where replies to a comment are identified only because of indentation
No, they're not. They are 2-dimensionally visually nested by borders and include a link to scroll to the parent post. Try disabling the border on #commentlisting li.comment.full, #comments.full
no one has ever complained about that
Beta made it worse and everybody complained about that. And rightfully so.
AMD Ryzens run much cooler compared to their Intel counterparts, unless you want to void your warranty and delid your Intel CPU: http://wccftech.com/intel-core...
that even relatively stupid people manage to follow
This deserves repeating.
People tend to expect flawless behavior from AI for it to be viable, but we have little issue with 50% of drivers on the road 'driving like shit'. People lose their shit if you even suggest that people should retake their driving exams every five years. We literally regularly say that tons of other people are terrible drivers. There are at least 3 people in my group(s) of friends that I do not trust at all and actively avoid as drivers. One of them has actually almost gotten me killed when she was driving us. This is extrapolation, but I'm under the impression that about 33% of my friends, whether I have been their passenger or not is a terrible driver. And most of my friends are quite intelligent and thus don't even have the excuse of being stupid.
I can't wait for self-driving cars to become the norm.
"One of the main purposes of inflation and interest policy is to prevent people from saving all their money and postponing purchases."
No, we have inflation and low interest rates because of excessive borrowing. It is not a policy per se
Yes, it is: "While excessive inflation and hyperinflation have negative economic consequences, deflation's negative consequences for the economy can be just as bad or worse. Consequently, policy makers since the end of the 20th century have attempted to keep inflation steady at 2% per year" ( http://www.investopedia.com/te... )
This is macroeconomics 101 stuff.
As one who has a degree in economics I feel qualified to seriously disagree with this statement. People need to save, in order to provide capital for investment. Quantitative easing dries up capital markets, diminishing bond returns, pumping up the stock market, and discouraging saving. Again you're taking an effect and declaring it a cause.
Your degree in economics is not worth much, given the previous assertion on inflation, so I will disregard your appeal to authority. Quantitative easing has nothing to do with what the ideal consumer looks like from an economics point of view. As to your point about investment: I was talking about the ideal consumer. There are tons of institutions that provide capital for investment, for instance: - The government - Enterprises - Banks - Insurance companies (a consumer spends his money on insurance fees, but this money does not evaporate -- instead it is pooled in an institution) These obviously should not spend almost all their money immediately. Big, big difference.
The fantasy that Northern European countries prove that socialism works is just that, a fantasy. Their systems are simply fucked up in a different way than ours, and the people there complain just as much as people here do. Your allegations of xenophobia are false, people are nervous there because crime is going up and they are concerned about their safety due to the open border policies. I've spent quite a bit of time there, not as a tourist but as a worker, and the good old USA is still a heck of a lot nicer. Folks there want our system, did you know that?
This is pretty much all bullshit and I'm afraid you're deluding yourself. Source: I live there. Honestly, there was a time when the US was the promised land, so to speak. Almost everybody was wearing clothes with US flags on them and praising the land of the free. Things have changed, though. After the threat of the Cold War subsided, people over here slowly started to see the issues of the US. It doesn't help that apart from the tech industry the US hasn't been really improving.
I'm not joking here or trying to be a dick, but I'm guessing about 75% of Northern Europeans think Americans are out of their mind. Sure, there's a contingency of right-wing 'populists' who support Wilders, Le Pen and the likes who also like Trump, but the rest of us is very aware of the idiocy (of electing) him. We also know it was caused by years of Republican obstructionism and populism, by a political system that is corrupt to the core and principally stabilizes on a two-party oligopoly. It has made it easier for people to see that we don't have it too bad here. Honestly, our systems aren't fucked up in a different way than yours. They aren't really fucked up at all. Hardly perfect, but not 'fucked up'. Could you give some examples of what I'm missing here?
I am at a loss to understand why you think velocity of money has anything to do with UBI.
