Spanish Minister Proposes $21,000 'Universal Inheritance' From Age of 18 (theguardian.com) 276
Yolanda Diaz, Spain's Labor Minister and candidate for Prime Minister with the progressive platform Sumar, has proposed a scheme to tackle social inequality by giving every young person in the country 20,000 euros (roughly $21,776) to spend on school, training or starting a business once they reach the age of 18. The Guardian reports: According to Diaz's Sumar platform, which announced the policy before Spain's snap general election on 23 July, the initiative would cost 10 billion euros, which would be raised by taxing the rich. Sumar said the aim was to guarantee "equality of opportunity" regardless of people's family backgrounds or earnings. The payments, which would begin at the age of 18 and continue until the age of 23, would be accompanied by administrative support to help people study, train or establish their own business.
DÃaz confirmed that the policy -- called the "universal inheritance" -- would be available to all young Spaniards regardless of their economic circumstances and would be funded by taxing people earning more than 3 million euros a year. Sumar estimates it would cost 0.8% of Spain's GDP. The minister, who was raised in a staunchly communist household, said she had been unable to follow her own dreams of becoming an employment inspector because there was not enough money for her to spend years studying. "Becoming an employment inspector in Spain would have taken about five years," she said. "I'm not an employment inspector because I'm the daughter of working-class parents and I could never have allowed myself to do that. This is a redistributive measure that will allow the young people of our country to have a future regardless of their surname."
DÃaz confirmed that the policy -- called the "universal inheritance" -- would be available to all young Spaniards regardless of their economic circumstances and would be funded by taxing people earning more than 3 million euros a year. Sumar estimates it would cost 0.8% of Spain's GDP. The minister, who was raised in a staunchly communist household, said she had been unable to follow her own dreams of becoming an employment inspector because there was not enough money for her to spend years studying. "Becoming an employment inspector in Spain would have taken about five years," she said. "I'm not an employment inspector because I'm the daughter of working-class parents and I could never have allowed myself to do that. This is a redistributive measure that will allow the young people of our country to have a future regardless of their surname."
Already not "equal" (Score:4, Insightful)
The giveaway isn't equal. It is restricted to spending on education, training, or starting a business. What about those who don't want to pursue education, training, or business? What about those who want to pursue arts, or athletics, or a million other things? If you're going to call it "universal" make it actually universal. I have yet to see a true "universal" income program, and I doubt we ever will, because when you give things away, you have to take things away from others.
Re:Already not "equal" (Score:5, Insightful)
Or just buying weed, an extended vacation overseas. Or hookers. Or Cheesy Poofs.
Cuz 18 year old children are great at making big spending decisions.
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It sounds like Spain doesn't infantilize 18 year olds too.
Re:Already not "equal" (Score:4, Insightful)
And where I live, 18 year olds still make very poor decisions. Restricting that cash to a few positive uses would be a bare minimum restriction for my support.
Anyway, I had no idea Italy's rich were so numerous.
Re:Already not "equal" (Score:5, Interesting)
That much has even been scientifically proven. Fuck...I was in the Army when I was 18, and nearly everybody else my same age was constantly spending their earnings on shit they don't even remember the next day. These guys literally have all of life's essentials already covered, plus they get paid on top of that, yet they're always out of money. I was one of only a few others my age who weren't like that. One guy I knew even got something like a $75,000 a life insurance payout on his 18th birthday because his mom passed away a few years earlier, and it was all gone by the time he was 20, in the Army, all medical, food, and housing costs covered.
People like rsilvergun have this notion that nobody should be responsible for their own actions, and if they have no money it's because capitalism means they're somehow forced to be poor. And it's a total load of bullshit. The fact that most people who win millions from the lottery spend all of that money within 10 years should tell you something about just how bad most people are with money. Even a moderately financially disciplined person can very comfortably retire off of that in their 30s, but most people simply aren't financially disciplined at all. Borrowing money isn't new either -- the concept behind credit cards (i.e. borrowing money to pay for unessential goods) itself is at least 500 years old, probably longer depending on your definition. Even Mosaic law has provisions for debtors, which should give you an idea. Or that the oldest known documents are ancient analogues to today's sales receipts, inscribed on to clay tablets, for among other things, luxury clothing items.
