Just a page that keeps track of my thoughts, links I’ve found, and other ideas I haven’t formally put into a post yet.
New Articles
- Interesting article saying that countries with big social welfare have higher inequality
- https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/how-government-creates-wealth-inequality/
Time Cost of Goods and Health Care
Not unnecessary care that does us in, but high-priced drugs and procedures
https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2018.05160?journalCode=hlthaff&
Cost of chronic diseases
https://www.onhealth.com/content/1/healthcare_economics
Most expensive surgeries
https://www.businessinsider.com/20-most-expensive-surgeries-in-the-us-2014-2
Ones That Will Make Good Tweets
Turns out that the population will decline soon
National Review’s take on the middle class
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/09/09/the-american-middle-class/
Agriculture
Alternative Meat isn’t better than naturally grown cows
Plants grow well under solar panels
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/crops-under-solar-panels-can-be-a-win-win/
Dramatic Predictions for the End of Meat Production
https://www.gfi.org/rethinkx-predicts-transformation-of-meat
https://www.fastcompany.com/90421659/were-very-close-to-disrupting-the-cow
How empress tree is a huge carbon sink that grows fast and can be deployed many places. They aren’t the prettiest, but some bioengineers should look into its genes and see how to get the carbon capture properties into other plants at the very least.
Explores the new agricultural methods including regenerative agriculture
Technology
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a29799698/stretchy-degradable-semiconductors/
Energy and Transportation
This new electric motor sounds legit and will revolutionize anything with an electric motor aka everything HVAC, ebikes, e-scooters, electric cars, wind turbines, you name it.
https://newatlas.com/linear-labs-hunstable-electric-motor/60974/
Buying a Used Car with decent fuel efficiency is better than buying a new electric car
https://www.wired.com/2008/05/the-ultimate-pr/
A preachy article that says the bike, bus, and elevator are the transportation of the future not any of the flashier stuff and they are right
https://slate.com/technology/2019/10/future-of-transportation-bus-bike-elevator.html
How Big companies buying electric vehicles will kick it off for us all
https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-all-electric-future-fleet-vehicles/
Air vehicles are electrifiying opening up new opportunities in urban air
http://interactive.rotorandwing.com/hybrid-electric-helicopters
This is what my paper said should happen shift towards electric shared autonomous vehicles
https://www.vox.com/a/new-economy-future/cars-cities-technologies
The post office needs new trucks will they use electric ones?
https://www.trucks.com/2019/09/03/postal-service-delays-new-mail-truck-contract/
New Vision for Austin Transportation Combining rail, buses, hubs, and “neighborhood circulators”
https://capmetro.org/projectconnect-vision-dev/
How slowing down the speed limits in cities can help us to increase the quality of life and ironically move faster by allowing for autonomous vehicles and other personal electric vehicles like e-bikes and e-scooters.
Offshore Wind has the potential to supply all of humanities power 18 times over, Europe is already boarding that train
https://www.iea.org/offshorewind2019/
A solution to the trash problem that produces renewable energy?!?! Something to keep an eye on for sure.
How plastics are booming due to the increase in natural gas production.
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/15/778665357/the-u-s-natural-gas-boom-is-fueling-a-global-plastics-boom
Housing, Community Building, and City Planning
Why building affordable housing doesn’t mean building housing that is affordable
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2018/01/we_should_focus.html
https://www.vox.com/2017/12/19/16797382/affordable-housing-tax-bill-weeds
Good Article Showing How transportation technology defines the boundaries of a city
An excellent article on some past mass-produced affordable housing developments
How the Trump wants to influence housing demand with opportunity zones very similar to TIA, but with a break for people with capital gains allowing them to switch from stock to building investment
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/31/business/tax-opportunity-zones.html
Financing Development via Tax Increment Financing
An interesting idea about how investing in social infrastructure can improve a lot of the problems ailing America
https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/09/how-social-infrastructure-can-knit-america-together/569854/
How Houston changed its zoning laws in the past and is building up now
http://offcite.org/planning-the-houston-way-part-ii-special-minimum-lot-size-by-nunu-chang/
https://www.curbed.com/2019/11/5/20939983/houston-real-estate-apartment-for-rent-condo
An interesting plan for Vancouver where there are one hundred and ten 5 minute catchment areas in the city rather than planning at the neighborhood level, an article about 5 minute walk neighborhoods, and an article about 20 minute cities
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2018/10/17/Five-Minute-City-Better-Vancouver
https://morphocode.com/the-5-minute-walk
https://theconversation.com/a-20-minute-city-sounds-good-but-becoming-one-is-a-huge-challenge-80082
An interesting idea of taking empty retail and using it as public space
Using school playgrounds to expand park access
https://www.curbed.com/2019/8/7/20757729/trust-for-public-land-parks-playgrounds-schoolyards
Prefab housing for small lots and lower or homeless income residents
Best Bathrooms use Rainwater to flush toilet
https://www.citylab.com/design/2012/11/evolution-urban-planning-10-diagrams/3851/
Tax Policy, Health Care, other Domestic Policy, and Equity
Prison without walls, excellent article on a better way to do correction
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/09/prison-without-walls/308195/
A good article detailing how property taxes and arbitrarily created school districts keep poorer and generally blacker and browner schools from resources.
