Universal goods vs. state provision

No one is stopping you from making contributions to 401ks or other instruments. What you want to do is exempt a huge percentage of participants from the program. Which would force it into insolvency. Like any insurance pool if you reduce the number of participants you effectively raise the costs for the remaining participants. What happens when your 401k disappears like they have for many recently?

 

No, I know what I want and that isn't it. I said so around five times, but you refuse to listen. Why?

 

Hipstatic

LOL

What you mean is that you’re unwilling to address these questions because if you did then you position would be badly if not fatally undermined.

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Without state provision many people wouldn’t have a pension I believe the figure was of about 5% of the US population receiving a pension prior to 1935 (according to the social security website).

The problem with having no compulsion in pension provision (through taxation) is that many people will not put toward it. Some out of immediate concerns some out of foolishness and some out of hope (believing they will be rich enough in the future to cover it). Or through no fault of there own lose the money that had been set aside (in a financial crisis or due to corruption).

So the question is what happens to them?

Well before 1935 many lived in poverty and destitution with old age pensioners begging in the streets, dependent on short term charity (or municipal funds) or been taken in by hard pressed relatives that were then even more hard pressed.

It would seem to me that a civilised society cares for its aged, and so it seems sensible and prudent in a civilised society to build a community chest from which to fund that.

If an individual then wants to put money into another scheme (or gamble on the stocks) then that is fine many people do, I do, but if anything should happen to the funds in that scheme, I would still have the government back security of my state pension.

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You are free to invest in whatever you want to after you pay your Social Security responsibility. What exactly is it you wish to happen?

 

LOL!

No I mean you didn't say anything interesting or useful. In fact its clear you still don't even understand what I am saying.

 

Part of my social security goes to pay for lower income people's social security. Part goes to pay for my own. I'd rather take the part that pays for my own and invest it myself. If I do so that has nothing to do with other people.

Gardener, did you ever read the article on school choice in Sweden?

 

Trying to be clever Hipstatic?

Doesn’t work

I can understand why you’d prefer not to address what I’ve said; most on the right try to avoid answering also.

And your position is just the same flawed and failed right wing ideology that has caused so many problems recently.

It part crackpot ‘free market’ economics mixed in with that destructive form of individualism that places greedy self interest above the welfare of the community or their fellow human beings.

You’re basically arguing for a non compulsory system, but -

Social security online.

You social security payments are not paying for ‘low income’ people they’re paying for all your fellow citizens’ pensions.

It’s a community chest run for the benefit of all.

Many on the right would like to either reduce or end the social security payments (tax cuts) so the state would not be able to pay out much or at all (hitting everyone but the wealthy).

Anyway as I said

So you end up with the often harsh situation that existed before social security, with many of the old living in poverty.

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So basically this is a community chest that pays out a basic pension and if an individual wishes to join another scheme they can, I’m a member of a work place scheme, I pay into it while also paying into the community chest. If some else wishes to take some money and invest it themselves (in stocks or the 3:30 race at their local race track) that is up to them.

 

LOL no you still don't understand the concept.

Clearly you are more comfortable with straw men arguments. "Many on the right". Well that may be true, but its not what I said.

Perhaps you need to do a little more reading on the subjects I have raised?

 

Really the issue here is simple. Most people agree that everyone should have acces to health care, basic retirement benefits, education, etc.

The question is not whether everyone should have access to these goods and services - the question is why do we need them to be provided by state monopolies?

 

Because that way we still have control to reinvest in our own domestic industries and support our own economies.

 

Then why not nationalise every industry?

 

You tell me.

 

Because it would lead to an end in innovation, what reason does a company have to provide better service when it has the monopoly, it can royally fuck up all it wants

 

I can understand why you’d prefer not to address what I’ve said; most on the right try to avoid answering also.

Hipstatic

Evasion and very clearly evasion.

But as I’ve said I can see why you’re so, so afraid to address what I’ve said; it would very quickly undermine what you’ve been arguing and show that it’s based more on the dogmatic ideology of the wealth serving right than in providing good or even reasonable levels of education, retirement or healthcare.

