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In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

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Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#61

Post by Tanoc »

SoftTalker wrote: post #17
kiba wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land price will adjust accordingly in response to any positive economic news. If you want an unalloy good to come out of these programs, tax lands. Otherwise, any welfare program will just get some of its value captured by landlords.

Land value tax won't help unless you greatly reduce the zoning and regulation over what can be built on the land. Putting the land to its most efficient use isn't possible if all you're allowed to build is a two-story detached single family house.

You don't reduce the regulation, you increase it's flexibility. Such as allowing dynamic zoning where an area that is zoned as medium density residential automatically becomes hybrid high density residential/low commercial once the districts zoned around it as low density residential are filled.

The issue is we zone something and it stays that way until it's manually reviewed and rezoned. The district has no ability to change itself according to the circumstances. It has to rely on a third party that acts without due haste and with great reluctance.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#62

Post by roywiggins »

999900000999 wrote: post #18
diogenescynic wrote: post #5

Medicare should cover children. Then we'd be covering children and the elderly. I think that seems fair--children deserve healthcare (just like education) as a fundamental right. It shouldn't be dependent on their parents.

It should cover everyone. No body goes to the doctor because they want to. I'll dare say it would be a net positive to even expand this to the undocumented. Many of them have dependents, it's not going to be great if your dad can't afford his insulin and is thus unable to work to provide for you. This includes a large percentage of our farm workers who are literally getting sprayed with pesticides all day. That's ano…

> No body goes to the doctor because they want to.

This isn't entirely true, there are entire industries catering to the worried well, eg expensive precautionary full-body MRIs with unclear scientific backing, whatever it is Bryan Johnson is doing and selling these days, etc.

And exactly what counts as need flexes and changes depending on circumstance and who is asking. "Do I need a doctor for this" is not a question that everyone answers the same way.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#63

Post by rtuulik »

gfiorav wrote: post #34

This is one of my pet peeves. If you believe in the welfare state concept, you should never refer to anything that’s subsidized as “free.” It’s a recipe for disaster. As a European who was uprooted and settled in the US, I’ve become painfully aware of how little we Europeans comprehend the workings of the economy. I believe this is partly due to the propaganda surrounding the welfare state as “free.” Of course, nothi…

Its free at the endpoint for user. That's what the "free" means here. No one is pretending that resources for things like roads, police, firefighting, primary schooling and others come out of nothingness and don´t have any cost.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#64

Post by Workaccount2 »

analog31 wrote: post #22
seneca wrote: post #9

[flagged]

If a tavern puts out a sign saying "free beer," nobody needs to point out that someone is paying for the beer. There's no confusion about this.

I know this sounds cold, but the people who most utilize "free" things are the absolute least likely to understand it's not free.

Most people think the state is a machine of infinite money, and the only thing preventing $1 million checks in the mail to everyone is corporate lobbyists protecting the elite.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#65

Post by seneca »

jeromegv wrote: post #31
seneca wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that hides most of the facts about how it works. There are a lot of parties involved in this, including people paying for it and being paid for it, and those paying probably out number those getting it for free at point of use. Sweeping that under the rug is just a sales ploy, which shows what the outlet wants you to believe about this program.

[flagged]

Me? I'm not opposed to it. I think tax-payer funded attempts to increase birthrates in our own population are a good idea. We should be doing more to encourage people to have and raise children.

I'm opposed to weasel words and intentionally misleading people about how economies and governments work. I'm also not particularly confident encouraging people to have their children raised by strangers is a good idea.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#66

Post by smileysteve »

seneca wrote: post #45
analog31 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a tavern puts out a sign saying "free beer," nobody needs to point out that someone is paying for the beer. There's no confusion about this.

A tavern isn't funded by taxes. They're giving away their own money. A government doesn't have its own money, it is giving away tax payer money.

It's less so the taverns own money and more so that the food, wine, bar (or future visits) subsidize the beer, ie the food is taxed so that the beer is free.

Same with credit card rewards, they're not paid for by the bar, they're paid for by volume at the bar, debit/cash transactions, and the savings on cash controls, and the people that can't payoff their credit card bill.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#67

Post by not_a_shill »

diogenescynic wrote: post #5

Medicare should cover children. Then we'd be covering children and the elderly. I think that seems fair--children deserve healthcare (just like education) as a fundamental right. It shouldn't be dependent on their parents.

Medicaid does cover children

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#68

Post by doctorpangloss »

gfiorav wrote: post #34

This is one of my pet peeves. If you believe in the welfare state concept, you should never refer to anything that’s subsidized as “free.” It’s a recipe for disaster. As a European who was uprooted and settled in the US, I’ve become painfully aware of how little we Europeans comprehend the workings of the economy. I believe this is partly due to the propaganda surrounding the welfare state as “free.” Of course, nothi…

You shouldn’t be downvoted, kind of a lame part of HN lately.

I disagree that it’s a recipe for disaster - there are many valid kinds of holistic experiences of how a product is priced / sold, that don’t change the positivist economics of what is happening.

As long as childcare is economically positive, I think it is, it doesn’t really matter whatever you call it. And perhaps, it’s free in a way that matters most: redistribution from the very rich, that makes more customers with bigger budgets to spend on shit made by the firms they own.

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