Are you suggesting that they want to charge these fees in order to make the NHS look bad even though they don't need the money? That's a bold claim that I haven't seen argued in any reports.
I'm not an expert on the NHS, but I am interested in healthcare costs so I read a little bit about lots of different healthcare systems. I'd love to see something official from the NHS saying in more polite terms "No, don't give us more money, we don't need it or an equivalent tax increase. This fee is not our idea, it's being imposed on us in order to make us look bad." Or have I misunderstood what you meant?
Anyway, as to your point about NHS vs Medicaid, that's true, but only just. The largest cost driver for health care costs everywhere in the world is poor people, which includes old people on fixed incomes. In the US that is handled under Medicare, but really it's no different than Medicaid except for the age requirement. If you add the budgets together it's astronomical. As far as I know, the NHS is in the same boat... an aging population, plus filling in "missing population growth" with mostly poor immigrants, means you have to raise taxes or add fees to pay for it.
Warren Buffett makes a lot of money from dividends. Only an ignoramus would say he isn't productive, btw. But let's look at his sources of income for an example. Buffett's top holding right now is Wells Fargo. Let's look at their expenses for the first quarter of 2017. https://www08.wellsfargomedia....
Let's see, money returned to shareholders, $3.1 billion, which includes dividends and share repurchases. So that includes INDIRECT money given to shareholders. It's a very generous measure for what we're talking about.
And then under noninterest expenses we have salaries, commissions, and employee benefits $8.7 billion. I won't include stuff like "outside professional services" which was probably mostly salaries (lawyers, outsourced programmers, etc).
So at one of the biggest companies, and the biggest holding of one of the biggest unproductive dividend leeches (if you think of him that way), with the very generous measure of shareholder money vs employee money, we see employee payments are a large majority.
I actually had a hard time finding a hard number of "total amount of dividends paid in the US" vs "total wage income in the US" -- if you can find reliable numbers for those to disprove what I'm saying, I'd be glad to hear.
As for the tendency for the fortune to fade over generations, that represents multiple generations of non-productive people living it up big
The Rockefellers diluted their $500 billion fortune (adjusted for inflation) into chunks of $3 billion in 2 generations. I don't know how it's possible. They are some of the most inept people on Earth. I mean are you seriously going to begrudge the guy his less than 1% share of his grandfather's net worth? I'd be embarrassed if I were him for not making more of myself. At this rate in a couple more generations the Rockefellers will be running McDonalds franchises. IF they qualify.
Not really. I didn't assume that all of the rich were the most productive. But the majority are.
Oh also, don't confuse productivity with hard work. Sometimes that's how it is, but not always. Elon Musk is more productive in a 1 hour meeting than the noble savage you have in mind who gets up at 4am, trudges to their job at McDonalds, works until 11pm without a single break, etc. I hope you understand that.
If someone is willing to accept a fairly menial existence, you do not need crime to fund your lifestyle. You can get on welfare, public housing, food stamps, etc. Drug dealers go into it because they want to actually be rich and have power over others, not "oh gee I wish I had like $16k/year income." UBI won't change that at all.
The refugees are due to imperial policies of the US and vassals of destroying functioning states like Syria and Libya.
Exactly. And if you look back at the rhetoric, in the modern age this kind of interference is always phrased as helping people. We're going to liberate the people of Iraq! We're going to help the people oppressed by Gaddafi! Assad is evil, we have to help his people! Etc. Another example of painting someone as "the most needy" and then fucking over our own people for their benefit.
A small caste of weapons dealers and crazed globalists enrich themselves while tens of millions are impoverished
I really don't know. You might be right but it almost seems too evil.. I like to think that a lot of people who support this kind of thing really do have good intentions and are just bumbling idiots.
Mentioning Germany and forced sterilization in the same bunch of sentences is funny.
Birth control isn't sterilization but yeah I know. Germany wouldn't have to even do that, they would be fine if they just ended the refugee nonsense.
Looks like the NHS budget has only been lowered a few times in the last 50 years (and this chart includes the effects of inflation).
How exactly is this running down the service? Because it isn't given an unlimited budget?
