I know I said I didn't have time for the blog but I am going to try to make it work because I do enjoy writing blog posts.
Today's post is on free speech. Free Speech gets talked about a great deal but it always amazes me how many people really don't understand what it truely means. And more to the point how often people confuse it with the 1st amendment here in the United States.
The 1st amendment says that "The government shall make no law" regarding free speech, meaning you cannot be oppressed or arrested for speaking against the government. Yet I have see situations where people feel their free speech is supressed and mention free speech.
It's simply amazing how many people clearly don't know anything about the 1st amendment. What makes it worse is that the people who don't really seem to know anything about it are people that are my age.
What these people who feel they are getting their speech supressed really are talking about is Free Speech. And even then they get it wrong.
Free Speech means you have the right to say what you wish to say, it doesn't mean there can't or won't be consequences for said speech. This is unrealistic and this is never how free speech has worked.
You cannot, for example yell "Fire" in a crowded movie theater (Not sure if it's the same rule for yelling "Movie Theater" in a crowded fire house) and if you go up to your boss at work and call him a name, he can still fire you.
Another for instance, there was a guy about my age who was kicked of a Southwest Airlines plane because his shirt had a swear word on it. The Southwest employee gave him the option of covering up the shirt or turning it inside out to cover it up. He refused and he cited his right to free speech but was kicked off.
Some people mistakenly in comment sections said that this was a violation of his Free Speech. Well no, no it was not. He has the right to free speech, but there can be consequences for his speech. Not to mention his shirt was a clear violation of the airlines "Contract of Carriage" rules, so regardless of those people who thought he would have a case to sue, the kid would lose in court.
People have to understand, just because you can say something, doesn't always mean you should
Thursday, 2 April 2015
Monday, 30 March 2015
Republicans see Obama as more imminent threat than Putin: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Good Morning/Almost Afternoon. Here is a very interesting article from Router.
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
Republicans see Obama as more imminent threat than Putin: Reuters/Ipsos poll
By Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A third of Republicans believe President Barack
Obama poses an imminent threat to the United States, outranking concerns
about Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad.
A
Reuters/Ipsos online poll this month asked 2,809 Americans to rate how
much of a threat a list of countries, organizations and individuals
posed to the United States on a scale of 1 to 5, with one being no
threat and 5 being an imminent threat.
The poll showed 34 percent of Republicans ranked Obama as
an imminent threat, ahead of Putin (25 percent), who has been accused of
aggression in the Ukraine, and Assad (23 percent). Western governments
have alleged that Assad used chlorine gas and barrel bombs on his own
citizens.
Given
the level of polarization in American politics the results are not that
surprising, said Barry Glassner, a sociologist and author of "The
Culture of Fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things."
"There tends to be a lot of demonizing of the person who
is in the office," Glassner said, adding that "fear mongering" by the
Republican and Democratic parties would be a mainstay of the U.S. 2016
presidential campaign.
--------------------------------------------
The entire article can be found here
What do you think about the whole situation? Post a comment and let me know
Thursday, 26 March 2015
I will be back tomorrow with new posts
Hi Everyone,
With tons of classwork to deal with and getting over a stomach bug I haven't been up to posting for about a week.
I will get back on task tomorrow as I won't be as busy and I think I will be back to full strength.
Thank you for you paitence.
- Devon
With tons of classwork to deal with and getting over a stomach bug I haven't been up to posting for about a week.
I will get back on task tomorrow as I won't be as busy and I think I will be back to full strength.
Thank you for you paitence.
- Devon
Friday, 20 March 2015
Milton Friedman Versus A Socialist
This is very old footage but very interesting and he makes some very good points about why For those who aren't familiar with who Milton Friedman is, he was an economist and a very brilliant man.