Fallout from the new EITC study, but also another one clearly shows who most people who are poor don’t work and why they don’t work and expanding programs aimed at them is probably better
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/09/18/the-best-way-to-eradicate-poverty-welfare-not-jobs/
Black Capitalism and Jay-Z
Health Insurance Doesn’t Really Add that Much in Costs
https://www.verywellhealth.com/health-insurance-companies-unreasonable-profits-1738941
Free College Wouldn’t Be Too Expensive If We reformed our current aid for college
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/tuition-free-college.html
The only real solution to the gun crisis is to reduce the number of guns. Assault rifle bans, universal background checks, and my favorite mandatory licensing are only limited measures. However, gun buyback programs are politically untenable. We should still try, but also enact smaller measures that save lives now.
https://www.vox.com/2015/10/5/9454161/gun-violence-solution
Using gun licensing as gun control aka a well regulated militia.
https://www.vox.com/2019/9/11/20861019/gun-solution-background-check-licensing
Foreign Policy
The Dems have been weak on foreign policy, but here is a plan. It’s basically, we don’t need thousands of boots on the ground to wage war when we have computers and seal team 6, but everything else is the usual diplomacy route. But it is a start.
https://www.vox.com/2019/7/26/8930265/2020-democrats-kirsten-gillibrand-foreign-policy
Elizabeth Warren’s foreign policy is a lot of paternalizing which is exactly why China is asserting influence and we are not. We can’t hold developing countries to such high standards and refuse to help them if they don’t. We need to help them get there and the only way to do that is to have an active relationship.
In my idea board I have a plan for high schools to use 4G Gigabit to provide internet to the local area. This is a similar idea using similar technology, but more focused on a single building rather than an area. Nonetheless, the tech for fast wireless internet service is here.
Social infrastructure in the Neighborhood Unit Reduces Expenses
The social infrastructure in the neighborhood unit should support its residents so they spend less money on things and thus can survive better off less income:
Schools double as parks
Urban gardens give access to fresh cheap food, eliminating food desserts.
Distributed water and energy technologies lower the cost of energy and water
Good bike and pedestrian paths allow for less car use reducing the need for multiple cars
Good public transportation system that connects to job centers further reduces the need for transportation
Good community center with after school programs reduces need for parents to pick up kids and good bike and walking paths allow kids to go home safely on their own. Also child care services that are offered informally throughout the neighborhood.
Local community center hosts local clinic allowing parents to get cheap medical essentials such as vaccines, flu shots, and check-ups
Local community center hosts bi-weekly markets allowing residents to buy and sell amongst themselves.
Access to school facilities during off hours to the local community gives more green space and maybe even access to 3D printers to the neighborhood.
Local community center keeps track of who needs a roommate for housing, ridesharing for people who work in the same area, when farmers markets come to town, how to use government aid, and childcare services.
Shopping center with grocery store also has food hall and other
Neighborhood as the Unit for building sustainable communities
Has a various essential public service: library, park, high school, middle school, elementary, police, fire.
Various private services: grocer, retail, coffee shop, bar, other services
Able to be traveled by bike and walking. Narrow streets with wide sidewalks. Arterial streets on the outside with maybe one major street in the middle.
Connections to adjacent neighborhoods via car, bike and walking.
Connections to downtown and perhaps 2 other major city centers (e.g. the Domain, Zilker) either directly or via an adjacent neighborhood.
Make a community development 4 or more neighborhood.
How Dense Should it Be
Somewhere around 20,000 people per square mile (640 acres) for home heavy neighborhoods. Higher for apartment heavy ones. Want to increase household size, but assume 2.5 household size. About 35% of households have children. Want 40% of households to be children accommodating.
Typical sizes
- single family houses 5 units per acre: 8000 units; 1600 acres
- duplexes or houses with small lots (.1 acre, 4356 sq ft) 10 units per acre; 800 acres
- townhomes 20 units per acre (.05 acre, 2178 sq. ft); 400 acres
- 3 Story apartment 25 units per acre; 320 acres
- Multistory apartments 50-100 units per acre; 80-160 acres.
30% of people are in multistory apartments assume 50 units per acre due to large number of single bedrooms (aka assume household size is only 2). Need 3,000 units at 50 units an acre that’s 60 acres.
40% of people in townhomes assume they have normal density of 2.5. 3200 units at 20 units an acre 160 acres.
20% dense homes or duplexes, density of 3, need 1334 units at 10 units an acre 134 acres.
10% single family homes density of 3, need 667 units at 5 units an acre 133 acres.
427 acres for only housing (67%) , 20% for parks, green spaces, and other civic uses [schools, libraries, etc] (128 acres), 60 acres for mixed use (aka apartments and retail), 25 acres for other uses like standalone retail and employment.
Another way is to set aside 400 acres in 0.05 acre lots for a total of 8000 lots (a little more than 2000 sq ft. in 36’x60’ lots) and allow people to buy up to 3 lots in order to build whatever type of home they want: townhome, house, duplex, etc.
Then set aside 60 acres for apartment complexes. Each complex must buy at least 20 lots (1 acre) and have at least 50 units. Can later loosen this to 5 lots (.25 acres), but still at least 2.5 units per lot. And mix these apartments with the home lots to build a retail base and to share the apartment amenities (pool, gym, etc.) with the homeowners/renters. 1200 lots for apartments.
Have blocks be 360’x300’ and inner streets only 20’ wide. That gives 4 rows of lots and 3 streets (60*4 + 20*3 = 300) and 10 houses in a row. 40 lots per block. 9200 lots (1200 for apartments and 8000 for houses) means 230 blocks. And apartments with retail can be put near major streets and with 50-60 apartments about 20% of the blocks have an apartment.
Be sure to have enough space for businesses especially bars and nightclubs away from the residential areas.
20% is already set aside for parks, schools, streets, and other civil areas.
3000 units of apartments, 3200 townhomes, 1334 houses or duplexes on about 4000 sq ft lots, 667 houses on 8500 sq ft lots.
Also, the land for houses can easily be reduced by reducing the lot sizes of single family homes and/or dense homes and duplexes.
