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138 sats \ 4 replies \ @TheBTCManual 24 Jul 2022 \ on: WSJ Opinion | The High Cost of Free Money bitcoin
If the studies say free money does more harm than good, and we can see how it's rolled out on a greater scale, why do people think free health care, free education, free everything is any better that's just free money with extra steps and drives the same incentives.
Taking your argument to the extreme, should fire-fighting and other existing public services also not be free?
I'm all for the free market determining survival of the fittest, so giving people an allowance for specific needs like health care and education would still drive competition but would potentially uplift all of society (yes at the cost of those paying taxes) and create a better future.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the above is in my mind an example of a low time preference society.
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I don't think there is a right or wrong answer, I think the debate we having sucks because neither of us can prove the case, governments have a monopoly on money, and where the money goes until we have competition for setups. So I could make the greatest case for no free services but its all pie in the sky since we can't run it in practice, the fact that we don't have that optionality to me is already an issue, and limiting of freedoms
Nothing is free, you're either paying for it through taxes or inflation, and I think that governments don't NEED to be the distributor of income, it can be done better by people now that we have better money.
I would love to see different countries, states/provinces, regions, and even towns having variations of this and see what works best for different scales. For example a small town, people could have a monthly payment for IE firefighting services, whereas a big city taxes are a better option
Small towns can have treasuries, from bonds issued on a local level to pay for certain things the town needs like roads, since the money is managed and collected locally, you know whose house you need to knock on if funds aren't going where they should.
Once your towns infrastructure is based on the towns ability to generate income, there will be far less mooching and you'll see how cheap these services should actually be
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It blows my mind when people say this “tangible good/ service” is a human right and everyone should have access to it. I used to believe this but then I saw how people who expect water to be free but don’t recognize all the labor energy and costs it takes to deliver clean water plus when it’s free people will use the water with recklessness. Everything that is worth anything takes the coordination time and energy from some other human. Expecting things to be free is ridiculous.
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Me too, I think it's a case of people not understanding everything has a cost. If it's free you're either taking the time and labour of someone else, or you're skimming small amounts from everyone to cover the cost, and feeling like stealing in negligible amounts is a human right.
I've lived without 24 hour electricty, with water rationing, my family have had their homes taken from the government, so I know rights mean nothing. It's really just an idea people hold who are afraid to give up modern comforts.
Once you learn to live without these things and see you're not made of glass and won't shatter because you can't access this or that, then you realise holding onto those dreams cost society more than it provides
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