What's more, being born into wealth doesn't really seem to change the calculus on this. Plenty of kings throughout history have gone so far into debt they've had to literally sell the crown jewels to pay them off. Good luck telling any of this to a communist though, they base all of their beliefs on Karl Marx's understanding of anthropology, or lack thereof to be more precise. The guy literally believed that all crimes, including ones based on more primal desires such as rape, would be gone once capitalism was abolished, and that basically underpins all of rsilvergun's easily proven false narrative about having education and a job being a fix-all for every known societal problem.
Re:Already not "equal" (Score:5, Informative)
People like rsilvergun have this notion that nobody should be responsible for their own actions, and if they have no money it's because capitalism means they're somehow forced to be poor. And it's a total load of bullshit.
You can climb a mountain, but can a mountain climb you?
Just because people who do earn decent incomes or experience a financial windfall and waste it does not mean the inverse is automatically true. You can be fantastic with managing money, but you can't manage what you don't have in the first place. Perhaps it should be called "the avocado toast fallacy" - the false belief that being poor is exclusively a matter of mismanaged finances.
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You can climb a mountain, but can a mountain climb you?
Just because people who do earn decent incomes or experience a financial windfall and waste it does not mean the inverse is automatically true. You can be fantastic with managing money, but you can't manage what you don't have in the first place. Perhaps it should be called "the avocado toast fallacy" - the false belief that being poor is exclusively a matter of mismanaged finances.
You have that backwards -- I'm saying that if you mismanage your finances, odds are you're going to be pretty poor. The only way that won't be true is if you have what is effectively a limitless income. Tossing a lot of money at 18 year olds is a really bad idea. Chances are they'll squander it. The politician suggesting this idea is a self-identified communist, who is exactly the kind of person who will hear none of it. The entire philosophy is broken at the most fundamental level, empiricism means diddly
Re:Already not "equal" (Score:4, Insightful)
I do believe you're wrong about that. Poor people drink and smoke at a very high rate. They have children they clearly should not have. They do not invest.
I wish it were so easy to place blame. It's not capitalism, it's behavior.
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People like rsilvergun have this notion that nobody should be responsible for their own actions, and if they have no money it's because capitalism means they're somehow forced to be poor. And it's a total load of bullshit.
You can climb a mountain, but can a mountain climb you?
Just because people who do earn decent incomes or experience a financial windfall and waste it does not mean the inverse is automatically true. You can be fantastic with managing money, but you can't manage what you don't have in the first place. Perhaps it should be called "the avocado toast fallacy" - the false belief that being poor is exclusively a matter of mismanaged finances.
The expectation that you give a 21 year old money that has been taken from the wealthy, and they will start managing it like a boss is kind of specious. It might be the basis of a small personal fortune as the youngster goes on their grind. Maybe.
I dunno about Spain, but here in the USA, we never allowed them to become adults - we "protected" the kids. 21 year olds are the equivalent of 15 year olds some decades ago. It's not really their fault - but ours. We should have not made that attempt to shield th
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Staying poor is exclusively a matter of mismanaged finances.
That irrational belief is absolutely false, as anyone poor and without the contacts and education of having been previously wealthy can testify. Even without taking into account that poor people don't know how to do finances well, and don't have the means and resources to learn it.
Yet it is weld as a religious truth by those opposing any measure that would break the self-sustaining dynamics of poverty to actually work their ass out of it, which cannot be done without external help or a extraordinary streak
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1. Great idea, provided your parents can provide for you and you don't have to share your room with 3 siblings who can't sit still for a minute (and who also can't play outside because there is no outside they'll come home from alive) and who won't let you study in peace. Oh, and no computer, and the next library is far enough away that getting there and back cuts a few hours of your study time as well. Sounds outlandish? This is the standard for the poor.
2. So your suggestion is selling your body? Because
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Anecdotes are fine, we all know some fuckups. I think when speaking on a person to person, friend to friend leverl we are and should be as libertarian as possible. Nobody is going to fix your own life, take care of yourself, do what you gotta do.