- 6.8% of pop under 5
- 18.9% of pop 5-17
- 61.8% of pop 18-65
- 9.6% of pop 18-24
- 30.2% of pop 25 to 44
- 22% of pop 45 to 64
12.4% of pop over 65
https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/fa/sf/guideschoolsite.asp
https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf
http://www.dallasparks.org/151/1470/Park-Classifications
http://www.austintexas.gov/department/virginia-l-brown-recreation-center
https://www.bdcnetwork.com/quarter-acre-land-enough-space-upscale-chicago-apartment-complex
https://www.nmhc.org/research-insight/quick-facts-figures/quick-facts-apartment-stock/
http://scagrtpscs.net/documents/2016/supplemental/UrbanFootprint_PlaceTypesSummary.pdf
https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/larc301/lectures/housing.htm
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-most-dense-cities-in-the-united-states.html
https://www.newgeography.com/content/005538-visualizing-houston-s-population-density
https://eyeonhousing.org/2015/09/lots-for-new-single-family-homes-largest-in-new-england/
Other Resources
https://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2016/03/lot-dimensions-past-present-and-future.html
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2013/11/27/optimizing-the-street-grid.html
https://www.dmagazine.com/urbanism-transportation/2015/04/the-importance-of-block-sizing/
https://marketurbanism.com/2016/09/19/how-houston-regulates-land-use/
https://www.planning.org/pas/reports/report164.htm
http://www.sethspielman.org/courses/geog3612/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbourhood_unit
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbourhood_unit
https://www.citylab.com/life/2015/09/how-many-neighborhoods-is-too-many-for-one-map/403474/
http://theflyover.net/2015/09/23/every-city-is-a-city-of-neighborhoods/
https://www.brooklyncommunityfoundation.org/brooklyn-accelerator/brooklyn-neighborhood-reports
Post Office for Last Mile Support
To help small businesses compete with Amazon 1-day shipping and free shipping for other companies. Can have the post office do some of the logistic things that Amazon does.
Business deliver their packages to a local post office who then delivers to your customers closest post office this should be really cheap. The customer can pick it up at the post office or have the post office drop it off with their normal everyday deliveries for a small fee. The business could also have the post office pick up packages with their everyday delivery for a small fee.
Anti-Poverty
$15k – 19k Income: Housing – 29.2%, Utilities – 11.1%, Grocery – 10.2%, Restaurants – 4.7%, Transportation – 20.4%, Healthcare – 8.2%
EITC credit that matches your income 1 for 1 up to ~$3,000.
So, if you earn $3,000 you get the full $3,000 EITC. You earn $2,000 you get $2,000.
Food Stamps that give up to $125/ month ($1500 / year) for adults and $150/ month ($1800 / year) for kids .
Kids food stamps could be applied to approved school lunch programs at a discount
It follows the same EITC eligibility guidelines. I.e. if you qualify for the full EITC full food stamps, 50% of EITC then 50% of food stamps.
EITC and Food Stamps phase out at 20 cents for every dollar you make over 200% of the poverty line ~$25,000. This would phase out completely around $40,000.
Married couples get matched 1 to 1 up to $6,000 regardless the source of the income, but the phase out rate isn’t 200% of the married poverty line, but rather 2 times the single person poverty line which is ~$50,000. This avoids the marriage penalty.
Child Credit $3500 for each kid under 5 and $3,000 for kids 5-16, maximum of 3 kids at any time.
No minimum earnings or work requirements for the child credit.
Phase out at 10 cents for every dollar over median household income (~$59,000). This would phase out completely for 1 kid around $90,000, 2 kids $120,000, and 3 kids $150,000.
If necessary, to pass make it so there are no minimums or work requirements for kids under 5. But for all other children same requirements as the EITC.
Postal banking allows you to take out a no interest loan against your expected tax credits and refunds anytime throughout the year. This prevents cash flow problems where you have to wait until the end of the year.
The idea is that the benefits plus the working ensure a household with two or more wage earners is nearly out of poverty and that any household with two wage earners and kids is completely out of poverty.
Example a two-person household who each earn $3,000. So, they bring in $6,000, get the $6,000 EITC, and $3,000 combined in food stamps. That gives them a yearly income of $15,000 poverty line for household of 2 is $16,910 only about $2,000 off.
The same two wage earners, but this time with a 4-year-old kid. They would bring in $6,000 via wages, $6,000 via EITC, but $4,800 via food stamps and an additional $3,500 via the child credit. For a total of $20,300 which is just above the poverty level for 2 adults and one child $20,212 in 2018.
However, a single mother with 1 kid under 5 who earned $3,000 would get, $3,000 from the EITC $3,300 from food stamps and $3,500 from the child credit. Giving them $12,800 which is almost $5,000 lower than the poverty line for one adult one child.
While single mothers and single person households would continue to struggle well below the poverty line any multi-person earning household should be nearly out of poverty for much cheaper than the anti-poverty programs now. Each person if they can earn $250 a month will get $4,500/ year from the government and thus bring in at least $7,500 in a year. Combining these benefits with another person or people or even organizations will ensure everyone anywhere is above the poverty line.
What about different places having different costs of living? This is where the state’s should step in or the people receiving the benefits should simply move. The government shouldn’t try to support people in high cost stats beyond food and a few extra bucks. Trying to subsidize housing, transportation, utilities which vary wildly is an unreasonable goal. However, encourage beneficiaries to realize their benefits could go further in previously dying towns could revitalize older towns.
What about non-traditional work? For those who can only do things like cash jobs that’s fine as long as they declare their income on their taxes. Community service should also be allowed to give a stipend matching the EITC credit for workers who work 1000 hours prorated accordingly.
Number of workers ~117MM
Median wage ~$900/week
According to this distribution of how much workers earn:
13% less than $5k
8+7.2+6.8+6.7 = 28.7% of workers $5-25k
6.4% $25-30k
6.1% $30-35k
5.5% $35-40k
4.9+4.4+3.8+3.3 = 16.4% of workers $40-60k
2.8% $60-65k
2.4% $65-70k
2.1% $70-75k
1.8% $75-80k
125 MM households
11% households >$150k
12.3% $75-100k
*assume 10% between $80-100k
14.1% $100-150k
*assume 7% between $100-150k
Less than $50k 11.2+9.6+9.4+12.9 = 43.1%
Between $50k-75k 17%
*Assume 8.5% make $50-60k.
