111–120 of 142 posts
Would this reduce administration cost also? We always hear of charities where 20 cents on the dollar actually makes it to the people. If this can reduce admin cost by not having to make, control or follow up on conditions it could really help more money get to where it is needed.
As a matter of fact, society has not a single valid reason to allow concentration of excessive wealth on some kind of restricted group or "elite" (as, by the way, also promoted erroneously by the idea of the "American Dream"). Here are a few facts to explain that this concept is not sane at all: - Excessive wealth is usually hoarded (in bank accounts), not used: But if you want the economy to work the most (creating…
pg once pointed out there may be far fewer startups in a society that does not allow concentration of excessive wealth. That's at least one single valid reason. http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html "People start startups in the hope of becoming much richer than they were before. And if your society tries to prevent anyone from being much richer than anyone else, it will also prevent one person from being much richer…
There will be far more individual entrepreneurial efforts in a society which does a better job of insuring that: 1) People have the basic needs reliably met independent of wage-labor arrangements, reducing the incentive to choose wage labor of entrepreneurship, and, 2) Marginal taxes are kept low for those who have not yet acheived above average wealth, increasing the ability to acheive moderate concentrations of wealth and for people other than the excessively wealthy to self-fund entrepreneurial efforts.
These may tend to be more "lifestyle businesses" than "startups", but I don't see any reason to see the latter as having greater social value than the former.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, most low earners are receiving more back in benefits of various types than anything they pay into the system. Thus if you replace these systems with mandatory investments, you are reducing their available cash.
I think you're either misunderstanding me or how social security works. I'm only talking about replacing social security, not "these systems". Everyone who gets a paycheck pays their 6% in social security, regardless of income level.
Social security tax is 12.4% on the first $113,700 of wages or self-employment income, and 0% on income from all other sources and wages and self-employment income past the first $113,700, so, no, you don't pay "6% in social security, regardless of income level".
(Note that on wages, but not self-employment income for obvious reasons, half of the 12.4% is paid as 'employer share', so that the employee never sees it, so it might appear, if you look only at wage withholding, that the rate is 6% -- or rather, 6.2% -- but that's not accurate.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But "the government" is people. The way matter is subatomic particles. The same thing at very different scales exhibit very different properties, and although technically true, it's misleading to consider governments as sets of people. They lack some essential features exhibited by individuals and small groups, features which we aptly call _humanity_. The parent's proposal is to delegate stuff which require humanit…
Poorly executed centralization easily turns into communism, which fails spectacularly on anything but tribal scales. Decentralization sure has its problems, but tends to beat the alternatives. Of course, where you end up in each system and how you benefit/suffer there may influence whether you agree.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like a recipe for even worse corruption. Pay into your friend's charity, have your friend pay into your charity. Make a deal with a homeless person that if you get back half of what you give them you'll give them a lot of money. You can continue on your own.
Not to mention taking advantage of the deduction by "volunteering" at your friend's charity in some kind of fuzzily-defined "advisory" role, probably by attending a series of "thought camps" with your friend at his villa in The Bahamas or chalet in Klosters.
I think humanity would still gain a lot, even if we cause a few new problems here and there.
Here is a wild concept, mandate that people take care of people. Use the government only to enforce this. The government is full of corruption and waste, they are innefective in matters that require an actual soul (such as people who have made mistakes, people who have no reason to care, impoverished people, prisoners ETC.)... What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to…
Something totally unheard of in charities or churches for that matter?
> What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to help with it.
I cannot see how this would not lead to a very disproportional distribution of welfare. Very few people, I guess, would rather give their money to rehabilitated murderers or sex offenders than to orphans or abused women for example.
Here is a wild concept, mandate that people take care of people. Use the government only to enforce this. The government is full of corruption and waste, they are innefective in matters that require an actual soul (such as people who have made mistakes, people who have no reason to care, impoverished people, prisoners ETC.)... What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to…
I've had similar thoughts on social security. It would make a lot of sense to simply require citizens to save or invest a certain portion of their annual income. You could have enforced diversification (certain percentages allowed for high vs. low risk), and accreditation boards to vet and approve mutual and index funds. Also, the investment would have a very stimulative effect on the economy, and you could probably…
Oh, the irony.
Those who have for centuries fooled the rest of humanity into believing that their unearned, illegitimate, and unwarranted elevated status is justified know the findings of this painfully obvious fact to be true. Which is why they pull out all and every stop to prevent the majority from realizing it by vilifying anyone and anything that could spread that realization.
I am far from asserting that we have a fully equitable system, of either opportunity or outcome, but remember that inequality is an unavoidable result of private property and freedom of choice. (For example, give everyone $100,000 and freedom to spend or save as they will, and check back in ten years.) If there can be any voluntary spending for the benefit of your children, then inequality will persist and be magnified across generations.
Here is a wild concept, mandate that people take care of people. Use the government only to enforce this. The government is full of corruption and waste, they are innefective in matters that require an actual soul (such as people who have made mistakes, people who have no reason to care, impoverished people, prisoners ETC.)... What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to…
Charities existed, in robust force, for a long time before the government stepped in and confiscated so much money from people they didn't have much left to care for others as they saw fit. We had charities all over the place competing for this money, and did produce far better results than the abysmal record of the state/federal social services, until the government stepped in and made it terribly difficult to provi…
>realizing that something done poorly is better than nothing and requiring something better leads to nothing
Oh my god you actually typed it.
Or we can adequately fund our social programs so that they are held to a certain standard and don't depend on the whims of the middle and upper classes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Governments exist to give everyone a basic set required services. I think even the biggest free market/ small government advocate would agree that access to clean drinking water is one of those services.
But access to college and health care isn't??
Case in point: my grandparents are on medicare. They pay basically nothing for it. One of them just had bypass surgery and the other a knee replacement. Cost to them: $0.
We pretty much have universal access healthcare in the US before the Obamacare stuff if you go through the system.