A Town Without Poverty?

The Dominion ^ | 9/5/2011 | VIVIAN BELIK

[ksen]

A Basic Income Guarantee results in more mothers staying with their children, more teens graduating high school, better health, and higher wages.

It doesn't result in the Freeloader myth or tyranny.

And before you scream, "SOCIALISM!!!! :doom:" just understand that Freidrich Hayek was for a Universal Basic Income as a necessary part of a great society (see Law, Legislation and Liberty vol 3 page 55)

[ksen]

IB4Z

[Hulka]

Knock yourself out. . .just don't take MY hard-earned money to pay for it.

I earned MY money, I earned my standard of living. I earned everything I have. . .and being a middle-class white male, it wasn't easy.

For every Canadian (”America's Hat”) example of the greatness and goodness of socialism, history is chocked full of dismal (and lethal) failures.

And I'll bet the small community in the Canadian study was more of a ethnically homogenized "community" sharing common cultural standards than an urban jungle where feral thugs prowl and prey. Try that minimum income thing in, say, Wash DC or Detroit and see where it gets you.

[squarebarb]

This lasted for only four years. The article cites the case of a man who finally got a job as a janitor and thenwent on to hold it for 28 years, without the GAI. Only four years does not really show the effects. People were still living on the ‘cultural capital’ of a society that taught work is good, self-sufficiency is good, being married n order to raise children is good, etc.

For the effects after a few more years, another generation, look at Native American reservations both in Canada and the US, also the white working class of Britan, also the African American populations of large cities which in effect have a GAI. Native Ameicans live almost completely on public monies. the results in all these cases are alcoholism, (also: Russia) violence, people without internal controls, fatherless children and the pyschic distortion of women-only families, and I could go on but people already know this.

So this stdy of only four years has no relevance.

[GeronL]

and I bet the other half of the ton paid high taxes to support this?

Oh wait, the money came from outside of town? So how is this experiment worth anything?

The town itself cannot afford to fund this program, the state and federal levels could not afford it either.

Today we spend a trillion bucks and distribute about $300 billion to the “poor” while the rest pays for bureaucracy. We should just merge all welfare into one program for the truly poor, heck add unemployment to it- why make it a seperate program?... Just hand out cash monthly if they show up in person monthly. Abolish 90% of the welfare bureaucracy.

Liberals would never agree to that of course.

Mincome for all is retarded though

[lowbridge]

” A Town Without Poverty...”

...is a town without democrats.

[ksen]

Knock yourself out. . .just don't take MY hard-earned money to pay for it.

You do realize don't you that your response is why government assistance is need since your too damn stingy to help out people who need it.

I earned MY money, I earned my standard of living. I earned everything I have. . .and being a middle-class white male, it wasn't easy.

Cool story bro. Us white guys have had it real rough.

For every Canadian (”America's Hat”) example of the greatness and goodness of socialism, history is chocked full of dismal (and lethal) failures.

You're so deluded that you're really going to call a program advocated by libertarian hero Hayek as socialist?

And I'll bet the small community in the Canadian study was more of a ethnically homogenized "community" sharing common cultural standards than an urban jungle where feral thugs prowl and prey. Try that minimum income thing in, say, Wash DC or Detroit and see where it gets you.

Hahaha unbelievable . . . wait, it's actually not.

[lowbridge]

” During the Mincome program, the federal and provincial governments collectively spent $17 million, though it was initially supposed to have cost only a few million.”

Typical.

[tiki]

From my observances getting off welfare is about as hard as getting off of drugs and liberal politicians make it that way.

I don’t know the answers but it is way too easy to slide by on welfare than work. A woman with a couple of kids gets everything from health care to housing to food and then she can shack up with a guy who works and not tell the authorities and get that extra cash.

One of the problems is that if you get a full time minimum wage job you are in worse shape than when you weren’t working so there is no incentive.

[Responsibility2nd]

$1200 per year. Probably Canadian dollars. Convert that to US dollars, adjust for 2012 inflation and try offering that sum to the welfare bums in the United States.

They would shreik in protest at being ripped off. Probably 1/10 of what they normally get from Uncle Sugar.

[SargeK]

I'm sure it did make things better for the recipients. And, maybe the recipients mostly did continue to work. But who pays for it? If the value of work is not supported by market economics, then whatever the difference is is being taken from someone else - redistributed as it were.

Two problems with applying this to today. Recipients continued to work because they always did work - work was a habit and part of their culture. Not so with much of todays' American dependent class. Also, paying someone more than the value of their labor is unsustainable if applied to large swaths of the economy. The money either has to come from punishing taxation (a disincentive for productive workers), consumption taxes (regressive) or borrowing and money printing (Like we are doing now - in the long run terminal.)

I'm sure there are legions of post-graduate level puppeteers, avante garde performance artists and street corner stand-up comics who'd love to pursue their vocations and be provided a comfortable income level guaranteed by the Federal Gubmint. I'm sure that the street corners would be more colorful and entertaining as a result. Right up until the whole thing goes bust and we get this:

But, come to think of it, that's pretty entertaining too.