14.6MM families 1 child
12.7 MM families 2 children
7.1MM families 3 or more children
https://www.thebalance.com/federal-poverty-threshold-3305793
https://howmuch.net/articles/how-much-americans-make-in-wages
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t01.htm
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/household-income-100-homes/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/183790/number-of-families-in-the-us-by-number-of-children/
https://www.thebalance.com/welfare-programs-definition-and-list-3305759
Banking and Loans
A big problem with a lot of America is the lack of credit options when you need them. Banks no longer serve large portions of the population. One fix is a postal bank, another is to simply create products that the poor need and force banks to offer them to anyone who applies.
A checking account with interests rate at the fed interest rate (aka the interest rate the FED gives banks) complete with all the features the bank would give a normal account; mobile check cashing, debit card, use of ATM, notary, etc. However, this checking account could be limited in amount, but no reason to have that.
Access to small personal loans, the bank would have a loan they offer at either double the fed rate or 5% whichever is higher, with payback terms of 1 to 18 months, that they could give to anyone no questions asked who met these minimum requirements: 1) filed their taxes, 2) don’t have any other outstanding small loans, 3) their anticipated income (including refund checks) at least doubles the interest they have on loans that show in their credit report. The largest amount for these loans would be somewhere around $500.
There would also be other personal loans up to and secured by a person’s tax refund with the same terms.
The checking account would be secured by FDIC and the loans would be secured by the government as well.
Furthermore, business match loans up to $50,000 would need to be available. Anyone with at least 3 years’ experience in the area they want to do business or a like field (this is up to the discretion of the bank) could have any investments they have matched at a favorable loan rate at the governments choosing.
Also, there would be protection of consumers from bank negligence. All homesteads are protected up to the average cost of a home in case of foreclosure and all loans that are delinquent the down payment is returned to the owner (this would be helpful for repossessed cars).
The home protection would work like this say the average cost of a home is $250,000, and you bought a home for $300,000 no money down. You were in foreclosure, the government would offer to buy the loan from the bank for the actual market home value (provides protection against underwater properties and gives banks properties in cases where home value actually went up), refinance $250,000 of the loan with you in favorable terms if you worked out a deal to pay the other $50,000 in principal to the bank. This type of protection could be extended to other types of debt as well if successful.
Also, retirement accounts (401k 403c, IRA, etc. ) would be insured for every year you put in money multiplied by the IRA max limit. Your investments would at some point have had to hit that mark of course. So for example say the IRA limit is $5000 and you put in for 40 years. You are insured up to $200,000 if at any point your account reached that level or your total contributions equaled that.
There would also be laws that allowed banks to fail without collapsing the whole system. After protecting consumers by purchasing failing assets at market values, the government would also temporarily purchase other failing assets at initial cost or a decent discount (if the asset is now worthless). That should fix most insolvency issues and if it didn’t those banks should fail. The purchased assets would then be either be stewarded back to health or sold off to recoup costs. However, above all, consumer debt for credit cards, mortgages, cars, and any other item would be bought and renegotiated at favorable rates for the consumer to keep them on their feet.
The banks should also split up their profitable and unprofitable socially important assets (mortgage, car loans, student loans, etc.) and their profitable and unprofitable investment assets and securities. The government would have saved or bought the unprofitable socially important assets, so the social important part of the bank should be solvent. The government would also look into buying some unprofitable investment assets, but at a discount. If the investment side of the bank is saved by the government intervention then the whole bank is allowed to run business as usual otherwise, the bank would be forced to sell its investment side to the government who would then sell of assets to the highest bidder. The bank would exist and be allowed to restart its investment side, but would be at a huge disadvantage as it would only start with only its socially important asset side.
In 2008, this would have looked like the government buying up all the mortgage derivatives and their insurance at a discount and then fixing the mortgage default crisis from the consumer end. Some mortgages would have ended up failing still if the house wasn’t a homestead or was outside the insurued range. However, the most mortgages and their derivatives would have been saved. Investment banks and big banks with investment sides who still weren’t solvent after their most disastrous assets were removed would have failed, but a large number of banks as was the case in real life would have recovered. The derivatives would be more valuable after the mortgage crisis was fixed so the government could have sold back those derivatives eventually maybe even at a profit.
Medical Care
A public option makes more sense because you can reduce the taxpayers cost of healthcare while still providing coverage for 98% of medical problems. A fully universal Medicare for All that abolishes health insurance might provide cheaper care, but it would increase expense for most Americans most of the time. The most expensive procedures would have to be provided somehow which would raise costs. Furthermore, the political will to create costs caps or to share costs would be non-existent. Keeping other options allows the public option to focus on a cost effective plan without worrying about being required to cover the most experimental and/or expensive prodcedures.
Creating an insurance plan that has the 10 minimum requirements of Obama and other benefits that make it only $4000 per child under 18, $6,000 for everyone above 18, and a $6,000 extra subsidy for those over 65 and the disabled (aka a $12,000 insurance policy). These should be similar to the ObamaCare gold plans and the actuary team adjusts them to keep them under the cost cap each year.
It could provide so many primary care visits including certain diagnostic tests for free, set urgent care prices, and give a 20% coinsurance rate for everything else. For kids the coinsurance rate can be lower like 5% for the subsidized and free for those under 138% of the poverty line, so that parents don’t skip on a kids medical bills because of costs. The $6,000 extra subsidy for the elderly and disabled should easily cover their increased medical costs, but should still have limits on extremely expensive procedures to ensure it stays under costs.
The premium for the base plan shouldn’t exceed more than 10% of a person’s or household’s income and subsidies insure that it doesn’t. In fact you could simply copy the Obamacare subsidies. The extra $6,000 subsidy for the elderly would be provided via payroll taxes as it is now, but the base subsidy is still subject to the 10% rule. The $6,000 for the elderly and disabled and the subsidy so that no more than 10% of a person’s income goes to health insurance would be far less than both Medicare and Medicaid combined and guarantee an affordable option for everyone to get health insurance.
