Hi Yuyutsu,

I'm in a singing group and this being the interminable Xmas season, we do gigs for many old people's homes. Today, while we singing 'Joy to the world' or some such, I was watching the social worker at the back, sitting there for the whole hour. 'There's thirty bucks easily earnt,' I thought.

I remembered working at Balfour's bakery as a dough-presser forty odd-years ago [Balfour's was a huge enterprise for Adelaide, they had more than four workers], a exciting challenge in which, every minute, you carve off a forty-pound block of dough from a half-ton pile, press it into a wooden square, lift off the square, throw the block, now nicely flattened, onto a trolley, throw flour on the table, put the square back, cut off another block .... and so on. That way, you get through about ten tonnes of dough on a winter shift, starting at five am. My window faced due south, so I never saw the sun directly on some winter's days.

So yes, there do seem to be some people who do and some don't discernibly work for their salaries, and if they in the right business - just throw the word 'community' in front of whatever BS you are doing - they may be able to wangle it for life.

So no, I have no problem if the lifelong loafers wish to take some of their salaries, they haven't actually worked for it after all.

But some people do work for their living. Not too many Anglos these days, admittedly, but it's been that way now for fifty years. Perhaps all those time-servers could volunteer part of their pay to go to the loafers. It will probably be part of the policy of the Greens pretty soon anyway - maybe not, they will lose the vital support of public servants over-night. Certainly of social workers.

I'm still enough of a Leninist to believe that, if you can, you work (or study) or you starve. Fair enough.

Joe

I've got a better idea. Why don't we just abolish the need to work, since it's all just "slavery", abolish private property since it's just a means by which "the rich" rip off everyone else, and then everyone could live out of the common storehouse without anyone having to work? Think what a paradise it would be.

This is the level of infantile imbecilic twaddle of anyone who supports this idea - that the mere fact we exist gives us a right to attack and steal from innocent people.

Kilmouski "housing trust accommodation". Public housing?

That doesn't include boarding houses, nursing homes, students in sharehouses.
Sharing the rent doesn't mean sharing other liabilities (debt, medications, alimony/child support).

I want public housing sold anyway.

Yuyutsu, yes you don't need to implement all reforms at once.

However, I wasn't suggesting a negative income tax, but a cash payment.
You couldn't pay everyone while still funding these other projects.

I don't like negative income tax because it doesn't account for changing circumstances.

If the tax office evaluates you on last's years income, you eat out of dumpsters if you lose your job.

"there will always be a need for services that cannot be measured in money or done mechanically."

The author despaired that charities would vanish.
Of course, people could still volunteer and donate if they wish.

Many jobs once common have vanished due to tech developments.
Of course, people may still *choose* to do all kinds of "work" the old way, but not out of financial desperation.

Loudmouth "First person... second person"

The first person is also entitled to the payment.
There's no way the taxes of these two people alone would pay for both payments.

"Multiple" taxation already occurs all the time, right now.
Your employer pays tax, then pays you a salary (you pay tax), which you spend at the shops (which pay tax), who pay the cashier's salary (who pays tax).

You cannot escape this, without having one and only one tax at *one* point in the cycle (e.g. GST only. Would this be more "equitable"?)

Pericles "the likely fate of a Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, if he decided to wait for others to kill his breakfast for him"

We're nowhere near the living conditions of Early Man.
People hardly make anything for their own use nowadays.

Soon the robots will make everything, without complaining.
We will do nothing to "earn" the food on our plates or the roof over our head, so how will we pay for them?

"we are all in this together, whether we like it or not."

Exactly the justification for a universal payment.

Dear Pericles,

Sorry, indeed my grammar was ambiguous.

What I meant was that since the majority disadvantaged minorities, then the least they should do is be decent and compensate them.

<<you should not allow it to translate into a way of life for all of us>>

But public-servants are generally quite wealthy and do NOT lead a frugal lifestyle - which is an essential part of the deal!

<<fewer people could be bothered to do anything except collect their handouts.>>

Then they'll not be able to afford a car, a nice house, flat-TV, adequate heating-and-cooling, restaurant-meals, internet, overseas-travel, etc. etc.

Dear Joe,

How much does a baker's assistant earn nowadays?

Suppose for example the tax-threshold is $45000, the tax-rate is 30% and as a baker's assistant you earn only $35000 p.a., then instead of paying tax you will RECEIVE $3000 from the tax-office as negative-income-tax.

Dear Jardine,

<<a right to attack and steal from innocent people>>

A right to receive compensation from a society which forced you into a situation where living without money is practically illegal - who would lock you up if you tried, as well as its not-so-innocent members who benefit from this arrangement.

Dear Shockadelic,

<<If the tax office evaluates you on last's years income, you eat out of dumpsters if you lose your job.>>

Anyone who finds themselves in financial difficulty should be able to request to convert their current-year's negative-income-tax into weekly cash payments. By the end of the financial-year the balance is calculated (but if the request was excessive, you will need to repay with interest).

Greetings Jardine K. Jardine,

Yes in SA the Housing Trust does provide public housing. I have considered that this housing is to be taken into account when considering the issue of "reverse income tax". At the risk of going off topic the issue of housing, those who cannot house themselves, is a problem. Whether or not the state should provide this housing is a vexed question. But, certainly, people do need to be housed and it is only a matter as to what the standard will be and how this housing will be funded.

My solutions are logical, rational and some would say brutal ... Best not discussed here, lol.

Apologies to jardine K. Jardine.

I got the salutation wrong. It should be addressed to Mr/Ms Shockadelic.