Frank wrote on Jan 25
th, 2022 at 8:48am:
So taxing billionnairs on their assetts would require thdm to sell some of it to get liquid asetts to pay the fax, unless they transferred shares and stocks to the tax office to own by way of tax payment - a daft idea).
Oh.... you are good at perceiving the difficulties of taxing billionaires, so nuttin' can be done....
Quote:On universal wage regardless of ability, contribution, assetts, wealth etc - this would fundamentally change social relations, creating an underclass from which nothing is expected. In essence it would create a class of people, a caste similar to the untouchables or the pre-emancipation negros, a second or third order lumpen prole class.
Which is why MMT'ers prefer a Job Guarantee....but you of course, deluded by classical economics, fall back to your conservative default position which is ..... 'nuttin can be done' (aka 'there is no alternative', TINA, proclaimed by that economic genius, Margaret Thatcher.
Quote:As with legalised drugs, the number of 'users' of the universal wage as their permanent sole source of money (plus petty crime) and permenant relationship tie to the rest of society would grow relentlessly.
Some would however take the opportunity offered by the UBI and start their own businesses; but yes - the UBI is a cop-out to avoid implementing universal above-poverty participation in the economy.
Quote: The whole idea of thriving, initiative, effort, excellence, giving it a go, trying again, failing beter, getting up and keeping going - and all the psychological, social, economic, emotional furniture that comes with such age old values would be radically changed in unforeseen but invariably distopian, degenerate ways.
Certainly life on the dole is a a demoralizing dystopian reality.
Quote:Life is not JUST about money.
After you can pay for the basics, eg good housing, good food and utilities.....yes, so true.
Quote:The fatal flaw of the universal basic income is the same one that hampers most existing anti-poverty programs: a lack of emphasis on encouraging work.
More exactly, failure to actually
engage people in work.
Quote:Instead, these programs have sought to provide directly whatever poor people happen to lack.
Any work program is supposed to enable recipients pay for basics.
Quote: The result has been more than 50 years of massive public outlays, with little benefit other than making recipients dependent on government.
Sometimes you make a correct statement
Quote:The ongoing rise in worker’s disability claims follows a long string of recent expansions of welfare programs, such as food stamps, housing assistance, and even free phones to boost the standard of living among poor citizens.
Welfare is always a disaster, a stop gap; and admission of a dysfunctional economy which fails to engage everyone according to ability, whether in the private sector, or public sector (which will need to act as employer of last resort, when the private sector cannot employ everyone (which is always the case in practice).
Quote:In the long run, this transfer-focused approach to welfare does more than create a disincentive to work. In his book The Welfare Trait, British neurobiologist Adam Perkins argues that dependence on welfare creates work-resistant personalities, which are often passed on from one generation to the next. As one review of Perkins’s work puts it, the welfare state “becomes a production line for damaged kids” and encourages parents in unemployed households to have more children than families led by breadwinners.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/against-universal-basic-income-15636.html All presenting an excellent case for a Job Guarantee., to wit:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Case-Job-Guarantee-Pavlina-Tcherneva/dp/1509542108"
One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that unemployment is both unavoidable and necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy. This assumption has provided cover for the devastating social and economic costs of job insecurity. It is also false.
In this book, leading expert Pavlina R. Tcherneva challenges us to imagine a world where the phantom of unemployment is banished and anyone who seeks decent, living-wage work can find it - guaranteed. This is the aim of the Job Guarantee proposal: to provide a voluntary employment opportunity in public service to anyone who needs it. Tcherneva enumerates the many advantages of the Job Guarantee over the status quo and proposes a blueprint for its implementation within the wider context of the need for a Green New Deal.
This compact primer is the ultimate guide to the benefits of one of the most transformative public policies being discussed today. It is essential reading for all citizens and activists who are passionate about social justice and building a fairer economy"....but you of course - being a comfortable conservative- will deny the possibility of tax reform, the possibility of implementing universal participation in the economy, and be satisfied with just blaming poverty on its victims; even as poverty is killing 24,000 people a day while billionaires continue to double their wealth in their sleep....
Nice.
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