The first city in Canada to eliminate homelessness

[Sensei]

"Medicine Hat becomes the first city in Canada to eliminate homelessness"

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.3074402/medicine-hat-becomes-the-first-city-in-canada-to-eliminate-homelessness-1.3074742

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/05/14/medicine-hat-homelessness-end-2015_n_7280232.html

 

They did exactly what I said numerous times f.e. here:

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/87282-how-to-reduce-wealth-inequality/?p=846769

 

"And now f.e. half of Detroit is dead city without population, with quarters of houses owned by banks, ruined, and waiting to be demolished.

They could/should be resident by all these NY homeless people.."

 

ps. The number huffingtonpost wrote was astonishing: 1.5% (1 per 69) of population of city were homeless?!

Here, 1 person per 1200 is homeless (0.084%).

Edited May 16, 2016 by Sensei

[CharonY]

I like this part:

 

 

Clugston admits that when the project began in 2009, when he was an alderman, he was an active opponent of the plan.

"I even said some dumb things like, 'Why should they have granite countertops when I don't,'" he says. "However, I've come around to realize that this makes financial sense."

 

Appealing to envy is a powerful tool to oppose otherwise fiscally sensible social programs.

[Phi for All]

Appealing to envy is a powerful tool to oppose otherwise fiscally sensible social programs.

 

This seems to be part of our hardwired sense of fair play. It bothers us when we think others are getting something we aren't, even in a situation like this.

 

I've seen experiments on other animals (mostly primates) where one critter did the task required and got a standard treat, and a second critter did the same exact task and got a really special treat. The first critter won't stand for it very long, and eventually stops doing the task because he envies the second critter and feels unfairly treated.

[Delta1212]

But there was one change that initially surprised Clugston court appearances went up.

Imagine that, people who live on the street, are difficult to find and are unlikely to be able to get mail are less likely to show up/be concerned about showing up to court than people with a fixed address.

[CharonY]

 

This seems to be part of our hardwired sense of fair play. It bothers us when we think others are getting something we aren't, even in a situation like this.

 

I've seen experiments on other animals (mostly primates) where one critter did the task required and got a standard treat, and a second critter did the same exact task and got a really special treat. The first critter won't stand for it very long, and eventually stops doing the task because he envies the second critter and feels unfairly treated.

 

I remember an experiment by de Waal on capuchin monkeys using cucumbers and grapes.

[Sensei]

I've seen experiments on other animals (mostly primates) where one critter did the task required and got a standard treat, and a second critter did the same exact task and got a really special treat. The first critter won't stand for it very long, and eventually stops doing the task because he envies the second critter and feels unfairly treated.

I have seen such experiment with little children 3-5 years old or so. With similar results like you described.

[EdEarl]

The child in us never grows up, but does learn. It's necessary to treat everyone fairly; for example, give everyone a grape.

[Phi for All]

The child in us never grows up, but does learn. It's necessary to treat everyone fairly; for example, give everyone a grape.

 

You can keep your grapes. They're giving ME figs now!

 

 

 

I'm glad to see municipalities using interesting solutions for common problems. Canada and the US are too wealthy overall to have problems with homelessness. Countries can't forget their People.

[Ten oz]

 

This seems to be part of our hardwired sense of fair play. It bothers us when we think others are getting something we aren't, even in a situation like this.

 

I've seen experiments on other animals (mostly primates) where one critter did the task required and got a standard treat, and a second critter did the same exact task and got a really special treat. The first critter won't stand for it very long, and eventually stops doing the task because he envies the second critter and feels unfairly treated.

Yes, we humans are not so different as we like to believe. Many of our attitudes are hardwired.

 

Of course help people benefits of all in the long run. In the short term we get caught up policing assistance. We rather a million people do without than a hundred people get away with taking advantage.

[EdEarl]

Yes, we humans are not so different as we like to believe. Many of our attitudes are hardwired.

 

Of course help people benefits of all in the long run. In the short term we get caught up policing assistance. We rather a million people do without than a hundred people get away with taking advantage.

Unfortunately, we have it all wrong. Millions are doing with little, and a few have become super rich by taking advantage of the millions.

[Phi for All]

Yes, we humans are not so different as we like to believe. Many of our attitudes are hardwired.

 

Of course help people benefits of all in the long run. In the short term we get caught up policing assistance. We rather a million people do without than a hundred people get away with taking advantage.

 

This is an offshoot of modern political conservatism, imo. Focus on the injustice happening on a very small scale while ignoring (and sometimes impeding) all the large scale good that is being done. Fed by agendas rooted in stopping all social programs the wealthy don't participate in (and therefore don't want to pay their fair share of), we get this bizarre effect where conservatives are basically standing on everyone's oxygen tube and wondering why we're all so blue.