What you're essentially saying is that despite consistent budget increases above inflation, because those increases weren't *big enough* the service is degrading. Can you clarify why this isn't a good example for me to use about how caring for the needy is a neverending black hole for money?
And please keep in mind, I was replying to a post that said "It's an investment in the future of this country, and it benefits everyone. Less problems, less crime, less strain on medical services" -- so theoretically the NHS budget could be shrunk after we help the needy some... obviously that doesn't happen because it's complete BS.
No, not the bulk of income. Some unproductive people get a lot of assets through inheritance, but they can't make much of it. If they have the bulk of the income then they are doing something productive with their inheritance.
Even a huge asset advantage evaporates over time though. I'm not going to look up the hard numbers now (I did it once) but if you want to see something very informative, try this... figure out the percent of GDP that Rockefeller owned in terms of either income or assets. (It makes him the richest man in US history by a big factor, like more than 10x as rich as Bill Gates). Now find the richest living descendant and do the same calculation. From what I recall, it was something like a 98% reduction.
How much overhead will it eliminate? This is basically welfare. That means it's going to have the same pressures as welfare. Does a childless single man get the same UBI as a single mom with 3 kids? Probably not. Are people going to suddenly be okay with illegal immigrants getting UBI? Only in some states. If this is replacing food stamps, will there be a push for things like UBI only working on certain food items (i.e. can't use food stamps for cigarettes).. probably.
I wouldn't expect any cost savings at all, just a transfer.. maybe the IRS gets 10x bigger and all the welfare offices close down.
I'm pissed about it because it's destroying civilization. Every benefit you said is a lie.
Well, I take that back, it's not "helping the needy" it's HOW they help the needy. Unrestricted welfare and medical care creates more problems than they solve for societies, developed and developing. In the US, about half of babies are born on Medicaid. The Medicaid budget is out of control. And yet poor people have the most kids. That's not a very good cycle to be in. Just read an article about England's NHS service considering a plan to let people prioritize their appointments by paying extra, because they need the money. Germany is spending billions on welfare for refugees, and there's basically an unlimited supply of refugees... they can overwhelm any budget. (And yes that's related, the refugees are passing up relatively stingy countries and being drawn to countries with better welfare benefits such as Germany and Sweden.)
You need to take a look at the median income worldwide sometime. Then consider whether you reeeeeally want to redistribute wealth to "help the needy." There are too many needy. Help for the needy has to be done in concert with stuff like long term birth control. And it has to be done in a way that doesn't interfere with the producers of wealth, i.e. the middle class. Otherwise it's the equivalent of eating your seed corn.
Take away 80% of welfare spending and 25% of police / prisons
That's pretty optimistic, especially the police/prisons part.
If you include income taxes and half of payroll taxes
Are you saying recovered income and payroll taxes on the UBI payments?
People making between $75k-$200k in income would probably see income tax increases between $150-$400 per month.
Jeeze we're slowly turning into a slave society where the middle class works for the unholy alliance of the ultra rich and the dirt poor. About half of all births are on Medicaid now, and the rich get to virtue signal by raising taxes.
I hope the middle class has the foresight, while still a voting majority, to do something like say "Receiving UBI payments requires you to get long term birth control."
Murdering people and taking credit for it isn't going to make non-muslims like muslims more. I'd say they're trying to alienate non-muslims from moderate muslims.
Well like you said how about we just look at what they're doing and the effects. ISIS killing people and taking credit for it in the Middle East... has that resulted in a lesser or greater population of Muslims in Europe, for instance? Has it resulted in lesser or greater alienation of Muslims?
Radical Muslims DO want moderates to radicalize, but that requires 2 conflicting forces. First, there's a force needed to increase Islamization in the West, because that means more Muslims in the West where the terrorists want to target things. Second, the Muslims who end up in the West need to be kept ghettoized so that they don't become too Westernized themselves. So it's both. That's why I'm saying, whatever they do, there is more than one plausible explanation. You could say "Oh they did this to get more Muslims into the West. Why else do they put Syrian towns under siege but allow journalists to come in and broadcast images of children starving to death?" That makes some group of Westerners say "OMG we need to invite refugees to come here." A second group will say "Look at how barbaric they are, we don't want them."
