From: Jim Wise <jw250@columbia.edu>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 11:17:59 -0800 (PST)
To: Clay Olbon II <olbon@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: wealth and property rights
In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19961127131858.006ebe30@popd.ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.95L.961127135907.23624C-100000@aloha.cc.columbia.edu>
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On Wed, 27 Nov 1996, Clay Olbon II wrote:

> This is provably bullshit.  Look at the HUGE numbers of people in this
> country who make the economic decision to do nothing and go on welfare vs.
> going to work.  Examine carefully the economic performance of the US vs the

Actually, at the risk of interrupting your little diatribe, the average
welfare recipient is on the dole for under 4 months.  While we're on the
subject, I may as well point out that the average welfare recipiant is also
white, lives in a lower-middle class suburban neighborhood, and has two or
fewer children, but you'd never know it from watching the pols...

At any rate, as I mentioned in my last post, you and I are paying three times
as much to corporate welfare as to personal welfare...

[Source: Michael Moore _Downsize_This_, NY Crown Books, 1996]

> See my above points.  Implement this and prepare the for US to become a
> third world country.  100% inheritance taxes would probably be the largest
> incentive for people to leave (they leave now with ONLY a 50% inheritance

Actually, the US has one of the lowest tax rates in the world, and far
less of your tax money goes to welfare (or foreign aid, or disaster relief,
etc.) than in any other industrialized nation...

[ibid]

> tax).  And who would get the money?  Those who are producing nothing, giving

Yes, your taxes do go to those who are producing nothing, namely a bunch of
CEOs and wealthy shareholders

> them even greater incentives for producing nothing (heck, get welfare
> payments up around $50K and I would quit work - I could find lots of
> enjoyable and intellectually stimulating ways to keep myself busy!).

Or welfare payments of up to $500 million at a shot, if you happen to be GE, or
General Motors...

> Bullshit.  See above.

You keep using that word...  I do not think it means what you think it means...

> You are extremely idealistic.  Try coming back to reality.  Examine the
> "test cases" for the policies you advocate (and there are plenty of examples
> of socialist policies both in this country and others) - and realistically

The only examples of large-scale socialism we have are in extremely statist
environemnts.  Statism is brutal and innefficient no matter what economic
system it pays lip service to.

--
				Jim Wise
				System Administrator
				GSAPP, Columbia University
				jim@santafe.arch.columbia.edu
				http://www.arch.columbia.edu/~jim
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