Election Year or Fear!

[ramAnag]

You continue to misunderstand, and I think deliberately so, so I’ll withdraw from the conversation

Not sure what I’ve misunderstood, let alone deliberately. You have a friend - a ‘nice person’ - whose behaviour you disapprove of and chose to introduce as an example of a societal problem. Your choice…bit odd to me, but I’m not going to fall out about it.

[Andy_Faber]

Not sure what I’ve misunderstood, let alone deliberately. You have a friend - a ‘nice person’ - whose behaviour you disapprove of and chose to introduce as an example of a societal problem. Your choice…bit odd to me, but I’m not going to fall out about it.

Just one last point of clarification, I didn’t say I disapprove of her behaviour, to quote Marwood ‘you merely imagined it’.

[ramAnag]

Just one last point of clarification, I didn’t say I disapprove of her behaviour, to quote Marwood ‘you merely imagined it’.

Indeed you didn’t…you just expressed clear sympathy for her harder working neighbour and her probable desire to ‘punch down’ on your ‘friend’…i.e. attack and criticise her from her position on the hard working moral high ground. See, I do read what you write.

P.S. With apologies to MPFC, ‘is this the five minute argument or the full half hour’? Only you keep saying you’re stopping before starting off all over again.

[swaledale]

Maybe…or maybe it’s that fence you need to climb down off. I’ve not got a lot of time for the ‘she’s a lovely person/he’s a really nice fella…apart from…’ school of thought.
You’ll have to remind me of any parables advocating ripping off the system and never working for a living.

Its along the lines of I'm not Racist because I have a relative going out with a black/ brown person BUT.

personally I thinks it s another of AF's BS which he trots out from time to time to justify his POV, those anecdotes are entertaining, but any similarity to reality is entirely coincidental.

[swaledale]

I have many imperfect friends rA, and as imperfect myself I am grateful for the tolerance and friendship of others. If you only seek perfection in your friends you must be a lonely chap. I have no contempt, she’s a nice person, doing nothing illegal or immoral, in the same way that I, a tax payer, do nothing illegal or immoral in paying no unnecessary tax. My point is that ‘the system’ is allowing her to live the relatively leisurely life she lives, and that same system deprives her hard-working public servant neighbour that same luxury

On a related subject, reading Swale’s last long response again, I note that he suggests providing what I think is a ‘flat rate’ cash award to everyone, workers or not, and yes that would be great but I don’t see how it could be afforded so it’s a bit idealistic.

Yes that's what a universal income means!! The reason you can't see how it could be afforded is because your still thinking in current economic terms, it does after all require a paradigm shift in thinking from the protestant work ethic and usual economic models.

There are however some examples of what approximates to a universal income, worth researching if ones interested.

I'll throw one thing into the mix though, the technological advances that have happened in the last 50 years, could have been used to reduce everyone's working time, but instead have been exploited to make a small percentage of the population richer. Sure there have been benefits for others but not the extent that those in the very top income brackets have benefitted. Now a truly equal society would share those around.

[MadAmster]

One party over here was touting Universal Income a few years back. Everybody would get a grand a month. All income on top of that would be taxed at 50%. It got very little support.

[Andy_Faber]

Its along the lines of I'm not Racist because I have a relative going out with a black/ brown person BUT.

personally I thinks it s another of AF's BS which he trots out from time to time to justify his POV, those anecdotes are entertaining, but any similarity to reality is entirely coincidental.

…and yet again a personal assault because my POV and yours don’t agree. Thanks for proving my point for me

Your other tactic is to dismiss anecdotes as invented when the don’t fit your entrenched view, but She’s very much alive thanks, in fact I got a watsapp earlier about household item I was helping her with ‘Yes thank you, I’ve not tried it yet will be using it later’.

[ramAnag]

Which is why there's (almost) always a coalition. here in NL tends to be one of between 3 and 5 parties. It ensures that the "sharp edges" are filed down. Extreme policy gets blocked and you get either centre right or centre left policy getting pushed.

We had an election last November. The 4 parties have just come to an agreement. They have agreed to appoint a fair few "expert" Ministers who are not necessarily aligned to a party. They are also looking at inviting qualified members of opposition parties to be Ministers. Until a patent issue sowed doubts on the integrity of a former minister belonging to the PvdA (basically Dutch Labour and as much out of touch with their original base as Labour is) was being invited to be Prime Minister. The New Cabinet is expected to be installed in the next 4 to 5 weeks.

Since the election, the old cabinet has remained "in power". Taking decisions they believe necessary. Those have to be ratified by the new 1st and 2nd chambers in order for them to happen.

Back on topic. ‘Expert ministers…not necessarily aligned to a party…’. Sounds like a welcome change. How does the practice of coalition and the hiatus between election and the creation of a new cabinet work in reality, MA? Is it a system you’d advocate?

[Geoff Parkstone]

One party over here was touting Universal Income a few years back. Everybody would get a grand a month. All income on top of that would be taxed at 50%. It got very little support.

Universal income is an interesting yet fatally flawed concept. It can only truly work in a totalitarian state such that 20th century USSR became or indeed Maoist China. We can see how successful those models were in that both countries rapidly rejected the models in favour of more capitalist models and now the countries are two of the biggest "have and have not" economies in the world.

It to he income is set at too high a level there is no incentive for anyone to work as excess income is penalized through tax which is redistributed to fund others' basic payments. Economies would simply stagnate, there would be zero growth and ultimately inflation would wear the economy down.

The above comments relate to existing economic model. I suppose advocates could tear up the entire global economic infrastructure and redesign it from the ground up, but I for one don't live in la-la land.

[MadAmster]

Universal income is an interesting yet fatally flawed concept. It can only truly work in a totalitarian state such that 20th century USSR became or indeed Maoist China. We can see how successful those models were in that both countries rapidly rejected the models in favour of more capitalist models and now the countries are two of the biggest "have and have not" economies in the world.

It to he income is set at too high a level there is no incentive for anyone to work as excess income is penalized through tax which is redistributed to fund others' basic payments. Economies would simply stagnate, there would be zero growth and ultimately inflation would wear the economy down.

The above comments relate to existing economic model. I suppose advocates could tear up the entire global economic infrastructure and redesign it from the ground up, but I for one don't live in la-la land.

The leader of the party that put it forward has anilingus tendencies towards Putin.