6 ms·

"Give people the freedom to make their own economic decisions" Why should they be free to make their own decision about how they spend MY money?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
tghw 13y ago
Because the alternative is telling people how to spend it, which will be a less efficient use of that money. We already see this with food stamps and housing vouchers. There are many cases where someone has food stamps, but doesn't have trouble buying food, and so has left over food stamps at the end of the month. Yet they can't afford housing, because you can't pay rent with food stamps.
- drcube 13y ago
  When I was a kid, my mom's poor friends would buy us groceries with their surplus food stamps, and my mom would pay them back in cash so they could actually pay their bills. Does anybody know if this is still possible/prevalent these days with EBT/Link cards?
megaman821 13y ago
Even if you don't believe they should be free to make their own economic decisions. Do you really want 20-50% of YOUR money to be eaten up by administrative costs? Why is the current incomprehensible complex system better than a simple one?
shadowfiend 13y ago
Let's go philosophical here, since you chose to take it that direction. What makes it YOUR money? You earned it, yes? But what gives it value? An agreement with other people, yes? What do we name that agreement with other people? Can there be further stipulations? A price, if you will, for having the convenience of an agreed-upon currency, of a set of courts to seek redress if that agreed-upon currency isn't given to you for the work you've put in? Is it okay with you if that agreement tries to get more wealth into the overall system? How do you know if a solution will succeed at doing that unless you try it? That's a lot of questions, and few answers, of course. But I think considering these ideas through this lens may be useful. The concept of “my” money, “my” property, etc, is something we've agreed on. There's nothing that says there can't be more facets to that agreement. That is what we organize for. And ideas like this, and like welfare, etc, are ideas that are meant to raise well-being. People who do well tend to create, as well. And creation breeds wealth. So while the specific mechanism whereby we encourage this creation and well-being is something that's absolutely up for debate, it's your money only insofar as you're not trading it for a service. In this case, the service is, greater wealth for all. Will it work? I don't know for sure. But experimentation seems like a pretty good way forward, rather than simply sitting on our hands in a world where we believe we can increase well-being, out of fear that maybe our money might be misused along the way. If VCs thought this way, a lot of companies wouldn't exist today.
drcube 13y ago
Because you gave it to them. Don't give them money if you don't want them to have it. Since you voted for a government that distributes welfare from your taxes, the most efficient, effective and humane method of distributing that welfare is to hand out cash with no strings attached. Any additional administration is simply a waste of money, with worse outcomes.
- kristiandupont 13y ago
  >Don't give them money if you don't want them to have it. So you want to make the system optional? If so, how would it be different from somebody simply setting up a charity? Your second statement is pretty bold. I am not necessarily disagreeing but nobody knows what the effects of a system like that would be because we've never tried it.
  - drcube 13y ago
    Yes, we did. Poor laborers often used to get paid in company scrip. You could buy anything you wanted with your paycheck, as long as your boss approved and it was stocked at your company store. Then we started making employers pay people in no-strings-attached cash, and things got a lot better for everyone. Command economies aren't just terrible for nations, but for much smaller economic domains as well. Like company towns, or welfare systems.
swalkergibson 13y ago
In any society, there will be the haves and the have-nots. The transition of wealth between those two groups will always happen, whether by roving gangs of marauders (like in Somalia), or by the government. I personally prefer that the wealth transition occur through government due to the ancillary benefits of things like roads and police, but that is just me.
- rayiner 13y ago
  This is true, but you gloss over one point. Any society will have its haves and have nots, but those will not be the same group of people across societies. In the U.S., the "haves" are pencil neck geeks. In Somalia, they're strongmen. Government creates this cocoon that allows the geeks to thrive. When there is government, and the concomitant law and order, having a good eye for investments is a trait that can make someone a "have." When there is no government, what makes someone a "have" is the ability to lead men in the exercise of violence. At the same time, the "have nots" are not the same group of people either. I think many people rotting away in the ghetto, getting involved in gangs, would in a different sort of society be leaders of men, people of rank. Taxes are what the geeks pay for the government to suppress the people who would otherwise be the "haves."
  - swalkergibson 13y ago
    That is correct, but strongmen in your example exist exclusively to extract money (the ultimate common denominator in almost all societies) from weaker people/tribes. That is my position. Without government, you are obligated to pay your own private security force, driving on your own private roads, paying for your own private healthcare. My position is that you would probably pay a similar percentage of your income to provide these services for yourself than if most everybody contributed to a pot of money to provide these services for the greater good.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      I understand, but my point is that without government, you wouldn't have any money to pay for your own private security force. You'd be a peasant, serving some strongman. It's not like Mark Zuckerberg would just hire a private security force and drive on private roads. He wouldn't be wealthy to begin with, because he would have nothing valuable to offer in a such a society.
