Would a Basic Minimum Income dramatically reduce abortions?

[Peace]

2 hours ago, Nihil Obstat said:

The common good is not always market efficient.

I think the Sunday rest and worship obligation should be a clear example of that for any Catholic.

[Nihil Obstat]

As I said, happy to share. To debate, not so much. At the moment I am studying full time for my second degree, working 25 hours a week, and raising my two children. That is not one of those measuring contests the internet likes; just letting you know I am at my own limit. 2010 Nihil would have been happy to debate all day every day for weeks on end.

53 minutes ago, Peace said:

I actually prefer to read JP2 over Leo here, particularly Centesimus Annus.

I think he does a great job of explaining Leo but at the same time applying the principles to a more modern context.

I am still slowly recovering from my reflexive distrust of everything post-1960. I try to keep it at a polite raised eyebrow these days. But I will always gravitate to Leo because of his effect on my life. Even gave my son Leo as a middle name in his honour.

[Peace]

4 minutes ago, Nihil Obstat said:

As I said, happy to share. To debate, not so much. At the moment I am studying full time for my second degree, working 25 hours a week, and raising my two children. That is not one of those measuring contests the internet likes; just letting you know I am at my own limit. 2010 Nihil would have been happy to debate all day every day for weeks on end.

I am still slowly recovering from my reflexive distrust of everything post-1960. I try to keep it at a polite raised eyebrow these days. But I will always gravitate to Leo because of his effect on my life. Even gave my son Leo as a middle name in his honour.

Don’t get me wrong I think Leo is great too. I like to see how different aspects of it get fleshed out at different points in time. Really interesting.

Yeah, balancing work / life / school is a bear. I’m working and in school part time. Couldn’t even imagine having to juggle that with kids too.

[Nihil Obstat]

31 minutes ago, Peace said:

Don’t get me wrong I think Leo is great too. I like to see how different aspects of it get fleshed out at different points in time. Really interesting.

Yeah, balancing work / life / school is a bear. I’m working and in school part time. Couldn’t even imagine having to juggle that with kids too.

There are a few good integralist sources lately that have been doing a good job of that. I have been working through a book by Pater Edmund Waldstein and Peter Kwasniewski called Integralism and the Common Good - very Thomistic, very consistent. Luckily I am managing to fit it in as homework, because I have a paper due soon on Catholic social teaching and spirituality as it applies to the classroom. Benefits of a Catholic university.

Pater Edmund is/was one of the main personalities behind The Josias, which seems to be on hiatus right now, but really good quality philosophical discussion in podcast format. They do an excellent job showing exactly how the implications of liberalism have shaped the way we think as modern political people.

[Vernon]

The question will probably remain unanswered but I will post it anyway. If market forces prevent a company from paying the desired wage, where is that money supposed to come from? 

[Peace]

27 minutes ago, Vernon said:

The question will probably remain unanswered but I will post it anyway. If market forces prevent a company from paying the desired wage, where is that money supposed to come from? 

From you.

[Peace]

39 minutes ago, Vernon said:

The question will probably remain unanswered but I will post it anyway. If market forces prevent a company from paying the desired wage, where is that money supposed to come from? 

Look dude, what does the Catechism state?

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a7.htm
 

Quote

 

2446 St. John Chrysostom vigorously recalls this: "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs."239 "The demands of justice must be satisfied first of all; that which is already due in justice is not to be offered as a gift of charity":240

When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice.241

 

That means that if there are poor people who cannot provide basic goods for themselves to live, those who have great wealth steal from them by not giving to them out of their excess. Since the wealthy owe the poor out of their excess as a debt of justice, the State, being a primary instrument of justice, has the power to redistribute wealth from the wealthy to the poor.

That's the bottom line. If you don't like that, you are going to have to find a new religion I'm afraid.

[Vernon]

You misunderstood the question. If I can only pay a worker $10 per hour because that's all they can produce to make it worth paying them $10 per hour and if they say they need $20 per hour as a "living wage," a wage that I cannot afford and will go out of business if I pay, then what? Also, there are plenty of situations where a living wage is not necessary such as for people living at home, very frugal people, people just looking for a fun job and a little extra cash. If we make all jobs living wage material than we price ourselves and society and poor people out of greater wealth.