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Simple answer is because without state provision in one shape or form based on universal taxation many services would not be universally provided to the same level.

For example according to social security online “the best estimates are that in 1934 over half of the elderly in America lacked sufficient income to be self-supporting”

And the state isn’t the only pension provider, there are many other schemes or plans a person can contribute to, many people do. The state just makes sure there is one pension plan that a person has to contribute to (so they definitely have a pension) and that it can’t be tampered with (so a person can’t loose it).

As I’ve said and will repeat

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Mad

You mean the kind of clever ‘innovations’ we got in the banking and the financial sector that have worked out so well for all of us and the global economy?

Nationalisation can work well and it can go badly, the French car company Renault was nationalised after WWII (and partly privatised in 1996) it was and still is a successful company (incidentally owning the American Motors Corporation between 1979-87 during the time when it was a completely nationalised company, which means the French people actually owned a slice of the US car industry). And the French state owned power company EDF, has just bought the British nuclear power company, British Energy.

The thing is that nationalisation can be a useful tool; it can protect industries and business that are fundamentally viable but have got into financial difficulties or when a sudden collapse (rather than a later controlled wind up) could have a domino effect on the larger economy.

To me public ownership can be useful just as private ownership can be useful the problem is that some people seem to be so driven by dogmatic ideology that to them private is always good and public is always bad.

 

Perhaps it would be even more innovative and honest because it was in the national interest and held under oversight and accountability. Ever consider that? Money isn't the only motivator in life. Some of us care and respect our fellow man over monetary gain.

 

I need to find this thread from the something awful forums.(if someone is a member there and can actually use the search function that would be awesome) But the point of the thread and it's sister thread was "Foreigners, tell us your impressions of America/Europe" and the constant thing Europeans said about being in the US is they were shocked at the amount of choices we have for just about everything, and how cheap everything is.

Though apparently all of our candy and soda taste like crap and we just don't know it because of corn syrup vs sugar. And I assume this translates into most of our food in general. And our serving sizes at restaurants are ungodly huge, but looking at America's waistline that's no surprise


But in terms of nationalization being a useful tool to protect industries that fell into hard times, while yes this is true, and it's especially true in the fact nobody wants those jobs to leave. But the missing point is that these companies failed, epic failure, they exist only by pumping more money into them, they can't compete and we just reward bad business models. Like why not pump some money into starbucks, they employ about 180,000 people and falling onto some serious economic problems and having to lay off a lot of people/close stores because they realized their business model of a store every 10ft might not work so well in bad times.

*edit*
Found it! Aside from anything I think everyone(at least Americans) should browse through the thread because it's interesting to see how people perceive America beforehand and what they think about the country once they get here, some common themes:
-Americans are overly friendly, the whole constantly saying thank you and please to people like cashiers and vice versa, random people striking up conversations with you at bus stops, ect, to the point of wtfness in the south compared to what most foreigners are used to
-Again, our food and candy taste like crap and we just don't know it, but we have tons of choices and it's all dirt cheap
-Our serving sizes are ridiculous
-American news has a "you're in danger every waking moment" feeling
-Horrible mass transit except in NYC
-Everybody needs a college degree for almost every job but nobody knows jack shit about their subject and college costs are ridiculous
-The smorgasbord of different cultures mashed together seems to have worked out well.
-Our elections are apparently very odd
-The gun culture of course
-Our alcohol culture and desire to get trashed is apparently not on par with that of the extreme European level, but we do have awesome bartenders
-Everything in terms of land and distance is huge
-New Jersey is still universally hated, as one person put it every sterotype about Americans proved not to be true, except in New Jersey where every single one seemed to be true


http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2919843

 

:lurk5:


Balbus, In the spirit of the debate, I'll take a crack here, I would be happy to receive a reply.

Indeed; a good school will attract more students with their attendant voucher money than a bad school. Seems natural to me. That is just the point: To instill some incentive, some competition into a calcified, broken system. It will also serve to highlight schools that are inadequate.

“Seems to be about economic dogma” Half right, the proposal seeks to bring in the kind of competition that inspires better performance in the free market. Why shouldn’t tax payers receive better value for the dollar? Providing additional choice to parents and students should on its face be a good thing

Is a school that teaches creationism a good school or bad? I don’t think the original proposition had anything to do with Creationism so I’m not addressing this one it’s a Distraction.