seiji 13y ago
All systems end up having waste. Would you deny the millions it would help because maybe 50,000 people use their extra money on drugs, $2000 hand bags, and $500 designer belts?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
dsr_ 13y ago
To begin with, we're talking about tax money here. It's not your money any more. It was your money. Then you gave it to the government. [If it makes you feel better to say that the government forced you to do that, fine. If you want to talk about monopolies of violence, fine. But there's no way you can reasonably consider it your money once it's left your bank account, any more than money you paid to Amazon is still your money.] So, if the government is going to give money to people who are in need, would you prefer it to be spent according to a top-down command economy, Soviet-style, or according to a market economy with maximum information at the edges?
- Xdes 13y ago
  I'd prefer the money to go into big metal bins and be set on fire.
adekok 13y ago
This seems to me a typical US response. Let me give you a perspective from the rest of the world. I've lived for years in multiple countries on multiple continents, so I'm not just talking out my backside. In the rest of the world, the poor people vote for health care, welfare, and unemployment insurance. This is because they want that safety for themselves if something goes wrong. They recognize that these programs are largely insurance. They pay into them in the expectation that most of the time nothing goes wrong, and they're not getting their moneys worth. But when something does go wrong, the insurance is there to help them. In that situation, they get far more out of it than they put in. Their decision to pay insurance is a rational one, based on cost/benefit analysis. It's the same as your decision to buy life insurance, or fire insurance on your house. (Car insurance is usually mandated, so I'll ignore that...) Sure, there are scammers. But the scammers of these programs are individuals. Their impact is limited. The scams done by corporations, and people with the right connections far outweigh the scams done by Joe Average on welfare. In the US, the poor people vote for no health care, no welfare, and no unemployment benefits. They also vote for lower taxes on the rich (corporate, inheritance, etc.). They claim this attitude is because they don't want idiots on welfare spending MY money. You might be well intentioned, but the rest of the world thinks your approach is crazy. Not "Gosh, that's crazy!". But "We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty by reason of mental defect". The disparity between rich and poor in the US has grown enormously in the past 20 years. And it's all because the average joe has bought a line of horse twaddle about "independence" and "welfare mom living off of MY money". The rich people who've sold you that crap are laughing all the way to the bank. And Joe Average is left wondering why he's doing everything he's told... and is still poorer than his parents.
- jeremyjh 13y ago
  You have to understand that much of debate in the US is coded for racism. There are a lot of European bigots who do not want to extend benefits and social services to (legal) immigrants, particularly islamic immigrants. In the US it is the same only the attitudes are also held against large segments of our citizens.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  These programs are not largely insurance. People don't pay into them proportionally to their actuarial costs. I.e., the guy who drifts between jobs, getting fired every few months doesn't pay more for unemployment insurance than the guy who has been stably employed for the past 10 years. The disparity between rich and poor in the US has grown enormously in the past 20 years. And it's all because the average joe has bought a line Nope. The disparity in the US has moved more or less lockstep with the disparity in the rest of the world (with one exception in 1986 when a change in tax law caused income to be shifted from corporate to individual returns). If policy caused it, it's a policy that basically every nation has adopted. http://www.scottwinship.com/1/post/2011/03/what-would-it-mean-for-theories-of-us-income-inequality-growth-if-the-us-experience-has-been-similar-to-that-everywhere-else.html http://www.scottwinship.com/1/post/2011/03/what-would-it-mea...
alaxsxaq 13y ago
You are not really getting much of anywhere with 'your' money in the first place without the benefits you accrue from living in a civil society. Ensuring all citizens of health, housing, and education should be a basic tenant of a civil society and these are the things that allow everyone to prosper and for which everyone in the society should be expected to pay. If you don't want to participate in a civil society, there are still places in this world where you can go and deal with everything on your own. Go.
toomuchtodo 13y ago
You mean society's money you've been granted a temporary license to, under a set of rules. It's never your money or my money.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

tghw 13y ago

Because the alternative is telling people how to spend it, which will be a less efficient use of that money. We already see this with food stamps and housing vouchers. There are many cases where someone has food stamps, but doesn't have trouble buying food, and so has left over food stamps at the end of the month. Yet they can't afford housing, because you can't pay rent with food stamps.