When it comes to large systems though we can and should do the opposite and embrace some collectivism. We can separate these things out. Anecdotes cannot be used to broadly define how we should structure society, the economy and our institutions because, well, it'
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Anecdotes are fine, we all know some fuckups. I think when speaking on a person to person, friend to friend leverl we are and should be as libertarian as possible. Nobody is going to fix your own life, take care of yourself, do what you gotta do.
When it comes to large systems though we can and should do the opposite and embrace some collectivism.
The opposite of collectivism isn't libertarianism, moreover the Enlightenment was fundamentally a rejection of collectivism. (The Enlightenment being the origin of liberalism, which oddly enough seems to be strongly at odds with what we call liberalism today, enough so that modern liberals tend to refer to classical liberals as conservative, which to a degree makes sense given Lincoln's definition of the modern context of conservative.)
And this, by the way, is a huge reason why I reject the whole concept of
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Dude, you've been on the internet long enough. You should know that "adult" is a term we may attach to an age out of ... custom, I think, but most people would not qualify for that label.
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Where I live, 18 year olds are considered adults. They can vote or get married or drive a vehicle and make their own decisions. Oh, also buy a drink if they want one It sounds like Spain doesn't infantilize 18 year olds too.
Your brags are anything but. Where I live, an 18-year old can vote, have credit lines, and buy assault weapons. Doesn't mean they do any of that shit wisely. It only means profit matters over common sense. Prove your 18-year olds are actually mature beyond idiotic policies that mostly exist because of drafts and war. Otherwise, every parent that has ever raised teenagers already knows you're full of shit, and policies hardly dictate maturity.
Remember when 18-year olds were actually mature enough to not
Re: Already not "equal" (Score:3)
No, it was before classrooms were places where we discuss pronouns, explore the idea of transitioning, attend Drag Queen Story Hours (to improve reading comprehension?) and made correct answers in math class 'optional' (as long as you get close, you get credit).
Re:Already not "equal" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just 18 year olds. People of all ages spend money foolishly. I have a brother and sister in my family who are both in their 50s, and both make about the same, average income. The sister has money, the brother doesn't, because the minute the brother has money, he spends it.
This is precisely why we shouldn't just give away money "universally" or strive for financial "equality."
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I've said for years that while luck and income can be a factor, whether or not one is wealthy comes down more often to spending habits. You can make minimum wage and die a millionaire if you don't spend it. You can win over $100M and be declaring bankruptcy, worth less than before you won, in under 2 years. If your spending habits are bad enough(like most lotto players).
My personal thought is that sure, you'll be able to find a percentage that waste it. Hell, you'll be able to find a percentage that was
Re:Already not "equal" (Score:4, Interesting)
There is some merit to your argument. The problem is, people learn more from their problems, than they do from charity. A person that doesn't want to be poor, and is poor, will be motivated to work hard to not be poor any more. A person who is poor, but doesn't want to do the work necessary to change their situation, will be sure to waste a handout. So the handout doesn't really help the wise spender, or the poor spender, that much.
Counterintuitively, we value most, what we have to work to get.
I grew up in a very poor family, below the US poverty line, qualifying for free lunches in schools and free groceries. My parents always encouraged me to do well in school and to pursue my dreams. I had to pay my own way through college by working my butt off every semester and every summer. I had to pay off my own college student loans. And all that hardship taught me what it takes to have a decent living. There's no way I'll throw money around like it's "free."
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On the other hand, you also have lots of middle class and up kids who might not have the same value of money as you do, but are still smart enough to waste the head start their parents gave them.
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You're prey of the survivorship bias fallacy, a common mistake of people who have worked out their way to improve their personal situation.
It ignores the outcome of everyone else who worked as hard as you, but didn't get the luck to have the same smarts to earn a degree, or got scammed by the chosen school, or they suffered a major illness or expense and were unable to find the time and money to study.
Life is already more expensive for the poor, so any small obstacle may derail you, which will happen for th
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And all that hardship taught me what it takes to have a decent living.
Why were your parents poor?
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The first part of your premise doesn't really hold though. It is entirely possible to work hard and still not have enough money to cover food, clothing, shelter, and transportation (now essential in the modern world). That assumes good health. In some cities, the wages of working hard are not even enough to cover shelter.
Re:Already not "equal" (Score:4, Informative)
You can make minimum wage and die a millionaire if you don't spend it.