For more on Milton Friedman please check out his Wikipedia page here
Here is the video where Milton Friedman goes up against a socialist:
Here is an additional video where Mr. Friedman talks about the value of Free Capitalism
What do you think of these videos? Post a comment and let me know
For more on Milton Friedman please check out his Wikipedia page here
Here is the video where Milton Friedman goes up against a socialist:
Here is an additional video where Mr. Friedman talks about the value of Free Capitalism
What do you think of these videos? Post a comment and let me know
Wednesday, 18 March 2015
Reprint: Pentagon 'loses track' of U.S. weapons in Yemen: Report
With all of my schoolwork I don't have time to post an original post, so I am going to re post an interesting story I saw. Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think.
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“We have to assume it’s completely compromised and gone,” an unnamed legislative aide on Capitol Hill told The Washington Post.
On Tuesday, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford testified on Capitol Hill, saying the decision was backed by the U.S. Central Command as well the Department of Defense in Washington.
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Pentagon 'loses track' of U.S. weapons in Yemen: Report
The ongoing unrest that forced
the United States to close its embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, last month also
has caused Pentagon officials to admit that they’ve lost track of $500
million in military equipment, including helicopters, Humvees and
ammunition, that it donated to the country, The Washington Post reports.
U.S. officials told the newspaper
that they fear the “small arms, ammunition, night-vision goggles,
patrol boats, vehicles and other supplies” may have slipped into the
hands of Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaida:
In recent weeks,
members of Congress have held closed-door meetings with U.S. military
officials to press for an accounting of the arms and equipment. Pentagon
officials have said that they have little information to go on and that
there is little they can do at this point to prevent the weapons and
gear from falling into the wrong hands.
“We have to assume it’s completely compromised and gone,” an unnamed legislative aide on Capitol Hill told The Washington Post.
According to the newspaper, this is what is presumed missing:
• 1,250,000 rounds of ammunition
• 200 Glock 9 mm pistols
• 200 M-4 rifles
• 4 Huey II helicopters
• 2 Cessna 208 transport and surveillance aircraft
• 2 coastal patrol boats
• 1 CN-235 transport and surveillance aircraft
• 4 hand-launched Raven drones
• 160 Humvees
• 250 suits of body armor
• 300 sets of night-vision goggles
• 200 Glock 9 mm pistols
• 200 M-4 rifles
• 4 Huey II helicopters
• 2 Cessna 208 transport and surveillance aircraft
• 2 coastal patrol boats
• 1 CN-235 transport and surveillance aircraft
• 4 hand-launched Raven drones
• 160 Humvees
• 250 suits of body armor
• 300 sets of night-vision goggles
A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the record about the newspaper’s report.
In January, Yemen’s government
and its U.S.-backed president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, were toppled by
the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels, who seized control of northern
Yemeni military bases. In February, a military base in southern Yemen was overrun by militants linked to al-Qaida.
“Yemen is collapsing before our
eyes,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned during a February
briefing. “We cannot stand by and watch.”
The U.S. Department of Defense
had already halted shipments of $125 million in military hardware —
“including unarmed ScanEagle drones, other types of aircraft and jeeps” —
scheduled for delivery to Yemen this year, The Washington Post
reported.
During the evacuation of the
Sanaa embassy, U.S. Marines were ordered to destroy their weapons and
depart the country unarmed — a move that sparked backlash among some who
argued that service members are taught never to leave their weapons
behind.
On Tuesday, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford testified on Capitol Hill, saying the decision was backed by the U.S. Central Command as well the Department of Defense in Washington.
Minnesota Republican Rep. John
Kline fired back: “It is an intolerable position for people in uniform
to be in a very dangerous situation and have to trust those who put us
in that situation while we turn over all weapons.”
Meanwhile, The Associated Press reported that Houthi rebels seized “more than 25 official U.S. vehicles in the wake of the hasty departure of embassy staff.”
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Monday, 16 March 2015
Four Reasons a Guaranteed Income Won't Work
Getting back to the topic of Universal Basic Income, Megan McArdleon Bloomberg wrote a very good article on why UBI won't work.
