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Still deflecting. You really have no idea where the money comes from or how much it will cost. You simply want free money. So you think you should be allowed to stick your hand in my pocket and steal from me just because you want it?
Isn't that what they did with big business? If it was fine for Wall Street in the last two economic crises, why is it such a problem for normal people. I haven't deflected, I just said an answer you don't like. The fact is if you said that he normal people would steal from you through UBI, what do you think big businesses have already done?
You live in a fantasy world if you think 3 years that a safety net is made. American median income is about 31k. Average household is at 63K. That means half of workers make less than 31K and half the households have less than 63k a year. The push to the service sector jobs that started in the 80's and picked up in the last three decadea is a large cause of this. 20% of 25K is 5k. Now if your employer gives you free healthcare but it is the base Obamacare plan (my employer does) you are at a 6,200 cap. 6,200 > 5,000. Now you might have an HSA and I do but HSA is really not as large as you would think unless you have more of an ability to save. If you make the 31K median or higher, you can contribute more. If you don't you have to decided between livable expenses or savings.
Even with your median income figure of only $31,000, 20% for only 3 years still gives you about $18,000. That’s a damned good starter emergency fund. Invest that money and it gets better. If average household income is $61,000, in only 3 years you have $37,000. That will handle things nicely for a few months while one is adjusting to a setback. Thank you for making my point for me. In 5 years it’s even better, especially adding compounding investment returns. In 10 years you have 2 full years of income banked and ready for almost anything.
So no whining. Work your butt off, save 20%, be a competent independent quality human adult. Instead of a mooch-leech. Nobody likes a mooch-leech. Nobody respects a mooch-leech.
...... The saying "Idleness is the root of evil" is very real. ......
Where I came up from the saying is "Money is the root of all evil". That saying is the truth and reality because money causes more evil than idleness and greed and capitalistic industriousness all put together.
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Where I came up from the saying is "Money is the root of all evil". That saying is the truth and reality because money causes more evil than idleness and greed and capitalistic industriousness all put together.
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Evil people cause evil. Give most people money and they do not become evil or cause evilness.
Irrelevant and invalid, but a common tactic by propaganda and disinformation artists.
The median income for Americans is valid if, and only if, the Cost-of-Living is uniform throughout the US, and it is not. Your own government says it is not.
$26.92/hour - $6.93/hour = $19.99/hour
That, according to your own government, is how wildly the Cost-of-Living varies across the US.
For someone living in a low Cost-of-Living area, or $6.93/hour, then $31,000 is plenty of money.
Each State has its own poverty level.
The federal government uses a weighted average of the 48 States (Alaska and Hawai'i are statistical outliers) to come up with $12,600 for one person.
The poverty level in some States is only $6,800/year.
$31,000 is about 5x that.
Maybe you can't make it on $8,000/year, but 320 Million Americans do not live in your town.
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Originally Posted by mkpunk
Average household is at 63K. That means half of workers make less than 31K and half the households have less than 63k a year.
Again, not valid and irrelevant.
Who makes more money, an IT work in Cincinnati earning $44,000 or an IT work in White Plains, New Jersey earning $100,000?
The IT worker earning $44,000 earns $4,000 more per year than the one making $100,000.
Why? Cost-of-Living.
If I blind-folded you, you couldn't tell whose house was whose. Exact same house, same number of rooms, furnished identically, same electronic entertainment equipment, both have 3 cars of the same year, make and model (but different color due to individual preferences), wear the same clothes and shoes, and do all the same things.
The IT worker in White Plains needs $100,000 to have all that, while the IT worker in Cincinnati only needs $40,000.
Cost-of-Living is a function of Demand-pull Inflation and Cost-push Inflation.
Saving for emergencies is a basic life skill. You do it for yourself regardless of government fiscal policy.
You're completely ignoring the disincentives to save.
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Originally Posted by tnff
Seriously? Do the month on how much interest $250 earns.
I realize that. But taxing the interest is still a disincentive, no matter how much or how little.
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Originally Posted by oceangaia
So you think the reason people don't save for a rainy day is because it might cost them a few bucks?
Yes. Ask anyone who makes $12 an hour or less why they don't save.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Paolella
Wrong. If you have 2 years of saved income you can handle any car repair, any joblessness, and any health emergency (which is covered by health insurance anyway).
