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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jd Smith1" data-source="post: 8355167" data-attributes="member: 6998052">Angst, not facts.If you think the number of grocery stores is the criteria for choosing a place to live, I can't argue with it. Long-term career planning is the only hope people have. Artificially raising wages is a well-proven device to decrease the number of available jobs while the inevitable inflation strips away any benefit. We are, like it or not, in a global economy. US workers and companies have to compete. That is 'have to' in bold letters and underlined. Rent control, benefits, etc, all cost money, which comes back around immediately to the taxpayer, which destroys any real benefit.If you want to affect the cost of living, there are two simple steps:1) convince local governments to adopt sensible population -density zoning. Sure, that means of elitist types might end up having to live in a town with only one grocery store, but sacrifices have to be made. Lower population density will translate into lower real estate prices, and thus into the cost of housing.2) The Federal government has to begin working with US businesses to increase competitively. Reduce excessive regulations, cut business taxes, back off the 'green' initiatives that our competitors are not following, and the like. Otherwise, jobs will continue to flow overseas while automation ramps up at home. There's also one complex step: the US education system has to accept it is badly broken, and be revamped in order to prepare young people for the workforce as it it exists, not as it was in the 1950s or as it exists in theory.</blockquote>

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