--------------------------------
Last night, I was part of a Wonkblog debate on guaranteed income. The discussion ranged widely, but I thought I’d write up a few of what I think were the most important points:
Cost: Not a few libertarians have embraced the idea as an alternative to the welfare state. Get rid of all the unemployment insurance and just cut everyone a check once a month. There’s a lot to like about this: It has minimal overhead, because you don’t need to verify eligibility beyond citizenship, and it may reduce some of the terrible incentives that poor people face under the current system.
There are a couple of problems with this, however. The first is that zeroing out our current income security system wouldn’t provide much of a basic income. Total federal spending on income security (welfare, unemployment, etc.) is under $600 billion a year. There are 235 million adults in the U.S. Millions of those are undocumented immigrants, but that still leaves you with a lot of people. Getting rid of all of our spending on welfare and so forth would be enough to give each of those people less than $3,000 a year. For a lot of poor people, that’s considerably less than what they’re getting from the government right now.
The problem is that if you try to bring it up to something a bit more generous, the cost quickly escalates. Cutting everyone a check for $1,000 a month, which most people in that room would consider too little to live on, would cost almost $3 trillion. But if you means-test it to control the cost, or try to tax most of the benefits back for people who aren’t low-income, you rapidly lose the efficiency gains and start creating some pretty powerful disincentives to work.
Reciprocity: I made the point that while many societies redistribute more than ours does -- many hunter-gatherers have practiced something close to communism -- that sharing takes place in a strong network of reciprocal obligations. This is not the reciprocity of trading, in which I give you something in exchange for something else right now, and when the trade is finished, so are our obligations to each other. The sharing environment is more like a family, in which the obligations are deep and fairly wide-ranging, but you don’t necessarily know who will collect on them or when.
The guaranteed income is often explicitly touted because it obviates the need for reciprocity; why should you have to work some crappy job just to get the basics you need to live? Or jump through hoops for some social worker? Mike Konczal made the point that bankers don’t have to pee in a cup to get paid.
I oppose drug-testing welfare recipients, because I oppose the drug war. But I think the broader argument for a guaranteed income has some really deep problems. Some are moral: How can you say that the affluent have an obligation to give a considerable portion of their income to their fellow citizens, precisely in order to free said fellow citizens from any obligation to the people who are paying their bills? Others are practical and political: Such a program would not have broad-based political support, and it would be corrosive to civic society.
I think you can make an argument that society should make it possible for those who are willing to contribute to support themselves; I would not be opposed to a system of guaranteed jobs that paid $10,000 a year, or whatever we think this basic income should be. But you cannot sustain a program that posits huge obligations on the part of one group to people who have no reciprocal obligations at all.
After the talk, naturally, someone asked me about trust-fund babies: Why do people worry about welfare recipients but not about people who live off inherited wealth? I think there are a lot of answers to that: The number of people with sufficient inherited wealth to free them from the need to work is very small, and they do not make ongoing demands on everyone else’s monthly paycheck. The broader answer is that I am bourgeois enough to think that trust funds are bad for people, and I have occasionally toyed with the idea of a 100 percent estate tax.
But one thing to point out is that the questioner was actually wrong: The person with inherited wealth usually obtained it by just the sort of nannying that Konczal decried. In order to get the trust fund, they had to submit to many hours of being harangued about their manners, habits and life choices -- and if you know anyone in line for a substantial inheritance, or have read a P.G. Wodehouse novel, you know that their elderly relatives often use the money to control the lives of their potential heirs. The reward may be wildly out of proportion to the amount of harassment they have to suffer, but in very few cases is it a free guarantee.
-----------------------------------------
You can read the entire article by clicking here but this illistrates some of the same points I made about why Universal Basic income is bad and should be universally rejected.
What do you think about the article? Post a comment and let me know.
--------------------------------
Last night, I was part of a Wonkblog debate on guaranteed income. The discussion ranged widely, but I thought I’d write up a few of what I think were the most important points:
Cost: Not a few libertarians have embraced the idea as an alternative to the welfare state. Get rid of all the unemployment insurance and just cut everyone a check once a month. There’s a lot to like about this: It has minimal overhead, because you don’t need to verify eligibility beyond citizenship, and it may reduce some of the terrible incentives that poor people face under the current system.