However, if people still wanted their employer insurance or another type of insurance on the open market because of better benefits or it better suited them that would be fine too. Although the public option would only apply to the public option the employer deduction could be kept the same to avoid shaking things up too much, but its tax benefits are reduced due to the lower corporate rate. Furthermore, private insurance and the public insurance both should negotiate rates together at the state level so that the only difference in insurance isn’t the cost of treatment, but how the insurance company handled the risk.
A public option will probably be the best policy for the majority of Americans, but for those with more intensive needs, less intensive needs, or simply those who like to have more benefits private insurance would still be there to address this market need allowing the public option to be affordable and still cover the majority of health problems.
Social Security
Guarantee the poverty line for all retirees who put in the appropriate amount of credits. Prorate it accordingly for those who retire earlier than 65 or who didn’t put in the full 35 years and have the minimum be about half the benefit. Lower amounts for the disabled and survivor benefits.
Also of note: the government should make each department provided a pamphlet saying what people’s expected benefits are and politicians should make plans that compare that to their given programs.
About 20% of the population gets social security benefits meaning the hopefully the other 80% is supporting them in some way.
Fix the tax rate at an amount that should meet the minimum needs. If it doesn’t come up with enough the government pays the rest, if it is over it splits 50% of the extra revenue is returned to the working population who paid it via tax credits (refundable or not is up for debate) and the benefit earners in the form of a bonus prorated by number of years contributed. This is a way of saying that the older population has helped usher in a prosperous younger one that pays can support the older population with a better than 3:1 ratio.
Remove the current cap, but the rate should be lowered substantially.
That way social security is tied to the success of the younger generation without crippling them and still keeps seniors out of poverty. The optimal ratio should be around 3:1 working people to retirees and the disabled and the payroll tax should reflect that. In general, instead of raising the tax rate to keep this 3:1 ratio the upper income limit should be raised to meet the quotas. If every working person pays about $2500 with another $2500 coming from the employer that’s about $15,000 to each benefit earner. More than enough which should guarantee some refunds and extra benefits.
For those who already receiving benefits you leave their checks alone. For those who aren’t yet receiving benefits they have a choice. You calculate what their benefits are right now and if it is more than the new benefit, they can receive their full benefits if they wait until 68. ¾ of their additional benefit at 67, ½ of it at 66, and just the new benefit at 65 or younger.
The payroll tax would be lowered to pay the new benefit rate and the excess payments would be paid by selling the trust fund treasuries. In 10-20 years, the benefits will be paid solely with the lower payroll tax, the treasury trust fund will be gone removing $3 trillion from the US debt, and every senior will be guaranteed to be out of poverty.
About 6 million people get the checks from their dead spouses or fathers.
Another 14 million get checks for disability and these benefits pay out more than food stamps and welfare combined
https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
Excellent article for reforming the disability insurance problem. The most important for me are fixing eligibility and establishing a flat benefit. I agree with almost all the suggestions.
https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/how-many-seniors-live-in-poverty/
https://www.nasi.org/learn/socialsecurity/who-gets
Trade Training in High School
Allow high school kids to have “internships” with the trades at a pay of $50 a week. After the semester and an easy they get an apprentice certification in whatever trade they interned in. the apprenticeship should give them the basic skills of the job and ease them into further training in community college or elsewhere. The trades would include: plumbing, electrician, welding, house remolding, house construction, hospitality housekeeping, food prep and service, retail service and management, basic nursing, wood work, mechanic, etc. The high school would partner with the local trades to set these up and the state in combination with the industry would pay for the student. It allows students to spend a semester getting experience and seeing what they like as well as getting skills like basic accounting, scheduling, knowing what types of tools people use, etc.
College in Exchange for Community Service / Tax Endowments
If a student has 1000 hours of community service over the last five years the government will give the student the average cost of tuition and fees of one year for public university in America to attend any higher education trade school, university, community college etc. The balance is applied after all other aid and is refunded to the student. If the student works an additional 500 hours they get funded for another year.
This also applies to graduates or students who have federal student loans. Except the average cost is multiplied by 1 + their interest rate.
This is also accompanied by an increase in funding to federal community service as well as the infrastructure to track legitimate hours.
Capital Gains, Inheritance, Gift, and Estate Taxes
No income source should be treated specially. All income should be subject to the same income rates. Furthermore, income not subject to payroll tax should still be subject to the Medicare and Disability payroll taxes. Capital gains should just be treated as income on the personal income.
The argument for treating capital gains different is because you already paid the income tax and investing in other ventures helps the US economy as should be rewarded. However, this basically treats people who get most of their income through capital gains as better than anyone else and enshrines this into law. First off the beneficial effect of capital on the economy is dubious and best and second of all even if it is true it is inherently bad policy to advantage type of worker over another.
For inheritances and gifts, currently the estate tax is supposed to claw back the benefits from the rich, but it is constantly weakened. It is deemed unfair and as double taxation, but actually its just inefficinent a reaction to tax loopholes. T However, one setting all cash flow as income such as a $50,000 gift from your parents in life or death fixes that problem simply by taxing it as income.
However, assets are generally where the problem lies. If your parents’ gift you stock at death the stepped up basis kicks in and all the capital gains it accrued in your parents life are ignored and you start over at the value at the time of the gift.
This can easily be fixed for any asset by realizing that a gift is basically selling that asset to the gift giver at $0 (aka setting the cost basis at $0) and ignoring the losses (aka forgoing the tax deduction for capital losses). Then once the gifted sells the asset they pay taxes on the full sell price of the asset (the difference between the sell price and the cost basis of $0) and not just the capital gains from its value when gifted. It sets a penalty for receiving assets via gifts in a fair way without the need for an extra tax.
