At 11:20 AM 30/06/00 -0700, -xx- Damien X-) wrote:
>> providing the net direct to the poor would halve the current costs.
>But you're providing it to far more people.
>US population= 2.5e8
>Say minimum income = $6e3
>Annual expenditure: $1.5e12
Don't be daft. It only applies to those who earn less than $X (say
$20,000). And it doesn't stop them earning; just requires them to repay
part of their [newly facilitated] earnings to the general stock.
The fear, I assume, is that Original Sin (or somethun equally embedded and
wicked) will seduce all & sundry into a short-sighted spree of sloth. I
doubt it.
>Is supporting the non-productive through welfare more or less adverse than
>supporting them through the prison system?
Just so. Or the handout-in-the-street system? Or the break&enter and
mugging system?
Besides, `welfare' of the Guaranteed Income floor sort is *not* necessarily
spiritually corrosive, any more than getting an allowance every week from
your wealthy folks is (and of course that *is*, but it's hardly ruinous in
most cases; and Gates didn't emerge like Athena from a slum [and neither
did Athena, come to think of it]).
Damien Broderick
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