If you make minimum wage and don't spend it on cost of living essentials, you'll die a lot sooner than you think.
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But what are actually "living essentials"? For some people, a hole in the ground and access to the local wildlife is enough. For others, nothing less than a mansion, with maids, regular vacations to the opposite side of the world, private schooling, etc... will do.
Yes, I listed an edge case - somewhat deliberately, but it did happen. I don't remember all the dude did to save money, but he legit donated over a million to his school after he passed, having worked as a near-minimum wage janitor there for de
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Holding even a minimum wage job means you're going to need access to food, shelter, the ability to wash yourself, and medical care. It's certainly possible to put money away if you're obtaining access to those things either as part of your employment or through family members, but that's not too far off from saying "you can earn money mining crypto if you plug your rig into someone else's power."
Yes, if you find a loophole or an exploit you can put away all your income from a minimum wage job. If you have
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For example, just set up a "silly" business to spend the money.
That's not something that needs to be deliberate. I didn't have a penny to my name at 18 and so I had to postpone my dream in favour of simple survival. If I had access to a lump sum there's a good chance I would have put it towards chasing this dream that I've since come to realise would have been absolutely guaranteed to fail. I didn't see that as a possibility back then.
I think that just giving people money doesn't put them on the same footing as the progeny of rich parents. If I had come from a line of
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Or just buying weed, an extended vacation overseas. Or hookers. Or Cheesy Poofs.
Or lots of tokens on wankurbate.com
Won't someone think of the adult entertainment cam people?
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The linked article suggests that they have thought of this. The first sentence of the article reads, "giving every young person in the country €20,000 (£17,000) to be spent on study, training or setting up a business once they reach the age of 18."
I guess they left that out of the summary for clickbait.
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Yes, that's why in the U.S. we expect them to make major financial decisions like locking themselves into big college loans that can't be discharged and apparently can't be forgiven.
Some people end up on social security before they get those loans paid off. Others leave the U.S. never to return in order to get out from under a decision they were expected to make when they weren't considered mature enough to buy beer.
Re:Already not "equal" (Score:5, Funny)
Anyways that's your answer.
Re: Already not "equal" (Score:2)
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Worse: Being good at sports gets you a free education in USA.
(complete with get-out-of-jail-free cards for anything you might do wrong...)
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What about those who want to pursue arts, or athletics, or a million other things?
How much money does it take to pursue "arts"?
(let me guess, you have to travel a lot and act bohemian in foreign countries, right?)
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It takes every dollar (or euro) you can possibly throw at an artist.
politicians: do your job (Score:2)
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Exactly.
Re:politicians: do your job (Score:4, Informative)
This is an investment in people. It is every bit as valuable as investing in roads, teachers, and public transportation.
BTW, Spain is not a third-world shit hole like the US. They already have excellent public transportation.
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What about those who want to pursue arts, or athletics, or a million other things? If you're going to call it "universal" make it actually universal
Like you don't need education to pursue arts, athletics or other things? Art education is still education and would qualify.
And it looks universal to me: everyone would qualify, is your choice if you want it or not. Finally, is perfectly fine to reward people who intent to become productive members of the society.
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If you hand the average 18 year old 20 grand, what you get is 2 years of a halfway decent economy, and after that you have a slew of 20 year olds without any marketable skills that need a liver transplant.
So this is population control. (Score:3)
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They might not be handing over cash. In Germany there is a scheme that offers young people vouchers that they can spend on cultural things like museums, or on studying.
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Fortunately for us Spaniards this is just political rhetoric to try and gain votes.
(...and has about as much chance of actually happening as all black people receiving five million dollars and 250 years of guaranteed income in the USA)
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$21 disappears easily. One car and its gone.
In most of the USA a car is pretty much a necessity if you're planning on earning a living for yourself. It's not really an unreasonable thing to spend the money on. I can't speak for Spain though, I've never been.
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You can get a decent used car for much less than $21K but a kid who hasn't been taught financial skills and control over "looking cool to friends" will waste it on a car they can't afford. I mean, there's many kids of millionaires who turn out bad because they weren't taught those things. At least make the $21K provided upon completion of some courses.
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Too bad places like the UK cut youth services and now wondering why they have to spend so much more money to make bigger jails, hire more police, and increase onerous laws.