Then they'll attack a nightclub in Paris and that'll make the first group say "OMG these poor young men are so isolated, we have to help them." The second group will say "Fuck these Muslims."
They can profit from both reactions. There are enough people in the first group that Muslim immigration continues. There are enough people in the second group that Muslim alienation continues. Who cares what the "real" goal is? Is it even meaningful to suppose they have just one "real" goal?
They want non-muslims to hate moderate muslims and associate the attacks with islam in general, thereby boosting their numbers.
It's equally likely (well actually I'd say more likely) that they want non-muslims to like muslims as that provides greater cover for the extremists.
We don't know what terrorists really want. You can't necessarily just believe what they say. And there are situations where different terrorist groups want different things -- there are pro-Assad terrorists and anti-Assad terrorists in Syria for instance. There are terrorists who want Shia supremacy, and terrorists who want Shias to be destroyed.
And even if we did really know what they want, it doesn't matter. We need to make decisions based on what we want, not what terrorists want.
It's about time "right of return" started applying around the world!
But in all seriousness, the country of his ancestors is in no position to refuse. In the hypothetical world where we had the balls to deport suspected terrorists, we would also coerce the countries rather than just ask nicely. Just search for UK aid to Libya. The UK gave Libya 9 million pounds recently to help them deal with refugees... there's another article about millions of pounds being spent to help some shit city called Misrata. How about "Take this guy or no more aid for a year." Chances are Libya would be willing to take him back and execute him if they didn't really want him around.
The thing that gets me is how few people among the 'general public' understand that every single time a country enacts measures like this, it's an unqualified win for the terrorists.
The thing that gets me is how many people project these kinds of motivations onto terrorists. No, I really don't think ISIS gives a fuck if the UK starts snooping on citizens more.
I'm pretty sure that some people make assertions like that just because they think it's persuasive to argue in the line of "Terrorists want X, so we must do the opposite."
I hate people who ruin classrooms for good kids. I hate people who run down a nice neighborhood by being trashy. I hate people who are casually aggressive with others, perhaps because they want to feel powerful about at least something in their lives. I hate criminals who violate others' sense of security.
You're describing a pretty good, workable system for maintaining social order, but that's not really how it is. The people in those McMansions don't want to live next to poor people. And violent criminals who come mostly from the ranks of the poor are completely out of control. And mainstream politicians are propping up thug groups like black lives matter to put pressure on cops NOT to bust everybody.
We did the image exercises. I started off doing most of the typing with their input, then they did some on their own. The cool thing with this library is you can go way off on a tangent. We made stripes of across some of the images for instance.
For what it's worth, my wife participated in an outreach program through her work to expose kids to programming. They sent a team to a school and each employee took a group of kids and did a different project. I suggested this one, which my wife customized a bit. It was by far the most popular project with the kids (I think they were 6th and 7th graders). Graphics are cool, especially the green-screen exercises.
USPS consolidated five zip codes into one distribution center, turning four 30,000-sqft facilities into storefront locations. It took five years to remove all the kinks at the existing facility as the combined workload got done with fewer workers.
Yeah but in 5 years how much did mail volume fall?
I don't think brand loyalty is bizarre. If a brand is good and has earned your trust then it's worth supporting it during a slump. Otherwise the competitor that takes its place might screw you when the good brand has folded.
Usually vacation time is accrued. Maternity leave isn't, unless there's a token period before all benefits start (like 6 months).
Not coming back after paid maternity leave would be like asking for future paid vacation up front, and then quitting before you accrue that borrowed time.
I support maternity and parental leave but I think you're mischaracterizing it here.
Slashdot Mirror
Another one: https://www.jihadwatch.org/201...
Are you suggesting that they want to charge these fees in order to make the NHS look bad even though they don't need the money? That's a bold claim that I haven't seen argued in any reports.
I'm not an expert on the NHS, but I am interested in healthcare costs so I read a little bit about lots of different healthcare systems. I'd love to see something official from the NHS saying in more polite terms "No, don't give us more money, we don't need it or an equivalent tax increase. This fee is not our idea, it's being imposed on us in order to make us look bad." Or have I misunderstood what you meant?