Furthermore, liabilities with an asset should be transferred to the recipient as well. They have a choice take the asset and the liabilities or let the creditor simply take the asset and forgive the debt. This prevents saddling the debt of the deceased on his survivors, but also allowing them to choose to take it on if the asset is worth it.
Corporate Taxes are a different animal from income taxes. A corporation makes its own charter for a specific purpose and is given special privileges. While special privileges for certain types of income should be forbidden in the personal tax code they make perfect sense in the corporate tax code. If all personal income is the same, then corporate tax rates can be extremely low because their profits are captured on the individual end. However, in exchange for these special privileges corporations are to give benefits to the public that allows for their existence.
If you are an American corporation you have certain responsibilities to America. And if you simply want to recharter in another country than you lose your access to do business in America. Taxing capital gains as regular income removes some of the executives incentives for stock buybacks, but formally removing them by making them hold onto stock for 3 years after they retire is another. Having workers elect a large portion of the board is another. And forcing companies to take in consideration the stakeholders is another. Elizabeth Warren plan for accountable capitalism corporations does these things. In exchange, the corporate tax rate can be reduced even further, but the all personal income must be treated the same.
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/15/17683022/elizabeth-warren-accountable-capitalism-corporations
https://newint.org/features/2002/07/05/history
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us/
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/business/capital-gains-vs-ordinary-income-economic-view.html
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-agenda/cost-abolishing-corporate-income-tax-reihan-salam/
Innovations of Note for FEWS and Urban Planning
Political
- Higher EITC
- Higher Child Credit
- Public Option for Medical Insurance
- Wealth Tax
- The elimination of single-family zoning
- Land Tax as opposed just property Tax
- Post Office Banking
Energy
- Offshore Wind
- Hybrid Wind and Solar Farms
- Perovskite Solar
- Electrification of Appliances
- Load Shifting
Transportation
- Electric Bikes and other Personal Electric Vehicles
- Self-Driving Delivery Vans (last mile and mid-range transport)
- Electric Delivery Vans
- Drone Delivery
- Bike Superhighways
- Electric Buses
- Permeable Pavement
Telecommunications
- 4G Gigabit LTE
- 5G
Food
- Regenerative Agriculture
- Sustainable Farming
- Plant-Meat Hybrids
Water
- Rainwater Harvesting
- Water Recycling
Manufacturing
& Construction
- 5×1 construction
- Modular Construction
- Factory Home Building
- Building Information Modeling
- Additive Manufacturing
- Open Source Manufacturing
Allows the creation of cities with affordable housing, clean energy, less traffic, less vehicle emissions, resilient water supply, and better food supplies.
Allows for citizens to have money to contribute to the local economy. So that any local economy can support local business (i.e restaurants and retail) and their local public amenities (i.e. energy, water, internet, parks, hospitals, transit).
Gives infrastructure for small business to give last mile services (i.e. deliveries) and create a customer base and foot traffic to improve patronage.
Projects
The Smart Neighborhood Google is Working on in Toronto
Superblocks, Weafdafs, and a New York Plan
Load Shifting
Appliance Electrification
New More Efficient Electric Motor
- https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/linear-labs-electric-turbine-motor/
- https://newatlas.com/linear-labs-hunstable-electric-motor/60974/
Pecan Street in Mueller
- http://www.engr.utexas.edu/news/archive/7255-pecanstreetresearch
- https://www.edf.org/energy/pecan-street-neighborhood-future
A project to retrofit 40 Oakland houses to reduce emissions and provide sustainable generation
Self-Driving Delivery Vans Starting to Deliver groceries for Walmart
Indigo Agriculture Starts the Terraton Project which aims to use regenerative agriculture to sequester a billion tons of carbon
Google Using Modular Construction Companies to build housing in mountain view quickly
Open Source Ecology 50 important machines for humanity
New Wind and Solar Hybrid Farms
Turning Commuters into Ebike users (3-4 mile or less distance)
The Smart City that is planned for an old naval grounds in Boston
Urban Projects from 8 cities including public transport in the form of cable cars, bike superhighways over traffic, mapping a system of private minibuses, and providing library-park spaces
Chicago Arygle Shared Street
Chicago’s first shared street with no curbs and colored pavement for directions. Combines bikes, cars, and walking. Also has water infiltration zones and other sustainable use things to help with energy and water.
https://www.site-design.com/argyle-streetscape/
Don’t drive for trips less than a mile
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/what-if-we-kept-our-cars-parked-trips-less-one-mile
Permeable Pavement
- https://www.go-gba.org/resources/green-building-methods/permeable-pavements/
- https://inhabitat.com/pervious-paving-reduces-stormwater-run-off/
- https://www.lastormwater.org/blog/2010/04/the-road-less-traveled-pervious-pavement-other-green-surfaces-for-your-home/
- https://www.frankejames.com/all-season-eco-friendly-driveway/
- https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170217/uptown/big-orange-box-on-argyle-what-is-streetscape-streetscape-science-broadway-ui-labs/
- https://www.wbez.org/shows/curious-city/city-of-big-potholes-is-asphalt-the-best-choice-for-chicagos-streets/8bbd9e7a-b27e-4e00-a868-aa0b826b53b2
- https://chi.streetsblog.org/2016/11/05/chicagos-first-shared-street-on-argyle-is-officially-open-for-business/
- https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/atlanta-manages-stormwater-by-not-fighting
Claw Back from the Upper Middle and Upper Class Suburbia
- Give schools money by pupil from national government no corrections for size or anything else
- Toll all US and Interstate highways the cost of
maintenance per mile.
- Give subsidies to those at or less than the median income
- Exceptions for high occupancy vehicles
- Exemptions for vehicles bring goods to market
- Basically the top 50% subsidize the rest of the country
- Leave gas tax alone, basically a DeFacto carbon tax and slush fund for transportation
- Give money to cities with over 100,000 to raise
interstates above residential areas or to put them underground.
