[majormajor]

> People want better cars, and that costs more. The government demands lower emissions, that costs more. Safety costs more. There is no world where you get all that for the same percentage of income.

Hell, we did it with computers. Let's figure out how to do it in more places.

Isn't that supposed to be the main job of the economy? Increase productivity? So that we all get more for less? Make the pie bigger, don't just make your own slice bigger?

If there's "no world" where all that can happen, most of the "taxes will hurt innovation, actually" arguments fall EXTREMELY hollow. Let's connect a few dots:

- Streets are in disrepair

- You can't afford the lifestyle you used to (by "choice")

- It's far harder for people, especially the young, to find a job (many end up hiding on disability and such that didn't exist much several decades ago in the first place)

- The wealthy have more money, and proportionally more money, than any time in the last century

Maybe instead of choosing the more expensive car we should start choosing to put some of that money to use repairing our basic infrastructure and trying to increase whole-society productive output instead of bottom-line ROI.

[WillPostForFood]

It is happening with cars too, it just that features are being added even faster than the price can come down. If you wanted Ford F-150 in 1970, you could do most of it, but it would have been a multi-million dollar car. You get all that for 50k. You are getting a lot more per dollar.

This reminds me the housing discussing - a part of the affordability problem is that houses have gotten much bigger. And have air conditioning. And have to comply with strict building codes. And have to be fire safe.

[thayne]

> houses have gotten much bigger

Which is a problem. I know a people who would be happy with a smaller house, but there just aren't enough on the market, and the scarcity of them leads to bidding wars that drive the price up. Meanwhile huge houses sit on the market for months, because no one can afford them.

[oivey]

I don’t think this is true. Advancements in technology often make things possible that previously were not at any price. Engines, for example, are better than ever in part due to computer modeling that would have been impossible in the 70s. Same deal with aerodynamics, safety features, and a million other things. In the 70s, you couldn’t have those things for any price. They required decades of development in other sectors to open possibilities for automobiles.