Keep dreaming, we are in hyper capitalism mode, ebshitification, etc. They just spent weeks of government time state and national worrying about people on food stamps buying candy or coke, to save pennies, they watch the poor like a damn hawk but let millionaires rape children in the biggest pedo ring in history.
We're not going to get economic change until the people revolt. This doesn't need to be a revolt with guns and bombs, it could just be a refusal to pay taxes and to purchase things. The US has shown that it's extremely vulnerable to economic warfare given how little slack there is in the system for absorbing shocks, so it's the perfect avenue for asymmetric warfare.
What is needed are enforceable laws that force companies to pay a living wage. The wage paid is based upon the cost of living in various US metro regions. The wage must be updated every 6 months. And we need a single payer health system.
Plus a type of tax that forces the ultra-rich to pay, if needed, a wealth tax that some countries are enabling.
All businesses run on a profit margin. It's a resource game, thinly veiled by the money layer as means of exchange. If you make the price of buying labor by decree, the owners of the business will either buy less of it (supply/demand ratio), automate it, raise the price to offset the increased cost or close the business down, because the costs are too high.
Businesses are shaky constructions and when you regulate them out of existence who will be generating the taxes for the government to redistribute?
About the "single payer health system", it's not a panacea. Many countries struggle with single payer systems, because there are also problems there too. The best working example for a medical system is Singapore. Compulsory medical saving account with government subsidies in that account for the poor. All prices are transparent and patients pay from that account and have premiums over the basic treatments, thus creating the market dynamics needed for the market to work and still requiring personal responsibility, by making sure the patients sees the costs and chooses himself.
Isn't VAT generally a regressive tax so does the exact opposite of what the author thinks it does? The rich spend less versus their income than other demographics. I guess the UBI is to offset that but that just doesn't seem like a stable system.
I'd say a better alternative to taxes and handouts is to normalise and incentivise to give a stake in the company/business to every worker.
It's the only reasonable way to avoid the main flaws of our economy/society. Billionaires would be way worse off, as they won't freely reap the fruit of the labor of the workers that power their ideas, and the workers will be way better off, as their productivity is no longer decoupled with their pay.
Labor is not a market distortion and average wages not following average productivity is not evidence that it is. In a competitive market, wages should follow marginal productivity.
Probably what happened is America was in an increasing returns to scale part of its production function. Now it's in the diminishing returns to scale portion. If I had to guess why, it would be due to growth boundaries of cities and lack of new cities. There's no new Manhattans. Instead Manhattan has just gotten more and more expensive to live in.
Anyway, if F(Population) is the production function, then wages should be F'(Population) and total wages should be Population.F'(Population).
F(Population)-Population.F'(Population) is total production minus total wages and is known as economic rent.
The right thing to do would be to tax economic rent. Use a tax on land value and natural resources to fund UBI.
VAT for essentials like food, medicine and household supplies makes zero sense; it will greatly hurt the poor. Save the VAT exclusively for luxury items like clothing, furniture, travel, etc. which the rich spend a lot on. Computers qualify as essential and must not be VATed either.
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[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 29.5 ms ] thread> This is a little harder but not too hard: Because it’s the mirror of UBI. The UBI will fund consumption, VAT taxes consumption.
This is dumb; there's literally no other way to put it!
VAT is a tax exemption on the rich; that's all it is.
Plus a type of tax that forces the ultra-rich to pay, if needed, a wealth tax that some countries are enabling.
Businesses are shaky constructions and when you regulate them out of existence who will be generating the taxes for the government to redistribute?
About the "single payer health system", it's not a panacea. Many countries struggle with single payer systems, because there are also problems there too. The best working example for a medical system is Singapore. Compulsory medical saving account with government subsidies in that account for the poor. All prices are transparent and patients pay from that account and have premiums over the basic treatments, thus creating the market dynamics needed for the market to work and still requiring personal responsibility, by making sure the patients sees the costs and chooses himself.
It's the only reasonable way to avoid the main flaws of our economy/society. Billionaires would be way worse off, as they won't freely reap the fruit of the labor of the workers that power their ideas, and the workers will be way better off, as their productivity is no longer decoupled with their pay.
https://wilsoniumite.com/2026/06/14/labor-pressures-causing-...
Probably what happened is America was in an increasing returns to scale part of its production function. Now it's in the diminishing returns to scale portion. If I had to guess why, it would be due to growth boundaries of cities and lack of new cities. There's no new Manhattans. Instead Manhattan has just gotten more and more expensive to live in.
Anyway, if F(Population) is the production function, then wages should be F'(Population) and total wages should be Population.F'(Population).
F(Population)-Population.F'(Population) is total production minus total wages and is known as economic rent.
The right thing to do would be to tax economic rent. Use a tax on land value and natural resources to fund UBI.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48434114
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VAT joke:
Question: Why is there is no VAT in the Vatican?
Answer (reversed): "!tcelloc t'nseod dog esuaceB"