Why Hawaii became a State for The Rich Only
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2024
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Hawaii, the last state to join the USA, is renowned not just for its pivotal role in military operations and its allure as a top tourist destination, but also for its significant economic contributions on a global scale. Despite its modest size and remote location, the Hawaiian Islands boast an economic output rivaling countries like Bulgaria and Ecuador. This video delves into how Hawaii has carved out this economic niche, presenting a unique case study that challenges conventional measures of prosperity.
While for many, Hawaii represents the perfect surfing getaway or a strategic naval base, the reality for its residents is a daily life marked by unique economic challenges. The state grapples with some of the highest living costs in the world, lacking the high-paying jobs that usually justify such expenses. From costly day-to-day necessities influenced by its isolation and tourist appeal to critical lapses in economic policy, this video examines the underlying issues that could be improved almost immediately-if there was a political will to address them.
Is it really just the price of living in paradise? This video questions whether these economic challenges can be managed without giving the state an unfair advantage and explores the potential consequences of neglecting these issues. How does Hawaii compare to other states and global economies when addressing these pressing concerns?
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So why don't the Hawaii people go to USA then?
could a video be done for the Dominican Republic. Some believe it will overcome the middle income trap while others dont.
Can you do a video on the economic reasons of all them (me) kiwis moving abroad to Australia?
Can you do a video on the german state of bavaria next one of the richest region in germany
The other problem with economies dependent heavily on tourism is that tourism creates lots of jobs, but lots of low-skilled and low-paid jobs with little to no prospects to progress into a middle or high-income job. A bartender/maid/tourist guide will pretty much always stay just unless there are other options, when most jobs are the same jobs, people won't grow out of those low jobs. And that also eats into the government's coffers because most government revenue is usually from taxes on income, low income of citizens = less tax revenue, which counter-intuitively makes the government focus even more on tourism and VAT/Sales tax revenue by increasing the volume of tourists which just perpetuates the issues.
Yes, US District of Columbia has the same issue. The majority of high paying jobs are not going to DC-born folk, who often just have to take lower wage service jobs. And there's basically no industry in DC to support a middle class. And DC is the second highest cost of living area in the country.
Wait does this video really not talk about that at all?
This tuber is immune to reasoning that the rich might not like
He is very neoliberal.
At least you can commute out of the DC area by car for better jobs.
You can't from Hawaii and are stuck there if you're poor. Got to fly out and establish a new homestead. Hope you have a good job, friends or family that can help you in settling.
As a Polynesian born and raised in Hawaii I really appreciate this video; even in just 17min it was nice to feel heard. Seeing time lapses of our landscape from just my generation, let alone my grandparents, is devastating. The lands been poisoned.
From our kingdoms history and effects of annexation and even mentioning the jones act, well done.
The Jones act is often cited as a major factor in the state of US states economies. Can we get a video breaking down the economic costs and benefits and why it's still a law?
The companies that benefit donate heavily to members of Congress?
Half as intersting made a video about that czcams.com/video/oP1Oq3JLNbc/video.htmlsi=vE0pCjQoShEs2Icf
It's pretty much meant to maintain a pool of vessels and seafarers in case the U.S. gets in a big war.
It takes years to actually get good at running a ship.
The American government can't really force a bunch of Filipino crews and Croatian officers sailing a Hong Kong owned ship registered in Liberia to carry military cargo into a war zone. They can force Americans on American ships.
@@steven4315 lots of americans benefit from it. we just need more american shipping
@@007kingifrit Respectfully disagree, if it can't get updated, it needs to be repealed.
I'm from Hawaii and I cannot afford to live back home. Nor do I want to work at a hotel serving tourists
Same! I actually have 1/2 an acre on Big Island but can't use it for anything besides geological research
I had to leave, and family keeps asking when I'll move back, but my QoL would be so much worse that there's nothing that would enable that short of winning the lottery where I am and taking the winnings back.
@@Hatsuzuki808it’s the combination of expense and lack of high paying jobs. Mainland has both lower expense and better industries to get good jobs.