[CharonY]

Ah, but while the conservatives pound on this platform there is also a curious lack of initiative from the left to rectify matter. Fiscal inequality seems to be more a matter of well-off/influential people vs poor rather than left vs. right. The way the rhetoric is spun to make this happens differs, but often not that much the outcome (if painting the picture in broad strokes).

 

As a number of social critics have argued that the apparent conflict by the two parties results in a type of ideological control where the average voter has the apparent ability to align him/herself with a party representing their respective ideology. In the end, however, the system takes over resulting in an upward distribution of resources to a governing elite. While I am nowhere near knowledgeable enough to assess the arguments in depth, people like Chomsky write compelling assays on this topic.

Edited May 18, 2016 by CharonY

[Sensei]

"Fair share" is linear tax for everybody.

Say 10% regardless of income.

No deduction.

 

For some "fair share" means "progressive tax", but it's crap.

 

Linear tax could be collected extremely easily also, without the whole expensive machinery: bank account mentioned on employment contract, and whatever is send to that account, by employer, 10% of it goes to government account immediately.

With progressive tax it's impossible to do so, as employee does not know how long he/she will be working in the same company and getting income for the all year's months or not.

Without job, he/she can be in different "tax brackets", with different rates.

So if automat would take progressive tax at January, then somebody is fired, government would have to return him/her money later, complicating the whole system a lot (which is opposite to my idea of simplification of taxing system).

 

Progressive tax is also promoting all kinds of mitigation by showing true or false expenditures and investments, just to be in lower "tax brackets" with lower rate.

While linear tax, promote reverse, working for as much as possible.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Sensei

[Phi for All]

Ah, but while the conservatives pound on this platform there is also a curious lack of initiative from the left to rectify matter. Fiscal inequality seems to be more a matter of well-off/influential people vs poor rather than left vs. right. The way the rhetoric is spun to make this happens differs, but often not that much the outcome (if painting the picture in broad strokes).

 

As a number of social critics have argued that the apparent conflict by the two parties results in a type of ideological control where the average voter has the apparent ability to align him/herself with a party representing their respective ideology. In the end, however, the system takes over resulting in an upward distribution of resources to a governing elite. While I am nowhere near knowledgeable enough to assess the arguments in depth, people like Chomsky write compelling assays on this topic.

 

In the US at least, we have no left to turn to when it comes to major representation of liberal ideas. We can have them, but there's nobody to turn them into legislation that doesn't get "right-washed" into helping Big Business more than it helps the majority.

 

But you're correct, there are alternative candidates, but the two-party system kicks them all to the curb. Nobody wants to think their vote will be wasted.

"Fair share" is linear tax for everybody.

Say 10% regardless of income.

No deduction.

 

For some "fair share" means "progressive tax", but it's crap.

 

Linear tax could be collected extremely easily also, without the whole expensive machinery: bank account mentioned on employment contract, and whatever is send to that account, by employer, 10% of it goes to government account immediately.

With progressive tax it's impossible to do so, as employee does not know how long he/she will be working in the same company and getting income for the all year's months or not.

Without job, he/she can be in different "tax brackets", with different rates.

So if automat would take progressive tax at January, then somebody is fired, government would have to return him/her money later, complicating the whole system a lot (which is opposite to my idea of simplification of taxing system).

 

Progressive tax is also promoting all kinds of mitigation by showing true or false expenditures and investments, just to be in lower "tax brackets" with lower rate.

While linear tax, promote reverse, working for as much as possible.

 

But a flat tax hurts the survivability of lower income people. If you make $30,000, it's harder to live on the remaining $27,000 after taxes than it is for the person who makes $500,000 to live on the remaining $450,000. Flat taxes end up helping the wealthy, despite how reasonable they sound.

 

I still agree with Sanders and Eisenhower. Tax the crap out of the highest earnings. It doesn't prevent the wealthy from going for it, and it keeps more of that crazy money circulating through the economy.

[CharonY]

Well, deductions are in my mind a different beast from that type of tax and actually complicate matters significantly. It should be noted that progressive tax to address inequality in theory is sound in , but due to deductions there is technically only a relatively moderate in crease in tax burden for the rich. A flat tax generally benefits the rich, however. According to the CB the top 1% pay roughly 29% of their income as tax, the 81st to 99th percentiles 21%, the 21st to 80th percentile 12% and finally the lowest quintile 2% (2011) data. Obviously a 10% tax rate will not work but increasing it to, say 15% clearly results in higher burden for almost everyone until you reach ~ the top 20%. Those will get a tax relief. So lower income brackets are taxed higher, while the overall tax revenue will be reduced. In short, depending on the income distribution, a flat tax typically leads to a upward distribution. If mitigated by high flat deductions the distribution can be mitigated for the low-income brackets but at cost of the middle class.

