h a l f b a k e r yWe don't have enough art & classy shit around here.
add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random
news, help, about, links, report a problem
browse anonymously,
or get an account
and write.
register,
|
|
|
Everybody is charged for the services they consume off the state:
education up to university, housing while at university, safety nets,
retirement.
So you start life with a negative balance equal to your pension
expectations, so about 1-3 million in debt. It cannot be discharged
by bankruptcy.
A
percentage of your assets is used to "pay off" your debt each
month. It's not tax because it doesn't go anywhere, you're just
paying off your debts.
[link]
|
| |
"monetisation" of state liabilities and spending is well known to exist and generally considered to be either (if you are a politician or banker) a very clever solution to the world's problems, or (if you are a normal human) a terrible scam. For example, making students take out loans to pay for their education, rather than funding it through public spending. |
|
| |
This idea is quite a bold generalisation of that, and so would count as either a a very clever solution to the world's problems, or a terrible scam, depending on your viewpoint (see above). |
|
| |
//A percentage of your assets is used to "pay off" your debt// What if you have no assets? What if you don't care about your debt and choose not to pay it off? |
|
| |
There is a variant of the Monopoly board game called "credit Monopoly" where the paper cash is not used, and everyone starts with zero money, and the banker just records the level of everyone's debts as the game progresses. It is very silly. |
|
| |
So the idea is "try to make people feel guilty about money that was spent without their consent on their behalf"? And also to tax assets instead of income? [-] |
|
| |
This seems really strange. In general, most people start off
with nothing, and end up with little more than nothing.
Starting off in debt will simply mean you end up in debt.
"User pays" has been tried (& is still implemented,
unfortunately...) & has mostly failed; as soon as you mix
"essential" with "profit-driven", profits take precedence &
things go wrong. Eg: the USA health system, the "behind the
curve" state of power generation & infrastructure. |
|
| |
A better name might be "Original Debt" |
|
| |
//But that's a completely different discussion// |
|
| |
//A percentage of your assets is used to "pay off" your debt each month// |
|
| |
//Everybody is charged for the services they consume// |
|
| |
Ah... but how about the services they contribute which never get taken into account?
Should I be expecting credit for those? |
|
| |
I think I would rather see parents incurring a debt
to their child for bringing it into the world. |
|
| |
Where do I send the invoice for the time I have spent reading this idea and the associated annos? |
|
| |
The reason education needs to be free at the point of
delivery is that educated people are potentially an asset to
society and in the past at least their greater earning power
means they often end up paying more income tax. It isn't a
service you consume that's provided by the state. I won't
comment on the rest. |
|
| |
I hardly ever give negative votes, but on this occasion I
have. Come to think of it, that's quite appropriate. |
|
| |
//educated people are potentially an asset to society// |
|
| |
As an educated person, I would like to believe this. On the other
hand, how
much of the increased income of an educated person comes from
their producing more value, and how much comes from their
making friends in the course of their education who can get them
into well- paid jobs despite their possible underlying uselessness? |
|
| |
That's not a rhetorical question; it would be interesting if someone
could devise a way to measure it. |
|
| |
According to educated people, educated people are potentially an asset to society. |
|
| |
According to uneducated people, educated people have gaping holes in their perspectives of what it takes to get by without an education. |
|
| |
The deck is stacked my friends...
How much of your smarts are really your own, and how much is the memmorized smarts of others who learned with no teaching? |
|
| |
There's probably some kind of n shaped curve. If you are utterly uneducated, illiterate, innumerate, no social skills, then you are likely to be a net drain on society. On the other hand if you are pumped hard through pre-prep school all the way up to your second PhD in particle physics as well as private classes in violin, languages, dressage, flying and charity expeditions each summer to study previously undiscovered tribes, you may also be a net drain on society (the details of how are left to the reader). |
|
| |
That's halfbakers dealt with; all the rest of the population are at the top of the n curve with just the right amount of education / indoctrination to make a useful contribution to the commons. |
|
| |
I think that the most important aspect of "education" is the laying down of patterns in the first three or four years of life. This is when language is learned, as well as socialised behaviour. |
|
| |
The next most important aspect of "education" is the formal study of conceptual systems. I like to consider what are the most important such systems to learn. Second / non-native languages are probably important for building brain structures and alternative ways of thinking. The whole nexus of subjects around physics / mathematics / thermodynamics / accounting is probably the most important. And probably some kind of anthropology / sociology / psychology is also pretty vital, so as to have some kind of insight into what drives and affects human behaviour. |
|
| |
The final, and least important in overall human development and life-skills terms, yet most valourised, aspect of education, is the gaining of formal qualifications, entry to prestigious institutions, and making network connections. |
|
| |
Mazeltov it's a boy. We wish him a long life and you now owe
us... |
|
| |
// As a self-educated person // |
|
| |
Could you explain this a bit further, [zen_tom]? I mean, the context,
in this idea, touches on education as an example of a thing provided
by others (parents or society), so, if your education was *not*
provided by others, then ... what does that tell us about the idea? |
|
| |
That's all fine and greatly to your credit, [zen_tom]. So, if we divide
the education- related income premium into a knowledge premium
and a shibboleth premium, the shibboleth premium in your particular
case would be small, or maybe even zero. |
|
| |
On the other hand, if we consider the relationship between the
education and the income of, say, the First Lord of the Treasury, the
Right Honourable Bojo the Clown, the calculation might yield a
different answer, mightn't it? |
|
| |
I wasn't just talking about higher education, but I was
focussing on it. Even so, yes, it's often substantially due to
social connections made during one's time at uni. There is
also, I think, a genuine problem with a consensus
understanding of what constitutes a good education which
is somewhat oriented around the idea that a professor is
the goal, although I think this is less the case than it has
been. Dunning-Kruger works both ways. |
|
| |
Which is the other way that it works? |
|
| |
[pertinax]; stupid people think they're smart, smart people
think they're not. |
|
| |