Haven - cutting welfare

Theemile wrote:In reality, such conditions lead to severe black market activities, and people with "useful" skills can trade those skills for goods either not available to the masses or in amounts greater than the masses are allowed. There is mention of this in someof the early books, but not as much as I would have expected.

David isn't really deeply interested in economics as far as I can tell.

kzt wrote:

Theemile wrote:In reality, such conditions lead to severe black market activities, and people with "useful" skills can trade those skills for goods either not available to the masses or in amounts greater than the masses are allowed. There is mention of this in someof the early books, but not as much as I would have expected.

David isn't really deeply interested in economics as far as I can tell.

Kinda hard to cover everything, but disappointing, sometimes though,

Honestly, we may be a little insane - I've never encountered the depth of discussions we have here on other SF boards (Star Wars, BSG, Star Trek, Battletech). When you consider the depth and level of what we've been discussing here... it's a little overwhelming. Galactic Scale Macro-economics, planetary macro-economics, Spacial logistics, diplomacy, Socio-demographics, colonization, etc, on top of warfare, tech and science - Not to mention a dollop or 2 of history and politics. It' too bad the early bars are lost, the knowledge shared and discussed here about current and future societies is remarkable.

niethil wrote:What you generally find is that :
1) there can be a disincentive to work if the welfare payments are higher than the wages they can command from a job. Which is another way of saying that the wages they can command for a job is lower than the welfare payment. Whether it's the welfare that is too high or the wages that are too low, you don't know. Anyway, the welfare payments act as a minimum wage.
2) When you make it so that there is no disincentive any more (by making it so that they retain part of the welfare benefits) they typically try to find work. Thus it is not that they are lazy or anything, it's the system that is organised so that they don't work. In other words, it's not a problem with people, it's a problem with the rules of the system.

I'd tend to elaborate on that disincentive. It happens not only if the welfare payments are higher than wages; because you also need to look at any additional costs associated with the job.

Depending on the person and their situation that could be anything from could be fairly low costs (bus fare) to quite high ones (needing childcare services because you're no longer home to keep an eye on your children).


If you find a job that brings home $100 more a week than welfare, but getting child care costs you $200/week that's a heck of a disincentive.

I've never encountered the depth of discussions we have here on other SF boards (Star Wars, BSG, Star Trek, Battletech).

Battletech boards definitely has it. BT science and economics especially is totally out of whack and has given rise to ridiculous amounts of discussions through the years.


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I'm not certain, but given all the taxes on the wealthy, the BLS may be the actual earned wage was well as the minimum (The workforce may be taxed so that the remains of their pay is close to the BLS.) In such a case, there is no incentive to work, or to work better, beyond self - recognition. Given that, education is meaningless - an academic could choose at any time to live on the Dole and live a care-free life, reading and studying with no pressure to produce or succeed, and still get the same wage and living conditions.

From what is mentioned in the books, it doesn´t sound quite that extreme. Probably not much of a difference at the LOW end of jobs though.

OTOH, at the same time, if you provide ok living for people and leave them at that, then a normal response after the first few months tend to be that a large part of the the group will grow restless and start looking for something to do, or come up with it on their own.


So, even with botched education and economics etc, a lot of people would still educate themselves or "amuse" themselves by doing things that are effectively "good for the economy" indirectly(or potentially even directly if they´re crafty enough to start a business regardless of problems).

Essentially, the Malign almost certainly didn´t just muck the place up, they probably maintained enough influence to make sure it STAYED screwed up.
Then the revolutions killed off most of their influence, and suddenly Haven can fairly quickly manage to get back on its feet.

Haven is simply too big and diverse to so quickly go keel up in so many ways if there isn´t an outside power affecting it.


Rules and regulations have to be so outright bad that they stymie any local or even planetary attempts at improvements AND even manage to kill off any functional economy that is conquered.
Education has to completely bolloxed and kept that way.
Chances for individuals to get access to facts and education literature has to be removed to keep people from taking their own initiatives.

And so on... Keeping it down so totally even in a small country isn´t entirely easy, and in a many-planet, many-billion population, it will probably be hard to keep it that way.

So my conclusion is that the Malign actively interfered to mess things up all that time up to those revolutions, where their people got trashed.

Tenshinai wrote:Rules and regulations have to be so outright bad that they stymie any local or even planetary attempts at improvements AND even manage to kill off any functional economy that is conquered.
Education has to completely bolloxed and kept that way.
Chances for individuals to get access to facts and education literature has to be removed to keep people from taking their own initiatives.

And so on... Keeping it down so totally even in a small country isn´t entirely easy, and in a many-planet, many-billion population, it will probably be hard to keep it that way.

So my conclusion is that the Malign actively interfered to mess things up all that time up to those revolutions, where their people got trashed.

Once you have the rot, keeping it will be easier than you seem to be implying. A good example of the problems with improving education can be taken from the history of US education in the past century. Especially in the last 60 years there have been constant attempts to improve the system. These attempts either have not been followed through on for a variety of reasons (good, bad, and indifferent) or they have made the situation worse. One of the major forces keeping education from improving is that those who train teachers seem to constantly follow the latest fad, then there are the unions who seem to resist any change just because it is change.