drcube 13y ago
When I was a kid, my mom's poor friends would buy us groceries with their surplus food stamps, and my mom would pay them back in cash so they could actually pay their bills. Does anybody know if this is still possible/prevalent these days with EBT/Link cards?

megaman821 13y ago

Even if you don't believe they should be free to make their own economic decisions. Do you really want 20-50% of YOUR money to be eaten up by administrative costs? Why is the current incomprehensible complex system better than a simple one?

shadowfiend 13y ago

Let's go philosophical here, since you chose to take it that direction. What makes it YOUR money? You earned it, yes? But what gives it value? An agreement with other people, yes? What do we name that agreement with other people? Can there be further stipulations? A price, if you will, for having the convenience of an agreed-upon currency, of a set of courts to seek redress if that agreed-upon currency isn't given to you for the work you've put in? Is it okay with you if that agreement tries to get more wealth into the overall system? How do you know if a solution will succeed at doing that unless you try it? That's a lot of questions, and few answers, of course. But I think considering these ideas through this lens may be useful. The concept of “my” money, “my” property, etc, is something we've agreed on. There's nothing that says there can't be more facets to that agreement. That is what we organize for. And ideas like this, and like welfare, etc, are ideas that are meant to raise well-being. People who do well tend to create, as well. And creation breeds wealth. So while the specific mechanism whereby we encourage this creation and well-being is something that's absolutely up for debate, it's your money only insofar as you're not trading it for a service. In this case, the service is, greater wealth for all. Will it work? I don't know for sure. But experimentation seems like a pretty good way forward, rather than simply sitting on our hands in a world where we believe we can increase well-being, out of fear that maybe our money might be misused along the way. If VCs thought this way, a lot of companies wouldn't exist today.

drcube 13y ago

Because you gave it to them. Don't give them money if you don't want them to have it. Since you voted for a government that distributes welfare from your taxes, the most efficient, effective and humane method of distributing that welfare is to hand out cash with no strings attached. Any additional administration is simply a waste of money, with worse outcomes.

kristiandupont 13y ago
>Don't give them money if you don't want them to have it. So you want to make the system optional? If so, how would it be different from somebody simply setting up a charity? Your second statement is pretty bold. I am not necessarily disagreeing but nobody knows what the effects of a system like that would be because we've never tried it.
- drcube 13y ago
  Yes, we did. Poor laborers often used to get paid in company scrip. You could buy anything you wanted with your paycheck, as long as your boss approved and it was stocked at your company store. Then we started making employers pay people in no-strings-attached cash, and things got a lot better for everyone. Command economies aren't just terrible for nations, but for much smaller economic domains as well. Like company towns, or welfare systems.

swalkergibson 13y ago

In any society, there will be the haves and the have-nots. The transition of wealth between those two groups will always happen, whether by roving gangs of marauders (like in Somalia), or by the government. I personally prefer that the wealth transition occur through government due to the ancillary benefits of things like roads and police, but that is just me.

rayiner 13y ago
This is true, but you gloss over one point. Any society will have its haves and have nots, but those will not be the same group of people across societies. In the U.S., the "haves" are pencil neck geeks. In Somalia, they're strongmen. Government creates this cocoon that allows the geeks to thrive. When there is government, and the concomitant law and order, having a good eye for investments is a trait that can make someone a "have." When there is no government, what makes someone a "have" is the ability to lead men in the exercise of violence. At the same time, the "have nots" are not the same group of people either. I think many people rotting away in the ghetto, getting involved in gangs, would in a different sort of society be leaders of men, people of rank. Taxes are what the geeks pay for the government to suppress the people who would otherwise be the "haves."
- swalkergibson 13y ago
  That is correct, but strongmen in your example exist exclusively to extract money (the ultimate common denominator in almost all societies) from weaker people/tribes. That is my position. Without government, you are obligated to pay your own private security force, driving on your own private roads, paying for your own private healthcare. My position is that you would probably pay a similar percentage of your income to provide these services for yourself than if most everybody contributed to a pot of money to provide these services for the greater good.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    I understand, but my point is that without government, you wouldn't have any money to pay for your own private security force. You'd be a peasant, serving some strongman. It's not like Mark Zuckerberg would just hire a private security force and drive on private roads. He wouldn't be wealthy to begin with, because he would have nothing valuable to offer in a such a society.