There are a couple of problems with this, however. The first is that zeroing out our current income security system wouldn’t provide much of a basic income. Total federal spending on income security (welfare, unemployment, etc.) is under $600 billion a year. There are 235 million adults in the U.S. Millions of those are undocumented immigrants, but that still leaves you with a lot of people. Getting rid of all of our spending on welfare and so forth would be enough to give each of those people less than $3,000 a year. For a lot of poor people, that’s considerably less than what they’re getting from the government right now.
The problem is that if you try to bring it up to something a bit more generous, the cost quickly escalates. Cutting everyone a check for $1,000 a month, which most people in that room would consider too little to live on, would cost almost $3 trillion. But if you means-test it to control the cost, or try to tax most of the benefits back for people who aren’t low-income, you rapidly lose the efficiency gains and start creating some pretty powerful disincentives to work.
Reciprocity: I made the point that while many societies redistribute more than ours does -- many hunter-gatherers have practiced something close to communism -- that sharing takes place in a strong network of reciprocal obligations. This is not the reciprocity of trading, in which I give you something in exchange for something else right now, and when the trade is finished, so are our obligations to each other. The sharing environment is more like a family, in which the obligations are deep and fairly wide-ranging, but you don’t necessarily know who will collect on them or when.
The guaranteed income is often explicitly touted because it obviates the need for reciprocity; why should you have to work some crappy job just to get the basics you need to live? Or jump through hoops for some social worker? Mike Konczal made the point that bankers don’t have to pee in a cup to get paid.
I oppose drug-testing welfare recipients, because I oppose the drug war. But I think the broader argument for a guaranteed income has some really deep problems. Some are moral: How can you say that the affluent have an obligation to give a considerable portion of their income to their fellow citizens, precisely in order to free said fellow citizens from any obligation to the people who are paying their bills? Others are practical and political: Such a program would not have broad-based political support, and it would be corrosive to civic society.
I think you can make an argument that society should make it possible for those who are willing to contribute to support themselves; I would not be opposed to a system of guaranteed jobs that paid $10,000 a year, or whatever we think this basic income should be. But you cannot sustain a program that posits huge obligations on the part of one group to people who have no reciprocal obligations at all.
After the talk, naturally, someone asked me about trust-fund babies: Why do people worry about welfare recipients but not about people who live off inherited wealth? I think there are a lot of answers to that: The number of people with sufficient inherited wealth to free them from the need to work is very small, and they do not make ongoing demands on everyone else’s monthly paycheck. The broader answer is that I am bourgeois enough to think that trust funds are bad for people, and I have occasionally toyed with the idea of a 100 percent estate tax.
But one thing to point out is that the questioner was actually wrong: The person with inherited wealth usually obtained it by just the sort of nannying that Konczal decried. In order to get the trust fund, they had to submit to many hours of being harangued about their manners, habits and life choices -- and if you know anyone in line for a substantial inheritance, or have read a P.G. Wodehouse novel, you know that their elderly relatives often use the money to control the lives of their potential heirs. The reward may be wildly out of proportion to the amount of harassment they have to suffer, but in very few cases is it a free guarantee.
-----------------------------------------
You can read the entire article by clicking here but this illistrates some of the same points I made about why Universal Basic income is bad and should be universally rejected.
What do you think about the article? Post a comment and let me know.
Saturday, 14 March 2015
Real World reason $15/hour is a bad idea
I am not going to publish an article today, but I am going to post an article which can be found here about how Seattle raising the minimum wage is already causing businesses to close because the businesses won't be financially viable. Come April 1st the minimum wage will go up to $11/hour and by 2017 it will be at $15/hour.
Those people who said it wouldn't cause job losses and wouldn't be an impact on businesses are very wrong.