I still live here fortunately in my grandparents house, the silent gen and boomers really lucked out when buying houses and keeping them in the family
I’m a migrant, came to Hawaii with $500, sorry for taking your job 😢
I've been to remote corners of the islands, and stayed in some pretty nice places and some of the worst. They face a unique challenge due to high overhead costs for many necessities, but could do much better in regulations to help out their less well off residents, and not let wealthy estates monopolize land use
Small Islands just don't have to capability to offer large scale and cost-efficient opportunity.
If you want opportunity, you should head to mainland.
Yeah, Oprahs landgrab on Maui seems insane to me. How did they even approve such a purchase?
The Jones Act should be repealed. It’s also had a devastating effect on Puerto Rico
Hurricane Maria made those effects so visible.
And Alaska
no, it makes american jobs
This guy is from india. only a non american would say such a thing.
@@c.g.5293 The Jones Act is government regulation interfering with the free market that has literally cost thousands of jobs and has negatively impacted the economy.
I'm still surprised that there hasn't been a Grand Theft Auto based on Hawai'i. It has all the features characteristic to the franchise: developed urban settings with nearby rural areas, distinctive scenery without extreme climate, obviously multicultural, heavily trafficked with tourists, underlying local community tensions, isolated islands with nothing else nearby to map, and still America.
That would be a small map.
Maybe that’ll be GTA VII in 2037 😂
Hey atleast we got Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth
All of that said it’s still not as good of a setting as New York, Miami, or Los Angeles.
Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth is the game you wanted but didn't know you needed. 10/10 game highly recommend
Very glad you mentioned the Jones Act. Most people, including those in Hawaii don't know about it or cite it as a reason for the high cost of goods.
Even a single US Senator can block the business of the entire congress when they want to. We've seen them do it for petty disputes and to score political points. Most recently, an Alabama senator *by himself* blocked every military promotion that required senate approval. That was hundreds of top jobs directly blocked and hundreds more indirectly when you think about the people that were waiting to be promoted once the other guys moved on to their new jobs.
Hawaii and Alaska have four senators between them. These are the states most affected by the Jones Act. Their citizens have to pay more for everything because of this law. The only reason this law is still screwing up Hawaii and Alaska is that those four senators do not care about the people living in their states. They refuse to draw their line on the sand and demand that a monopoly which only exists so that a few shipping magnates can get rich should not come at the expense of the people in their state.
Don't forget Puerto Rico. The Jones Act affects us the most. We asked Trump to lift it after hurricane Maria but he said he didn't want to damage corporations' profits....
@@rartu But Puerto Rico has no senators, therefore no power to block Senate business.
@@eljanrimsa5843
Because Puerto Rico is a territory, not a state.
@@rartu I believe at first he was going to try to repeal, until he was talked to.
Regardless, Puerto Rico has no congressional delegation and so cannot hold everything hostage.
@@rartu The Jones act affects Guam even more than Puerto Rico. Guam is closer to Asia than it is to the U.S.
Hawaii's land area is between that of Eswatini and East Timor. Honestly, it's smaller than I expected. And also, East Timor is way larger than I expected
The popular Cartesian projection understates the size of places near the equator. Indonesia by itself is as wide as the Mainland US.
@@doujinflipit is wider actually.
@@doujinflip Congratulations, you are aware of high-school level cartography enough to share with us, the rest of the world! This of course assumes, that the rest of the world is not keenly aware of different map projections
Timor lies between some very big islands which make it look small in comparison. But it's a big island itself.
@@eljanrimsa5843 Indeed, good point. I just looked it up, Timor is 3x bigger than Jamaica! Insane, if anything I would've guessed the opposite.
I'm so glad you brought attention to the Jones Act. It should be entirely repealed. It is why it was so difficult to get aid in to Puerto Rico recently. It only increases shipping costs and removes competition to the benefit of a very small ship building industry.
thank you!i was floored when i woke up and saw that you actually did this. ty to your team for all of this. I do hope it opens peoples eyes here , mainly people that have power to make a change, so they can do so. i really appreciate it tons! you guys are friggen awesome.
As someone from Hawaii, thank you for making this video. It's sad that ancestral land is held hostage therefore making sure there will always be a low paid work force that won't leave the land where their people and customs originate from
Don't think I've ever complained on of these videos but the greyscale maps lack contrast which makes them actually difficult to distinguish land masses / islands from ocean / sea as they rush past without pausing / rewinding the video.