Anyway, as to your point about NHS vs Medicaid, that's true, but only just. The largest cost driver for health care costs everywhere in the world is poor people, which includes old people on fixed incomes. In the US that is handled under Medicare, but really it's no different than Medicaid except for the age requirement. If you add the budgets together it's astronomical. As far as I know, the NHS is in the same boat... an aging population, plus filling in "missing population growth" with mostly poor immigrants, means you have to raise taxes or add fees to pay for it.
Warren Buffett makes a lot of money from dividends. Only an ignoramus would say he isn't productive, btw. But let's look at his sources of income for an example. Buffett's top holding right now is Wells Fargo. Let's look at their expenses for the first quarter of 2017. https://www08.wellsfargomedia....
Let's see, money returned to shareholders, $3.1 billion, which includes dividends and share repurchases. So that includes INDIRECT money given to shareholders. It's a very generous measure for what we're talking about.
And then under noninterest expenses we have salaries, commissions, and employee benefits $8.7 billion. I won't include stuff like "outside professional services" which was probably mostly salaries (lawyers, outsourced programmers, etc).
So at one of the biggest companies, and the biggest holding of one of the biggest unproductive dividend leeches (if you think of him that way), with the very generous measure of shareholder money vs employee money, we see employee payments are a large majority.
I actually had a hard time finding a hard number of "total amount of dividends paid in the US" vs "total wage income in the US" -- if you can find reliable numbers for those to disprove what I'm saying, I'd be glad to hear.
As for the tendency for the fortune to fade over generations, that represents multiple generations of non-productive people living it up big
The Rockefellers diluted their $500 billion fortune (adjusted for inflation) into chunks of $3 billion in 2 generations. I don't know how it's possible. They are some of the most inept people on Earth. I mean are you seriously going to begrudge the guy his less than 1% share of his grandfather's net worth? I'd be embarrassed if I were him for not making more of myself. At this rate in a couple more generations the Rockefellers will be running McDonalds franchises. IF they qualify.
Not really. I didn't assume that all of the rich were the most productive. But the majority are.
Oh also, don't confuse productivity with hard work. Sometimes that's how it is, but not always. Elon Musk is more productive in a 1 hour meeting than the noble savage you have in mind who gets up at 4am, trudges to their job at McDonalds, works until 11pm without a single break, etc. I hope you understand that.
If someone is willing to accept a fairly menial existence, you do not need crime to fund your lifestyle. You can get on welfare, public housing, food stamps, etc. Drug dealers go into it because they want to actually be rich and have power over others, not "oh gee I wish I had like $16k/year income." UBI won't change that at all.
The refugees are due to imperial policies of the US and vassals of destroying functioning states like Syria and Libya.
Exactly. And if you look back at the rhetoric, in the modern age this kind of interference is always phrased as helping people. We're going to liberate the people of Iraq! We're going to help the people oppressed by Gaddafi! Assad is evil, we have to help his people! Etc. Another example of painting someone as "the most needy" and then fucking over our own people for their benefit.
A small caste of weapons dealers and crazed globalists enrich themselves while tens of millions are impoverished
I really don't know. You might be right but it almost seems too evil.. I like to think that a lot of people who support this kind of thing really do have good intentions and are just bumbling idiots.
Mentioning Germany and forced sterilization in the same bunch of sentences is funny.
Birth control isn't sterilization but yeah I know. Germany wouldn't have to even do that, they would be fine if they just ended the refugee nonsense.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/b...
Looks like the NHS budget has only been lowered a few times in the last 50 years (and this chart includes the effects of inflation).
How exactly is this running down the service? Because it isn't given an unlimited budget?
What you're essentially saying is that despite consistent budget increases above inflation, because those increases weren't *big enough* the service is degrading. Can you clarify why this isn't a good example for me to use about how caring for the needy is a neverending black hole for money?