We should be helping these poorer parents spend more time at home with their kids and being the influence they need to mature, instead of hanging around in the streets with o
The best inheritance (Score:4, Insightful)
Good habits. How to practice moderation. STEAM knowledge. Wisdom. Growing up without a sense of cynicism and entitlement.
Re: The best inheritance (Score:5, Funny)
You misspelled STEM.
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Arts
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whoooooosh
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Science
Technology
Engineering
Art or Arts
Math
STEAM
I didn't stick the A in there but I know what it stands for.
Re: The best inheritance (Score:5, Funny)
You misspelled STEM.
Nah, Steam, as in "Bobby turned 18, went on Steam and bought $20k worth of games."
Re: The best inheritance (Score:2)
I don't see any countries trying to recruit the best artistic talent from other countries. Any idea why that is?
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Turns out arts & design education can be rather beneficial to economies.
18 year olds and money (Score:5, Insightful)
Brains are infamous for taking a long time to mature. A program like this is just a recipe for poor decision making.
Why not do like other European countries have done, and make University free (at least for the first few years).
And for the non-academically inclined do the same for various vocational training, and even start some programs for people founding businesses.
Cash giveaways work in a lot of contexts... but giving a pile of cash to 18 year olds (even with a bunch of rules to try and constrain them) seems like a recipe for trouble.
Re:18 year olds and money (Score:4)
Make community college free, at least. If you want more, you should have to pay for more out of your own pocket.
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Make community college free, at least. If you want more, you should have to pay for more out of your own pocket.
There should be disincentives of some kind to stop folks from doing University simply out of inertia.
But I suspect free post-secondary does pay for itself in tax returns. The only issue is that it's a bit of a regressive policy since the children of educated high earners are the most likely to take advantage.
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Maybe if you don't finish, you have to pay part of it back?
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No, not finishing is only part of the issue .. there's also the "useless major" aspect. People who are financing with public money should only get majors in a trade or industry that doesn't have enough people.
Re:18 year olds and money (Score:4, Insightful)
Better to do nothing than let someone study a subject that you don't personally think has any value, right?
What a fucking joke.
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Maybe if you don't finish, you have to pay part of it back?
Actually, I think it should be the other way around. If you end up not cut out for college, you've gained nothing that helped you earn a better income and are now stuck with a bunch of useless debt. People who make it through college and get a good job should have to pay it forward because for them, the system worked.
Drop out and go back to delivering pizzas? Oops, sorry the higher education thing didn't work out. Here's your money back, you're gonna need it.
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People who make it through college and get a good job should have to pay it forward because for them, the system worked.
They will. It's called "taxes".
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Which is precisely the point of the policy TFA is about. 20k is about enough to live on frugally for three years; if you're still living with your parents (and most people in Spain go to the local university, so this is quite common) then it would last the four years necessary for an undergraduate degree.
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Free community college is detrimental unless it's only free for people who are majoring in something that there are jobs for. Let colleges charge rich people extra and maybe provide a few limited scholarships to major in saturated fields. You can always learn anything later in life after you've had a good career. Labor shortages in highly paid fields are causing problems for the economy.
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Nonsense.
Just because you don't personally see the value in some subject doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Labor shortages in highly paid fields are causing problems for the economy.
You fix that by making college free for anyone who wants to attend. It's that easy.
Can we afford it? Without question. Just the increase in military spending in 2017 alone could have paid for college for anyone who wanted to attend. [theintercept.com]
Once you stop wetting your pants over the though of someone you don't like getting something you don't think they "deserve", a lot of these problems suddenly have very simple
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Experience on the ground says:
(1) The combination of free + open admissions (U.S. community colleges have no entrance requirements aside from high school diploma) means that most of the resources are spent on students entirely unable to do college work, and just cruise to nowhere until the free money runs out (graduation rates hover around 20%).
(2) Many folks have heard students say that they didn't start taking their classes seriously until the free money ran out, and they had to start paying out of pocket
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That sounds incredibly stupid. The single best thing a country can do is invest in education. Countries need things like physicians, engineers, scientists of all types, etc. Making that path as easy as possible for anyone with the interest and ability is how you get those things. Do you know how we got Silicon Valley? Here's a hint: It wasn't by forcing people to needlessly struggle to get an education.