Watch Peter Santello's series on Hawaii really opened my eyes to how reliant on imports Hawaii is, and how much untapped potential there is
The Jones Act forbids shipping anything between American ports in ships that are not U.S. built and crewed. This makes goods cost more, the average Hawaii family must pay $1,800 more a year. If Hawaii is allowed to import goods directly from Asia countries like South East Asia countries. The cost of living in Hawaii will go down significantly.
Guam gets hit hard by the Jones Act. Closer to Asia than the U.S. so it's perishable groceries are more expensive than Hawaii. A Salad Bar will cost as much as Meat entree.
its ironic that even with the Jones act making shipped goods more expensive, in many cases its still cheaper than locally produced stuff. go figure.
@@tehcodingmonkeyIt’s not ironic at all, Hawaii is a pipsqueak and the US is a colossus of course the US can produce goods more cheaply
Except Trump will bring in large import tariffs, which will negate the effects anyway. Hawaii is a blue state with few college votes, so not worth keeping them happy.
@@MsJubjubbirdHurting Hawaii more
You mentioned Bulgaria- the fastest shrinking nation in the world. It’s worth to make a video about her🇧🇬
I thought south Korea was the fastest
@@chiburu_uchinanchu naturally, probably, Bulgaria has a combination of natural decline and emigration
Nah it won't even exist in a decade why bother
Consider the difference between cost of living in a rural area you're familiar with vs the nearest urban center, and then think about how Hawaii has higher living costs than DC, which is basically a state that is 100% urban.
Merchant Marine Act of 1920 is how
@penderyn8794 - none of those struggles impact their lives directly today
That's part of it, also cost of housing. Most apartments being built on Oahu in the last decade are all luxury condos, most of which sit empty as they're just an asset meant to fill upper class portfolios
@@bp8220 - even cost of housing is caused by the same Act of 1920, as most building materials have to be shipped in from the mainland
@@ryansreaction its like saying Crimea didnt face direct catasthropies imposed on it by Russians and Russia
Both Hawaii and Crimea have been forcefully taken by the current states that own them today
I'm confused so what is the solution so what is the best place to live
I think another great topic to go over is the Canadian province of British Columbia (and all the problems in Vancouver) as it is a tourist hotspot within the Canadian context and also suffers from overinflated housing costs and low wages. BC is also sometimes known as a playground for the rich and has a large tourism sector to support its economy.
This is a great video! Mahalo nui for touching on so many of the issues we face here in the islands.
Perhaps another challenge is in the best use for land. Is it better to build more houses to increase housing availability, or use the land for agriculture to provide more Hawaii grown crops? With such land scarcity in Hawaii, it can be difficult to know the best way to handle land when it becomes available.
I wonder if with today's tech, and government assistance, housing can be shifted to the more rough terrain, freeing up some space for agriculture.
Land scarcity only may apply on Oahu. The Big Island is extremely sparsely populated.
You should do Puerto Rico next, the same stuff happening in Hawaii is happening to us, except with Puerto Rico we have an extremely corrupt government that is incentivizing all this bad stuff to happen by making Puerto Rico a tax haven, and wasting all our money pushing for statehood when it's extremely unlikely to happen since theres so many obstacles. Now famous people like Logan and Jake Paul, Larry Page, Brock Pierce, Peter Schiff have all moved to Puerto Rico and are buying up all the land.
PR issues is that they are Hispanic….share similar traits to Venezuela
I think Oklahoma would be a very interesting deep dive for multiple reasons
I second that very notion
Arizona too
It’s one of the worst states in the country. Religious fanatics and horrible land. I detest Oklahoma.
@@FYMASMDhorrible land? What do you mean? Religious fanatics are everywhere
It seems to me that a bit of a solution would be to restrict the amount of acreage owned by individuals and the number of housing units owned by corporations. This would not fix everything but would relieve the housing price issue somewhat. Encouraging denser housing options, especially in single-family neighborhoods would help as well. In addition a Vancouver-style tax on unoccupied residences could encourage offshore landowners to rent out vacant units.