And please keep in mind, I was replying to a post that said "It's an investment in the future of this country, and it benefits everyone. Less problems, less crime, less strain on medical services" -- so theoretically the NHS budget could be shrunk after we help the needy some... obviously that doesn't happen because it's complete BS.
No, not the bulk of income. Some unproductive people get a lot of assets through inheritance, but they can't make much of it. If they have the bulk of the income then they are doing something productive with their inheritance.
Even a huge asset advantage evaporates over time though. I'm not going to look up the hard numbers now (I did it once) but if you want to see something very informative, try this... figure out the percent of GDP that Rockefeller owned in terms of either income or assets. (It makes him the richest man in US history by a big factor, like more than 10x as rich as Bill Gates). Now find the richest living descendant and do the same calculation. From what I recall, it was something like a 98% reduction.
and eliminating most of the welfare overhead
How much overhead will it eliminate? This is basically welfare. That means it's going to have the same pressures as welfare. Does a childless single man get the same UBI as a single mom with 3 kids? Probably not. Are people going to suddenly be okay with illegal immigrants getting UBI? Only in some states. If this is replacing food stamps, will there be a push for things like UBI only working on certain food items (i.e. can't use food stamps for cigarettes).. probably.
I wouldn't expect any cost savings at all, just a transfer.. maybe the IRS gets 10x bigger and all the welfare offices close down.
So we're taking from the most productive and giving to the least productive? Sounds like a recipe for success...
Only wankers huh. What a compelling argument.
I'm pissed about it because it's destroying civilization. Every benefit you said is a lie.
Well, I take that back, it's not "helping the needy" it's HOW they help the needy. Unrestricted welfare and medical care creates more problems than they solve for societies, developed and developing. In the US, about half of babies are born on Medicaid. The Medicaid budget is out of control. And yet poor people have the most kids. That's not a very good cycle to be in. Just read an article about England's NHS service considering a plan to let people prioritize their appointments by paying extra, because they need the money. Germany is spending billions on welfare for refugees, and there's basically an unlimited supply of refugees... they can overwhelm any budget. (And yes that's related, the refugees are passing up relatively stingy countries and being drawn to countries with better welfare benefits such as Germany and Sweden.)
You need to take a look at the median income worldwide sometime. Then consider whether you reeeeeally want to redistribute wealth to "help the needy." There are too many needy. Help for the needy has to be done in concert with stuff like long term birth control. And it has to be done in a way that doesn't interfere with the producers of wealth, i.e. the middle class. Otherwise it's the equivalent of eating your seed corn.
There's a difference between bad businesses and businesses with employees who don't want to be there.
I mean there are plenty of "good" retail shops, but they still don't pay well and the jobs aren't intellectually fulfilling.
I guess the assumption is these are also the businesses most capable of being automated.
Take away 80% of welfare spending and 25% of police / prisons
That's pretty optimistic, especially the police/prisons part.
If you include income taxes and half of payroll taxes
Are you saying recovered income and payroll taxes on the UBI payments?
People making between $75k-$200k in income would probably see income tax increases between $150-$400 per month.
Jeeze we're slowly turning into a slave society where the middle class works for the unholy alliance of the ultra rich and the dirt poor. About half of all births are on Medicaid now, and the rich get to virtue signal by raising taxes.
I hope the middle class has the foresight, while still a voting majority, to do something like say "Receiving UBI payments requires you to get long term birth control."
Most people aren't actually stupid.
You've got to be joking.
Murdering people and taking credit for it isn't going to make non-muslims like muslims more. I'd say they're trying to alienate non-muslims from moderate muslims.
Well like you said how about we just look at what they're doing and the effects. ISIS killing people and taking credit for it in the Middle East... has that resulted in a lesser or greater population of Muslims in Europe, for instance? Has it resulted in lesser or greater alienation of Muslims?
Radical Muslims DO want moderates to radicalize, but that requires 2 conflicting forces. First, there's a force needed to increase Islamization in the West, because that means more Muslims in the West where the terrorists want to target things. Second, the Muslims who end up in the West need to be kept ghettoized so that they don't become too Westernized themselves. So it's both. That's why I'm saying, whatever they do, there is more than one plausible explanation. You could say "Oh they did this to get more Muslims into the West. Why else do they put Syrian towns under siege but allow journalists to come in and broadcast images of children starving to death?" That makes some group of Westerners say "OMG we need to invite refugees to come here." A second group will say "Look at how barbaric they are, we don't want them."
