The Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

[Mechaman]

Wow BRTD, this was actually a very interesting article.

I do agree that a conjunction of all four of these is best.  Even if we added all of those costs together they would still be well short of the $500 billion we currently spend on poverty relief.  Of course this will likely not happen anytime soon because:

a) muh military dollars
b) muh money and taxes
c) muh lazy minorities
d) muh poor corporations
e) muh entitlements
f) muh standard of living

Okay, that's enough for now, but you get the picture.  .More to the point many people, including many liberals, have got this entitlement attitude about the "Cost of Living".  The "Cost of Living" is so high in those areas because that is the price you pay for enlightenment and "good living".  Well that might help elitists sleep at night, but for the people who earn only $30,000 a year to provide for themselves and possibly others in places where rent for even one bedroom one bathroom apartments cost thousands of dollars a month that is hard comfort.

Like I commented elsewhere, anti-poverty efforts need to be done in concert with each other.  However, I am not entirely unconvinced that we can't actually reverse the rise in costs themselves.  We might consider some zoning and rent law reforms (I don't think it's a Randian stretch to conclude that some of our laws might be redundant or needless excess or punitive towards new entrants (especially in regard to some rent control policies)) that could help lower the overall market price of housing mortgages and rents (not to engage in a "What if our enemies might be right?" exercise).

If only Republicans had DC Al Fines in Congress and not Ted Cruzs.