How would you do it legally without getting sued into oblivion?
@@tigpowerleck998 I’m not a lawyer so I can’t say but other jurisdictions have done these like Vancouver BC.
The state banned air BnB, well they created a lottery of only so many people can be doing this.
Sounds like a good thing but really it was just the hotels that make money from tourism lobby for that and won.
Is this video sped up? It’s kinda fast to follow. Love your stuff!
So basically a few greedy people made it extremely difficult for normal people
yeah basically lol
That's the US model
I was surprised to learn Hawaii produces milk. It is more expensive, significantly more expensive, to buy fresh milk in Hawaii then it is to buy imported fresh milk from California in the Philippines. I am talking about real milk, that must be kept cold and has a sell by date
That’s because of the Jones Act prevents non American ships from carrying goods from the mainland to Hawaii
Is that not what milk normally is in the US?
@@John_Kennedy27 yes, however he is from Australia and there they have other versions. Stuff that is nasty tasting that sits on the shelf unrefrigerated for months
@@kevinbarry71 bro does NOT like pasteurised milk 💀
@@LuciaCorneliac no idea what you're talking about
Why is there no limit as to how much land a private individual can buy? Suppose one guy has enough money to buy the whole island and asks all the people to leave his property...
People have done that. I guess in America and in the free market economy, they can't restrict how much land you own.
The reason is no law was passed to limit the land ownership. It’s can be done of course, but the details can be tricky to get right and the pressure on politicians are not strong enough to make it happen.
That's basically what Larry Ellison did with Lana'i. He owns 98% of the island.
My instinctive response to the video was similar to yours: Why doesn't Hawaii just limit or outright restrict residential land ownership for non-state-residents?
And then the depressing answer dawned on me that it would just result in a middleman buying the property (or more property) for them. If the rich have the money and means to afford the land at the astronomical prices they cost already, it'd just be a minor inconvenience for them to circumvent the system in some way or another.
Unless the Hawaiian representatives in gov't put the will and livelihood of the residents over the will of the wealthy, it'll just continue to get worse for at least another couple of centuries.
@@deohenge1865 political representatives will never put the livelihood of the residents over the will of the wealthy. At the limit, imagine one rich dude buys all the land on earth and tells everyone to get out. I give this extreme example to exemplify the stupidity of allowing unlimited private property over land.
Eagerly awaiting South Carolina!
Land value tax please!
It would still increase the burden on those living there. Either the costs get passed on to renters or those who do own get taxed out of their own homes.
@@Aaronlcyrus LVT can be coupled with a UBI to kinda act as a more equitable form of Homestead Exemption, if that helps.
Also, it's very well established that LVT doesn't get passed through to renters, since it's a fixed asset who's supply can't really be increased or decreased, meaning that market pricing itself is more or less fixed based on location demand, and thus the tax has to be eaten by the land owner (who, to be clear, was always just profiting on scarcity rather than wealth creation in the first place). Instead, it mainly just incentivizes a land owner to use their land productively (assuming we also change zoning to allow that to happen), which lowers the cost of housing and business creation.
@@Aaronlcyrus The LVT allows the state to eliminate other taxes such as sales and income taxes. It forces the billionaires who aquire huge tracts of land to fund the government entirely.
I think taking a look at Hawaii's housing problem would make for a good video in the future.
It's not that hard. EVERYTHING must be imported to build a house....Hawaii produces nothing. The other half is labor......because EVERYTHING is expensive, then the starting salary for a guy out of High School, in construction, is around $40/hour. If you have any speciality in construction, on Hawaii, then you will get north of $70/hour. Materials and labor can't be fixed at this time.
GDP per capita is super skewed because its an average, so giving it a 9/10 is purely because billionares live there
I agree. It would be better to do something like median household income. The distortion isn't just billionaires, it is split between capital and labor.
Right! I think per capita GDP is useless as an indicator when a place is billionaire skewed
@@richdobbs6595wouldn’t that alter all his other rankings of other locations, he would have to redo all those videos if he changed his measurement criteria.