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You can read the entire article by clicking here: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/03/14/restaurants-in-seattle-going-dark-as-15-an-hour-minimum-wage-looms/
What do you think about the whole situation. Post a comment and let me know
Those people who said it wouldn't cause job losses and wouldn't be an impact on businesses are very wrong.
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I like this simple, elegant explanation from Reason’s Ronald Bailey about the value of labor and the minimum wage:
If all other factors remain equal, the higher the price of a good, the less people will demand it. That’s the law of demand, a fundamental idea in economics. And yet there is no shortage of politicians, pundits, policy wonks, and members of the public who insist that raising the price of labor will not have the effect of lessening the demand for workers. In his 2014 State of the Union Address, for example, President Barack Obama called on Congress to raise the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. He argued that increasing the minimum wage would “grow the economy for everyone” by giving “businesses customers with more spending money.”A January 2015 working paper by two economists, Robert Pollin and Jeanette Wicks-Lim at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, claims that raising the minimum wage of fast food workers to $15 per hour over a four-year transition period would not necessarily result in “shedding jobs.” The two acknowledge that the “raising the price of anything will reduce demand for that thing, all else equal.” But they believe they’ve found a way to “relax” the all-else-being-equal part, at least as far as the wages of fast food workers go. Pollin and Wicks-Lim argue that “the fast-food industry could fully absorb these wage bill increases through a combination of turnover reductions; trend increases in sales growth; and modest annual price increases over the four-year period.” They further claim that a $15/hour minimum wage would not result in lower profits or the reallocation of funds away from other operations, such as marketing. Amazing
Seattle is going to put that theory to a real world test. Starting April 1, businesses in the city will be forced to raise the minimum wage to $11 an hour, reaching $15 an hour by 2017 for large businesses and 2019 for smaller companies. There are allowances if a business offers health insurance benefits, but all businesses will be paying employees $15 an hour in salary, tips, or benefits by 2021.
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You can read the entire article by clicking here: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/03/14/restaurants-in-seattle-going-dark-as-15-an-hour-minimum-wage-looms/
What do you think about the whole situation. Post a comment and let me know
Friday, 13 March 2015
The Minimum Wage and $15 an Hour
I am going to change gears for a little bit and talk about something other then Universal Basic Income for today. I am going to discuss the people (Fast Food Workers mostly) who are protesting, trying to get fast food restarants to pay them $15/hour.
The problem with this, of course is that these workers want to be paid at a skilled rate to do an unskilled job that anyone can be taught to do. They workers don't want to obtain skills that will make them worth $15, they just expect a handout (a problem that is almost an epidemic these days).
They also claim that the McDonald's CEO is making millions of dollars so he can "share the wealth", well there are a few things wrong with this premise.
First off, the majority of McDonald's restaurants are owned by franchisees who are leveraged to the hilt, because you have to have $1 million or more to get a franchise. Not to mention being a franchisee mean you have to pay a certain amount each month to McDonald's as part of the agreement. A franchise restaurant that has to pay $15/hour would have to raise prices and most likely would cut workers down to the bare minimum allowed in order to continue to make a profit and stay in business.
Secondly, even if the CEO took a lesser salary (lets say $1 million dollars) and split the remaining salary with all employees, it would break down to around $10 per person. $10 is hardly going to make an impact on the lives of the works. Not to mention what the CEO makes has nothing to do with the cost of unskilled labor. The CEO is paid more and has a higher education and completes tasks which require more skill.
If the restaurants were forced to pay $15/hour do these poor people (often African American) think they would still have jobs? Of course they wouldn't. If a restaurant were forced to pay a premium hourly wage they would get the best people possible and the workers who spend their workdays chatting and checking their cell phones instead of serving customers would be out of work.
Should minimum wage go up? Absolutely. I am sympathetic to the workers situation and perhaps a middle ground can be reached. I just know the amount that the workers are asking for now is just unrealistic and would do more harm then good.