Many private schools in the south meant white parents could continue with segregated education was that a good or bad thing?

Tough Question, but The proposed voucher system is not based on race or income. Proposals for voucher schools in New York City’s Harlem would be for local students. The voucher system could find its greatest beneficiaries in poor neighborhoods. It is these neighborhoods where public education is most dysfunctional. Its students held captive by an indifferent education bureaucracy.

Certainly segregation exists in private schools. Segregation by religion; by economic class and by race. The school being private, it is beyond the reach of government interventionism. (For now) Segregation exists everywhere from voluntary separate tables in school lunchrooms to separate ethnic neighborhoods in New York City. Separate fraternities and sorrieties in colleges. Voluntary association will always have an ethnic factor.

It would be nice if our society could move past the racial bean counting of yesterday. It seems that to acknowledge any progress in race relations robs the octane from a certain set of crusaders who want to portray events as stuck in the 1940’s Crusaders who derive their incomes and positions from imposing themselves as society’s racial guardians.


A school in a rich neighbourhood with affluent parents that are able to support it above the fee or tax level will likely be better provisioned and ‘good’ than a one in a poor neighbourhood with cash strapped parents that have little time or money to help their local school is likely to be less provisioned. Do you close those ‘bad’ schools?

No argument from me here Balbus. Big cities wear necklaces of smaller, affluent, independent communities around their perimeter who support well financed, high achieving school systems. To move into one of these localities means a significant cost for purchase of property and very high real estate taxation. Residents of these communities enjoy a high degree of local control over schools. It is one of life’s finer rewards to achieve residency in a place like Greenwich, Ct., Scarsdale, NY or Ridgewood, NJ. With a short commute to NYC. It’s too bad that we ALL cant live in Greenwich, Ct. But that is the point. Ownership in a “nice” town with good schools is a reward for striving and achievement. Something that differentiates us from say Cuba.

But what about those “Bad schools, in poor neighborhoods? Well the cash strapped parents are probably receiving boatloads of federal aid to the school system. Do these parents have little time to help their local school, I wonder. They seem to have plenty of time for ACORN protests. But back to money. It seems management is the problem not money, that New York City schools are well funded on a per student basis. The education bureaucracy lacks the focus and control of its facilities to bring that quality education. The scale of the bureaucracy means less accountability. If NYC commits $16,000 per student per year could a Voucher school do a better job? Do you close a bad school? Yes, if you care, you do, if you are truly curious you do.

Logistically how do you move pupils around? Say that the ‘best’ school is fifty miles away, does the state pay for the transportation?

Mmmmmm…………………………Why are we moving anybody so far? Imagine the cost. Imagine the fuel consumption. Imagine the time wasted and congestion on the roadway. Kids should walk to school; its good exercise saves time and money. Moving kids does not address that issue about why the local school is no good. Can kids take mass transit to school? Are parents willing to drive junior to a better school? What city school system is 50 miles wide anyway?

What do you do about lag? Say a school is deemed good and so a thousand of the vouchered want to go there, but the school only has places for 50 or a 100? Would the school be forced to take them or would the vouchered actually not have a real choice at all?

Indeed where Vouchers have been tried and succeeded this problem has happened, how about expansion or another new school.


iggy:

 

Mad

But my point was that something (industry or company) might be fundamentally sound but be in fear of collapse through little fault of its own. Such as in a banking credit crunch, the banks might not be lending because they fucked up, but is that any reason why a completely competent company should fold due to their incompetence?

A neo-Keynesian approach is to nationalise in down turns (if its needed) and then to sell off such assets at the best price during the upturns, buy cheap sell high. But it could also be argued that if a state owned company is doing well why not keep it in public hands to reap the profits for the shareholders (they being all the people).

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I’ve never been to the US and it isn’t at the top of my places to go, but I know personally a lot of Americans and people that have visited America (including my partner who went to a university in the US).

I won’t go through the whole list but as an example I’ll tackle the first statement.