@@prst99 That does sound like economist logic. Like why we still talk about unemployment rate as if everyone is employed fulltime without a gig economy and a portion of the economy being unemployable so they go unground, and with widespread education people often working well be their nominal level in society..
@@richdobbs6595 I didn’t understand what you wrote. However, do you think that changing the gdp per capita metric to a median household income metric for Hawaii is an inconsistent measure when comparing it for the economic leaderboard?
Your comment is about how you don’t like the gdp per capita metric since you say outliers distort the result. My comment is that the EE team cannot change this metric without having to redo all past comparisons.
It seems like cost of living and house prices are an issue in every country
Nice video!
Hawaii should just work on a subsidized economy, a bit like Alaska. Make it so that all tourism and "wealthy folk" profits are heavily taxed, not so much as to kill those markets, but just enough that the state get a significant windfall from it. Then have subsidy programs, first for all peoples who can prove ancestry on the islands dating back 50+ years, they would get a significant subsidy program. Then secondly for newer inhabitants that live on the island most of the year (as opposed to people with timeshares or vacation homes), and are employed on the island, they would have access to some more modest subsidies, to help encourage foreign workers as needed. As for housing, there would be subsidized housing programs, to provide plenty of affordable housing for everyone, if not in the most beachfront, detached housing they might want.
I think this would strike a reasonable balance of allowing the tourism industry to go full steam, while also allowing the locals to live a lifestyle well higher than their productivity.
@@randallching3900 Yeah, I really do wish you guys luck. I do think it can work out for both sides of the equation, so long as everyone works toward that goal.
You are suggesting a racial priority economy based upon political inequality or DEI which is failing wherever it has been implemented. Better a system based upon merit and ability to produce via personal skills allowing for educational subsidies.
@@David53D It's not "racial" in nature, it's prioritizing the native population of the island, which I believe is fair. This would be less like "affirmative action" and more like Native reservations (although hopefully a bit better than that). What you suggest wouldn't actually improve the lives of the Hawaiian people, so it sort of misses the point entirely.
@@timogul
What you suggested is Racial, it’s just Race by other means.
It’s a very similar thing that Estonia and Latvia are currently using to deny their Russian speakers citizenship since they don’t have ancestors who lived in the land before 1944.
@@graceneilitz7661 Well, in my version, I did include anyone who had been living on the island for generations already, not just pre-colonial populations, so there would be white and Asian people included. Also, this is not denying people citizenship, it is not denying anyone things that they would get on the mainland, it's only denying them access to a _bonus_ program designed to allow parity for the native population. Basically if you have a decent job and make money, then you'll be fine either way, but this would be intended to allow the native population to have price parity with people living in, say, Alabama, even if the cost of living on the islands massively increases. How would you do it?
Ha! Bulgaria (my home country) was featured (for a second) in EE! Noice! (would love if you made a video for Bulgaria btw :))
Nobody can predict the future, least of all, economists. ❤
Love that line.
They should significantly raise property taxes and sales taxes, then give actual year-round hawaii residents a big tax credit/prebate on both to offset those taxes, and use the net tax influx from tourists and non-resident land owners to BUILD MORE HOUSING. Commercial, Industrial, and farm land uses would of course be exempt.
having lived on Oahu, there really is basically nowhere TO build more housing
@@traehesket8332 would it be possible to increase density by having more residential buildings instead of single homes?
@@epoliv lol there really arent many single homes there, except for the super wealthy. the ones that are are packed super tight and no one have lawns for example, etc etc, there are just too many people and not enough space.
@@epoliv the entire island of Oahu (the only one that is *really* populated, is less than 600 sq miles, and only a quarter of that is even habitable. yet more than a million people live there. so they have to fit a million+ people in less than 100k acres of land. not even to mention all of the non-residential buildings that need to exist
@@traehesket8332 Thanks for the perspective. I think the video used some stock footage showing a lot of low rise homes. Maybe it was even from a different place altogether.
It's worth noting that the way some of the wealthy individuals mentioned here obtained their land, is highly problematic.
I think a video explaining the economy of Puerto Rico would be very interesting, considering it is a modern day colony. It's reliance on the US would be very interesting to explore.