What do you think about the whole minimum wage situation? Comment and let me know
The problem with this, of course is that these workers want to be paid at a skilled rate to do an unskilled job that anyone can be taught to do. They workers don't want to obtain skills that will make them worth $15, they just expect a handout (a problem that is almost an epidemic these days).
They also claim that the McDonald's CEO is making millions of dollars so he can "share the wealth", well there are a few things wrong with this premise.
First off, the majority of McDonald's restaurants are owned by franchisees who are leveraged to the hilt, because you have to have $1 million or more to get a franchise. Not to mention being a franchisee mean you have to pay a certain amount each month to McDonald's as part of the agreement. A franchise restaurant that has to pay $15/hour would have to raise prices and most likely would cut workers down to the bare minimum allowed in order to continue to make a profit and stay in business.
Secondly, even if the CEO took a lesser salary (lets say $1 million dollars) and split the remaining salary with all employees, it would break down to around $10 per person. $10 is hardly going to make an impact on the lives of the works. Not to mention what the CEO makes has nothing to do with the cost of unskilled labor. The CEO is paid more and has a higher education and completes tasks which require more skill.
If the restaurants were forced to pay $15/hour do these poor people (often African American) think they would still have jobs? Of course they wouldn't. If a restaurant were forced to pay a premium hourly wage they would get the best people possible and the workers who spend their workdays chatting and checking their cell phones instead of serving customers would be out of work.
Should minimum wage go up? Absolutely. I am sympathetic to the workers situation and perhaps a middle ground can be reached. I just know the amount that the workers are asking for now is just unrealistic and would do more harm then good.
What do you think about the whole minimum wage situation? Comment and let me know
Thursday, 12 March 2015
Why Universal Basic Income won't work
Those who are advocating for Universal Basic Income are not really looking at the big picture. On paper it looks like a good idea but that's the only place it looks good.
People advocating for Universal Basic Income cite closing wasteful government agencices as the way to fund the program. But that alone won't be enough. In reading meterial on UBI another thing mentioned is taxes.
In an already overtaxed country like the United States people are not going to accept their taxes being raised even further.
Let me illistrate why Universal Basic Income is not fesiable:
At the time of the posting the United States Population is: 320,497,496
If the government chose to pay everyone $2,800 a month in Universal Basic Income that would come out to: 897,392,988,800
897 Billion dollars a month
Ok, so lets be fair and say that half of those people don't qualify (they are exempt for some reason or they are children) so only 160,248,748 people getting Universal Basic Income. Still being paid $2,800 a month comes out to be: $448,696,494,400
Almost $450 billion dollars a month. And these people think some how that just closing a few wasteful government departments will cover that. No, of course not. Taxes will have to be raised in order to cover that cost. For 12 months time the total is: 5,384,357,932,800
5 Trillion dollars. The government is already in debt as it is and the people pushing UBI want to either drive up the national debt or everyone's taxes (or Both)
Sadly, the people pushing for UBI haven't thought things through and looked at the big picture. UBI is not feasible.
People advocating for Universal Basic Income cite closing wasteful government agencices as the way to fund the program. But that alone won't be enough. In reading meterial on UBI another thing mentioned is taxes.
In an already overtaxed country like the United States people are not going to accept their taxes being raised even further.
Let me illistrate why Universal Basic Income is not fesiable:
At the time of the posting the United States Population is: 320,497,496
If the government chose to pay everyone $2,800 a month in Universal Basic Income that would come out to: 897,392,988,800
897 Billion dollars a month
Ok, so lets be fair and say that half of those people don't qualify (they are exempt for some reason or they are children) so only 160,248,748 people getting Universal Basic Income. Still being paid $2,800 a month comes out to be: $448,696,494,400
Almost $450 billion dollars a month. And these people think some how that just closing a few wasteful government departments will cover that. No, of course not. Taxes will have to be raised in order to cover that cost. For 12 months time the total is: 5,384,357,932,800
5 Trillion dollars. The government is already in debt as it is and the people pushing UBI want to either drive up the national debt or everyone's taxes (or Both)
Sadly, the people pushing for UBI haven't thought things through and looked at the big picture. UBI is not feasible.