I already explained it. Please read my statements again.
I'm also not clear how you can claim that poor people make bad decisions but if we give them welfare in a different form they will make good ones.
RSS aficionados are letting the RSS clients slide by without improvement (Rssowl v2.2.1 was last released at the end of 2013).
QFT. I really wanted a good (stable!) desktop RSS reader, but ended up using the webbased newsblur instead because its interface is actually closer to what I need than the available (Windows) desktop clients.
a deep belief that humanity is somehow special in a special way
It's this. Look at pretty much all of SciFi. SciFi is generally very imaginative and rich in outlandish concepts, yet almost without exception humanity not just still exists but it almost always has a very special role to play.
People just have a hard time accepting that humans are not the epitome of what this universe can create. Seeing articles like this is like listening to apes arguing that these weird newfangled homo sapienses will never be dominant because they will never be as strong as orangutans.
First off: I sincerely thank you for a reply about the issue itself.
My point is that the same household who earned the money -.vs. being given the money - would not be buying soft drinks and other low nutrition food AT ALL. It is common sense for anyone who has actually known anyone who is poor
I understand the thinking, but 'common sense' is not a great basis for reasoning, as it more than once equals 'myth'. It is a fact that buying 'the wrong things' is closely related to self-control and there is certainly a case to be made for some people having poor self control and thus both suck at getting work/getting their shit together and buying things they shouldn't buy. Research has however also shown that self-control diminishes when you are poor, due to the added stress of being poor.
For one, I'm saying that your claim that poor people who earn money are definitely not 'ALL' going to avoid low nutrition food, but let's put that aside for a moment. Because secondly, you are making the wrong comparison here. Not giving poor families money does not magically make them earn money. In fact, given the research above, poor families would in general experience less stress due to something like UBI, would have more self-control and make better decisions.
Keynsian economics - which you have re branded in order to make it sound better
Not really. Keynesian economics is government oriented, i.e. if the economy isn't doing well, have the government spend tax money on specific things that create jobs (large infrastructure projects are a favorite). Demand side economics is broader than that and that is where your point misses the mark. The idea of UBI in this regard is to let the people spend the money, instead of the government. A natural response to that could be: "Well then, why then not just lower taxes?"
The answer to that relates to the velocity of money. One of the main purposes of inflation and interest policy is to prevent people from saving all their money and postponing purchases. Ask an economist what the perfect consumer would look like, from an economic point of view. It would be someone who spends almost all his money as soon as he or she gets it (some amount of buffer is good to reduce volatility, but in general 'spend, spend, spend' is the credo). It just so happens that poor people (out of necessity) are the perfect consumers. Redistributing wealth to them is good for the economy.
Before I continue, this all is besides the huge benefits of reducing crime, increasing the level of education and health of the general public that things such as UBI (social security in general) achieve.
The money spent locally bit is actually quite simple. Yes, the grocery store can buy stuff from abroad. But the people working at the grocery store still get a cut. The owner of the grocery store gets a cut. The probably reasonably locally based distributor and their employees get a cut. Compare that to a trip abroad: apart from the plane ticket, all the money for the trip leaves the local economy. Poor people also don't generally engage in foreign investments, emigrating, and rare imported goods.
The trillions and trillions of dollars we have thrown at your idea since the 60's has barely moved the poverty needle.
Nixon actually wanted to do UBI, but was blocked politically (it's a very insightful read in general): https://www.jacobinmag.com/201...
But your point is way too simplistic. You pretend that we've been applying demand si
What percentage of their money would they have spent on crap if the money wasn't free? I'd wager far less.
What are you talking about:? You just proved that 'they' spend at least 80% of their grocery money on absolutely essential and healthy stuff. Apparently, even in the face of evidence there 'is no room for any viewpoint other than your own'.
But listen, I'm not interested in ad hominems or insinuations of ideological rhetoric. Arguments and logic are what matter.