@Economics Explained 9:54 I went through this graphic frame by frame. Either it should be noted that this compared to non-US states, or it should be noted that Islamic Dubai, Finland, Greece, Austria, Israel, Canada, Belgium, Germany, New Zealand, United Kingdom, San Marino, Kuwait, Qatar, Maybank and Abu Dhabi are part of the US now.
Since we are doing individual states in the US with some degree of regularity I will now start recommending my home state of Indiana in all of these. So...
Indiana video next please! (At least in the next US state one :)
It’s my dream to move to Hawaii and buy a small house, but the prospect looks so intimidating financially.
I’ve just wanted to move out to a nice warm place in the pacific for so long. 😔
Great video noting the problems but not the underlying issues. Many comments identify parts of the problem like the Jones Act but those are minor relative to the simple fact that Hawaii is a very desirable place to live resulting in the wealthy buying here and the gov’t doimg little to nothing to diversify our economy.
Zoning for residential housing has been stagnant for 40+ years not even nearly coming close to keeping up with population growth while at the same time as noted in the video, very wealthy buyers are taking huge tracks of land out of circulation. It should also be noted that Hawaii does not tax employer sponsored retirement income like pensions so retirees who are financially well off move here taking housing while contributing little to the tax base. This along with the wealthy residents or vacation home owners have taken a significant amount of housing or potential housing from residents while contributing litle to the economy and driving up home prices. Buying a $1m, $2m or $10m home does nothing for the state if those people are not working here.
Even more critically, the state has done little to diversify the economy in the last 40 years hence the low wages as the video notes. Tourism will always be our base but there is no reason we could not also be a tech center. What Google engineer who is making $300k a year would not want to live and work here? This only exacerbates our situation because there is little opportunity for our kids so they leave the state. The so called Brain Drain. Hawaii has tons of smart kids with little opportunity for them to thrive and achieve something great here so staying is almost a non-starter.
I’m generally not a fan of taxation as a means to an end but in this situation using taxation as a tool to discourage land acquisition by non-residents who are not working/owning Hawaii businesses I think makes sense to free up housing and reduce pricing presure and using those funds to drive a more diversified economy allowing Hawaii kids to achieve all their aspirations while being able to stay in Hawaii.
what a great idea for an episode, brilliant EE thank you!
13:43 FYI you’re pronouncing contiguous wrong it’s a hard g
This is Australian English
Great Video!
I had to rewind that a couple of times.
An island surrounded by water, has to import seafood because it's so crowded and polluted.
SMH moment if ever there was one.
How much of the habitable area of the island is covered of driveways, parking lots highways or lawns ?
Oh comeon, you're asking for it! Do an episode on Georgism and/or LVT already!
I was stationed in Hawaii 2009-2011. Loved it and always wanted to retire there but it is just too expensive. And, it would cost too much to fly to see family. Still love the vibe there though.
I think one of the biggest contributors of over population of rich is people ability to create income remotely. Back in the day you could really only live in Hawaii if you already rich and retired, had a local business, had a good paying local job. But now anyone who works remotely can live there comfortably, upping cost of housing, pushing out locals with basic jobs.
Hey, I saw my island at the beginning! (Mauritius)
@6:13 that's the USS North Carolina, docked in the Cape Fear River (Wilmington NC)!
I'm only pointing out cause I grew up in Wilmington.
And there was a map of Indonesia. And the list of states had multiple countries on it.
Great videos! Do North Dakota next! Small state, but has one of the highest GDP per capita of US states. Also, it's the only state with its own state-owned bank. Kinda interesting.
Thumbs up simply for the correct use of the word 'indigenous' instead of misusing the word 'native'.
I was stationed there for about a year while serving with the Navy years ago. I was surprised at the somewhat shabby state of the people.
Hawaii has A LOT of potential in solving this crisis- through improved public transportation. Oahu is already upgrading public transportation through the Skyline system being built and with it, transit oriented development. This system is far better than what cities like LA is doing with rail and it would mean the potential for Hawai’i and coupled with zoning reform, could transform Hawaii, easily become something like Singapore with lots of affordable housing, eliminating homelessness and making the state not only for the rich.
