I am for some reason pleased to be reminded that we are not the only country in the world with stupid, stupid, dumb, idiotic, foolish irresponsible feckless moronic leaders.
What could go wrong? Can some Finn say ‘Greece?”
Sorry, Mr Fin, but pulling yourself off the ground by your own bootstraps is a physical impossibility. All that money you spread around has to be taken out of the economy first, which if left where it is could do far more to lift all boats than consumer spending versus capital formation/production.
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From whence will the cash come to do this?
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I will send my address as soon as they stop considering and get down to a decision.
An extra grand a month will buy a few ribeyes and plenty of cat food.
I'll even commit an extra $100 to FR.
It’s contrary to the laws of human nature and therefore destined to be a disaster as it has been every time it’s been tried in an form ever.
this sound liek the fair tax system
It’s not a “good” solution — but, it’s “less bad” than the mish-mash of existing social-welfare programs.
According to the laws of economics, the price of everything will see a concomitant rise, thus wiping out the supposed “benefits” of this extra income. Everyone will thus be back where they were before, with the exception that the government coffers will be that much more reduced and will have to be replenished with: higher taxes.
End result? The poorer will be all the poorer.
Just because this will be a simpler system, what are the odds that they will lay off a single bureaucrat?
Someone explain to me how the prices of everything won’t rise to meet this increase in disposable income, similar to how college tuition has gone up at the same rate as easy access to student loans.
Democrats do that monthly in exchane for a vote.
And they have the same problem we have here; people don’t want to work a low paying job because they get more benefits not working.
I used to work for a public employee union. Figuring out that the State pays more for employees that approve food stamps than they pay for the actual food stamps, I suggested it would save the State money if people wanted food stamps all they had to submit is an ID, there would be a cap on how much one person could get a month. That would cut out a lot of employees. I thought I was going to get fired for just saying that.
Best welfare idea ever. I wish we could do that. Cutting out the bureaucracies involved and even cutting a LOT of bennies the gibmedats are getting now would be awesome. However, we would have to make sure that ONLY US citizens would be receiving these benefits. So, some of the old bureaucracy would be required, but it would be minimal.
Milton Friedman pointed out that the only income redistribution program which did not create perverse incentives was one of the form Finland is considering: no means-testing, just a check to everyone on a regular basis. Not only are all the poverty bureaucrats put out of work and obliged to find productive jobs (or subsist on the common guaranteed income), but there ceases to be any incentive to avoid taking jobs to earn money for fear of losing benefits, any incentive to have out-of-wedlock children to get the child benefits (note: it’s a check to each adult citizen), or for any of the other parasitic behaviors encouraged by means-tested poverty relief programs.
The real question is the cost, which is hard to work out. It should be taxable income, so the well-off would have part of it taxed back to the government, so the actual cost is not 12 x monthly payment amount x number of adult citizens, but (12 x monthly payment amount x number of adult citizens) - (annual cost of all poverty relief programs it replaces + taxes on the payments (which are at each recipient’s top marginal rate)).
Hunger is God’s motivator, not welfare.
Don’t feed the bears!
Because....
If you insist on providing “safety nets” it’s probably not a bad idea. No paperwork, no BS, everybody gets a check, handle it.
I agree, it’s not a bad idea. In the future, our labor force will become increasingly automated. We will need engineers and programmers, but let’s face it, not everyone is smart enough to get that kind of job. So what do we do with the masses of unemployed?