I agree the wealthy should share but do not agree it should be at the point of a gun.

[Peace]

1 hour ago, Vernon said:

You misunderstood the question. If I can only pay a worker $10 per hour because that's all they can produce to make it worth paying them $10 per hour and if they say they need $20 per hour as a "living wage," a wage that I cannot afford and will go out of business if I pay, then what?

Like I said, then we take it out of your pocket (or my pocket, or someone else's pocket) and make up the difference. Whoever has the money, that's who pays for the difference. Call Bill Gates and make him pay it.

Look, that's just one example. There are likely different ways of implementing the minimum wage and to "find the money". If you want to have a discussion about economics that's all well and good. But the questions I am interested in discussing concern the moral implications and the moral principles involved.

I'm sure there's plenty of articles written by economists that address those specific questions relating to minimum wage laws. Please feel free to research them. Only a minority of economists support minimum wage laws but there are plenty enough of them for you to research the secular aspects of that question if that is what you would like information on.

1 hour ago, Vernon said:

Also, there are plenty of situations where a living wage is not necessary such as for people living at home, very frugal people, people just looking for a fun job and a little extra cash.

Well, adjust the law accordingly then. Make the wage applicable only for family breadwinners. Again, this is an economics question. I'm sure there's plenty of research on that out there.

1 hour ago, Vernon said:

If we make all jobs living wage material than we price ourselves and society and poor people out of greater wealth.

That's unproven. Besides "greater wealth" in society is not the primary goal of the Catholic faith. What if every person on the entire person gains great wealth (in relative terms to what the average person has today) but each of us loses his soul in the process? Does that sound good to you?

1 hour ago, Vernon said:

I agree the wealthy should share but do not agree it should be at the point of a gun.

Neither do I. We take it directly out of their paycheck or bank account, etc. in the form of taxes. No guns necessary.

[Vernon]

You know what I meant. The church exhorts us to be generous. Forcing people to give up their wealth isn't generosity, though the politicians who encourage that often pat themselves on the back for being generous with the goods of others.

I didn't say wealth is the goal. I said there would be more wealth so that the poor could have better lives. Where there are good laws such as in the US no decrees of paying "living wages" are necessary. That happens automatically in a capitalist system. Just look back 300 years or even less and see if a Pope could have demanded a standard of living that even the poor enjoy today. Sure a living wage is great. Who doesn't want that. So is perfect health. Can I demand my right to perfect health? Does society owe me perfect health? Of course it's ridiculous as is the idea that prices can be set and wealth can be obtained by decree.

What is sadly almost always overlooked is the gargantuous amount of wealth that is transferred to the government and government workers, as if these workers are part of the working class instead of what they really are which is an elite class of workers, coddled, overpaid, and protected from recessions and crashes, unlike the workers who support them. The rich are singled out as being greedy, but government greed and the huge burden placed on everyone outside that system is ignored. 

[Peace]

7 minutes ago, Vernon said:

You know what I meant.

Of course I did.

7 minutes ago, Vernon said:

The church exhorts us to be generous. Forcing people to give up their wealth isn't generosity, though the politicians who encourage that often pat themselves on the back for being generous with the goods of others.

You are absolutely correct. It is not generosity. It is justice.

Please read again what the Catechism states:

Quote

The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs. The demands of justice must be satisfied first of all; that which is already due in justice is not to be offered as a gift of charity.

It is a debt that the wealthy owe to the poor. We are not doing them any favor. When the government takes their money and gives it to the poor, the government provides justice. It is not some form of forced charity. The government is forcing you to pay what you owe.
 

7 minutes ago, Vernon said:

I said there would be more wealth so that the poor could have better lives. Where there are good laws such as in the US no decrees of paying "living wages" are necessary. That happens automatically in a capitalist system. Just look back 300 years or even less and see if a Pope could have demanded a standard of living that even the poor enjoy today. Sure a living wage is great. Who doesn't want that. So is perfect health. Can I demand my right to perfect health? Does society owe me perfect health? Of course it's ridiculous as is the idea that prices can be set and wealth can be obtained by decree.