My first point was and is that supply side economics has failed.
My second point was and is that shifting means to those with little means (effectively demand side economics) works because the first parts of income are spent very fast and on essential goods and services. Let me add to that that those parts are generally spent locally and thus suffer less from the issues surrounding globalization. Add to that the increased productivity and social mobility and the path forward is logically quite clear.
"Over all, the report found, SNAP households spent about 40 cents of every dollar at the grocery store on “basic items” like meat, fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs and bread. Another 40 cents of every dollar was spent on “cereal, prepared foods, dairy products, rice and beans.” Lastly, 20 cents of each dollar was spent on a broad category of junk foods that included “sweetened beverages, desserts, salty snacks, candy and sugar.”"
So 80% of their grocery money was spent on absolutely essential goods and 20% of it was spent on what is still essential to staying alive, namely food and potable liquids. Thanks for providing the evidence against your point.
Do you know who Paul Krugman is?
It does not matter who he is. He is still just one guy and whatever you're trying to prove by slamming him, it is logically irrelevant.
As for ridiculously increased income inequality, we've come a long ways since the era of kings and peasants
Irrelevant (and very weak, to be honest). My point that supply side economics has failed stands.
Blah blah blah Obama
This is not about politics. This is about economics.
Ridiculously increased inequality and worse prospects for younger generations. Also: Several planet-impacting crises clearly caused by 'empowering' the supply side.
The worst offender here is Paul Krugman
You found one guy. Good job.
Actually the evidence is that if you give people free money they spend it on crap first
Provide the evidence or GTFO. Essential goods and services are essential.
"suggestive evidence" "The evidence suggests that" "Our point estimates suggest that" "We find suggestive evidence that a higher minimum wage leads to overall increases in restaurant exit rates – depending on the specification, we find that a $1 increase in the minimum wage leads to approximately a 4 to 10 percent increase in the likelihood of exit, although the estimate is only statistically significant in certain specifications"
Suggestive evidence in science speak is the same as: 'we found exactly jack shit, but we wanted to publish something'. Their reviewing peers are economists too and accept the paper because finding jack shit is on par for economics research and the 'suggestive evidence' is in line with the consensus.
The latter is not a factor at all. The Netherlands and Sweden are similar to Germany in that regard, but they score very high on social media use.
The original article shows that the groups that are most absent in social media use are the older ones. It seems that the middle-aged and elderly in most of the low scoring countries are just not as 'hip' as in countries such as the US, The Netherlands and Sweden.
BTW, note that the size of an economy is a retarded metric in this regard. GDP/capita would be more informative, especially if you want to draw conclusions such as the GP wants to.
I don't see minimum wage increasing jobs though. On the contrary, I think even economists that support an increase in minimum wage predict a small if negligible negative pressure on job numbers.
'Economists' are wrong very, very often (which is not in a small part because it's very hard to do conclusive research on economies). Their opinions aren't homogeneous either, so you can choose pretty much any point of view and support it by saying 'economists think so'..
The thing with income is that the first parts of it are spent very, very fast on essential goods and services. Supply side economics has clearly failed. It is time for demand side economics and UBI is the perfect tool for it.
Words have meanings. You may dislike those things, but they are not slavery in any way.
BTW, I eagerly await your watertight (I'm guessing libertarian) alternative which will lead to utopia. I'm sorry. That was a lie. Libertarianism is a ridiculous approach to society peddled by mostly spoiled people who have little understanding of history, human psychology and how countries work in general.
Stop pretending every poor person in this world is some nose-to-the-grindstone hard-working entreprenuer
I was not (quote me if you disagree). You were the one making broad sweeping statements based on anecdotes and shitty logic. Statements such as "The non-working poor complain mightily but are easily the laziest people around".
Just because some unemployed poor people are dickheads does not mean that all of them are. Your 'policy' of 'forced volunteering for money by unemployed people' is based on the behavior of a subset of the group and makes the lives and opportunities worse for the group as a whole.