[concerned about politics]

In America, if you're paid not to work - you don't.
People from around the globe come here for their "free gift."

In this study, people were EXPECTED to do well, in fact, encouraged to improve their lives. In America, people are encouraged to VOTE for free stuff so they never have to get out of bed in the morning.

In America, sloth is rewarded at the tune of $40 - $60,000 annually. The average tax payer, who makes an average of only $40,000, is being asked to work harder, longer, and pay more. (Workers in America are severely punished for their disobedience.)

This is why America is broke. The freeloaders and their annual freebies have outnumbered and out-scrounged the laborers. The grasshoppers are bleeding the ants dry, and everyone is about to starve.

A temporary safety net is fine for those who find themselves in financial dire straights, but in America, that safety net broke a long time ago, and it's been replaced by millions of freeloading condos.

Today, those who need the temporary net can't get it, because they're not part of a left wing voting block. They made the mistake of actually trying to work for a living (they "acted stupidly").

[Maine Mariner]

“Conservative senator Hugh Segal has been the biggest supporter of this kind of GI, claiming it would eliminate the social assistance programs now administered by the provinces and territories. Rather than having a separate office to administer child tax benefits, welfare, unemployment insurance and income supplement for seniors, they could all be rolled into one GI scheme.”

In his book Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman said the same thing-abolish all welfare programs etc and provide cash income to the poor. On FR a few days ago we spent $60,000 per person for those in poverty.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MILTON FRIEDMAN BORN 100 YEARS AGO THIS YEAR. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HIS BOOK CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM
PUBLISHED 50 YEARS AGO. His book helped launch the conservative revival.

[Responsibility2nd]

You're so deluded that you're really going to call a program advocated by libertarian hero Hayek as socialist?

 

I'll go further than that. Number 1. Libertarians are not heroes. They're scum. 2. Hayek was no conservative. How do we know that? He wrote a damn book!

Why I Am Not a Conservative

by F. A. Hayek
by F. A. Hayek

 

 

In The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960)

Number 3. I don't care if you are a class of '98. I add a dittoes to what was posted upthread: IBTZ

[John O]

hulka->Knock yourself out. . .just don't take MY hard-earned money to pay for it.

ksen->You do realize don't you that your response is why government assistance is need since your too damn stingy to help out people who need it.

He never said he was too stingy to pay for it. He said don't steal his money to do it. Charity is a free will offering. If he doesn't want to give, who are you, or anyone else for that matter, to FORCE him to give.

Prior to the welfare state we had less problems with poverty in this country than we do now. People who really needed help went to the churches and got help. That allowed someone to make sure they really needed help and the churches saw to it that they didn't become junkies for free money.

Cool story bro. Us white guys have had it real rough.

We have. We've been carrying most of the non-whites for decades. When do we get to enjoy the fruit of our labor rather than have it confiscated at the point of a gun?

You're so deluded that you're really going to call a program advocated by libertarian hero Hayek as socialist?

If it involved taking money by force from some people in order to give it to others than it is socialism. If Hayek advocated this then he betrayed libertarianism. (Now if he advocated taking up a voluntary contribution to do this it would be OK. That's what we had before the welfare state)

[ksen]

If you don’t want workers able to unionize in order to get more negotiating power then I think this is the next best way to empower workers. If you don’t NEED to take that crappy $7.50/hr job to do things like eat and live then you can hold out for a higher paying job or if enough people refuse to take bad jobs for even worse wages then it will force employers to raise wages.

It reminds me when people would say that mexicans do jobs americans don’t want to. Well, to be accurate the statement should have been mexicans do jobs for wages that americans wouldn’t do them for.

A Basic Income leads to more liberty and more happiness for society.

[SIDENET]

“Mincome” sounds like something from a dystopia novel.

[ksen]

Do you burn copies of The Road to Serfdom?

Is Milton Friedman scum too?

[concerned about politics]

You do realize don't you that your response is why government assistance is need since your too damn stingy to help out people who need it.

If the government wasn't robbing the tax payer blind - so freeloaders can skate through life without working one day of their miserable, lazy lives - people would have 50% more income and a lot of extra cash for charity.
Through charity, those in WANT would not be served, but those in NEED would be given a cup that runeth over. They would have more than they could ever dream of.

When money is confiscated by the government through force, people rebel. When money is given to charity through the heart, people are very generous.

The problem with the "poor" in this country is democrat sloth. They never do anything for anyone - not even themselves. They lay around in bed all day eating Twinkies and demanding more. There are very few truly needy people in this country, and they're barely getting squat. The lazy freeloaders are devouring it all, and every four years they vote for more.

[rusureitflies?]

dido...”they wanted to work”... ain’t so here, mcgee... 2 yrs? how about generations? lest Forget forgot.