71–80 of 129 posts
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All a land value tax will do is drive up rents. A tax on wealth above 2 million USD adjusted for inflation would be better.
Encouraging rich people to fritter away their money on ephemeral objects instead of investing in technologies and equipment which would improve per captica productivity would be good?
This article resonates with my observations. I think most of the companies which have been making a lot of money are entertainment companies. Facebook is an entertainment company, it probably delivers negative economic efficiency growth - Today it's common for employees to check their Facebook and instagram during work hours (which reduces their productivity). People also spend more time playing games (there are so m…
This article resonates with my observations. I think most of the companies which have been making a lot of money are entertainment companies. Facebook is an entertainment company, it probably delivers negative economic efficiency growth - Today it's common for employees to check their Facebook and instagram during work hours (which reduces their productivity). People also spend more time playing games (there are so m…
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It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea. Not really, it's an irrelevant distinction. If you have the right deprive me of food, shelter, etc. then I have the right to kill you in order to take those things for myself.
"deprive of" is not a synonym for "not provide". It's completely consistent to say that you have an obligation not to actively hinder someone someone from obtaining food/shelter/etc., but no obligation to provide it to them. Stealing someone's lunch is generally considered worse than not giving them your lunch.
This distinction falls apart when you include the notion of privately owned land. If you are born into a world where all land is owned by someone else, what choice do you have but to either work for your food or steal it? What if nobody permits you to work for them?
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People often forget that jobs are an expense, not a benefit. We should celebrate that society can do more with less. If someone thinks that jobs need to be created through artificial means to keep people busy and give them some money, then that person has a rather dim view of human potential.
Our current economic system holds that people don't deserve food, shelter, medical care, or dignity if they don't have a job. If you believe that we should stick with the current system then the proposition "everyone should have a job" follows from "everyone should have food, shelter, medical care, and dignity".
I think society puts too much focus on capturing value and not enough on creating value. Innovation is all about value creation and this is not being rewarded by society. The way things work now is a lottery.
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It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea. Not really, it's an irrelevant distinction. If you have the right deprive me of food, shelter, etc. then I have the right to kill you in order to take those things for myself.
Then I must have the right to kill and loot you after you get done killing and looting them. This is starting to sound like Fallout. Or maybe we should get onto welding spikes all over our vehicles and wearing hockey masks and assless chaps and go for a more Mad Max vibe.
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That's only bad if you have a bad conception of "welfare program". If you think society should provide for the welfare of all its members than it's not a bad connotation.
The post argues that this back-door form of welfare is inferior in just about every way to just cutting people a check, but that we tend to do it this way exactly because "welfare" has negative connotations: 'With all these advantages of “Simple Check”, what exactly is the “Sneaky Job” condition good for that makes it so popular? As far as I can tell, it is good for fooling people. People do not like paying welfare.'
> People do not like paying welfare.
We should work on fighting this perception. Welfare is actually good.
There was a time in the past ('30s-'70s) when welfare wasn't a bad word. People liked the idea of welfare. It was a positive idea.
That we're still all talking like this, like welfare is a handout to worthless losers, etc is a testament to the success of Reaganite conservative politics. We all talk like Gordon Gekko now.
We should rehabilitate the word and the idea.
Say it with me:
WELFARE IS GOOD AND COOL.
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People often forget that jobs are an expense, not a benefit. We should celebrate that society can do more with less. If someone thinks that jobs need to be created through artificial means to keep people busy and give them some money, then that person has a rather dim view of human potential.
Our current economic system holds that people don't deserve food, shelter, medical care, or dignity if they don't have a job. If you believe that we should stick with the current system then the proposition "everyone should have a job" follows from "everyone should have food, shelter, medical care, and dignity".
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Our current economic system holds that people don't deserve food, shelter, medical care, or dignity if they don't have a job. If you believe that we should stick with the current system then the proposition "everyone should have a job" follows from "everyone should have food, shelter, medical care, and dignity".
Huh, at least in the US, over 50% of the federal budget provides just those things to people that don't have jobs.
Most of the budget goes to defense, social security, and medicare. None of these primarily provide food, shelter or medical care to the unemployed.
A large portion of the budget goes to provide these things to the elderly but a very small portion of the budget goes to provide these things for the unemployed.
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Our current economic system holds that people don't deserve food, shelter, medical care, or dignity if they don't have a job. If you believe that we should stick with the current system then the proposition "everyone should have a job" follows from "everyone should have food, shelter, medical care, and dignity".
Huh, at least in the US, over 50% of the federal budget provides just those things to people that don't have jobs.
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...
Large parts of those segments representing health care and social security represent money that is paid out to people who are working -- that is, it's a direct subsidy to employers who don't feel like paying their workers enough to cover their grocery and housing bills.