- As demand shrinks the highways should also shrink
- Sell off the feeder roads to the local municipalities
- Reduce the mortgage interest deduction to max out at the interest of the median house on a 30-year loan at the fed rate plus 1.
- Have a house buyback program / foreclosure
saving program
- Buy any house at 65% of the median house market
price
- Sell any useful materials off
- Bulldoze any house over 20 years old
- Make a 10 year forecast sell land back to city at predicted high point
- Any primary homestead in foreclosure has
protection
- Buy the loan from the bank at the original loan amount minus any payments
- Buy the house for 65% of median house market price or 50% of house value whichever is higher
- Refinance the remaining amount of the loan to the fed rate + 1 or 2% of 15 years
- Allow the family to stay in the house as long as they make the payments.
- At the end of the 30-year term allow the family to buy the house for the money the federal government purchase from them
- Buy any house at 65% of the median house market
price
Tenements
- https://www.curbed.com/2018/3/30/17182236/affordable-housing-atlanta-cohousing-padsplit
- Buy old houses with at least 3 bed 2 baths. Preferably 4 bed 2 bath.
- Build a ADU in the back that is 5 bed 2-3 bath.
- Can also buy old hotels/apartments strip the rooms, make communal livings spaces, and shrink the parking lot to give green space. Basically like a hostel.
- Houses with ADUs targeted towards single parents, old hotels/apartments for adults
- Sell 6 parking spaces, where you have to park behind another car
- Sell each room for $300, $400, $500 depending on area and taxes
- Kids 2-12 sell bed for $100 or $150 or $200
- Kids 13+ sell bed for $150 or $225 or $300
- Kids 2 and under stay in their mother’s room for free
- Break up housing by type of adult
- Single mom with kids under school age
- Single mom with kids middle school or less
- Single mom with some teenagers
- Single Adults in their 20s ish, middle age, and pre senior 50-65
- Baby Toddler Kid House
- Old House 3 mom rooms
- Old house1 baby room with 6 beds for all kids unisex
- New House 4 mom rooms
- 1 baby room for 6 kids unisex
- School Age kids House
- The old house has a room with 4 beds for boys 2-12
- 3 rooms for the moms
- The new house has a room with 4 beds for girls 2-12
- 4 rooms for moms
- 7 moms up to 8 kids
- Teenage kids House
- 4 moms in old house
- Room for boy teenagers and room for girl teenagers 2 beds per room
- Room for boy kids 2-12 and girls kids 2-12
- One mom stays downstairs in this house
- Single Adult House
- 4 rooms old house
- 5 rooms new house
- Rules
- No kids except your own in adult rooms
- In only single adults places no kids in room areas
- No cooking except in kitchen area
- No overnight guests
- No house furniture in your private room
- Setup
- Adult rooms have a frame, a queen bed, a night stand with a purchasable shelf, closet with builit in shelves, and lighting built into the switches
- Kids rooms have shared beds and a shared desk except for teenagers who each get their own desk, like a college dorm
- Common areas are monitored (kitchen, living room, outside front and backyard)
- Old kitchen is probably smaller, but update the microwave and stove and have coffeemaker, all other appliances have to be stored when not in use
- Living room has TV and couch, TV sits on shelf so group can put books or consoles on TV, comes with YouTube TV and apps
- Dining Room in both houses has a table with 6-8 chairs
- Free energy up to a certain kWh and free water up to certain Gal and free high speed internet
- Two washing machines and two dryers in garage of new house supplied with rainwater
- Solar panels and RWH on both roofs.
- Outside houses supplied by RWH on old roof
- Each house has tablet that schedules use of things like TV, washing machine, dishwasher. It also lets you pay your rent, schedule services etc.
- House comes with a folding table and 10 folding chairs as well.
- Cleaning Lady 2x a month, and Maintenance man 4x a year
- Houses are close to good schools and public transportation
- Price is based on location, aka property taxes not demand
- Business and Social Case
- Make $2700-$5100 a month >> $32,400 – $60,000 a year per property
- Increases density with existing housing stock and land
- Low capital costs
- Quick payback period
- Targets a need for single adults and parents who need cheap housing not available on the market except at extended stays.
- Gives stability and a sense of community
- Allows your children to be watched at all times, it takes a village
Energy Summit Notes
Improving Grid Resiliency with DER
https://www.texasadvancedenergy.org/ (Suzanne Bertin)
Navigant 2018 picture , 2015 just the cloud part looks good
- https://www.navigant.com/-/media/www/site/insights/energy/2018/energy-cloud-4-capturing-business-value.pdf
- Rather than long power cord a network of power and distribution
- Customers’ ability to monetize their investments i.e. household solar to grid, utilities new revenue streams, create new competitive market
- Resilience is growing especially in states prone to natural disasters hurricanes, wildfires, etc.
Edison Electric Institute (Lola)
- DERs will help but are not synonymous with grid resilience
- DERs can help with customer increased reliability.
- However, DERs can help with grid resilience if you plan for it and build a system of rules.
- They are an effective tool, but not the most effective tools.
- Microgrids are being deployed by DOE grants, but not necessarily cost effectively.
Engire North America (Robert Helton)
- Before all the grids where microgrids City of Houston, City of Dallas,
- Saying we can go back and distribute regionally if needed, but also distributed stuff.
- Options for Texas; grid only, offset a bit, offset all of it, or give it back to the grid
- ERCOT mostly focused on demand response where there was actually a geneator behind it.
- ERCOT has a mortarium of distributed energy because they don’t know how to integrate it. 250 MW of generation for DERs.
- Have a task force in called BEST so they can figure out how to integrate DERs into the grid and it matters where you are behind the meter, in front of it, or near a congestion constraint.
- Do you need an operator for the distribution grid?
- Where you place the DER and how they can help out the grid?
- Cannot prevent distribution companies ability to make money so they can provide services.