Please stop judging a group by their worst members. And please, please, don't suggest or support policy based on feelings based in that fallacious judging.
Finally: Do not try to judge age by a UID. Do not assume you know what my life looked like. Instead, read the article I linked earlier and look into the rest of the research surrounding poverty. Something like UBI is going to be much, much more effective than a Darwinistic attitude towards the poor. Just look at the unemployed poor in Northern European countries. Even without UBI but with a much more expansive and empowering social security system they are doing much, much better than the poor in the richest country on earth. Let that sink in.
So. The rock-solid evidence for your assertion that 'the non-working poor are easily the laziest people around': 1. There was 1 guy you knew who said he was "too busy" for.. things. 2. Poor neighborhoods are 'full of trash'.
You have opened my eyes, good sir. With that quality of reasoning, you could be president of the USA!
Seriously, though: @1. Your fallacy is: Hasty generalization @2. Yes, poorly maintained neighborhoods tend to turn into a mess. Littering is a fairly interesting subject, behaviorally speaking. Things that influence it are whether or not littered trash is already visible, and how high the cost (broadly speaking) is to dispose of the trash properly. Home-ownership contributes in the case of neighborhoods specifically. Stated simply: In poor neighborhoods, nobody has property values to care about, some people don't care enough to dispose of the trash properly and then more people think: "It's already messy, what's my extra bit of trash going to change?"
Note that you assume that 'everyone has endless time' in poor neighborhoods. In your reality, everyone there is unemployed, while the actual reality is that a very significant part of the people living there are working their ass off in some shitty job (or multiple shitty jobs!) trying to make ends meet. I'm not saying it is fine for such people to throw away their trash anywhere, just that it might not be their top priority to keep the neighborhood shiny. In fact, I'll bet that most of them really don't want to invest in the neighborhood, but just want to get the fuck out of there ASAP.
The middle class suffers from 2 scams: the non-working poor
The only scam involved there is the right-wing demagoguery that has led you to believe that people like being poor and unemployed.
Seriously, the majority of the people blabbering about 'welfare queens' and 'moochers' haven't a fucking clue what it is like to be part of the 'non-working poor' (the time you were in college "living off only ramen noodles" does not count). People actually feel like shit due to lack of societal status. Due to the stress involved with not being able to pay bills they have a scientifically proven harder time making decisions. See for instance: https://www.theatlantic.com/bu...
Listen, again: please focus on the actual problem. We all know shit flows downstream. If you're middle class, guess whose shit is in your drinking water?
Note that forcing people to volunteer negates the meaning of 'volunteer'. It also prevents them from finding an actual job and removes all market elements from the labor involved. See the US prison labor system to see what that leads to.
Even if it cost money I don't know many working people who wouldn't fork over another $20 just to make everyone else have to get up in the morning too
You need to get to know people who aren't so spiteful that they would want to pay to ruin other people's lives just because they don't like theirs. Because that is what you are suggesting.
Don't show up, don't get your free money.
So it is not free money.
Listen, I get that you want the world to be a fair place. I suggest however you direct your efforts away from the weakest people in society to those who use their affluence to game the entire system to make it as skewed towards them as best they can. While you are devising 'solutions' for 'lazy' welfare recipients, billionaires and lobbyists are laughing all the way to the(ir) bank.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, I refer to the old interface (which I am still using).
So am I. There are borders around expanded comments. End of story.
where replies to a comment are identified only because of indentation
No, they're not. They are 2-dimensionally visually nested by borders and include a link to scroll to the parent post. .full
Try disabling the border on #commentlisting li.comment.full, #comments
no one has ever complained about that
Beta made it worse and everybody complained about that. And rightfully so.
Your joke is old and outdated.
AMD Ryzens run much cooler compared to their Intel counterparts, unless you want to void your warranty and delid your Intel CPU:
http://wccftech.com/intel-core...
