Well mine wasn't Aidan, it was straight fact.

Why have you & Paul not had a go at that, cat got your tongue?

Hasbeen,

Yes, I know yours wasn't.
I did reply to it, but I misdirected it to ttbn.
My apologies to both of you.

P1405, HAH, yeh, sure, fully paid up member? I thought I made myself clear. Not only am I, NOT a fully paid up member of the greens. I'm also not a fully paid up member of any other colour poly party. I hate them all for what they stand for and what they are doing to us, all in our name, would you believe. The line I really love is; 'for the greater good'. This is supposed to appease me in the continuing event of them stuffing up again and again. Every decision these mongrels have made, for decades, has not been for our good, but to our detriment. If I suggest voting for the fringes, it's because they are the cat's that get thrown amongst the pidgeons. The club has been getting better and better at sticking it to us. By voting for outsiders it will at the very least stop them from making any more crappy laws, which further hinder our very lives on a day-to-day basis. Paul, not only did I not tune into the 'gardener' as he shmoozed his well rehearsed BS, but I might remind all that he is just another con-man like all the rest of them 'on the hill'. I see such an event as, one example comes to mind; The un-informed preaching to the mis-informed. These events are a non-event, and therefore of absolutely no use to man or beast.

Hi Paul,

Speaking of bottom-feeders: Lenin seemed to have one solution to that 'problem': "He who does not work, neither shall he not eat." In the early days in SA, the Protector provided rations for all aborigines in the Adelaide area. But he soon realised that they should not be provided to the able-bodied men, they still had all the rights to hunt and fish - gathering was more of a women's responsibility, and I suspect they benefited most from the daily issue of flour, a pound per person, enough for a two-pound (1 kg) loaf, rather than scouring the bush all day for grass seed and processing it, lugging around basic equipment and a couple of kids. Of course, Noel Pearson has explored the difficulties of encouraging people to step down from the 'welfare pedestal' and taking on actual work.

I wonder how a proposal might work out if we assumed that it was cost-neutral, if it could be initiated by redistribution rather than incurring extra costs which would have to found from somewhere. Or someone. Providing for bludgers may be much more expensive than di Natale's thought bubble might suggest, and a roughly-equitable 'redistribution' might dip into low-paid workers' wages as well as the vast incomes of the cigar-smoking bloated capitalists. One problem with this is that many low-paid workers might perceive that their weekly income is not much more than - or maybe be even less than - this UBI for bludgers, and decide to chuck their jobs in, and become lifelong bludgers too.

On the other hand, if some progressive party were to propose that, come hell or high water, we had to have effectively full employment, with all able-bodied people contributing to society and the economy, that might be initially expensive, trying to motivate bludgers to work, or to train for available jobs, but sooner or later, once the bludgers have been given every opportunity to find work, and cast into utter destitution once they have knocked them back, the increased working population would be earning and contributing to a more equitable society.

Joe

Has this UBI proposal been tested against the apparent (because it's just something I heard and cannot swear to) phenomenon of about 50% of the population taking out more in welfare and benefits than they are actually paying in taxes. Would slinging more free money at people alter this situation - make it worse, make it better?

Everyone has an opinion about how good an idea is.
There's nothing wrong with ideas....the wrong is when you get morons to implement the best of them.
Has everyone forgotten the Rudds and Gillards not to mention Turnbull's fiasco with the NBN
Politicians who have not studied science have no idea of structure and it's importance.
So you take Di Natale's idea....give it to a few public servants and you're back to where it all began, given that you have a society who struggles with the English language and the comprehensible abilities required to implement the finites of any concept