Wealth Redistribution is Wrong
In my discussions about Universal Basic Income one theme seems to comes up time and time again. It's a theme that people like President Barack Obama and his ilk talk about all the time: Wealth Redistribution.
People like the President want to take wealth from the very successful and give it to less successful people. So if you are rich, worked hard and are successful, people like President Obama want to punish you for being rich and successful.
Taking money from the rich who worked hard to get their wealth (yes, I know about trust fund babies but someone had to work hard to make that money) and give it to people who are lazy and don't want to apply themselves and feel that they are owed a handout by the government is just wrong and immoral.
Many of these people may be out of work or are underemployed because they didn't get the education they needed or joked around in school thinking that having a good time was more imporant than getting an educatiaon.
And now they are paying the price for it and in turn, we are paying the price for their laziness. I hear about companies that are looking for people to hire, many of the jobs don't require much or any skill but they can't fill the positions. The problem is that many of the people out there who are unemployed feel that certain jobs like working at McDonald's or working as a janitor is beneath them.
These people need a reality check and we need an overhaul to the system
The government needs to put in place a job counseling service that helps place people on welfare into jobs, even jobs they may think they are above. If you can work then you get a job and get off the system, companies in local areas can work with the service to post job and get people for open positions.
In short, we stop giving people the option of not working and living off of everyone else if they are fully able to work. Welfare should only be for the people who cannot work, and people shouldn't be rewarded for having more children and using the government welfare system as a lottery.
Instead of UBI and wealth redistribution, lets make people self sufficient once again.
People like the President want to take wealth from the very successful and give it to less successful people. So if you are rich, worked hard and are successful, people like President Obama want to punish you for being rich and successful.
Taking money from the rich who worked hard to get their wealth (yes, I know about trust fund babies but someone had to work hard to make that money) and give it to people who are lazy and don't want to apply themselves and feel that they are owed a handout by the government is just wrong and immoral.
Many of these people may be out of work or are underemployed because they didn't get the education they needed or joked around in school thinking that having a good time was more imporant than getting an educatiaon.
And now they are paying the price for it and in turn, we are paying the price for their laziness. I hear about companies that are looking for people to hire, many of the jobs don't require much or any skill but they can't fill the positions. The problem is that many of the people out there who are unemployed feel that certain jobs like working at McDonald's or working as a janitor is beneath them.
These people need a reality check and we need an overhaul to the system
The government needs to put in place a job counseling service that helps place people on welfare into jobs, even jobs they may think they are above. If you can work then you get a job and get off the system, companies in local areas can work with the service to post job and get people for open positions.
In short, we stop giving people the option of not working and living off of everyone else if they are fully able to work. Welfare should only be for the people who cannot work, and people shouldn't be rewarded for having more children and using the government welfare system as a lottery.
Instead of UBI and wealth redistribution, lets make people self sufficient once again.
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Yes, Universal Basic Income is Socialism
I have recently gotten into a conversation with someone regarding Universal Basic Income and whether it is more or less socialism than what we currently have in place.
The person I spoke to said, and I quote "If it involves a drastic reduction of the size of government, and a stripping away of the mentality of "the state will be responsible to care for you regardless of what you do" and simultaneously of that idea that "you have to jump through hoops determined by the state to be eligible for state-care", it is in many respects less socialist than the current welfare-state."
My question to him was, how is giving everyone a basic income for just being alive not the governement taking care of everyone regardless of what you do? It's the same type of socialism in a different form.
Socialism doesn't work. History has proven that. We do need to make changes in our governement and cut back on the waste but we need to make people more independent so they depend on the government less, not more. What scares me more is this person's profession is a historian so they should know better.
How would Universal Basic Income not allow the government into our lives more than they already are? What's to say they won't make conditions on what we can and can't spend the UBI money on? What if they say "You can't buy alcohol or drugs or junk food" with UBI? Do you want to give the government another way to dictate what we can and can't do with our lives?