Dammit, I just ran out of mod points!
+1 Funny
that even relatively stupid people manage to follow
This deserves repeating.
People tend to expect flawless behavior from AI for it to be viable, but we have little issue with 50% of drivers on the road 'driving like shit'. People lose their shit if you even suggest that people should retake their driving exams every five years.
We literally regularly say that tons of other people are terrible drivers. There are at least 3 people in my group(s) of friends that I do not trust at all and actively avoid as drivers. One of them has actually almost gotten me killed when she was driving us. This is extrapolation, but I'm under the impression that about 33% of my friends, whether I have been their passenger or not is a terrible driver. And most of my friends are quite intelligent and thus don't even have the excuse of being stupid.
I can't wait for self-driving cars to become the norm.
Well said.
It's time for the citizens of the United States to wake the fuck up and smell the shithole they've let themselves be maneuvered into.
http://trulyfallacious.com/log...
"One of the main purposes of inflation and interest policy is to prevent people from saving all their money and postponing purchases."
No, we have inflation and low interest rates because of excessive borrowing. It is not a policy per se
Yes, it is:
"While excessive inflation and hyperinflation have negative economic consequences, deflation's negative consequences for the economy can be just as bad or worse. Consequently, policy makers since the end of the 20th century have attempted to keep inflation steady at 2% per year"
( http://www.investopedia.com/te... )
This is macroeconomics 101 stuff.
As one who has a degree in economics I feel qualified to seriously disagree with this statement. People need to save, in order to provide capital for investment. Quantitative easing dries up capital markets, diminishing bond returns, pumping up the stock market, and discouraging saving. Again you're taking an effect and declaring it a cause.
Your degree in economics is not worth much, given the previous assertion on inflation, so I will disregard your appeal to authority. Quantitative easing has nothing to do with what the ideal consumer looks like from an economics point of view.
As to your point about investment: I was talking about the ideal consumer. There are tons of institutions that provide capital for investment, for instance:
- The government
- Enterprises
- Banks
- Insurance companies (a consumer spends his money on insurance fees, but this money does not evaporate -- instead it is pooled in an institution)
These obviously should not spend almost all their money immediately. Big, big difference.
The fantasy that Northern European countries prove that socialism works is just that, a fantasy. Their systems are simply fucked up in a different way than ours, and the people there complain just as much as people here do. Your allegations of xenophobia are false, people are nervous there because crime is going up and they are concerned about their safety due to the open border policies. I've spent quite a bit of time there, not as a tourist but as a worker, and the good old USA is still a heck of a lot nicer. Folks there want our system, did you know that?
This is pretty much all bullshit and I'm afraid you're deluding yourself. Source: I live there. Honestly, there was a time when the US was the promised land, so to speak. Almost everybody was wearing clothes with US flags on them and praising the land of the free. Things have changed, though. After the threat of the Cold War subsided, people over here slowly started to see the issues of the US. It doesn't help that apart from the tech industry the US hasn't been really improving.
I'm not joking here or trying to be a dick, but I'm guessing about 75% of Northern Europeans think Americans are out of their mind. Sure, there's a contingency of right-wing 'populists' who support Wilders, Le Pen and the likes who also like Trump, but the rest of us is very aware of the idiocy (of electing) him. We also know it was caused by years of Republican obstructionism and populism, by a political system that is corrupt to the core and principally stabilizes on a two-party oligopoly.
It has made it easier for people to see that we don't have it too bad here. Honestly, our systems aren't fucked up in a different way than yours. They aren't really fucked up at all. Hardly perfect, but not 'fucked up'. Could you give some examples of what I'm missing here?
I am at a loss to understand why you think velocity of money has anything to do with UBI.
I already explained it. Please read my statements again.
I'm also not clear how you can claim that poor people make bad decisions but if we give them welfare in a different form they will make good ones.
