Haven - cutting welfare

kzt wrote:Well we have the great success of socialism in Venuzala, hailed by all the smart people just a few short years ago. After all, how could if fail when the country sits on the greatest known oil reserves in the world?

Socialism in Venezuela?

When?

Unless you really meant to write Venuzala, because i sure as heck dunno where that is.

But seriously though, Venezuela was a trainwreck in motion BEFORE Chavez.

For a comparison with Honorverse, a closer one is probably Erewhon except the mafiosos have absolutely zero and nil interest in the "common rabble", or for that matter the health of the nation as a whole.
And they were dangerously close to taking over in Venezuela.
If he did nothing else good, Chavez prevented that for the time being at least.

The amount of effort and money president shrubbery spent on trying to get that mafia into power in Venezuela just makes me despise the corrupt idiot a little more.



And what good does it do to have a crapload of oil when the shenanigans of the oil companies made sure that Venezuela got near zero of the profit from that oil?
Before counting the effect of the added economic activity, Venezuela actually LOST money on every single barrel of oil produced.
And not just a small amount.

So wow, how totally unsurprised i am that they went with nationalisation when the oil companies just flatly refused to even look at a more realistic deal. Oh noes, they were clearly entitled to effectively pay zero taxes while having the state pay for pensions, healthcare and everything else, not to mention subsidising them.

But at least destroying the nation was in a good cause. The people might not have food, medicine, water or toilet paper but their "representatives" have all become immensely rich. Chavez's daughter is the single richest person in the nation, having gotten much of the $350 billion stolen by government officials for their Swiss bank accounts.

kzt wrote:But at least destroying the nation was in a good cause. The people might not have food, medicine, water or toilet paper but their "representatives" have all become immensely rich. Chavez's daughter is the single richest person in the nation, having gotten much of the $350 billion stolen by government officials for their Swiss bank accounts.

Yeah, it´s amazing that the Chavez govt only sifted off a fifth of what the "entitled" and the oil companies were taking before that...


Seriously though, you DO realise that the source of that claim is from has thrown out a number of other claims that have been proven fake mudslinging propaganda? (they just happen to be Miami-based and surprisingly connected to the Bush family, how very strange!)

And noone has been able to actually show that Gabriela DOES have that money.

Last year, reporter María Elvira Salazar displayed what appeared to be a receipt showing millions in a bank account belonging to Gabriela Chavez withdrawn in the United States.

The receipt displayed the name Frabz Federal Bank, a fictitious bank used in a meme of fake ATM receipts.

Last time i saw someone actually try to look into it? They found that she lived expensively yes, but looking a lot more grand than it was, and that her current official income can actually cover her current lifestyle. IF she has billions squirreled away, why is she just sitting on the cash?

Why did she make a for her somewhat inconvenient deal to be able to keep living in the presidential mansion for free instead of using some of that money to go off and buy a tropical island for herself?
You only need millions of $ for that, not billions.

And while she acted as "first lady" she handled a crapload of money for representation, and according to investigation, did NOT siphon money from it to herself, nor spend it lightly or allow excessive corruption in connection with it(avoiding corruption completely is pretty much not going to happen).

While the accusation of overpricing rice imports she handled has not produced anything that could be called evidence, just an accusation that does not have anything to back it up.


She´s certainly no wondergirl, but as far as i can find or know, the accusations against her in regards to pinching money by use of government influence seem to have very little substance and a whole lot of resemblance to mudslinging from the supporters of the exceptionally corrupt selfproclaimed "elite" of the nation.

Tenshinai wrote:

kzt wrote:But at least destroying the nation was in a good cause. The people might not have food, medicine, water or toilet paper but their "representatives" have all become immensely rich. Chavez's daughter is the single richest person in the nation, having gotten much of the $350 billion stolen by government officials for their Swiss bank accounts.

Yeah, it´s amazing that the Chavez govt only sifted off a fifth of what the "entitled" and the oil companies were taking before that...


Seriously though, you DO realise that the source of that claim is from has thrown out a number of other claims that have been proven fake mudslinging propaganda? (they just happen to be Miami-based and surprisingly connected to the Bush family, how very strange!)

And noone has been able to actually show that Gabriela DOES have that money.

Last year, reporter María Elvira Salazar displayed what appeared to be a receipt showing millions in a bank account belonging to Gabriela Chavez withdrawn in the United States.

The receipt displayed the name Frabz Federal Bank, a fictitious bank used in a meme of fake ATM receipts.

Last time i saw someone actually try to look into it? They found that she lived expensively yes, but looking a lot more grand than it was, and that her current official income can actually cover her current lifestyle. IF she has billions squirreled away, why is she just sitting on the cash?

Why did she make a for her somewhat inconvenient deal to be able to keep living in the presidential mansion for free instead of using some of that money to go off and buy a tropical island for herself?
You only need millions of $ for that, not billions.

And while she acted as "first lady" she handled a crapload of money for representation, and according to investigation, did NOT siphon money from it to herself, nor spend it lightly or allow excessive corruption in connection with it(avoiding corruption completely is pretty much not going to happen).

