4 ms·
I feel similarly about incomes; employers ought to write a single check all at once. You get paid on Jan 1st and that's it. Perhaps as a stretch goal we can aim
by ip26 8y ago
I feel similarly about incomes; employers ought to write a single check all at once. You get paid on Jan 1st and that's it. Perhaps as a stretch goal we can aim for decennial paychecks.
In seriousness, a steady flow instead of a lump sum has benefits for both sides of the transaction.
For example, I shudder to imagine what shopping sprees politicians might engage in, were they bequeathed with the nation's entire yearly budget in one day!
- wutbrodo 8y ago> For example, I shudder to imagine what shopping sprees politicians might engage in, were they bequeathed with the nation's entire yearly budget in one day! The USG has more flexibility with spending relative to liquid resources than pretty much any entity in the world. I can assure that having tax receipts directly in the bank has nothing to do with the way we spend and would have even less to do with the psychology of our representatives
- ip26 8y agoNo offense but I'm not prepared to inform my policy opinions on the basis of your assurance.
- wutbrodo 8y agoWe're rather far from discussing any substantive changes in policy, leaving aside the fact that you only have a single vote to cast. This is an incredibly bizarre response to someone making the case that you have a factually inaccurate model of the way policy works. On the other hand, I appreciate your comment in that the psychology on display here is another data point in helping me understand the psychology of how an ostensibly voter-driven government can be so consistently stupid and backwards: If people's response to "you're misunderstanding how this works" is effectively "my opinion is as important as any fact"
- ip26 8y agosomeone making the case that you have a factually inaccurate model of the way policy works Your case was basically "trust me, I'm right".
- pertymcpert 8y agoYou have no clue how any of this works. Just stop.
- mises 8y agoHe's unfortunately right. I would like to think that slowly disbursing funds over the course of a year would help, but it doesn't. The feds have essentially unlimited capacity to borrow, as evidenced by their constantly running a deficit. It also makes things more expensive in terms of paperwork/administrative bloat on the part of the government, employer, and consumer.