371–380 of 433 posts
COVID was the largest wealth transfer in our generation, from children as young as kindergarten (who will pay prices with the reduced social and IQ growth due to quarantine and school shut downs), millennials and GenZ to boomers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is spending money on the rich considered an investment whereas spending money on the poor is considered welfare? For example, it is clear that investments made in public school education has much higher returns.
> it is clear that investments made in public school education has much higher returns do you have evidence of increasing funding to public education directly resulting in better outcomes in general? obviously better schools are usually better funded, but i can't imagine how throwing money at a bad school would result in better education...
Would a [premined, escrowed] stablecoin token make it easier to answer these kinds of Transparency and Accountability questions in regards to government spending and government stimulus funding beyond intra-governmental transfers of real value? Said stablecoin token would be hosted on more or more resilient Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs; 'blockchains') with a - indeed more auditable - transaction record speci…
no
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since we are speaking about the US, the numbers I provided were us specific and anything that is done would be financed via us taxes, I'm pretty confident everyone knows I'm referring to the US as a whole. "realize that the poorest of the USA are richer than many people around the world and should pay their welfare" Why should us taxes subsidize world welfare (not that it already doesn't)?
Of course, when we're talking about a UBI, there are always some geographic distributions of wealth that one might quibble with: from large urban states to rural states. Taxes paying for UBI flowing out of California will exceed UBI flowing into California; taxes paying for UBI flowing out of Wyoming will be dwarfed by UBI flowing into Wyoming. And, further, beyond the balance of transfers in absolute dollars-- $1000…
I used to listen to a podcast I enjoyed about a small and rapidly growing tech company in Oregon, someone I had personally met a few years back at a conference - which is where I first learned of the company; they work in the e-commerce space and I enjoyed listening to the founder talk about the trials and tribulations of growing his company; when covid hit, the company grew like gangbusters (like just abut every onl…
So in your opinion it was the companies fault that they didn't purposely leave a competitive advantage on the table while their competition surely utilized it? It seems that you judge from a place of detached ignorance. We are going through a pandemic and that business owner may very well be worried the bottom will fall out any moment and if that owner has employees it is their responsibility to prepare as much as po…
Yes, absolutely. People who are making money hands over fist should not be lining up for corporate welfare just because everyone else is.
It's too bad so many people are OK with disgusting behavior - just because 'everyone is doing it'.
How much better could we take care of people that truly needed assistance, if we didn't have to worry about making sure that the large numbers of people who don't actually need the help, weren't also lining up at the trough.
Amazing to me that people will continue to make excuses for rich pr*cks that abuse the system to enrich themselves at everyone else's expense.
I used to listen to a podcast I enjoyed about a small and rapidly growing tech company in Oregon, someone I had personally met a few years back at a conference - which is where I first learned of the company; they work in the e-commerce space and I enjoyed listening to the founder talk about the trials and tribulations of growing his company; when covid hit, the company grew like gangbusters (like just abut every onl…
So in your opinion it was the companies fault that they didn't purposely leave a competitive advantage on the table while their competition surely utilized it? It seems that you judge from a place of detached ignorance. We are going through a pandemic and that business owner may very well be worried the bottom will fall out any moment and if that owner has employees it is their responsibility to prepare as much as po…
Are you OK with upper middle class and rich people getting in line at 'no questions asked' food banks? even though they don't need the help? taking away food from people that actually need it?
If so, please explain the the difference.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, because the tax is only on the price someone would pay for the lot.
Restating the definition does not magically conjure a sensible strategy for arriving at that value.
So I'm going to try to say something different.
1. Here is the article that convinces me it is very possible to assess land separate from improvements. It details several strategies for doing so. Also properties are assessed in these ways already in many places. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/does-georgism-work-par...
2. Accuracy of assessment does not need to be super high for this idea to work. You just need an assessment with the intent of assessing unimproved land. The tax does not need to be literally 100% of unimproved land value, it just has to be a high percentage. Let's say there is a +/- 30% accuracy of unimproved land value assessment. We can have a 70% tax on that assessed value. Some people would in actuality be taxed at 97.5% of land value, and some people at 52.5% of land value. Perhaps the unfairness of this discrepancy is a true downside. However, one could argue the same about property taxes now.
I know a few upper-middle class small business owners (all non-retail sectors) whose businesses weren't substantially affected by the pandemic, but who basically got a free handout as part of the program. Two mentioned how they were initially hesitant to apply for money, but then worried that if they didn't, their business could take a downturn after it was too late. Then as long as they spent the money on payroll (w…
We felt a bit guilty taking some of the money from the handout, until we saw how much more all the companies around us took. It all got snatched up as quick as companies could adjust their numbers to qualify. While we were affected by a reduction in orders at beginning of the pandemic , we would have survived without layoffs anyway. But we decided to take the money and hold on to it in case the situation got worse. N…