stone wrote:
That cost comes about as an accumulation of many years of wages. The ridiculous scale of the FDA burden is put up because the FDA knows how much money is at stake and so can see that they need to try and keep potential crooks at bay. If drugs cost little to invent (because they were devised by almost volunteer labour), then they could be sold for less. The FDA would need to be less vigilant because there would be no motivation to push drugs that didn't work.
Back to climate studies, in that case again the grants are predominately for wages of the people involved.
I'm making this a new topic.
I'm trying to wrap my head around this.
You are saying that if people volunteered and gave up with their salary would have been, that the cost of engaging in political fads, overregulation and protectionism would decrease? How would they be rewarded for outsized accomplishments? If one person made a 1000x improvement in productivity over a run of the mill worker, would they still receive the same citizen's dividend amount? What is the citizen's dividend tied to?
MG
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
I think the citizen's dividend is the same for everyone, and I believe it's based on the fact that 1) it's ideal to keep the moral hazards associated with social safety nets out of the system, and 2) every citizen has an implied ownership in the land and natural resources of the country... kind of a "since it's not someone's, it's everyone's" point of view" that needs to be accounted for.
"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."
I think the citizen's dividend is the same for everyone, and I believe it's based on the fact that 1) it's ideal to keep the moral hazards associated with social safety nets out of the system, and 2) every citizen has an implied ownership in the land and natural resources of the country... kind of a "since it's not someone's, it's everyone's" point of view" that needs to be accounted for.
What moral hazards are there with social safety nets?
Well how is that any different from the ideal of communism, implying a nonmenklatura would be involved to manage and distribute such a citizen's dividend and other non-owned resources? And then since no one owns any private property, no one feels responsible for land or natural resources, so it all becomes uncared for and trashy.
Isn't history replete with many examples where we tried to uncouple monetary compensation from productive output and it results in the worst of all worlds?
MG
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
Moral hazards like not working because welfare pays you only if you don't have a job, or not saving because Social Security is more lucrative if you earn less money, or not getting healthcare because the government will supply it for you.
It's different from communism because there IS private property... people simply get paid $X,000 per year by the government. This amount doesn't get means tested, so you get it no matter what.
People still own land, oil, etc, but there's an income tax (or wealth tax, per stone, but this isn't a necessary piece) that taxes all income relatively flatly, and the income earned off of land/resource usage is part of this system.
Private property recognition and defense as it applies to land & resources is simply a form of social engineering anyway.
"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."
I think the idea is to eliminate all the subsidies, tax breaks, social security, welfare programs, social services, and so on, and just cut every citizen a check for $500/month (or whatever) and be done with it. You can use your dividend for "affordable housing," I can use mine for "transportation infrastructure," someone else can use it for "health care," and so on. No one's benefits and priorities need to trample on anyone else's. But there's still some kind of guaranteed safety net for orphans, the disabled, etc. And a huge swath of bureaucracy and special-interest politics is destroyed.
Kevin W, summed it up. Everyone gets a flat pay out at the subsistence level. You get that whether you earn nothing more by your private sector activity or you are Warren Buffet. That would mean that scientists could pursue pure blue skies work, athletes could spend all day running etc etc and not complain about lack of funding or whatever. If people did something that someone else wanted doing then they would be paid by the recipient just as now and that would be in addition to the invariant citizens' dividend. People could start up harebrained (in a Bank's view) business innovations because all the staff (ie them and like minded people) would just be subsisting on the citizens dividend in the hope of having it all work out when business took off. I think job creation would then be something done much more by individuals or groups of friends rather than existing companies.
Currently in the UK a lot of people are in the position where working full time only gives them 10% more income than they get for not working (because of generous means tested benefits). You have to be "actively seeking work" or too alcoholic to work or whatever to get those benefits. You can't be doing stuff in a lab or a workshop or whatever. Under a citizen's dividend system every penny you earn is on top of the dividend not instead of it. Obviously it has to be paid for so for better off people the citizen's dividend would net out against tax.