Right-wing morons, in contrast, would rather watch kids with potential struggle and give up than give
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A good argument for why university should be free. Are 18 year olds mature enough to take on tens of thousands of Euros in debt?
Unfortunately this will increase the price of (Score:3)
hookers and blows. Printing more money just makes everything more expensive.
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This proposal involves taking money from people who make more than 3 million, not printing new money.
Redistributing money can affect demand, which can lead to higher prices if supply can't keep up. For example, there's probably only so many Teslas that Taylor Swift wants to buy. I'm not even sure if she's interested in Teslas, it's entirely possible she hates Musk. But, if you took all of Taylor Swift's money and gave it to all the people in my neighborhood who own barely running jalopies, some of them probably would buy a Tesla.
With exactly the same amount of money in circulation that you started with,
An interesting idea (Score:2)
I can appreciate the concept behind this idea but I think without other programs and education about "life" earlier in their education process I think this money could be very well be poorly used by a lot of individuals. Because it is also doing some means testing, it does limit the scope of its use but I can understand why they are trying to limit its use.
Similar to the Freedom Dividend that was proposed by Andrew Yang during the 2020 campaign, I can see the discourse from both sides. While the basis does
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Similar to the Freedom Dividend that was proposed by Andrew Yang during the 2020 campaign
Yang's idea was moronic because it would just be a wash for anyone who actually had a job and no savings. Prices would simply go up in proportion to the amount of new demand for goods and services created by the redistributed money. Anyone who did have a savings would see the value of their holdings drop due to those price increases.
A young guy and his money (Score:3)
Right before the Great Recession hit, one of my former friends actually did score a rather large inheritance as a young adult. He spent it on computer hardware, consumer electronics (including a whole bunch of pairs of MP3 player sunglasses*, which at the time were a rather expensive novelty), and a boat. Ultimately, what really determined the course of his life wasn't the money, but his enlistment in the military - which culminated in him becoming a bitter far-right middle aged man with a fucked up back, in an unhappy marriage as a father of several neurodivergent teenage children.
As for me, my 18-year-old self probably would've liked to get a free $20k, but I'm really not sure I would've put it to any better use than my former friend. I probably would've blown it on the dopey boyfriend I had at the time. Considering that relationship ended up not working out, I'm oddly fine with that being a road not taken.
* These MP3 player glasses. [youtube.com] He bought one pair to keep for himself and the rest to give away to his friends to celebrate his windfall. I owned an iPod 3rd gen [fandom.com] at the time and told him while I appreciated the gesture, I'd rather use my iPod.
Plus and Minus (Score:3)
I went to HS with a guy who inherited a lot of money from a dead dad. He pissed it all away by the time he was 23. Knocked a girl up, went into the army as part of a tank crew, got out and was back to delivering pizzas. Same job he had in HS when he delivered pizzas in a Porsche 944. I took note of all that.
My kid is 7 years old and currently has $53K in a 529 plan and $10K in a brokerage account. It will be substantially more than that when I'm dead in a few years (stage 4 cancer). However, it's all in a trust, which has strongly worded "payout" language. He will have options, but he won't be able to just piss it all away on cars, alcohol and other stupid shit like my friend did....unless my wife doesn't act in accordance with the trust document. Hopefully she will have enough sense to follow it to the letter.
Dream Bigger (Score:2)
"... dreams of becoming an employment inspector"
I mean... I dreamed of owning a Lamborghini and being a "rich dude" but sure, you do you I guess.
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"The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations" --Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
Canadians (Score:3)
Why tax the rich? (Score:2)
This is a fantastic return on investment if suitable safeguards are implemented. The system literally pays for itself.
Oh, and if it's not already there, they should adjust the principal for inflation annually.
Downside?
Universities will immediately increase degree costs by 20k
Wait a minute... (Score:5, Interesting)
>The minister, who was raised in a staunchly communist household, said she had been unable to follow her own dreams of becoming an employment inspector because there was not enough money for her to spend years studying. "Becoming an employment inspector in Spain would have taken about five years," she said. "I'm not an employment inspector because I'm the daughter of working-class parents and I could never have allowed myself to do that.
