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too much government

The Creeping Horror

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Which came first, the dead chicken or the rotten egg?

A bit gruesome. Sure. But it’s Halloween, no? Trick or Treat time.

Anyway, the subject for today’s exploration into contemporary horror is the modern city, so expensive it frightens middle-income earners away.

But wait. It’s not all cities. Only some are horror shows.

Particularly, I’m referring to those in “blue” states, the ones run by “liberal” Democrats.

It’s been pretty obvious for some time — especially as we witness hordes of everyday folks moving to parts South, particularly to Texas’s sprawling cities. But if you needed some statistics and graphs and the like, Derek Thompson provides them over at The Atlantic. His title addresses his basic question: “Why Middle-Class Americans Can’t Afford to Live in Liberal Cities.” Citing economist Jed Kolko, he notes the most astounding thing about housing in modern cities: “Liberal cities seem to have the worst affordability crises.”

Or, as Kolko puts it, “[e]ven after adjusting for differences of income, liberal markets tend to have higher income inequality and worse affordability.”

Why? Thompson contemplates the chicken-and-eggness of it all. Do liberal progressives congregate in coastal cities with limited land availability, and just happen to find themselves crunching out home growth, thus raising prices and reducing affordability? Or do they cause it?

Considering the nature of their favored policies, they almost certainly (if inadvertently) cause it.

Big government inevitably yields big bad effects. Support big government? Expect more inequality, not less. Then demand more government to “solve” the problem. Which causes yet more bad effects.

This trick-and-treat trap should horrify big government advocates.

It certainly horrifies me.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

2 replies on “The Creeping Horror”

“What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?”, Grover Cleveland
Answer: CSRS pensions. Five years and you’re golden.

Lib-prog policies “eat” the middle class. They inevitably raise taxes. Since there are never enough wealthy OR middle class to finance all the policies, the rich shrug and settle for domestic wine and one less housekeeper, while the middle-class collapse. Sad thing is that those policies would never have been able to have been fomented without the good-intended collusion of that same middle-class. Even sadder thing is that, when they move on, they bring their same society-destroying, un-American attitudes along. Perhaps the states should not allow new residents so easily.

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