I and other British people strike up conversations with complete strangers at bus stops, in parks, on trains, etc. And I’ve also lived in France and guess what, they also strike up conversations at bus stops etc (although in French), and I’ve lived in Spain and guess what, I think you’ve guessed it and I’ve lived in Greece and yes you’ve probably guessed it again.

People are people, some are standoffish others not, and that includes Americans.

 

Piney

You seem to be suggesting that the voucher system you would propose would only extend to public and open to all schools, with a state approved curriculum and monitoring, is that correct?

Are you saying that only parents that send their children to ‘open to all’ public schools would receive vouchers, no others?

That parents sending their children to any type of private school or a school that limits in-take on religious or academic grounds, would not receive such vouchers?

That the choice open to voucher parents would solely be between public, open to all schools?

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That is not how I’ve understood the classic school voucher system to be.

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“the kind of competition that inspires better performance in the free market”

But the free market often fails, in fact in a way it has failure built into it with bubbles and cycles, which give uneven results, not exactly the best model for education which should be consistent and stable.

And without monitoring and regulation can cause acute inequality.


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No, it actually goes to the heart of it, if education is a product in a free market then if a product sells it has a place in the market. If a school attracts an income from selling its creationist teaching, it is a viable concern within the market place. But is that good or bad education?

To me that is bad education and although it might be viable in an educational market place I wouldn’t wanted it subsidised by public funds.

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Many private schools in the south meant white parents could continue with segregated education was that a good or bad thing?

You say this is a “Tough Question” but your answer is that it does exist

Again I think this type of segregated ‘product’ might be (it is now) viable in an educational market place, but I don’t think it is good education.

So again I don’t think it should be subsidised by public funds, do you?

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I don’t think public funds should be going into the pockets of private educational schools unless those institutions are non-profit making and fully and publicly accountable and imposes no limits on the in-take on religious or academic grounds.

Every child is a child not a Christian or Muslim etc.

And if a school is truly a good school it should be able to teach any child coming to them, not just those it chooses to teach.

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A school in a rich neighbourhood with affluent parents that are able to support it above the fee or tax level will likely be better provisioned and ‘good’ than a one in a poor neighbourhood with cash strapped parents that have little time or money to help their local school is likely to be less provisioned. Do you close those ‘bad’ schools?

You seem to be implying that such ‘good’ schools should only be the exclusive preserve of those that can effort to go to them? So this is not about improving education by allowing anyone to go to ‘good’ schools?

So this isn’t a ‘free market’.

What you are doing is removing the best competition from the equation, so it’s a rigged market, and can’t therefore achieve the ‘free market’ result you claim for it.

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But would you know why it wasn’t good?

I mean why not try and find out why it is a failing school before you begin to stripping it of resources, a ploy that will increase its difficulties and make it more likely to fail?

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Logistically how do you move pupils around? Say that the ‘best’ school is fifty miles away, does the state pay for the transportation?

So again this is not about improving education by allowing anyone access to the best school available?

You are putting limits on it, rigging the market.

And you are also undermining your own argument on another level, if the voucher system is about being allowed to move your child to a better school of their parents choosing then it is about moving kids to those schools, but you claim

The voucher system is about moving children to ‘good’ schools from ‘bad’ ones but moving children doesn’t address the issue of why the local school is no good.

What?

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What do you do about lag? Say a school is deemed good and so a thousand of the vouchered want to go there, but the school only has places for 50 or a 100? Would the school be forced to take them or would the vouchered actually not have a real choice at all?

So there is a school that it thought to be the best, but it only has 100 places but 5000 parents choose it as their school of choice. Are you saying that you’d give that school the capital to expand or build a new school to take in the 4900 others even though it hasn’t actually proved it could retain its standards of education with the increased numbers?

That seems like a big gamble. If it goes OK fine, but if not, you’ve just got another ‘bad’ school plus a mountain of debt.

Wouldn’t it be a lot better to try and find out why that particular school is thought to be the best and duplicate what you find in other schools?

I mean you say “Big cities wear necklaces of smaller, affluent, independent communities around their perimeter who support well financed, high achieving school systems”

Why are they high achieving school systems?