Train or another SDMB science expert would explain what I’m missing, and that everything will be fine. But I can’t see anything other than an economic disaster. What happens to the housing market, the economy, the banking system when tens of millions walk away from their houses? And what happens to the power grid when Hoover Dam is offline? As I understand it, the power company(ies) have already replaced the turbine blades with a type designed to withstand the frothy water expected as the intake pipes are uncovered (and air is now mixed with the water). These all sound like band aids to buy a few more years.
To me, this seems like a 10 million pound gorilla in the room that nobody’s talking about.
The uncontrolled growth of the Federal and local government. It now is the largest employer in the country, and produces nothing but paper. Can anyone explain what the Federal Department of energy does to improve life? If the growth is not halted, the government will eventually absorb all the resources of the nation.
We shouldn’t HAVE to wait until the Dems have an overwhelming majority. In an ideal world, we shouldn’t shy away from trying to fix something because it might cost the Kochs some money. Climate change shouldn’t be a partisan issue, it only is because the Republicans sold their soul to the devil.
That’s not an answer, that’s wishing the world were the way you want it to be instead of the way it really is.
They do have a website and you can see all the great things they are doing if you wish.
I think it’s the Republicans who have to answer why they place the greed of a few wealthy donors over the future of the planet.
This. And gerrymandering.
Why does the DOE HAVE to hand out taxpayer money (“grants”) so that private entities can research alternative energy sources? We have this thing called the “Market”-it magically comes up with products (including new energy sources), when there is a demand for them. The free Market decides when and if solar power is viable-we don’t need to spend (waste) taxpayer money ; private entrepreneurs will do it if it is viable.
There are some things worth doing that aren’t economically viable yet. Notice that the market didn’t build the Hoover Dam or the TVA, the government did.
‘Why oh why can’t the Republicans be reasonable and think like me!!!’. Yeah, that’s not an answer. Whatever their motivations are, they don’t think like you Bob…if they did, they wouldn’t be Republicans, but instead left wing Dems on a mission. The real world doesn’t work by ensuring everyone is in lock step with your thinking to make it run…certainly our political system doesn’t and never has. And never will. It’s based on a system of checks and balances and, more importantly to this discussion, compromise. We’ve lost that ability to compromise, whether it’s because of one stupid and stubborn party as you obviously think or because of a series of one upsmanship moves by both parties escalating and trumping (or Trumping :p) each other until compromise seems impossible. But it’s, IMHO, the greatest problem facing America, since it affects literally everything we do or get done.
Denial of scientific facts is not reasonable government. One party has taken upon itself to sell the denial of science in order to keep their wealthy donors happy. There shouldn’t be a debate about whether this is wrong, it should be self-evident. It shouldn’t be a political issue, the only debate should be how do we resolve the problem. There is only one party that has denied the problem. There is only one party that met on the evening of a new president’s term and vowed to block everything he wanted to do regardless of whether it was a good idea or not. This “both parties” stuff is nonsense.
As I said, whether it’s one party that’s the problem or both is irrelevant. Again, you avoid the question by basically saying that they should think like you do. That’s wishful thinking, not reality. The reality is they don’t, and this is just ONE issue, so you have to figure out a way to work with them unless you can figure out a way to not have to. Good luck with that, Bob.
The Republicans will never lift a finger about global warming because they deny it exists, enabled by a lazy mainstream media, Hate Radio, and a spurious cable “news” network. They don’t need to think like me, they need to think, period.
If we waited for the free Market to build something like the Internet, we’d all be stuck on Compuserve and AOL. A few grants (even if most fail!) produce tremendous amplification of value to society.
Do you honestly think we would have the huge market around location and mapping that grew from GPS without government involvement?
Or early fundamental research that led to such things as the transistor?
I would say that certain parties in our government build their platform entirely on highly divisive but utterly inconsequential issues rather than focus on things that really matter. Our politicians devote all of their attention to things like abortion, gay rights, and immigration. First, these are stupid and short-term problems, and second they overwhelmingly rely on arguments that are matters of belief rather than fact.
I want to know…
… what their plan is to guarantee the survival of the human race for the next two hundred years.
… how we are going to exist when the oil runs out.
… how they are going to handle the inequality that comes when genetic engineering and cybernetics become real.
… how we are going to survive when we don’t have enough water for every human being.
… how they are going to handle the balance of power between the haves and the have nots, which is a problem that goes far beyond immigration fences (???) and occupy movements (???).
… how they are going to reorganize human society so that resources and talent can more effectively be matched to problem sets.
… how we can solve the problem of health care resourcing without resort to bullshit insurance plans.
… how we can solve the problem of terrorism as a concept and reform our moral systems to eradicate violence at the roots.
And instead, the most compelling problem facing our society is that gay people getting married offends someone’s primitive Hebrew superstition. WHAT. THE. FUCK.
And if they don’t? What then? What’s your plan? That’s what I asked you originally before you decided to do this rant about Global Warming and Evil Republicans. Whether they simply disagree or are too evil or stupid to care, the issue is still there, Bob. What’s the plan? And, as I said, this is just one issue. There are lots of other ones where the Republicans and you don’t see eye to eye. Heck, there are probably Dems who don’t see eye to eye with you either…or with each other.
It has nothing to do with “both parties.” You have ONE party that has built its entire platform on anti-intellectualism, denial of science, and adherence to primitive Hebrew superstition. Their entire party is built on a policy of pandering to the most fanatical and (in some cases) violent extremists in the population. This has nothing to do with just one issue, or thinking like I do… because they aren’t thinking at all. What they are doing is the opposite of thinking. They exist to promote the idea that the only acceptable outcome is adherence to their own rigidly defined ideology which exists completely independent of any fact or reason. Things like Benghazi and gun rights are taken as articles of faith as rigidly defined and dogmatic as any religious creed. To say that the Democrats are equally guilty is utterly, hilariously absurd.