Capitalism works but there needs to be tweaks to make sure certain people aren't allowed to abuse it.
UBI simply put is more socialism and we have too much socialism in our lives as it is and we should reject it wholesale.
Do you think UBI is more or less socialism? Comment and let me know what you think.
The person I spoke to said, and I quote "If it involves a drastic reduction of the size of government, and a stripping away of the mentality of "the state will be responsible to care for you regardless of what you do" and simultaneously of that idea that "you have to jump through hoops determined by the state to be eligible for state-care", it is in many respects less socialist than the current welfare-state."
My question to him was, how is giving everyone a basic income for just being alive not the governement taking care of everyone regardless of what you do? It's the same type of socialism in a different form.
Socialism doesn't work. History has proven that. We do need to make changes in our governement and cut back on the waste but we need to make people more independent so they depend on the government less, not more. What scares me more is this person's profession is a historian so they should know better.
How would Universal Basic Income not allow the government into our lives more than they already are? What's to say they won't make conditions on what we can and can't spend the UBI money on? What if they say "You can't buy alcohol or drugs or junk food" with UBI? Do you want to give the government another way to dictate what we can and can't do with our lives?
Capitalism works but there needs to be tweaks to make sure certain people aren't allowed to abuse it.
UBI simply put is more socialism and we have too much socialism in our lives as it is and we should reject it wholesale.
Do you think UBI is more or less socialism? Comment and let me know what you think.
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Why Universal Basic Income is a fantasy
I read an article recently from an author who was discussing Universal
Basic Income and why it should be adopted. For those of you who
unfamiliar with the concept, Universal Basic Income is a monthly base
income that the government pays everyone just for being in the country.
People can then go out if they choose and get a job which will allow
them to make more money on top of their UBI.
The article I read was called "The Economic Case for a Universal Basic Income (Part 1 of a series)" by Ed Dolan. If you are interested in reading the article as well it can be found here.
The people pushing for UBI say that if you remove all of the unnecessary government agencies and red tape that the money needed to fund such a program will become readily available. The reality, however is that taxes would have be raised in order to fund such a large program, and people today already complain about how high the taxes are, from the poor to the rich. A raise in taxes wouldn't be an easy sell, at least for the people of the United States (which is where I am). Which is why the idea of UBI is really just a fantasy.
And let's be honest and call this program what is really is, socialism. Socialism doesn't work and that has been proven in the countries that are still socialist. The government these days (at least in the United States) can barely handle the functions it's tasked with with any kind of competency. Do you really want to leave the livelihoods of every US citizen to a system that has proven it can't even handle basic functions well?
Capitalism and the Free Market works and that is what we should stick to. While I agree we really should trim down the government and get rid of the waste, switching to socialism is not the way to do it.
What do you think of Universal Basic Income. Leave a comment and let me know
The article I read was called "The Economic Case for a Universal Basic Income (Part 1 of a series)" by Ed Dolan. If you are interested in reading the article as well it can be found here.
The people pushing for UBI say that if you remove all of the unnecessary government agencies and red tape that the money needed to fund such a program will become readily available. The reality, however is that taxes would have be raised in order to fund such a large program, and people today already complain about how high the taxes are, from the poor to the rich. A raise in taxes wouldn't be an easy sell, at least for the people of the United States (which is where I am). Which is why the idea of UBI is really just a fantasy.
And let's be honest and call this program what is really is, socialism. Socialism doesn't work and that has been proven in the countries that are still socialist. The government these days (at least in the United States) can barely handle the functions it's tasked with with any kind of competency. Do you really want to leave the livelihoods of every US citizen to a system that has proven it can't even handle basic functions well?
Capitalism and the Free Market works and that is what we should stick to. While I agree we really should trim down the government and get rid of the waste, switching to socialism is not the way to do it.
What do you think of Universal Basic Income. Leave a comment and let me know
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