While the accusation of overpricing rice imports she handled has not produced anything that could be called evidence, just an accusation that does not have anything to back it up.


She´s certainly no wondergirl, but as far as i can find or know, the accusations against her in regards to pinching money by use of government influence seem to have very little substance and a whole lot of resemblance to mudslinging from the supporters of the exceptionally corrupt selfproclaimed "elite" of the nation.

The basic problem is the corruption, rather than which person is doing it. "Is not is not not is" applies to the "elite," and their level of dishonesty. Part of the problem is that often, the corrupt people write the official reports. It would be interesting to have the veradicator of Piper's stories, but there would be the danger of it being exclusive to the secret police

Just speaking of Havens wellfare system, Switzerland today is voting about introducing a 'unconditional basic income' of around 2500 CHF per month.
The vote is very unlikely to pass, though I think it is still a very interesting concept to think about.

Whitecold wrote:Just speaking of Havens wellfare system, Switzerland today is voting about introducing a 'unconditional basic income' of around 2500 CHF per month.
The vote is very unlikely to pass, though I think it is still a very interesting concept to think about.

Finland is already doing some regional trials with it and results so far is positive.
I know there´s one other place testing it with roughly similar results but i cant recall what nation it was...

2500 CHF is VERY high though, seriously no wonder if it doesn´t pass.
Some years ago a university teacher of my friend went ahead and made serious calculations, he figured that a guaranteed, unconditional income around 12000SEK would actually end up as a small cost savings, simply be removing the overhead and administrative costs.

If i looked up the conversion rate correctly, that´s a bit more than half(56%) of the 2500CHF stated. It would be a taxable income however so final "in the hand" income would be a bit over 2/3(maybe 3/4) of that, adjust for a decade of inflation and it ends up plenty enough to live on ok, as long as you´re not wasteful.

When people get things for free, they waste them. They have no work value for what they receive and therefore they do not respect what they are given. Basic human nature. It defies logic all these utopian idiots running around ignoring basic human nature.

Why a swift kick in the ass in the long run is better than a hand out.

Relax wrote:When people get things for free, they waste them. They have no work value for what they receive and therefore they do not respect what they are given. Basic human nature. It defies logic all these utopian idiots running around ignoring basic human nature.

Why a swift kick in the ass in the long run is better than a hand out.

Basic human nature, yeah right... Problem for you is that reality keeps on disproving your definition of "basic human nature".

What you refuse to notice is that "human nature" is highly differentiated between individuals.

Tenshinai wrote:

Relax wrote:When people get things for free, they waste them. They have no work value for what they receive and therefore they do not respect what they are given. Basic human nature. It defies logic all these utopian idiots running around ignoring basic human nature.

Why a swift kick in the ass in the long run is better than a hand out.

Basic human nature, yeah right... Problem for you is that reality keeps on disproving your definition of "basic human nature".

What you refuse to notice is that "human nature" is highly differentiated between individuals.

tenshinai wrote:
snip

it ends up plenty enough to live on ok, as long as you´re not wasteful.

Not being wasteful is core. BJ & I are living on our social security with plenty left over for donations and investment.

The type of training helps produce the differences in people.

Thomas Sowell wrote:In both England and the United States, the massive expansion of the welfare state since the 1960s has been accompanied by a vast expansion in the amount of crime, violence, drug addiction, fatherless children and other signs of social degeneration.

Coincidence or causation?

walterewilliams wrote:If today's arrogant elite were around to destroy these jobs through wage legislation and regulation, I doubt whether I and many other black youths would have learned the habits of work that laid the foundation for future success.

From his experience.

"Crappy" jobs are usually starter jobs. Many of us got our first work experience with them. A real kick in the ass is discouraging any person from either starting or moving on to better jobs

DDHv wrote:"Crappy" jobs are usually starter jobs. Many of us got our first work experience with them. A real kick in the ass would be discouraging any person from either starting or moving on to better jobs

And that's a problem we're having. People aren't able to move up to better jobs as they either aren't there or there is a fundamental skills gap.

I grew up in a blue collar mill town as the mills started to lay off people. Some of this is just due to changes in federal land use policy, but some of this was inevitable. Used to be you could start off pulling green chain in the mills for good money, and hard work would give you more opportunities, stuff like foreman jobs, as well as jobs that were more technical.

Those mills have been increasing their automation steadily my entire life. Those blue collar jobs that had clear advancement paths are gone. There's still some jobs that are unskilled, but those are paid fair less than they were because there's more competition. Kids who would of dropped out at 15 to work at the mill are screwed. Best they can do now is a McJob. Those who stay in need to get lucky and pick a trade or something higher up.

I worked as an engineer in a fab right before automation took away about 70% of the jobs due to the switch to 300 mm. We had a bunch of employees whose jobs were to move wafers around the fab or put them in tools. Some of them who were motivated might be able to make the jump to process or equipment tech, but it was hard. Everyone but the senior techs are out of the industry.

Hell, I've got multiple engineering degrees, and my field of engineering has collapsed due to the 200mm to 300mm jump removing the need for as many engineers.