Last edited by stone on Wed Feb 08, 2012 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." - Mulla Nasrudin
stone wrote:
Kevin W, summed it up. Everyone gets a flat pay out at the subsistence level. You get that whether you earn nothing more by your private sector activity or you are Warren Buffet. That would mean that scientists could pursue pure blue skies work, athletes could spend all day running etc etc and not complain about lack of funding or whatever. If people did something that someone else wanted doing then they would be paid by the recipient just as now and that would be in addition to the invariant citizens' dividend. People could start up harebrained (in a Bank's view) business innovations because all the staff (ie them and like minded people) would just be subsisting on the citizens dividend in the hope of having it all work out when business took off. I think job creation would then be something done much more by individuals or groups of friends rather than existing companies.
OIC, you want "Social Security for All", which is about $800/mo last I checked for those that have the minimum job earnings record or $500/mo under general welfare for people living in a proverbial box with no assets. So inflation would be kept under control by a wealth tax and no other taxes? Would there be inflation adjustments every year? How much do you decide everyone should get at the outset?
MG
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
MG, I guess the scale of any citizens' dividend is a political question. I guess I'm only saying that given that we have a safety net anyway (that is much more in the UK than in US and I guess much more in some countries than in the UK and much less in many countries than in the US) it would be better to have it as a citizens dividend rather than as a means tested benefit. I think that citizens dividend versus means tested benefit debate is separable from taxation styles and inflation linking and price stability debates.
I do wonder whether the best inflation management system would be to aim to have those wages set by the government being at zero inflation. To my mind the way to do that would be to keep each grade of government (especially military) employee's wages constant for ever. So a five star general would be paid a certain amount per year, an army private would be paid a certain amount per year, a judge would be paid a certain amount per year etc etc. The government would then try and ensure that as much as possible could be afforded by people receiving those fixed wages by making sure that the economy was able to run well and the monetary system functioned properly etc etc.
"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." - Mulla Nasrudin
stone wrote:
I do wonder whether the best inflation management system would be to aim to have those wages set by the government being at zero inflation. To my mind the way to do that would be to keep each grade of government (especially military) employee's wages constant for ever. So a five star general would be paid a certain amount per year, an army private would be paid a certain amount per year, a judge would be paid a certain amount per year etc etc. The government would then try and ensure that as much as possible could be afforded by people receiving those fixed wages by making sure that the economy was able to run well and the monetary system functioned properly etc etc.
I could see this largely working, but only to a certain extent. Inflation is not solely coming from money alone, it can result from supply/demand imbalances (please don't confuse that with what I'm arguing with Gumby about in the othe thread). So prices would still have to adjust because the government cannot have perfect control over supply/demand imbalances... it sure didn't work out at all under communism.
Even then, the military isn't typically a productive activity so I think inflation will increase whether or not the wages are fixed anyhow. To the extent the government draws off productive activity from the private sector for its own ends, there will be an "output gap" of sorts. Inflation could actually be worse under your system because productivity may not increase to meet the higher minimum unproductive threshold of the "Social Security for All". Is that a bet you're willing to take?
MG
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
MG, if five star generals were no longer able to afford what they would like to become accustomed to, then I think the government would make efforts to sort that out perhaps by reducing the size of the military or building more/fewer roads or reducing/increasing the citizens' dividend or whatever. They would do their best to provide the best result. Let's imagine, the value of the USD did fall as a result of implementing such a policy. People would then have a choice as to whether to stop "pursuing their dreams" on a citizen's dividend and instead providing the goods and services that were in shortage and so causing the output gap and price rise. If people decided that they did not want to take advantage of that business opportunity, then that is what people have decided. Who are we to say that that is the wrong decision? I'm basically just advocating ensuring everyone has financial freedom in the hope that that would provide the economy that reflects what people actually want the economy to do.
"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." - Mulla Nasrudin