Because of lower stress leve
RSS aficionados are letting the RSS clients slide by without improvement (Rssowl v2.2.1 was last released at the end of 2013).
QFT.
I really wanted a good (stable!) desktop RSS reader, but ended up using the webbased newsblur instead because its interface is actually closer to what I need than the available (Windows) desktop clients.
a deep belief that humanity is somehow special in a special way
It's this. Look at pretty much all of SciFi. SciFi is generally very imaginative and rich in outlandish concepts, yet almost without exception humanity not just still exists but it almost always has a very special role to play.
People just have a hard time accepting that humans are not the epitome of what this universe can create. Seeing articles like this is like listening to apes arguing that these weird newfangled homo sapienses will never be dominant because they will never be as strong as orangutans.
First off: I sincerely thank you for a reply about the issue itself.
My point is that the same household who earned the money - .vs. being given the money - would not be buying soft drinks and other low nutrition food AT ALL. It is common sense for anyone who has actually known anyone who is poor
I understand the thinking, but 'common sense' is not a great basis for reasoning, as it more than once equals 'myth'. It is a fact that buying 'the wrong things' is closely related to self-control and there is certainly a case to be made for some people having poor self control and thus both suck at getting work/getting their shit together and buying things they shouldn't buy. Research has however also shown that self-control diminishes when you are poor, due to the added stress of being poor.
See:
- https://academic.oup.com/jcr/a...
- https://thecorrespondent.com/4...
For one, I'm saying that your claim that poor people who earn money are definitely not 'ALL' going to avoid low nutrition food, but let's put that aside for a moment.
Because secondly, you are making the wrong comparison here. Not giving poor families money does not magically make them earn money. In fact, given the research above, poor families would in general experience less stress due to something like UBI, would have more self-control and make better decisions.
Keynsian economics - which you have re branded in order to make it sound better
Not really. Keynesian economics is government oriented, i.e. if the economy isn't doing well, have the government spend tax money on specific things that create jobs (large infrastructure projects are a favorite). Demand side economics is broader than that and that is where your point misses the mark. The idea of UBI in this regard is to let the people spend the money, instead of the government. A natural response to that could be: "Well then, why then not just lower taxes?"
The answer to that relates to the velocity of money. One of the main purposes of inflation and interest policy is to prevent people from saving all their money and postponing purchases. Ask an economist what the perfect consumer would look like, from an economic point of view. It would be someone who spends almost all his money as soon as he or she gets it (some amount of buffer is good to reduce volatility, but in general 'spend, spend, spend' is the credo). It just so happens that poor people (out of necessity) are the perfect consumers. Redistributing wealth to them is good for the economy.
Before I continue, this all is besides the huge benefits of reducing crime, increasing the level of education and health of the general public that things such as UBI (social security in general) achieve.
The money spent locally bit is actually quite simple. Yes, the grocery store can buy stuff from abroad. But the people working at the grocery store still get a cut. The owner of the grocery store gets a cut. The probably reasonably locally based distributor and their employees get a cut. Compare that to a trip abroad: apart from the plane ticket, all the money for the trip leaves the local economy. Poor people also don't generally engage in foreign investments, emigrating, and rare imported goods.
The trillions and trillions of dollars we have thrown at your idea since the 60's has barely moved the poverty needle.
Nixon actually wanted to do UBI, but was blocked politically (it's a very insightful read in general):
https://www.jacobinmag.com/201...
But your point is way too simplistic. You pretend that we've been applying demand si
What percentage of their money would they have spent on crap if the money wasn't free? I'd wager far less.
What are you talking about:? You just proved that 'they' spend at least 80% of their grocery money on absolutely essential and healthy stuff. Apparently, even in the face of evidence there 'is no room for any viewpoint other than your own'.
But listen, I'm not interested in ad hominems or insinuations of ideological rhetoric. Arguments and logic are what matter.