No, I disagree. The main problem you would face in that debate (which I have no particular interest in having with you by the way) is that a "better life" does not merely encompass the economic. For example, allowing men to work on Sunday enables them to make more money. That can hardly be said to be a better life if he cannot rest on that day and worship God, which is his duty. In any event, an unrestrained free-market economic system cannot be reconciled with the Catholic faith, so the question is irrelevant, if that is the system that you would advocate for.

7 minutes ago, Vernon said:

What is sadly almost always overlooked is the gargantuous amount of wealth that is transferred to the government and government workers, as if these workers are part of the working class instead of what they really are which is an elite class of workers, coddled, overpaid, and protected from recessions and crashes, unlike the workers who support them.

Well, when you get paid for your job, wealth is transferred to you, no? That's how the world works.

It seems that you have really bought into the right-wing talking points. What you wrote above is quite uncharitable. Certainly there are excesses and inefficiency in government, much of which could be improved. But the free-markets are not a panacea.

7 minutes ago, Vernon said:

The rich are singled out as being greedy, but government greed and the huge burden placed on everyone outside that system is ignored. 

What would you like to do. Cancel the government? How about we cancel only the jobs or the agencies that don't help you?

I have a solution for you. Let's eliminate all of the various government agencies, welfare programs, etc. that you disdain, fire all of these supposedly grossly overpaid government workers, and give all the money that is saved from all of this excess to the poor of America and the rest of the world, in the form of a guaranteed minimum basic income. It's a great solution, no?

I highly doubt that you would support that. Look, the fundamental issue here is that you don't like people taking money out of your pocket and giving it to someone else, is it not? Well, the Catholic Church says that the government can do that.

And there is always the option that I offered to my dear friend @fides' Jack. You can move to the Antarctic, take some of the unclaimed land for your own, and live in a government-free world of your own in which nobody touches your precious money. You can even get it printed with your face on the bill, like Prince Akeem from Coming to America.

[Vernon]

The fundamental issue is not taxation. Taxes are necessary. Some programs are good. The problem is with waste. If we're going to see if we can squeeze more out of the rich than they're already paying, I think it's also fair to see if we can squeeze out some of the inefficiencies in government and curb the swilling at the public trough. 

Just a small taste of government excess and greed:

Quote

Private-sector employees must provide enough value to their organizations so that it covers their full cost of employment. Otherwise, the organization incurs a loss and the employee loses their job. In the public sector, this relationship changes significantly. One reason is that public-sector services are typically monopoly providers. They do not face any competition and thus do not confront the competitive pressure that private-sector organizations face. Of course, this competitive pressure in the private sector is what drives efficiency, innovation, and other business ideas that create new products, lower production costs, and offer higher value for consumers.

In the public sector, the lack of competition makes it is far easier to pass along higher costs, including employee costs. Not surprisingly, the unionization rate among public-sector workers in the state is about five times higher than in the private sector. The simple reason why unionization is so much more prevalent for government workers is that a typical union—one that raises its members’ compensation above market rates—can only succeed if the organization faces little or no competition.

The impact of unionization manifests itself not only in current pay rates, but also in pensions and other benefits. In 2015, public-sector workers in cities received nearly $40,000 in benefits, split between roughly $25,000 for pensions and $15,000 for other benefits. And as noted above, this understates the true cost of benefits because of pension underfunding.

Here, we see how lack of competition and lack of transparency are driving extraordinary compensation growth. Unions have demanded high retirement benefits for their members in the form of pensions, and the public sector has acceded to these demands. Note that this is another consequence of the lack of competition within the public sector. Pensions essentially no longer exist in the private sector, and certainly not at the level promised to public-sector workers.

https://www.hoover.org/research/140000-year-why-are-government-workers-california-paid-twice-much-private-sector-workers

 

[little2add]

Just remember the old adage by Benjamin Franklin…

 “Nothing is certain but death and taxes,” 

[little2add]

58 minutes ago, little2add said:

Just remember

 P. J. O'Rourke passed away yesterday, he was well known for his satire.   

RIP

 

QUOTE:

You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money.

P. J. O'Rourke

[Nihil Obstat]

 Universal  Destination  Of  Goods