The bureaucracy always wants to make itself more powerful, like everything else in this world. If it gives away money, it gains power several ways: first, it decides who cannot get the free money, so you had better be nice to the bureaucracy or you'll lose out; second, it grows in size to administrate this giveaway; finally, it sabotages the successful in order to give to the struggling, which makes the successful (finally) need the bureaucracy as well. All are humbled, all must serve.
In case you haven't caught up with the past 300 years of human history, "equality" always means taking from the succeeding to give to the struggling, and never ends well.
Actually, the countries with the happiest inhabitants, the healthiest inhabitants, that are the most economically successful, and score very well on a number of such metrics have the highest degrees of income redistribution in the world. Correlation does not equal causation, but your claim that such redistribution 'never ends well' must be false given that reality.
Looking at the history books, one of the periods of greatest growth for the USA was after WW2, also a period of really high tax rates. Again, correlation does not equal causation, but it 'ended pretty well'.
The bureaucracy always wants to make itself more powerful, like everything else in this world. If it gives away money, it gains power several ways: first, it decides who cannot get the free money, so you had better be nice to the bureaucracy or you'll lose out
This is one of the dumber, more tinfoil hattery arguments against UBI around. One of the letters in the acronym and one of the core properties of the entire concept is that UBI is Universal, which takes any leverage for withholding it away and this leads to the opposite of what you claim. It's borderline retarded to claim that UBI is somehow some kind of nefarious power grab.
Even arguing that welfare in general is a means to control the population is crazy mental gymnastics. Realize that governments can already tax the fuck out of their citizens and already do so to to fund huge militaries that can use actual physical weapons and physical violence to control the population. Going via some path of slowly taxing the 'successful' into 'finally needing the bureaucracy' (How??) would be incredibly inefficient and circuitous (but I guess you're going to argue that that just proves that government is slow and ineffective).
The bureaucracy always wants to make itself more powerful, like everything else in this world. If it gives away money, it gains power several ways: first, it decides who cannot get the free money, so you had better be nice to the bureaucracy or you'll lose out
This is one of the dumber, more tinfoil hattery arguments against UBI around. One of the letters in the acronym and one of the core properties of the entire concept is that UBI is Universal, which takes any leverage for withholding it away and this leads to the opposite of what you claim. It's borderline retarded to claim that UBI is somehow some kind of nefarious power grab.
The GP is also apparently unaware of tax deductions, exemptions, and loopholes which does everything he is railing against and then some. And no-bid contracts, jobs at PACs, etc.
In any problem, if you find yourself doing an infinite amount of work,
the answer may be obtained by inspection.
Empowering the bureaucracy (Score:3, Insightful)
The bureaucracy always wants to make itself more powerful, like everything else in this world. If it gives away money, it gains power several ways: first, it decides who cannot get the free money, so you had better be nice to the bureaucracy or you'll lose out; second, it grows in size to administrate this giveaway; finally, it sabotages the successful in order to give to the struggling, which makes the successful (finally) need the bureaucracy as well. All are humbled, all must serve.
In case you haven't ca
Re:Empowering the bureaucracy (Score:2)
In case you haven't caught up with the past 300 years of human history, "equality" always means taking from the succeeding to give to the struggling, and never ends well.
Actually, the countries with the happiest inhabitants, the healthiest inhabitants, that are the most economically successful, and score very well on a number of such metrics have the highest degrees of income redistribution in the world. Correlation does not equal causation, but your claim that such redistribution 'never ends well' must be false given that reality.
Looking at the history books, one of the periods of greatest growth for the USA was after WW2, also a period of really high tax rates. Again, correlation does not equal causation, but it 'ended pretty well'.
The bureaucracy always wants to make itself more powerful, like everything else in this world. If it gives away money, it gains power several ways: first, it decides who cannot get the free money, so you had better be nice to the bureaucracy or you'll lose out
This is one of the dumber, more tinfoil hattery arguments against UBI around. One of the letters in the acronym and one of the core properties of the entire concept is that UBI is Universal, which takes any leverage for withholding it away and this leads to the opposite of what you claim. It's borderline retarded to claim that UBI is somehow some kind of nefarious power grab.
Even arguing that welfare in general is a means to control the population is crazy mental gymnastics. Realize that governments can already tax the fuck out of their citizens and already do so to to fund huge militaries that can use actual physical weapons and physical violence to control the population. Going via some path of slowly taxing the 'successful' into 'finally needing the bureaucracy' (How??) would be incredibly inefficient and circuitous (but I guess you're going to argue that that just proves that government is slow and ineffective).
Re: (Score:2)
The bureaucracy always wants to make itself more powerful, like everything else in this world. If it gives away money, it gains power several ways: first, it decides who cannot get the free money, so you had better be nice to the bureaucracy or you'll lose out
This is one of the dumber, more tinfoil hattery arguments against UBI around. One of the letters in the acronym and one of the core properties of the entire concept is that UBI is Universal, which takes any leverage for withholding it away and this leads to the opposite of what you claim. It's borderline retarded to claim that UBI is somehow some kind of nefarious power grab.
The GP is also apparently unaware of tax deductions, exemptions, and loopholes which does everything he is railing against and then some. And no-bid contracts, jobs at PACs, etc.