71–80 of 582 posts
Wouldn't basic income just lead to higher prices and inflation?
It is a very bad idea to guarantee income instead of controlling costs. All it does is allow the people making money to make more money and possibly take that income out of their country for further investment.
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The GP is not a "political slogan", it's a statement of fact. If you'd like to rebut, which seems fairly unlikely, please provide both evidence of sloganhood (slogan, of course, means something specific: in part, that the aforementioned phrase has been used verbatim as a form of promotion. Cite the promotion) and additionally an actual rebuttal to the GP. That would actually be what this is an appropriate venue for,…
Poor Americans receive a wide range of subsidies, which have broad popular support. Obamacare is being fought because it is a byzantine bureaucratic tar pit written in secrecy by industries lobbyists and passed by the worst sort of political manipulations. If someone could manage to put forward a sensible national health system, including the necessary constitutional amendment, it would get a landslide victory.
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Meh, it's your view. There are plenty of people who oppose PPACA for reasons besides trying to stop poor people from receiving subsidies on their health insurance.
Listen to Boheners reasoning when he refused to allow a vote on the senate bill[1]. He sites employers not wanting to hire people because they have to subsidize their insurance, and a medical device tax that goes towards providing subsidies to individuals. 1. http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/153432/Speaker_John_...
But, since you bring it up, why should or shouldn't healthcare be coupled to employment? One could argue it's the cause for much of the trouble we're in, with a lack of portability, increasing costs (same reason sports seats have become prohibitively expensive for many individuals), so what's inherently evil about employers admitting that increased labor costs will almost necessarily impact their hiring?
For that matter, why is or isn't a medical device tax the best way of funding those subsidies?
Those are the kinds of things that we could be discussing–tho probably not as comments to this particular article article–not doing what you are.
To be specific, you're preemptively ascribing the worst possible motives to anyone who disagrees with you on a pretty charged political issue, in a fairly off-topic quip in response to nobody, which is a pretty bad way of raising the level of debate. Debate the issues if you want, but your original comment is going to be difficult for you to justify as anything but partisan politics.
People who disagree with you may not be inherently evil. Hard to believe, sometimes, but no matter what side of an argument you're on, it's not a very productive or proper default assumption. Assuming bad faith won't help anyone, whatever the side of almost whatever the issue.
Wouldn't basic income just lead to higher prices and inflation?
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People always want more, so this will allow people to live comfortably while they, for example, acquire a more profitable skill than what they currently have. Then they will earn more, and pay more taxes, and the cycle continues. Alternatively, the Swiss government may have enough money to invest it all and pay for this out of dividends. Just because the US is broke doesn't mean that everyone is.
People always want more Based on the reading I've done on the subject, in places where a minimum basic income well into the poverty range was given, people actually just cut back on everything until it covered their expenses, i.e. people preferred poverty to working low-wage jobs. That makes sense to me. That said...I'm still in favor of a universal minimum basic income, because I always expect social regressions whe…
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Poor Americans receive a wide range of subsidies, which have broad popular support. Obamacare is being fought because it is a byzantine bureaucratic tar pit written in secrecy by industries lobbyists and passed by the worst sort of political manipulations. If someone could manage to put forward a sensible national health system, including the necessary constitutional amendment, it would get a landslide victory.
Its cost controls are weak, at best. There's no way the country will come out the other side of this with cheaper healthcare. There will be, of course, (truly) great stories about people who were suffering because of the evil practice of dropping customers from coverage when they get sick, and their finally getting the treatment their agreement with the insurance company should have entitled them to, but the total co…
Thankfully the cost controls are existant, at least, which is by inspection better than the status quo. This existence also renders your conclusion on costs a complete non sequitur.
Trivia: as much as conservatives hate Obamacare (spoilers: a lot), they can't resist using the cost savings it generates in their stunt budgets because the numbers don't work without the Obamacare savings.
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> this will allow people to live comfortably while they, for example, acquire a more profitable skill than what they currently have. Maybe some of them. If American welfare is any indications you'll have generations of people who will live within this free money system, do nothing, learn nothing and demand more and more over time. They will all have iPhones, huge flat screen TV's and never work a day in their lives.…
Do you remember where you read that most people on welfare in the US live with expensive hardware but do little work? I'm curious about different ways of providing welfare and the behaviour of people w under each.
I've actually lived on the wrong side of the tracks in a poverty-stricken industrial city.
The reality is that most people don't have big screen TVs. The home of the average poor person that I've seen, welfare or otherwise, is pretty damned frugal. The few that do - and they do exist - finance these luxuries via rent-to-own shops and loans.
You know you're in a poor part of town when suddenly all the payday loan places and rent-to-own places pop up.
As one might expect, these luxuries never actually last very long. Not only do these people not have the actual financial ability to afford them, but they acquired them on predatory rates (either loan or rent-to-own terms). These items are repo'ed quickly.
So, in summary, the bulk of the poor don't live on expensive hardware. There are some that (unwisely) acquire expensive hardware with the help of predatory lenders, but don't get to keep it.
The myth of the ever-idle welfare recipient, munching cheetos while hanging out in front of their big screen TV, is very much just that: a myth.
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I was thinking of a family with five adults. No reason for the children to leave such a profitable nest. The other scenario is a group of adult friends or relatives.
This raises another interesting question. Will there be a population explosion in Switzerland in the medium term?
Check for example this sites/news: http://www.swissworld.org/en/faq/living_in_switzerland/ http://world.time.com/2013/05/01/bachmann-on-switzerland/ http://voices.yahoo.com/how-move-united-states-switzerland-3...
And Swiss don't like too much immigrats, and even cross border workers: http://www3.varesenews.it/english/articolo.php?id=184350
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The 1:12 project is at the same stage as the basic income one: up for referendum. Latest polls showed people were still undecided (vote is at the end of November).
I was under the impression the 1:12 vote already happened and was voted with an overwhelming majority, e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21647937 http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/03/switzerlan... Could you explain the discrepancy ?
In March, Swiss voters backed some of the world's strictest controls
on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a
binding vote on compensation.
A separate proposal to limit monthly executive pay to no more than
what the company's lowest-paid staff earn in a year, the so-called
1:12 initiative, faces a popular vote on November 24.
The model I imagine would also:
* Be paid to all citizens from age zero. Which means it can replace many existing systems, from child support payments and old age pensions.
* Child salaries from ~3 onwards could come in the form of vouchers with limited scope, e.g. accredited education providers, accredited child care services.
And you need to combine it with some further reforms, e.g:
* No minimum wage.
* Pretty much all existing welfare scrapped.
* Reduced work rights (e.g. less onerous unfair dismissal rules)
The underlying goal of such a system would be to dramatically simplify the role of the welfare state, and put the responsibility back on the individual to manage their own welfare.