Are you talking about that eyesore train that cost hawaii tax payers 10 billion dollars for 19 miles of unused track? No one rides it! Total waste. Not to mention the entire state was taxed to build it. I hate to point this out, but most of us do not have access to the leeward side of oahu. Both all off island residents and all north shore, windward, town and east side residents of Oahu. That train should be scrapped and all responsible thrown in jail for life.
The rail is a HUGE fail in Oahu. Nobody rides it, it’s not easy to access the rail.
It’s not even completed and it’s falling apart. The only person I know who rode it so far, just did it for fun 😂
I’ve never rode it, zero purpose for doing so. I’m sure it will be filled with homeless people sleeping at all the stops.
Massive failure and many Dems got rich off of that failure!
do Virginia next and the extreme difference between Northern Virginia and the rest of the state
Northern Virginia = DC suburbs.
I live in southeast Alaska this video rings true to me. Do my state next!
You need to make an excel sheet or a word doc with the leaderboard so we can see it as you constantly update it.
It is more expensive to live in Massachusetts than it is to live in Hawaii and Alaska.
Let that sink in!
Glad you brought up the Jones Act; for all the damage it did to the rust belt it did more to Hawaii. It's not just a matter of more expensive transport via road or rail, for an island archipelago it's pay the ever-increasing cost of All-American shipping or go without!
living in Hawaii, it’s so disheartening to hearing just how hard it’s getting to survive…
Solutions to traditional housing costs are not applicable to Hawaii because there is no where to actually build. The only method to help the native Hawaiians is to give them exemptions and raise the land taxes on all the non natives/tourists. I'm very fiscally conservative, but in this case there is no option but for the government to step in. The super rich will not be discouraged by some higher prices, Oprah and Dwayne Johnson can pay a few % on their properties, but the additional tax revenue can combat the cost of goods for the locals. It's very sad that the locals are priced out of their family homes and have to move to the mainland, only to be replaced by people with no respect for the islands.
I was born and raised on Oahu and come from a Native Hawaiian family. You hit the nail on the point of giving native Hawaiians exemptions/discounts on local real estate. The Hawaiian Homestead program has been help for native Hawaiians as the program buys out lots of land on the central/west side of Oahu and develops housing, in which native Hawaiians are all placed on a waitlist and hope that there name is drawn to purchase the rights to a house. For my family's experience, our grandfather had applied for the waitlist back in the '80s and his spot has been passed down to us, and we finally might have the opportunity to purchase a house next year. It's a bit sad though that our family had to wait 40 years to even get high enough on the waitlist to purchase a house.
@@randallching3900 Dang that's such a long time to wait. I hope you get the chance to get the house though, best of luck!
Will you ever do an episode on French Polynesia? Would be really interesting to see how they developed
there are a couple of other factors that you have not mentioned. the one that is really glaring, IMHO: in hawaii, all "full time" employees must be given employer-paid healthcare. the reason i put "full-time" in quotes is because that means anyone working 30 hours. this has resulted in many (many) residents working two twenty-hour-per-week jobs, because employers simply make every job 20 hours.
That index for cost of Living by state has 52 entries. There are only 50 states. Adding DC makes sense as it's completely incorporated into the mainland. Most people don't know when they've crossed over from Maryland into DC or Virginia. I assume the other entry is Puerto Rico. However, that is not a state either.
It would be interesting to see a new leaderboard with other aspects being used. Putting more emphasis on low and middle income households and such. This is yet another example of an averages not meaning much if you have a few wealthy people that increase that average.
The biggest problem with sighting the jones act as the main contributor to increased shipping cost is a misunderstanding of how the industry works. It is true that mariners make a decent wage but on most vessels there is only a very small number of them for the amount of cargo getting moved, the biggest cost of shipping is the longshoremen who handle the cargo. Often making more per person then the mariners that are on the ship moving the cargo and also with four to five times the amount of man power
Something not mentioned is the big sugar and pineapple industry died. I know sugar died when tariffs were dropped to allow foreign sugar. I'm not sure why pineapple died, but it's likely cost reasons as well. As a result much agricultural land is idle. But there's resistance to develop it due to "food security". (A valid point, but outside of "farm to table" growers, it's not cost competitive.)