Then they'll attack a nightclub in Paris and that'll make the first group say "OMG these poor young men are so isolated, we have to help them." The second group will say "Fuck these Muslims."
They can profit from both reactions. There are enough people in the first group that Muslim immigration continues. There are enough people in the second group that Muslim alienation continues. Who cares what the "real" goal is? Is it even meaningful to suppose they have just one "real" goal?
They want non-muslims to hate moderate muslims and associate the attacks with islam in general, thereby boosting their numbers.
It's equally likely (well actually I'd say more likely) that they want non-muslims to like muslims as that provides greater cover for the extremists.
We don't know what terrorists really want. You can't necessarily just believe what they say. And there are situations where different terrorist groups want different things -- there are pro-Assad terrorists and anti-Assad terrorists in Syria for instance. There are terrorists who want Shia supremacy, and terrorists who want Shias to be destroyed.
And even if we did really know what they want, it doesn't matter. We need to make decisions based on what we want, not what terrorists want.
It's about time "right of return" started applying around the world!
But in all seriousness, the country of his ancestors is in no position to refuse. In the hypothetical world where we had the balls to deport suspected terrorists, we would also coerce the countries rather than just ask nicely. Just search for UK aid to Libya. The UK gave Libya 9 million pounds recently to help them deal with refugees... there's another article about millions of pounds being spent to help some shit city called Misrata. How about "Take this guy or no more aid for a year." Chances are Libya would be willing to take him back and execute him if they didn't really want him around.
The thing that gets me is how few people among the 'general public' understand that every single time a country enacts measures like this, it's an unqualified win for the terrorists.
The thing that gets me is how many people project these kinds of motivations onto terrorists. No, I really don't think ISIS gives a fuck if the UK starts snooping on citizens more.
I'm pretty sure that some people make assertions like that just because they think it's persuasive to argue in the line of "Terrorists want X, so we must do the opposite."
I hate people who ruin classrooms for good kids. I hate people who run down a nice neighborhood by being trashy. I hate people who are casually aggressive with others, perhaps because they want to feel powerful about at least something in their lives. I hate criminals who violate others' sense of security.
You're describing a pretty good, workable system for maintaining social order, but that's not really how it is. The people in those McMansions don't want to live next to poor people. And violent criminals who come mostly from the ranks of the poor are completely out of control. And mainstream politicians are propping up thug groups like black lives matter to put pressure on cops NOT to bust everybody.
So regular paid vacation (not maternity leave) is also paid by the government instead of the employer?
A few years ago my nieces were really interested in this: http://web.stanford.edu/class/...
We did the image exercises. I started off doing most of the typing with their input, then they did some on their own. The cool thing with this library is you can go way off on a tangent. We made stripes of across some of the images for instance.
For what it's worth, my wife participated in an outreach program through her work to expose kids to programming. They sent a team to a school and each employee took a group of kids and did a different project. I suggested this one, which my wife customized a bit. It was by far the most popular project with the kids (I think they were 6th and 7th graders). Graphics are cool, especially the green-screen exercises.
USPS consolidated five zip codes into one distribution center, turning four 30,000-sqft facilities into storefront locations. It took five years to remove all the kinks at the existing facility as the combined workload got done with fewer workers.
Yeah but in 5 years how much did mail volume fall?
https://about.usps.com/who-we-...
I don't think brand loyalty is bizarre. If a brand is good and has earned your trust then it's worth supporting it during a slump. Otherwise the competitor that takes its place might screw you when the good brand has folded.
Usually vacation time is accrued. Maternity leave isn't, unless there's a token period before all benefits start (like 6 months).
Not coming back after paid maternity leave would be like asking for future paid vacation up front, and then quitting before you accrue that borrowed time.
I support maternity and parental leave but I think you're mischaracterizing it here.
Don't forget, what jobs we can't export we want to import cheap labor for. Because we're so smart.