My first point was and is that supply side economics has failed.
My second point was and is that shifting means to those with little means (effectively demand side economics) works because the first parts of income are spent very fast and on essential goods and services. Let me add to that that those parts are generally spent locally and thus suffer less from the issues surrounding globalization. Add to that the increased productivity and social mobility and the path forward is logically quite clear.
"Over all, the report found, SNAP households spent about 40 cents of every dollar at the grocery store on “basic items” like meat, fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs and bread. Another 40 cents of every dollar was spent on “cereal, prepared foods, dairy products, rice and beans.” Lastly, 20 cents of each dollar was spent on a broad category of junk foods that included “sweetened beverages, desserts, salty snacks, candy and sugar.”"
So 80% of their grocery money was spent on absolutely essential goods and 20% of it was spent on what is still essential to staying alive, namely food and potable liquids. Thanks for providing the evidence against your point.
Do you know who Paul Krugman is?
It does not matter who he is. He is still just one guy and whatever you're trying to prove by slamming him, it is logically irrelevant.
As for ridiculously increased income inequality, we've come a long ways since the era of kings and peasants
Irrelevant (and very weak, to be honest). My point that supply side economics has failed stands.
Blah blah blah Obama
This is not about politics. This is about economics.
Based on what?
Ridiculously increased inequality and worse prospects for younger generations. Also: Several planet-impacting crises clearly caused by 'empowering' the supply side.
The worst offender here is Paul Krugman
You found one guy. Good job.
Actually the evidence is that if you give people free money they spend it on crap first
Provide the evidence or GTFO. Essential goods and services are essential.
Because sometimes 'contributors' such as 'crafoo' have interesting questions or insights to add. That's the idea.
"suggestive evidence"
"The evidence suggests that"
"Our point estimates suggest that"
"We find suggestive evidence that a higher minimum wage leads to overall increases in restaurant exit rates – depending on the specification, we find that a $1 increase in the minimum wage leads to approximately a 4 to 10 percent increase in the likelihood of exit, although the estimate is only statistically significant in certain specifications"
Suggestive evidence in science speak is the same as: 'we found exactly jack shit, but we wanted to publish something'. Their reviewing peers are economists too and accept the paper because finding jack shit is on par for economics research and the 'suggestive evidence' is in line with the consensus.
The latter is not a factor at all. The Netherlands and Sweden are similar to Germany in that regard, but they score very high on social media use.
The original article shows that the groups that are most absent in social media use are the older ones. It seems that the middle-aged and elderly in most of the low scoring countries are just not as 'hip' as in countries such as the US, The Netherlands and Sweden.
BTW, note that the size of an economy is a retarded metric in this regard. GDP/capita would be more informative, especially if you want to draw conclusions such as the GP wants to.
I don't see minimum wage increasing jobs though. On the contrary, I think even economists that support an increase in minimum wage predict a small if negligible negative pressure on job numbers.
'Economists' are wrong very, very often (which is not in a small part because it's very hard to do conclusive research on economies). Their opinions aren't homogeneous either, so you can choose pretty much any point of view and support it by saying 'economists think so'..
The thing with income is that the first parts of it are spent very, very fast on essential goods and services. Supply side economics has clearly failed. It is time for demand side economics and UBI is the perfect tool for it.
You can't completely ignore someone's reply and then expect them to listen to you or answer your questions. Enjoy your mental echo chamber.
Good day.
It's no more slavery than:
forced taxes
These do not involve involuntary labor.
forced selective service enrollment
This does not involve involuntary labor.
mandatory insurance
This does not involve involuntary labor.
Words have meanings. You may dislike those things, but they are not slavery in any way.
BTW, I eagerly await your watertight (I'm guessing libertarian) alternative which will lead to utopia.
I'm sorry. That was a lie. Libertarianism is a ridiculous approach to society peddled by mostly spoiled people who have little understanding of history, human psychology and how countries work in general.
