81–90 of 540 posts
If it’s free then you’re the product …
Really? You're the product of, say, your local fire department?
Saving people and a local healthcare force are fringe benefits, accounting wise.
It's not an unmitigated positive, instead it's a transparent move to paper over the high cost of housing by getting both parents to work. Of course housing prices will adjust accordingly, the supply remains the same, and the demand side has more money to spend.
Can't read the whole article, but am curious about how it will impact unlicensed childcare operations. I imagine that the number of parents using these is much higher than many people realize. Will be interesting to see how many parents end up using the state program.
Until very recently in human history 100% of childcare operations were unlicensed, and this was better in every way than a government bureaucracy run system.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget the "1% of the recipients are fraudulent, therefore the other 99% must spend 10 hours on paperwork and 6 months waiting for the benefits to start, with a 30% chance of rejection" approach.
Have you considered that the reason it's only 1% is because they are strict and have a high rejection rate?
With the current system, far fewer than 100% of the people intended to benefit will actually make the cut.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally agree. However, this only works in a high trust society, which we no longer have.
While in a low trust society, which you obviously already have, people are most productive when they're at perpetual risk of starvation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, it turns out that things like free health care, adequate food, good schools, and all that other socialist mumbo jumbo is actually good for productivity and the economy, too.
I wonder how many people would start businesses if we had UBI and free health care as a safety net.
A lot of the UBI trials have actually had disappointing results. The arguments usually claim that it’s not a valid test because it wasn’t guaranteed for life, or the goalposts move to claim that UBI shouldn’t be about anything other than improving safety nets.
Unfortunately I think the UBI that many people imagine is a lot higher than any UBI that would be mathematically feasible. Any UBI system that provided even poverty level wages would require significant tax increases to pay for it, far beyond what you could collect from the stereotypical “just tax billionaires” ideal. Try multiplying the population of the US by poverty level annual income and you’ll see that the sum total is a huge number. In practice, anyone starting a business would probably end up paying more in taxes under a UBI scheme than they’d collect from the UBI payments.
Can't read the whole article, but am curious about how it will impact unlicensed childcare operations. I imagine that the number of parents using these is much higher than many people realize. Will be interesting to see how many parents end up using the state program.
Until very recently in human history 100% of childcare operations were unlicensed, and this was better in every way than a government bureaucracy run system.
If it’s free then you’re the product …
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, it turns out that things like free health care, adequate food, good schools, and all that other socialist mumbo jumbo is actually good for productivity and the economy, too.
Totally agree. However, this only works in a high trust society, which we no longer have.
The same is true of quality public education etc, however creating US vs THEM narratives are politically powerful even if they don’t actually reflect reality.