Breaking with normal practice, I am blogging on the same subject in successive posts.
Giving every teenager $200 a week when they turn 18 is a profoundly stupid idea.
The most meaningful reform National has made is scrapping the old cash benefit available to youth and young parents. Instead their income from the state is managed and there are tight strings attached. They get a tiny sum of cash and can only increase it by meeting certain challenges. They are heavily mentored, parented in a way they have probably never been before. The idea is to get educational qualifications, work skills and self esteem into them before it is too late.
An unconditional $200 a week would reverse this whole approach. It would be madness.
It would replicate the mindset of generational dependency seen in families that encourage - even expect - their kids to go on the dole or DPB as soon as possible to boost the family's income.
Its a truly frightening prospect.
The Royal | #** – S08 E03 | These Foolish Things
3 hours ago
14 comments:
Lindsay
The universal benefit approach has always been an appalling idea at many levels, and you have clearly identified another. When you abstract reward from effort there are always risks attached. There is a case to be made for welfare for those who are sick, incapacitated, and unemployed. I don't necessarily buy into all of the supportive arguments, but there is a case to be made.
However, there is no reasonable case to be made for a universal 'state funded' benefit to be paid to all citizens irrespective of age, effort and circumstances. It's a nonsense that most Kiwi's will recognise, and the best thing Labour can do in order to remain in perpetual opposition is promote it for all they are worth.
There is a case to be made for welfare for those who are sick, incapacitated, and unemployed
Oh really, please make it. And while you're at it, put the three biggest groups into the list: kids, medical patients, and above all, codger-bludgers. To quote Lindsay: welfare is immoral, antisocial, and unaffordable.
When you abstract reward from effort there are always risks attached
Let's remember the problem the universal benefit is supposed to "solve" - that the existing bludger handout wheelbarrow removes reward from effort, because benefits are abated. The point of universal bludgery is two fold: to abolish the existing crazy complex benefit system - including removing welfare for families - in theory letting us close down MSD, and replace it with a simple, straightforward unabated benefit and higher progressive tax rates to make it fiscally neutral. That's supposed to increase rewards at lower income levels - that's the whole point.
So we should applaud half of labours plan - abolishing the benefits. If they can suggest it, well that's on the agenda. The only question is: why on earth carry on from there. Abolish the benefit system. Done.
I do see two positives from a UBI - that the bloated welfare (and possibly IRD) bureaucracies could be decimated, and that earning money from employment in addition to the UBI is not discouraged. However one big negative is that it is wasteful to tax someone just so they can be given a handout (for which, no doubt, they are expected to be immensely grateful and vote repeatedly for the political party that brought in such a great system). And making every adult, including the able-bodied, into a beneficiary is the ultimate Nanny Statism.
@anon 1:29pm
The case might include (for example) that someone who is sick, incapacitated and unemployed AND who is without prospect of support from immediate or extended family qualifies for State support at least for a pre-determined time.
This is because no-one, I’m sure yourself included, wants to live in a city or a nation where those who are destitute for reasons beyond their control are cast out onto the street to rely on begging to survive. This is particularly true for those who are elderly, suffering from dementia or other forms of disability.
Well, I don’t anyway.
I wonder if you have travelled to the third world, or even to San Francisco?
My politics are conservative, and I understand the risks associated with getting more of what you reward, but I’m also aware that there are genuine cases of need that are beyond the scope of individuals to respond to.
What do we gain by abandoning our humanity for the sake of ideological purity?
Lots of tangents. Heaps of excuses. Piles of philosophizing.
Blaming those who know their place and/or are on the dole is too easy. They are only doing what their "wealthy betters" are doing; using the controlled 'system' for maximum gain.
The landlord gives his peasant a groat,[minimum wage/0 hours], and saves his own neck. Benefits are here to stay until the Revolution of the fed-up goyim.
1 - pacifies the low IQ pretend natives.
2 - keeps the refusegees out of circulation.
3 - satisfies the mass of immigrants, [67,000 pa],who never had it so good. School/ dental/medical/social/psychological/translators/lawyers/social workers; = name it.
So,if these foreigners can benefit,then the citizens can, too. Or is that Racist?
It is very entertaining watching the 'wealthy betters' trying to keep this system from sinking too quickly. Plastering and patching and finger plugging.
= '1984' / 'Animal Farm'= or a Peaceful REVOLUTION of no cooperation with the 'wealthy betters'?
Point is: Business as usual don't work no more, already. Critical Thinking needed.
What EXACTLY do you want?
This is because no-one, I’m sure yourself included, wants to live in a city or a nation where those who are destitute for reasons beyond their control are cast out onto the street to rely on begging to survive.
better that than welfare. Either you believe in personal responsibility or your don't.
either you believe there is such a thing as society - or you don't.
This is particularly true for those who are elderly, suffering from dementia or other forms of disability.
this is a good reason for David Seymour's bill, but not for anything else.
What do we gain by abandoning our humanity for the sake of ideological purity?
freedom.
@ 8:29 AM Anon
Some points need clarification. Nothing is black and white is any country.
Some hairs need splitting. Agreeing on the meaning of words is vital; a la Plato.
This is NZ, where Govt. uses benefits to social engineer sheeple. People get benefits to scratch their bums.
A fat native sitting on the pavement, with a bit of cardboard, listening to a radio and doing a crossword puzzle close to an ATM is given a lot of clear space. After a job well done, he goes to the Salvos for bed and breakfast.
A 9 year old girl scraping something horrible on a violin gets my 50c. No probs.
Begging better than welfare?
Personal Responsibility?
Believe in society?
Living amongst people requires Personal Responsibility or one gets clobbered. This is not "Belief in Society", it is Practical Common Sense. Lacking which, one is removed from society.
Personal Responsibility requires one to know how ones society is structured. Those who are working and paying taxes conveniently forget that some of these deductions are repaid: Family/Child/School/Dentist/Insulation/etc....
It is not possible in THIS society for the taxed to pay for the Beneficiaries life styles. Weak thinking leads to resentment and complaining. This system is planned. Unemployment and MASS Immigration of old Peasants who speak no Igrish, and hornets nests of sprogs who need special care, can't be sustained by the taxed few. NZ borrows like a mad woman begging for cups of sugar and milk. Those on the benefits should be allowed to enjoy them. NZ is a part of the White European World which is being deliberately dismantled. As per Western Europe and White Americans people.
What is society? Explain...
No, you get tyranny. Become a student of 20th centurary history.
@ B M 5:58PM
Cryptic. Makes no sense. Make sense of it.
"No" - to what?
"tyranny" - because........?
Reconcile please:
A) Labour wants super pension age to go up to at least 67.
B) Labour wants super pension from age 18.
Last anon, Labour dropped the 67 policy to be fair. But your point does illustrate how they vacillate from one extreme to the other - a sure sign of endemic instability.
Thanks. Yep, they are all over the shop. The following is their current and currently-posted "Policy Platform" at 3.24. "Labour is committed to a system of universal superannuation. Labour will ensure the future sustainability of the system and will consider options to achieve this, including raising the eligibility age."
I agree giving a kid anything that he didnt earn is not a good idea for government or for parents. Children need to be taught at an early age that there is no free lunch. Work is its own reward. Thanks for the post.
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