Production systems very often use a commercially-supported distribution, as support is valued, or one of the open versions of those, as they tend to get patches pretty promptly. Whilst you could use Slackware on a production system, it wouldn't be my first choice from a risk perspective.
Indeed, people underemployed in low-wage jobs can, and do, end up homeless. Sometimes that is due to low skills, sometimes ill-health, sometimes child care requirements, sometimes due to personal issues like mental illness or substance abuse, or lack of jobs.
Once homeless it can be hard to even get work as a permanent address is often required, and increasingly applications are done online, and you need to be moderately clean with reasonable clothes for a job. Thus, it can be difficult to get a new job if actually on the street, even if you want one. Many who are homeless and employed are sofa surfing, though, but that can easily end up as being on the street.
It's not necessarily a problem. If the remaining workers become more productive (which has generally been true, although UK workers are 20% less productive than in, say, Germany or France, per hour worked), then there should be sufficient wealth in the economy to cover state pensions and health care, and ideally those retiring also have other sources of income. In any case, the dependency ratio, whilst it is expected to hit a high point in 15 years time, is expected to decline after that.
The article says: 50k disposable income
That means: after taxes, house hold costs, food, energy, car, insurances, especially health insurance (yes I know that is covered by taxes in Scandinavia), so yes: if you have 50k left at the end of the year, which basically means you can spent 5k per month for what ever you want: you are rich.
If you believe otherwise you have an absurd definition of rich.
That's not the usual definition of disposable income. For example, in the UK (from the ONS) it is: "Disposable income is the amount of money that households have available for spending and saving after direct taxes (such as Income Tax and Council Tax) have been accounted for. ". In other words, after tax income. So from the $56k, you have to pay for house hold costs, rent/mortgage, food, energy, car, insurance. Still, $56k is more than my disposable income, so it sounds pretty good.
One of the other issues with the UK's North Sea reserves is that they peaked much sooner than expected. It was originally forecast that it would be around 2010, but it happened in 2001. The government of the day had, to some extent, notionally spent that additional tax revenue already, so had to roll back on things, somewhat (e.g. public sector employment peaked in 2005).
Nokia still exists. It's now back to the business it had before the phones - network gear. Nokia has changed core business multiple times in its history.
They do not waste money on a military because they assume the US or some other European country will protect them when needed.
Norway and Sweden have quite extensive militaries with national service, AFAIK. It's cheap because it's intended to basically only defend if the country is overrun. Denmark is so flat it would probably be hard to effectively defend even with a large army.
They do not spend any sizeable amounts of money on international problems or issues.
"Sweden made the largest contribution as a percentage of gross national income (GNI) at 1.40% and the United Nations’ ODA target of 0.7% of GNI was also exceeded by the UAE, Norway, Luxembourg, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom"
In terms of absolute amounts, the USA was first in total spending on foreign aid, followed by the EU, but "The European Union accumulated a higher portion of GDP as a form of foreign aid than any other economic union."
Of course we can have people working. But many homeless people already work, so getting people who work to work doesn't seem to be solving the issue of them not having a home.
There are a few who are not working who won't yet be capable of working if their issues (mental health, most likely) are too great, which means some sort of gateway required before they can work at Dick's or anywhere else. For example, you won't get that much work out of someone with severe and untreated schizophrenia, and that's not about what someone might want to do, but what they are capable of doing. In that case, treating the disease is the better option. Schizophrenia and PTSD are not uncommon among amongst those who are homeless and not working, and of those with PTSD it's not uncommon for them to be ex-members of the armed forces.
As I've said before, simplistic mantras are not the solution, as there are multiple causes of homelessness, and multiple routes out. And not everyone can work at Dick's. Trying a variety of different things that fit the particular issues that a person has is likely to be more effective.
Sometimes it's also things like marriage breakups, abusive relationships, or sometimes just poverty (if you don't have enough for the deposit and first month's rent up front, then unlucky). Others can be those released from prison with little to no support network, money, or way of accessing housing or work Access to better mental health services, support for getting off substances (assuming not self-medication), support for those suffering from abuse, and methods to help people raise deposits, and support for ex-cons would probably help reduce homelessness. In many cases addiction is a response to other issues, so treating root causes would be helpful. As I noted before, there are multiple reasons someone might become homeless, so simplistic suggestions that treat people the same are not likely to be effective (not that I am saying you have suggested that - just a general point).
You'd only be able to increase the price of things without economic contraction and without increase the money supply if the velocity of money increased.