My brother's been stationed in Hawaii for the past few years and he mentioned pineapple is only cheap if you buy it directly from the plantations. Otherwise, it's just another expensive item in the expensive grocery store. They're really excited to move to the Midwest for his next assignment.
2:45 why is the archipelago of Indonesia being shown in lieu of Hawaii? 😵💫
Would you cover the economy challenges of Puerto Rico?
Sounds like an LVT and repealing the Jones act would completely change the average Hawaiian's living standards for the better.
Without watching the video and just reading the title, do you mean "How America's industrial imperialism of the elite ruined the paradise of Hawaii?"
Ny family lives on Nantucket. The mean sales price for a home for the year ending 2023 was over $ 3 million.
As a native born i am at awe at how many haoles are moving in from the mainalnd and changing the culture. No more aloha. People drive like they do in New York. It is not the same place as it used to be. Many youth cannot afford a house here so move elsewhere.
This is what happens when you refuse to have reasonable urban building density. There is absolutely no land shortage in Hawaii relative to places like Singapore (5.6 million people) they just have the wrong zoning rules.
Honolulu is pretty dense as US cities go, so unless you want it to literally look like Singapore where every building is a massive apartment block, there's not much more density you can add.
@@Croz89 Look at this 8:36. That is not density. That is suburban spawl.
Errata:
The “Big Island” is actually called Hawaii (island). Yes, it’s usually called the Big Island these days, but it’s kind of a nickname.
Also residents of Hawaii are NOT called Hawaiians; that’s an ethnic group. We’re just “residents.”
Suggestion: you could make a video analising all the pacific islands as if they were one country. All the best.
You didn't discuss how zoning and NIMBYism affect high Hawaiian housing prices. I would imagine the effect is enormous.
Can you do the economics of Bermuda?
80hrs workweeks is the cost. I've no days off.
Never had the desire to go there. My friends recently went, and said the state is pretty much a shite hole. Just give it back to the natives.
Thanks!
No person who does not live in Hawai’i nor business which is not headquartered in Hawai’i should be able to own land in Hawai’i. Only then will locals have affordable land.
So Hawaii to the US is like Lisbon for Portugal but instead of rich foreigners it's the ultra-rich elite
+Island state problems
That sucks
Almost totally dependent on imported food- it has about two weeks worth of food in case all air/sea shipping is halted. That's not so far fetched either. Yesterday's online glitch is a warning of what could happen.
8:36 "muh, we have a land shortage" -- builds low density suburban sprawl instead of appartments and skyscrapers.
Unpopular opinion but I would remove GDP (as we have GDP per capita) as a metric and add GNI. Would create a more accurate picture, particularly for cases like this one
(14:21) I can see this becoming an obstacle for Japanese tourists who want to take a vacation in Hawaii.
Yes...never judge a place by the published catalogue....got it.
American Imperialists forcibly annexed Hawaii to make sugar, but now its just used for a Pacific Island vacation trip without ever actually "leaving" the comforts of the USA
Hawaii coupes itself and then asked to be annexed, to the US said no, then asked again years later and was annexed.
You can’t lie about history.
@@AL-lh2htanyone can twist history to fit their narrative. Stfu
@@AL-lh2ht
When you say Hawaii 'couped itself' 🙄, you really mean white European settlers who orchestrated the overthrow of the native Hawaiian people, seized their land, and then had the nerve to ask the U.S. to annex them 🏝️🤦♂️.
@AL-lh2ht You're doing it right now. The coup was done by foreigners allied to Americans that relocated to the archipelago.
Okinawa is the Japanese equivalent, being previously the independent Ryukyu Kingdom. Luckily for the US -- and probably Hawai'i too -- that America got to it before pre-WW2 Japan.
There’s tons of condos in Oahu for under $200k but the downside is HOA $600+\month
Umm you don't even mention the Bishop trust. It's the largest land owner in Hawaii.
Please do Austria next.
The score was actually too generous
I think there is a lot more to Hawaii than this video covers. It’s not quite as dire as one would think while still being very expensive. There are a lot of social safety nets that other states dont have that greatly benefit lower income residents.