Your blinders are so thick that you can't see that not everyone's life is "golden". For starters, you're erroneously assuming that people have health insurance, or that health insurance covers every situation. A chronic or catastrophic illness can wipe out two years of savings in a heartbeat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Paolella
Nobody likes a mooch-leech. Nobody respects a mooch-leech.
Where I came up from the saying is "Money is the root of all evil". That saying is the truth and reality because money causes more evil than idleness and greed and capitalistic industriousness all put together.
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Where you came up, the saying was wrong. Money is the root of all good. Money is nothing more than a tool, a way for us to trade time. It is a way for us to effectively live longer, by allowing people to specialize in different things and trade that compressed time with others for mutual benefit. If I had to grow my own food and kill my own meat, my life would be total bullsheet, with valuable time spent on those ridiculously banal tasks. With money to trade with, I can effectively hire thousands of talented people and go to the supermarket and buy a supply of food for a month. Money is how that is done. Money is literally life, and if you say money is the root of all evil, you are really saying life is the root of all evil.
This is what happens when we don’t learn to think and we accept hackneyed cliches as analogues for actual knowledge. Money is the root of all good, and having lots of it extends your effective life by thousands of years. The more you earn and the more you have, the more time on this Earth is yours. Because you get control over your personal time, plus the compressed time of others. Money = time = life = good.
You're completely ignoring the disincentives to save.
I only need one single incentive. The incentive to control uncertainty and the variance of luck and circumstance by storing money for future use. The government nonsense is a distraction. Let’s get government out of the business of controlling and interfering with interest rates. I’m all for that.
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Yes. Ask anyone who makes $12 an hour or less why they don't save.
I don’t care about their reason not to be rational. They need to save $2 and live on $10. If that means denying oneself other pleasures so be it. If that means you don’t eat out, so be it. If that means you don’t have kids, so be it. Saving for future uncertainty is JOB 1.
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Your blinders are so thick that you can't see that not everyone's life is "golden". For starters, you're erroneously assuming that people have health insurance, or that health insurance covers every situation. A chronic or catastrophic illness can wipe out two years of savings in a heartbeat.
Buy health insurance and there’s no problem. That’s a personal choice. Figure it out and make sure you have it. I’ve always had it, and I’ve never given it a second thought. It’s not a choice. It’s just like savings. I must have it, so I prioritize it and get it. Period. Life. Reality. Observe. Do.
And the one in a million catastrophic illness that wipes you out is so rare that it doesn’t need to be considered.
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Nobody respects name callers, either.
I don’t care. The names are accurate. If one is not saving a percentage of their earnings, they are an objective idiot. It’s not a pejorative. It’s identification of fact.
Evil people cause evil. Give most people money and they do not become evil or cause evilness.
I can't dispute that, it's true that evil people cause evil, and it's usually because of avarice. It's been my experience that when you give most people money - or anything else they want for that matter - they want more. Everybody always wants more of everything and money is usually the way to acquire it. Money causes avarice and avarice causes evil. Even people who are already very wealthy still always want more. It's kind of like a vicious circle of avarice.
If there was such a thing as a universal basic income it might be appreciated at the beginning but I think it would soon become a negligible thing because everyone would consider it to be their right and entitlement and it would be taken for granted as though it is something that they believe is owed to them. Then everybody would want more of what they think is their entitlement because what they already got would be considered not enough. Never enough. Just like food stamps and welfare services have now become a thing that is taken for granted and taken advantage of and now there are people who mistakenly believe it's actually a normal entitlement and don't know the history of how it got started and what the original intentions were.
You're completely ignoring the disincentives to save.
I realize that. But taxing the interest is still a disincentive, no matter how much or how little.
I don't see how you figure that. The interest is something they would not have had at all if they had not saved. If they earn $100 interest for the year and they pay $10 in tax, they are still ahead by $90. Are you saying that the possibility of missing out on an additional $10 outweighs the security of having the cash to get you through a crisis?
Here's a thought, if paying taxes is so horrible. Save by putting the money under a mattress. It's how most people used to save a hundred years ago. And how many poorer people still do today. While there may be smarter ways to do it now, saving cash is a lot better approach than not saving at all.
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