Stop pretending every poor person in this world is some nose-to-the-grindstone hard-working entreprenuer
I was not (quote me if you disagree). You were the one making broad sweeping statements based on anecdotes and shitty logic. Statements such as "The non-working poor complain mightily but are easily the laziest people around".
Just because some unemployed poor people are dickheads does not mean that all of them are. Your 'policy' of 'forced volunteering for money by unemployed people' is based on the behavior of a subset of the group and makes the lives and opportunities worse for the group as a whole.
Please stop judging a group by their worst members. And please, please, don't suggest or support policy based on feelings based in that fallacious judging.
Finally: Do not try to judge age by a UID. Do not assume you know what my life looked like. Instead, read the article I linked earlier and look into the rest of the research surrounding poverty. Something like UBI is going to be much, much more effective than a Darwinistic attitude towards the poor. Just look at the unemployed poor in Northern European countries. Even without UBI but with a much more expansive and empowering social security system they are doing much, much better than the poor in the richest country on earth. Let that sink in.
So. The rock-solid evidence for your assertion that 'the non-working poor are easily the laziest people around': .. things.
1. There was 1 guy you knew who said he was "too busy" for
2. Poor neighborhoods are 'full of trash'.
You have opened my eyes, good sir. With that quality of reasoning, you could be president of the USA!
Seriously, though:
@1. Your fallacy is: Hasty generalization
@2. Yes, poorly maintained neighborhoods tend to turn into a mess. Littering is a fairly interesting subject, behaviorally speaking. Things that influence it are whether or not littered trash is already visible, and how high the cost (broadly speaking) is to dispose of the trash properly. Home-ownership contributes in the case of neighborhoods specifically. Stated simply: In poor neighborhoods, nobody has property values to care about, some people don't care enough to dispose of the trash properly and then more people think: "It's already messy, what's my extra bit of trash going to change?"
Note that you assume that 'everyone has endless time' in poor neighborhoods. In your reality, everyone there is unemployed, while the actual reality is that a very significant part of the people living there are working their ass off in some shitty job (or multiple shitty jobs!) trying to make ends meet. I'm not saying it is fine for such people to throw away their trash anywhere, just that it might not be their top priority to keep the neighborhood shiny. In fact, I'll bet that most of them really don't want to invest in the neighborhood, but just want to get the fuck out of there ASAP.
That joke certainly crashed. Let's all hope it is never found again.
The middle class suffers from 2 scams: the non-working poor
The only scam involved there is the right-wing demagoguery that has led you to believe that people like being poor and unemployed.
Seriously, the majority of the people blabbering about 'welfare queens' and 'moochers' haven't a fucking clue what it is like to be part of the 'non-working poor' (the time you were in college "living off only ramen noodles" does not count). People actually feel like shit due to lack of societal status. Due to the stress involved with not being able to pay bills they have a scientifically proven harder time making decisions.
See for instance: https://www.theatlantic.com/bu...
Listen, again: please focus on the actual problem. We all know shit flows downstream. If you're middle class, guess whose shit is in your drinking water?
You're suggesting a mild form of slavery.
Note that forcing people to volunteer negates the meaning of 'volunteer'. It also prevents them from finding an actual job and removes all market elements from the labor involved. See the US prison labor system to see what that leads to.
Even if it cost money I don't know many working people who wouldn't fork over another $20 just to make everyone else have to get up in the morning too
You need to get to know people who aren't so spiteful that they would want to pay to ruin other people's lives just because they don't like theirs. Because that is what you are suggesting.
Don't show up, don't get your free money.
So it is not free money.
Listen, I get that you want the world to be a fair place. I suggest however you direct your efforts away from the weakest people in society to those who use their affluence to game the entire system to make it as skewed towards them as best they can. While you are devising 'solutions' for 'lazy' welfare recipients, billionaires and lobbyists are laughing all the way to the(ir) bank.