I can't imagine that there are places for all homeless people. Many homeless people have too many mental health or substance issues (often the latter is self-medication for the former) to make that transition without assistance. Sometimes people are homeless (and I know someone for whom this applied) due to difficult family situations causing them to leave home when young, and then falling through the gaps of social provision (although that can be multi-factorial in terms of what that happens). Basically, it's complicated, and simplistic solutions are unlikely to work.
There's a difference between don't and won't. Many homeless people have issues with mental health, substances, or both. There's enough money in the economy to offer them at least some assistance, and potentially get at least some of them back on their feet and functioning members of society again. It may not work for all people, of course, as some have issues that are hard to solve, and not all interventions are successful.
People not wanting to work is another matter, but that's relatively few people.
Also, there are people who are homeless (e.g. sofa surfing) who also work.
every project they seem to chase ends up costing the tax payers far more than what they budgeted.
To be fair, that's true of just about every large project, public or private, and a lot of smaller ones. Public ones are more open with the budgets, so get noticed more. Not that this excuses projects running over budget, just pointing out that government is not necessarily any worse at it, and that budgeting still seems to be more art then science at times.
Britain had the same problem with chimneys from it's earlier industrial revolution. Abandoned factories with chimneys that no one needs. Somehow they found a way to get those torn down without going broke.
Centrally planned economies and government subsidies often go horribly wrong in all kind of unintended ways.
So? You think other alternatives don't? Consider Asbestos. CFCs. Tobacco. Leaded Gasoline. The Dust Bowl. Slavery. The Foreclosure Crisis. The S&L crisis. Enron. WorldCom.
What are your examples?
Of course, you don't even realize how your criticism is met with the number of times central planning and government subsidy solved problems.
There's a difference between central planning and regulation.
Slashdot Mirror
Order pickers in warehouses often walk up to a dozen miles a day on the job.
In Europe the 'car year' isn't aligned to the calendar year,
Production systems very often use a commercially-supported distribution, as support is valued, or one of the open versions of those, as they tend to get patches pretty promptly. Whilst you could use Slackware on a production system, it wouldn't be my first choice from a risk perspective.
Indeed, people underemployed in low-wage jobs can, and do, end up homeless. Sometimes that is due to low skills, sometimes ill-health, sometimes child care requirements, sometimes due to personal issues like mental illness or substance abuse, or lack of jobs.
Once homeless it can be hard to even get work as a permanent address is often required, and increasingly applications are done online, and you need to be moderately clean with reasonable clothes for a job. Thus, it can be difficult to get a new job if actually on the street, even if you want one. Many who are homeless and employed are sofa surfing, though, but that can easily end up as being on the street.
It's not necessarily a problem. If the remaining workers become more productive (which has generally been true, although UK workers are 20% less productive than in, say, Germany or France, per hour worked), then there should be sufficient wealth in the economy to cover state pensions and health care, and ideally those retiring also have other sources of income. In any case, the dependency ratio, whilst it is expected to hit a high point in 15 years time, is expected to decline after that.
It's not tax and spend, it's 'pump it out of the ground and spend'. At most, it's taxing the earth.
It's easy to sell petroleum products real cheap when you don't have to burn it for lights and cooking
sounds prudent
The article says: 50k disposable income That means: after taxes, house hold costs, food, energy, car, insurances, especially health insurance (yes I know that is covered by taxes in Scandinavia), so yes: if you have 50k left at the end of the year, which basically means you can spent 5k per month for what ever you want: you are rich. If you believe otherwise you have an absurd definition of rich.
That's not the usual definition of disposable income. For example, in the UK (from the ONS) it is: "Disposable income is the amount of money that households have available for spending and saving after direct taxes (such as Income Tax and Council Tax) have been accounted for. ". In other words, after tax income. So from the $56k, you have to pay for house hold costs, rent/mortgage, food, energy, car, insurance. Still, $56k is more than my disposable income, so it sounds pretty good.
In what world is $56k rich?
In about 90% of it.
One of the other issues with the UK's North Sea reserves is that they peaked much sooner than expected. It was originally forecast that it would be around 2010, but it happened in 2001. The government of the day had, to some extent, notionally spent that additional tax revenue already, so had to roll back on things, somewhat (e.g. public sector employment peaked in 2005).
Nokia still exists. It's now back to the business it had before the phones - network gear. Nokia has changed core business multiple times in its history.
the housing market is so distorted that there isn't anything to buy?
I thought the German model was more to rent until relatively late in life when you are not going to potentially be moving around for work?
