promethea.incorporated

argumate:

argumate:

When the Economist starts downplaying an idea, you know it’s got legs.

first they laugh at it, then they say it’s unaffordable, etc.

In 1970 James Tobin, an economist, produced a simple formula for calculating their cost. Suppose the government needs to levy tax of 25% of national income to fund public services such as education, policing and infrastructure.

Spend less on “education” aka subsidizing rentseekers, “policing” aka criminalizing poor black people, and “infrastructure” aka corporate welfare. It’s that easy. Pretty much every country could afford a ridiculously-sized basic income; the reason they don’t have it is because they would rather spend the money on less useful things.

It’s like how SF spends $36k a year “on homelessness” for every homeless person, and claims ending homelessness would be too expensive and difficult. No it wouldn’t, governments are just way shittier at budgeting than people; I’m pretty sure none of the homeless people would be homeless for long if they were given $36k themselves instead of having various bureaucracies throwing huge loads of money on silly things.