- However, the DERs need to add value to the distribution system; however, the planning process of the distribution system is opaque. We already do it on the transmission side need to do it on the distribution side as well.
- Interstate Renewable Energy Council, standard practices for interconnections across different cities and states.
CPS Energy San Antonio
- Largest utility in the nation owned by the city serves 1.2 Million customers, vertically integrated.
- So they should provide energy and then distribution.
- 1 pilot) DERs to provide backup power to customer, and DERs to provide grid service.
- Third party to install DERs at customer sites. Have locations in the pilot throughout the city to provide grid services.
- If only used for backup services doesn’t provide enough values.
- 2nd pilot) partnered with national lab; if you have extreme events how do DERs respond vs. traditional case of normal resources. Find out how to keep up resiliency with DERs. National labs identify scenarios, run modeling, and put together a package to operate these resources.
- One use case where there are high penetrations of EVs and then a hurricane comes in and evacuees come in to San Antonio. How does the distribution system handle the additional electric demand.
- https://www.mysanantonio.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/CPS-Energy-plans-to-generate-half-its-power-from-12733088.php
- https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/09/f55/resilient_distribution_systems_overview_project_presentations.pdf
- https://www.cpsenergy.com/content/dam/corporate/en/Documents/Distributed%20Generation%20Manual.pdf
Benjamin Baker American Conservative Society
- Transferable – must be able to be replicated. Technology is transferable.
- Open Market – putting an incentive to get people to do things that help climate change
Grid Talk Tuesday
Energy is distributed by physics path of least resistance.
Energy only market paid only by energy you sell
by kWh NOT an energy and capacity market.
Transmission is regulated
Energy production and retail is unregulated
Load must be match
Have to keep grid at optimum frequency. If there
is too much energy the turbines speed up possibly throwing off frequency. If
too little energy it slows down throwing off frequency
https://v2g-clarity.com/knowledgebase/vehicle-to-grid/
Deregulated to
allow for combined cycle a new energy tech that was more efficient
Wholesale natural
gas matches well with electricity cost
Capacity market
provides insurance in case of outages including planned outages
Moving to net load
rather than peak load.
Negative pricing
when they pay to stay on the grid when there is not enough demand
Real time optimization
energy and ancillary services in 5 min intervals
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/01/f47/Flexible%20CHP%20Comms_01.18.18_compliant.pdf
Working on storage
could be generation or transmission
Ordc – operating
reserve demand curve
Capacity market reserve of about 14%
Smart meter Texas
2.0
Battery energy taskforce
http://www.ercot.com/committee/bestf
Smt 2.0
Using renewables, EVs, demand response, demand
side Management, batteries can make up the difference that natural gas makes up
Non wire solutions
Demand flexibility as building block of future
low cost ercot grid (Rocky mountain institute)
60000 rooftop installations 700 MW
Source: solar
association group
Utility scale increased from 15-40 to 100-200,
6000 MW
Lazard levelized cost of energy
Solar helping reserve margins helping price and
grid reliability
Frequency regulation is better than other
sources. Apparently solar can reach up n and down within a large range due to
inverters. Source: first solar.
Enel the problem isn’t tech anymore but a market
problem.
Look at deploying a performance based rate in NY
Move load following generation to base aka
produce at night to storage and then use it to reduce peak
Digital grid but based on analog rate design
Storage is it’s own asset class because it
provides generation, backup generation, and even transmission, load smoothing
Coop save transmission and peak charges
Gridlab non profit that helps policy makers
Cost of production decreased by half but transmission
and distribution cost have exploded
DERS (energy efficiency, solar, storage, demand
response a portfolio of options) provide a distribution service are non wire
solutions that take the place of expanding wires and substation to carry the
new demand of energy.
Who pays the distribution costs? Investment
costs?
Putting distribution projects to bid for DERS
and wires and etc. isn’t attractive for utilities because instead of an
additional revenue source it is just a cost pass through.
Then managing the DERS are hard.
NWS specifically battery could provide backup to
your house but also reliability to the grid
https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/rmi-non-wires-solutions-playbook-report-2018.pdf
Smart inverters for nws power factor correction
improve efficiency
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/5/840
Orientation shaves peak demand.
Austin SHINES
DER optimizer DG-DERO
http://www.doosangridtech.com/products/distributed-energy/
Pecan st aggregator
Ercot 4cp pricing
https://www.electricchoice.com/blog/4-coincident-peak-program/
V2G just looks like
storage to utility so it works
Residential inverters can follow utility signals
Know we want to smooth out the supply curves
move peak to night. And increase base load for efficiency and possibly use DERs
as peakers.
So what is the optimal price operation to get
that done?
What are the grid savings for transmission and
distribution?
How does that compare to current transmission
and distribution costs? Generation costs?
Getting this type of data is difficult but it
could be simulated with a digital twin and then verified with real data using
some technique. Probably ML and it could be trained using the utility data from
UT and/or Pecan Street
I.e. the simulation provides the granular data
that is verified by the more aggregate data and domain knowledge.
Optimize ideal
energy profile:
All turbine generators
provide base load at their optimal efficiency capacities. Fix these values do
not optimize over the base load again curtail excess rather than ramp. Wind and
solar make up the rest. And DERs provide the ramping up or ramping down for
curtailment for the rest of the swings.
After optimizing
that then take into account transmission and distribution and optimize DERs based
on those cosfs
Current work
ignores transmission and distribution as well as efficiencies based on loading
of power plant capacities
- Property assessed clean
energy (PACE)
- PACE helps solves the financing problem for energy and water improvements commercial, industrial, non profits
- No contractor or lender restrictions
- SECO does the same for public building
- Houston advanced Research center
- Cleantx – consortium
- Mp2 energy
- Pecan st.
- Austin Energy
- Edison Institute
- Sierra Club
- U of H energy
- CPS energy
- PACE Authority
- 45 Q