They do not waste money on a military because they assume the US or some other European country will protect them when needed.
Norway and Sweden have quite extensive militaries with national service, AFAIK. It's cheap because it's intended to basically only defend if the country is overrun. Denmark is so flat it would probably be hard to effectively defend even with a large army.
They do not spend any sizeable amounts of money on international problems or issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_development_aid_country_donors
"Sweden made the largest contribution as a percentage of gross national income (GNI) at 1.40% and the United Nations’ ODA target of 0.7% of GNI was also exceeded by the UAE, Norway, Luxembourg, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom"
In terms of absolute amounts, the USA was first in total spending on foreign aid, followed by the EU, but "The European Union accumulated a higher portion of GDP as a form of foreign aid than any other economic union."
AFAIK the measurement of happiness or not in a country isn't conducted just by asking "Are you happy?".
The Norse have it good because of natural resources
Norway has lots of oil, Sweden has chromium, Danes have... mermaids?/p?
Sadly, the UK didn't do the same.
Of course we can have people working. But many homeless people already work, so getting people who work to work doesn't seem to be solving the issue of them not having a home.
There are a few who are not working who won't yet be capable of working if their issues (mental health, most likely) are too great, which means some sort of gateway required before they can work at Dick's or anywhere else. For example, you won't get that much work out of someone with severe and untreated schizophrenia, and that's not about what someone might want to do, but what they are capable of doing. In that case, treating the disease is the better option. Schizophrenia and PTSD are not uncommon among amongst those who are homeless and not working, and of those with PTSD it's not uncommon for them to be ex-members of the armed forces.
As I've said before, simplistic mantras are not the solution, as there are multiple causes of homelessness, and multiple routes out. And not everyone can work at Dick's. Trying a variety of different things that fit the particular issues that a person has is likely to be more effective.
Sometimes it's also things like marriage breakups, abusive relationships, or sometimes just poverty (if you don't have enough for the deposit and first month's rent up front, then unlucky). Others can be those released from prison with little to no support network, money, or way of accessing housing or work Access to better mental health services, support for getting off substances (assuming not self-medication), support for those suffering from abuse, and methods to help people raise deposits, and support for ex-cons would probably help reduce homelessness. In many cases addiction is a response to other issues, so treating root causes would be helpful. As I noted before, there are multiple reasons someone might become homeless, so simplistic suggestions that treat people the same are not likely to be effective (not that I am saying you have suggested that - just a general point).
You'd only be able to increase the price of things without economic contraction and without increase the money supply if the velocity of money increased.
Money is both a unit of measure and a commodity.
You're not forced to pay union dues in the UK (unless you want to join a union), but you can't be arbitrarily fired.
I can't imagine that there are places for all homeless people. Many homeless people have too many mental health or substance issues (often the latter is self-medication for the former) to make that transition without assistance. Sometimes people are homeless (and I know someone for whom this applied) due to difficult family situations causing them to leave home when young, and then falling through the gaps of social provision (although that can be multi-factorial in terms of what that happens). Basically, it's complicated, and simplistic solutions are unlikely to work.
... to give the money to those who don't.
There's a difference between don't and won't. Many homeless people have issues with mental health, substances, or both. There's enough money in the economy to offer them at least some assistance, and potentially get at least some of them back on their feet and functioning members of society again. It may not work for all people, of course, as some have issues that are hard to solve, and not all interventions are successful.
People not wanting to work is another matter, but that's relatively few people.
Also, there are people who are homeless (e.g. sofa surfing) who also work.
every project they seem to chase ends up costing the tax payers far more than what they budgeted.
To be fair, that's true of just about every large project, public or private, and a lot of smaller ones. Public ones are more open with the budgets, so get noticed more. Not that this excuses projects running over budget, just pointing out that government is not necessarily any worse at it, and that budgeting still seems to be more art then science at times.
Britain had the same problem with chimneys from it's earlier industrial revolution. Abandoned factories with chimneys that no one needs. Somehow they found a way to get those torn down without going broke.
Fred Dibnah is gone, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... And it only really works if they are made from bricks.
Centrally planned economies and government subsidies often go horribly wrong in all kind of unintended ways.
So? You think other alternatives don't? Consider Asbestos. CFCs. Tobacco. Leaded Gasoline. The Dust Bowl. Slavery. The Foreclosure Crisis. The S&L crisis. Enron. WorldCom.
What are your examples?
Of course, you don't even realize how your criticism is met with the number of times central planning and government subsidy solved problems.
There's a difference between central planning and regulation.