<story><title>America&apos;s Growth Ponzi Scheme</title><url>https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growth-ponzi-scheme-md2020</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>noad</author><text>The complete failure to imagine an alternative to property&amp;#x2F;sales taxes and development fees during this crisis has been one of the most disappointing failures of politicians everywhere. We keep being told we need to suffer more and more with deeper cuts while living in the wealthiest country that ever existed by a wide margin.&lt;p&gt;This is absurd. There is plenty of money, we could tax something like 5% of stock buybacks and completely rebuild our entire society from the ground up.&lt;p&gt;Instead our leaders just keep telling us to toughen up and get stronger while flying jets overhead in meaningless salutes. They seem to be very bad at their jobs.</text></comment>
<story><title>America&apos;s Growth Ponzi Scheme</title><url>https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growth-ponzi-scheme-md2020</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>cwhiz</author><text>Virtually nothing in this article is cited or backed up with any data at all.  Clicking through the links takes me to other pages with similar bold claims and a similar lack of citations or data.&lt;p&gt;Entire site seems to exist to sell me a book or for me to donate money so I can become a &amp;quot;member.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Just what the hell is this doing at the top of Hacker News?  Anti-American title so people upvote it straight to the top without even reading it?  This is garbage content that isn&amp;#x27;t even remotely related to tech news.</text></comment>