seiji 13y ago

All systems end up having waste. Would you deny the millions it would help because maybe 50,000 people use their extra money on drugs, $2000 hand bags, and $500 designer belts?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

dsr_ 13y ago

To begin with, we're talking about tax money here. It's not your money any more. It was your money. Then you gave it to the government. [If it makes you feel better to say that the government forced you to do that, fine. If you want to talk about monopolies of violence, fine. But there's no way you can reasonably consider it your money once it's left your bank account, any more than money you paid to Amazon is still your money.] So, if the government is going to give money to people who are in need, would you prefer it to be spent according to a top-down command economy, Soviet-style, or according to a market economy with maximum information at the edges?

Xdes 13y ago
I'd prefer the money to go into big metal bins and be set on fire.

adekok 13y ago

This seems to me a typical US response. Let me give you a perspective from the rest of the world. I've lived for years in multiple countries on multiple continents, so I'm not just talking out my backside. In the rest of the world, the poor people vote for health care, welfare, and unemployment insurance. This is because they want that safety for themselves if something goes wrong. They recognize that these programs are largely insurance. They pay into them in the expectation that most of the time nothing goes wrong, and they're not getting their moneys worth. But when something does go wrong, the insurance is there to help them. In that situation, they get far more out of it than they put in. Their decision to pay insurance is a rational one, based on cost/benefit analysis. It's the same as your decision to buy life insurance, or fire insurance on your house. (Car insurance is usually mandated, so I'll ignore that...) Sure, there are scammers. But the scammers of these programs are individuals. Their impact is limited. The scams done by corporations, and people with the right connections far outweigh the scams done by Joe Average on welfare. In the US, the poor people vote for no health care, no welfare, and no unemployment benefits. They also vote for lower taxes on the rich (corporate, inheritance, etc.). They claim this attitude is because they don't want idiots on welfare spending MY money. You might be well intentioned, but the rest of the world thinks your approach is crazy. Not "Gosh, that's crazy!". But "We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty by reason of mental defect". The disparity between rich and poor in the US has grown enormously in the past 20 years. And it's all because the average joe has bought a line of horse twaddle about "independence" and "welfare mom living off of MY money". The rich people who've sold you that crap are laughing all the way to the bank. And Joe Average is left wondering why he's doing everything he's told... and is still poorer than his parents.

jeremyjh 13y ago
You have to understand that much of debate in the US is coded for racism. There are a lot of European bigots who do not want to extend benefits and social services to (legal) immigrants, particularly islamic immigrants. In the US it is the same only the attitudes are also held against large segments of our citizens.
yummyfajitas 13y ago
These programs are not largely insurance. People don't pay into them proportionally to their actuarial costs. I.e., the guy who drifts between jobs, getting fired every few months doesn't pay more for unemployment insurance than the guy who has been stably employed for the past 10 years. The disparity between rich and poor in the US has grown enormously in the past 20 years. And it's all because the average joe has bought a line Nope. The disparity in the US has moved more or less lockstep with the disparity in the rest of the world (with one exception in 1986 when a change in tax law caused income to be shifted from corporate to individual returns). If policy caused it, it's a policy that basically every nation has adopted. http://www.scottwinship.com/1/post/2011/03/what-would-it-mean-for-theories-of-us-income-inequality-growth-if-the-us-experience-has-been-similar-to-that-everywhere-else.html http://www.scottwinship.com/1/post/2011/03/what-would-it-mea...

alaxsxaq 13y ago

You are not really getting much of anywhere with 'your' money in the first place without the benefits you accrue from living in a civil society. Ensuring all citizens of health, housing, and education should be a basic tenant of a civil society and these are the things that allow everyone to prosper and for which everyone in the society should be expected to pay. If you don't want to participate in a civil society, there are still places in this world where you can go and deal with everything on your own. Go.

toomuchtodo 13y ago

You mean society's money you've been granted a temporary license to, under a set of rules. It's never your money or my money.