Castenea wrote:Once you have the rot, keeping it will be easier than you seem to be implying. A good example of the problems with improving education can be taken from the history of US education in the past century. Especially in the last 60 years there have been constant attempts to improve the system. These attempts either have not been followed through on for a variety of reasons (good, bad, and indifferent) or they have made the situation worse. One of the major forces keeping education from improving is that those who train teachers seem to constantly follow the latest fad, then there are the unions who seem to resist any change just because it is change.

You´re not wrong in what you´re saying, but i don´t think you realise just how BAD it has to be before it truly kills off people´s ability to innovate or be creative despite their starting points(provided by education).

If we go with your example, look at the results, no it´s nowhere near as good as it could be, but it´s also nowhere near as bad as it would have to be to keep people from learning enough to still "get a life".

Even if you look at the worst possible "gangsta´s paradise" underfunded and neglected ghetto school, you still find quite a lot of people managing with just that education.

And Haven, unlike USA isn´t heavily relying on cheap imports that kill off jobs and cuts down the economy.

So, it pretty much cant be education just by itself.

Tenshinai wrote:

Castenea wrote:Once you have the rot, keeping it will be easier than you seem to be implying. A good example of the problems with improving education can be taken from the history of US education in the past century. Especially in the last 60 years there have been constant attempts to improve the system. These attempts either have not been followed through on for a variety of reasons (good, bad, and indifferent) or they have made the situation worse. One of the major forces keeping education from improving is that those who train teachers seem to constantly follow the latest fad, then there are the unions who seem to resist any change just because it is change.

You´re not wrong in what you´re saying, but i don´t think you realise just how BAD it has to be before it truly kills off people´s ability to innovate or be creative despite their starting points(provided by education).

If we go with your example, look at the results, no it´s nowhere near as good as it could be, but it´s also nowhere near as bad as it would have to be to keep people from learning enough to still "get a life".

Even if you look at the worst possible "gangsta´s paradise" underfunded and neglected ghetto school, you still find quite a lot of people managing with just that education.

And Haven, unlike USA isn´t heavily relying on cheap imports that kill off jobs and cuts down the economy.

So, it pretty much cant be education just by itself.

No, it's definitely not just education, though that is certainly also an issue (witness how the high cost of education in the USA has dragged down the economy by charging ex-students so much interest on their loans that they delay buying a car, house, etc). It's essentially that Haven has become a system where there is absolutely no incentive to get off the Dole, because the effort expended isn't worth the reward.

Tenshinai wrote:OTOH, at the same time, if you provide ok living for people and leave them at that, then a normal response after the first few months tend to be that a large part of the the group will grow restless and start looking for something to do, or come up with it on their own.


So, even with botched education and economics etc, a lot of people would still educate themselves or "amuse" themselves by doing things that are effectively "good for the economy" indirectly(or potentially even directly if they´re crafty enough to start a business regardless of problems).

Haven did seem to have a fair bit of ways for Dolists to keep themselves amused without doing the economy much if any net good accidentally. There's sex, rioting, cheap drugs (trade excess cheap food for it, say, and you're not stimulating demand much), and cheap HD.

Even plenty of ambitious Dolists could easily get sucked into activities that won't help: participation in a lousy educational system, participation in ideology-driven academia (mainstream or alternative), beefing up InSec's state thuggery, participation in ineffective resistance movements. Maybe exotic sex and rioting! And all of those would be the likelier places for ambitious Dolists to move into, most of the nominal ramps the old Havenite system provided for "advancement".

Probably the closest thing to a productive activity the old system offered as a "respectable" venue was the military - which was more or less just a more effective cousin to InSec thuggery. Even then, if you weren't a Legislaturalist, there was a glass ceiling, and if you were too thoughtful - a prerequisite for being good at the job - you had to hide it carefully from Mental Hygiene.

I'm not denying that there wouldn't be some accidental economic good provided by (e.g) drug dealers and other black market sorts making people provide value for value and allowing them to do it, genuinely effective academics and teachers, people managing to find places in industry and doing competent work there, and some possible business niches short of the black market. But the systemic issues could go a long way toward keeping even restless and driven Dolists from accomplishing much for themselves or Haven.

Battletech boards definitely has it. BT science and economics especially is totally out of whack and has given rise to ridiculous amounts of discussions through the years.

Ah yes, FASAnomics, where a XXL engine that costs as much as an entire lance of assault mechs. Then there's the goofy combat scale where .50 cal machine guns apparently only reach to 90 meters...

Duckk wrote:Ah yes, FASAnomics, where a XXL engine that costs as much as an entire lance of assault mechs. Then there's the goofy combat scale where .50 cal machine guns apparently only reach to 90 meters...

Star Trek, where a USMC platoon outranges the phasers by hundreds of meters. That was a rant by the marketing manager of FASA back when they had that license.