Not enough money to spend on years of study? So what did DÃaz do when unable to pursue her dream?
She allowed herself to obtain a law degree, then went on to earn three post-graduate degrees before beginning a career in law.
What?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]Ãaz
the rich (Score:2)
by taxing people earning more than 3 million euros a year.
It seems that at least they have a proper concept of who "the rich" are. Hopefully they include earnings by stocks in that, because too many super-rich people officially earn $1 per year.
Context: A lot of discussions in Europe about "taxing the rich" sound nice and fair until you realize that they define "rich" as something like "households earning more than $100k per year (before taxes)". Which essentially means every upper middle class household and many middle class households with two earners.
arrogance (Score:2)
Too many comments here are arrogantly assuming that everyone else is an idiot.
The payments, which would begin at the age of 18 and continue until the age of 23, would be accompanied by administrative support to help people study, train or establish their own business.
It seems that the plan isn't to simply drop 20k into the laps of people, but rather to give them the money over time, with guidance on how to spend it smartly.
Not a guarantee that they won't blow it in pieces, but if the goal is to give young people a chance at starting something even if the parents can't afford it, then that's about as good a shot as you can get.
Lord, save us from the reductionists (Score:2)
Let me get this straight. The aim is to guarantee "equality of opportunity" but the funds will be given to all young Spaniards "regardless of their economic circumstances".
I object. I object, first, to the complete contradiction literally built into the plan. I object to the idea that one can guarantee something as complex and unbelievably individualistic as "equality of opportunity" with something as simple-minded as a payment. I object to the assumption that the purpose of government is to fix life's ineq
Comment removed (Score:3)
Dream? (Score:2)
"said she had been unable to follow her own dreams of becoming an employment inspector"
What an odd dream. I suggest she eat less cheese before bed.
Allow me to tell you what will happen (Score:2)
Knowing Spain, there's a bunch of things that may happen here, depending on what social class you're from.
The filthy rich will just throw a 18th birthday party and the 20k will be gone. But they ain't a concern. It's more a concern that some of the not-quite-so-rich will do the same. But hey, it's at least good for the economy.
Some folks will actually use that money the way it is intended. They will use it as a buffer for paying tuition. Which will near certainly match the newly available money. Prices will
Obvious followup legislation (Score:2)
Great story... (Score:2)
"The minister, who was raised in a staunchly communist household, said she had been unable to follow her own dreams of becoming an employment inspector because there was not enough money for her to spend years studying."
Instead she struggled and pulled herself up by the bootstraps to become the labor minister and a candidate for Prime Minister and she wants to make sure none of the young folks have the opportunity to overcome the struggles she did and grow accordingly?
She won't be in office long.... (Score:2)
It's a grant system. (Score:3)
This proposal sounds like a slightly more liberal application of a grants system, to include not only HE but any kind of post-secondary education, training, &/or business startup ideas. If so, it's a great idea.
arkansas has Labor Inspectors (Score:2)
The Labor Inspector is responsible for inspecting facilities within the state for compliance in the areas of elevator, building, boiler, fire, and electrical codes depending on assignment. This position is governed by state and federal laws, applicable state and national codes and standards, and agency/institution policy.
Checks design, blueprints, and engineer's calculations for code compliance and use of code approved materials. Conducts inspections at construction sites to ensure code compliance and notes
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That doesn't sound like an employment inspector. An employment inspector checks that the people actually working at the business are the people registered as working at the business (i.e. that there aren't people who are employed off the books, or immigrants without a work visa registered as someone else) and that the hours they work are the contracted hours (i.e. that they aren't doing unpaid overtime).
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So how long have you been working as an asshole inspector? You seem to have a wealth of experience.
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Good Inspectors are why all the buildings in Turkey fell over during an earthquake, and why the buildings in Japan.... don't
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Young people don't vote. You can't even buy their vote, they just don't go out and do it in large enough numbers no matter how beneficial it would be for them. We are reaching the point where things get bad enough that this might change, but not yet.
I don't know how it is in Spain, but for a long time politicians in the UK have been buying the Baby Boomer vote. Cheap housing that shot up in value, gold plated pensions that are no longer available to younger generations because they are completely unaffordab