Top income brackets should be taxed at 99%.

So you want a feudal lord?

 

Note my edited post which reads:

No, I want government that promotes community cohesion, AND the common welfare.

Your land rights' debate with bringiton is irrelevant to me; in a modern post industrial fiat currency world, the state can ensure everyone is decently housed without impinging on anyone's rights.

 

And re the topic of this thread's OP:

MMT explains there is an alternative. ie,

The sovereign currency issuing government CAN (with minor legislative change to treasury and reserve bank rules) issue debt-free money into the economy.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/mmt-overcoming-the-political-divide.569365/

And those orthodox economists who persist with "loanable funds" and "quantity theory of money" mythology have been blown out of the water by this pandemic; the government rescue packages are merely replacing money destroyed by the economic lockdown, and therefore government can issue debt free money to replace the lost income, without causing inflation.

IOW, the money neither has to be borrowed nor repaid with interest, by government. To repeat (short form):

The sovereign currency issuing government CAN issue debt-free money.

 

Who decides what is decent?

How do you factor in human nature (one man's decent is another man's hovel)?

 

Clean public housing, where private housing purchase or rental is beyond the reach of the minimum above poverty wage.

Your plan to move everyone in this position to the regions is impractical, because the cities also need orderlies, cleaners, rubbish collectors, etc who are often on the minimum wage.

But see my previous post :

which reveals an alternative to the OP's proposition that "top income brackets should be taxed at 99%".

 

1) How do you determine what is 'beyond the reach' of the individual? What if the person spends all their welfare or minimum wage on beer and fast food? Does that qualify them for a free house? What about the person who strives hard every day to live within their means and so has surplus .. will you punish them by making them ineligible?

2) It's completely inequitable to provide free housing in expensive locations. What an insult to those who .. in their desire to live responsibly and within their limited means, put up with living in less salubrious regional towns. Because it's they who'll be funding this, while receiving none of the benefits. Unless of course they simply give up on responsibility, and blow everything they earn every week. They might meet your criteria for free housing in LA, then.

PS: As for cities needing orderlies, those people can live an hour out of town and share with family. That's what the rest of us do, who are too poor to live in the cities we work in. I know people who commute two hours each way, because that's how far they have to live from their jobs. Anything closer would be living beyond their means, which would then make them a burden on the taxpayer. The taxpayer being those folk commuting long distances to city jobs so that they can live within their means. See how it works?

 

Except democratically accountable ones.

 

Not in our current system, which is not the feudal system you advocate.

 

Not if public housing is included as part of the minimum wage, which would in effect vary according to region. See how that works?

No, because the government doesn't NEED the taxpayer in order to supply sufficient public housing in cities, thereby obviating the need for those people to travel long distances (itself an injustice).

The sovereign currency issuing government CAN issue debt-free money.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/mmt-overcoming-the-political-divide.569365/

 

I of course agree with you on this. Ted's Anarchism, as a basis for good governance, is an obvious delusion.

OTOH, even you - Libertarian like - are content to accept the triumph of instinct over reason, and therefore reject the UNUDHR and the implementation of an international rules based system, because "democratically accountable government" for you only reaches as far as the nation's border.

The concept of absolute national sovereignty, going back to the Treaty of Westphalia, is obsolete in a post-industrial global world.

And so you deny the possibility of international relations subject to an international rules based system.

Like I said, the triumph of instinct over reason.

What are your plans, when China can bring the same military force to the table as the US (possibly within the decade if the Chinese play their cards right, since I'm sure 1.5 billion Chinese with leadership in AI can be more productive than 350 million Americans)?

 

So those who earn a dollar more than the threshold won't get a free house? And you don't even touch on the brute reality that if free houses come with minimum wages, millions of additional families will immediately make themselves wards of the state. As always, this idea fails at the first and largest hurdle - human nature. Also no mention of how you'd police the hoards of people moving to take advantage of the best package (as you say, the package will vary according to location). So no, I don't see how it works. Because it doesn't work, when human nature is involved. We're not robots, we're animals. Ignore that reality and this model would be a freaking disaster.

Where is the money coming from,?

 

Nonsense. I just don't accept wishful thinking as a substitute for fact and logic.

That and the fact that the UNUDHR is logically indefensible claptrap designed to placate a bunch of brutal dictators.

Not when the rules are written by crooks, demagogues and dictators.

I plan not to count on rules written to be acceptable to evil scum.

 

It's not free housing. because an amount (for rent) will be subtracted from the worker's minimum wage, depending on the worker's location.

The sovereign currency issuing government CAN issue debt-free money. (with minor rules change to treasury and reserve bank).

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/mmt-overcoming-the-political-divide.569365/

see post #8, page 1, for Stephanie Kelton's introduction to MMT, with her analogy of the beaver who wants to build a dam....

 

So war it is then...Neanderthal....

Wow.. bulls-eye on my part, destroying your instinctively Libertarian world view....

No it was rivalry between the great powers that forced the veto onto the UNSC. The smaller states led by 'Doc' Evatt resisted the peace-destroying imposition of the veto on the UNSC.
(Hint: an international rules based system by definition requires adjudication of international affairs at an international level). But your ability to reason is clouded by unconscious instinct....so back to war it is).

Wow, as I said, I hit a nerve (at least I now know who am dealing with, I always suspected extremism somewhere in there); attaining self-awareness can be painful. Interesting to see your "centrism" on display.

So good luck in 10 years time, when you are likely to have to face the war-mongers in China, who are no doubt aching to tell the Pentagon where to go....

 

I don't advocate a feudal system. I advocate the ability to own a 50x100 plot of land.

 

You're describing anarchy.

 

Yes you do.

With no associated responsibility to the community of those whose liberty rights to use it you claim to own, or to the state that issued the original title of ownership. That's feudalism.

 

So would that make the owner of a 50x100 foot lot a duke or an earl?

 

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

I'm a fan of liberty, but that doesn't make me a libertarian on the usual feudal model. I'm more of a geolibertarian, except that I have no objection to big government per se.

You think the UNSC veto is the problem?

HAHAHAHAAAA!

Given the Pentagon's record, can you blame them? And it's odd that you would call the Chinese warmongers. Are they the ones who maintain military bases in scores of other nominally "sovereign" countries?

 

No, don't be silly. Under the feudal system you advocate, a land thief would have to take a lot more land than that to qualify as a duke or earl. Anyway, owning just one 50x100 foot lot would be impossible under the feudal system you advocate, because the defense cost would be way out of proportion to its productive capacity. The feudal system you advocate inherently rewards aggrandizement of landholdings for obvious practical reasons, so it is unstable, and eventually becomes a governmental or state system, as happened in Europe, Japan, China, Russia, etc.

 

I don't advocate a feudal system.

Defense cost? Isn't that why we have a state?

 

My lot is 400x220. I must be a Baron.

 

You advocate private rather than public administration of possession and use of land. That is what feudalism is based on.

Yes, we have a state that administers possession and use of the land within its borders and is therefore, unlike what you advocate, not feudal.

 

But that model already exists in public housing. How is this different?

 

All responsibilities are met via monies paid in exchange for title.

Just admit you want free property, why dontcha!