That is not to say that the current implementation is really progressive, considering that capital gains are taxed differently and the access to certain deductions make the progressive tax less progressive than they may appear. Yet a flat rate clearly disadvantages lower income brackets.

An interesting calculation would be a comparison using a no-deduction model.

[Delta1212]

I could maybe get behind a flat tax if it was both fairly high and had a high standard deduction.

 

So everybody pays, say, 40% tax on all income after their first $50,000 or so.

[Phi for All]

A couple of decades ago, I think it was 60 Minutes did a special where they took one of their people's taxes and did them 28 different ways, using every option from top tier tax attorneys to H&R Block. They finished by having the guy do his own taxes, and then turned in his info with a request that the IRS calculate the taxes owed. None of the 30 different ways of calculating this guy's taxes matched, they were all different, some by quite a bit. Math shouldn't work that way.

[Sensei]

Here the most of income government has from VAT (>40%) (the more people consume, the more government has money from taxes),

then is oil & alcohol, cigarettes etc excise duty (~22%), (the more people drink and smoke and drive, the more government has money from taxes),

PIT, private income tax (~15%),

CIT, corporate income tax (~8%).

Various other sources ~15% (f.e. dividend)

 

Data from graph from 2013.

 

The largest VAT is for the luxury items, which obviously is paid naturally by the richest people.

VAT for food is 3%,5%,8%, rarely more.

(I paid maybe $5-$6 in VAT in the last month, spent $100-130 on food etc stuff)

 

It's smarter way to collect taxes from the richest people, than progressive tax PIT. Let them pay it in VAT for luxury items..

 

If government would tax say 50% or more the richest people income, nobody would notice it in GDP! It would be purely demagogic change. Less than 1% increase.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Sensei

[CharonY]

I could maybe get behind a flat tax if it was both fairly high and had a high standard deduction.

 

So everybody pays, say, 40% tax on all income after their first $50,000 or so.

 

That or maybe introduce some guaranteed basic income. However, it would still result in the middle class having a proportionate higher burden.

 

Edit: VAT is actually also tricky. Looking at the 90s luxury taxes, the extracted revenue was far below expectation and since people just bought less of them (yacht sales went down ~70%, for example), it also threatened the livelihood of manufacturers and sellers. An overall VAT increase would again harm lower income brackets as they have to invest a large proportion of their income into necessities.

 

So if VAT is supposed to fill the gap left by income taxes, I do not see a good model that would actually work, that does not cripple the working poor. Also note that the low taxes for food are are typically due to exemptions (or lower tax rates) for necessities. But if those remain low and we increase it for everything else ("tangible personal property"), it would again limit access of poor people to items that could increase their standard of living and/or ability to improve their financial situation.

Edited May 18, 2016 by CharonY

[John Cuthber]

"Fair share" is linear tax for everybody.

Say 10% regardless of income.

No deduction.

 

For some "fair share" means "progressive tax", but it's crap.

 

Linear tax could be collected extremely easily also, without the whole expensive machinery: bank account mentioned on employment contract, and whatever is send to that account, by employer, 10% of it goes to government account immediately.

With progressive tax it's impossible to do so, as employee does not know how long he/she will be working in the same company and getting income for the all year's months or not.

Without job, he/she can be in different "tax brackets", with different rates.

So if automat would take progressive tax at January, then somebody is fired, government would have to return him/her money later, complicating the whole system a lot (which is opposite to my idea of simplification of taxing system).

 

Progressive tax is also promoting all kinds of mitigation by showing true or false expenditures and investments, just to be in lower "tax brackets" with lower rate.

While linear tax, promote reverse, working for as much as possible.

So, you believe that, even if someone has not got enough money to live on, the government should take 10% of it.

That's an interesting point of view.

The only point in its favour is that it's better than a head tax. You pay the same tax- per household- regardless of income.

That's obviously "fair"- everyone pays the same.

 

Head tax looks great- until you think about it.

Imagine a town- where there are some people and they have a tax system and they want to spend some money on some "thing". It doesn't matter if it's a school, or a statue or what.

The town has a small number of rich people, a larger number of middle income people and rather a lot of people who don't have much disposable income.

Obviously, the real distribution of incomes is complex, but lets pretend that

- only household incomes are taxed (so if you have two people earning 1000$ they pay the same as one person earning 2000$), That's not vital to the argument- but it make s the maths easier. and, also to make it easy their incomes are just 3 groups

There are ten people who get a million dollars,

a hundred people who get ten thousand dollars and

a thousand people who get one thousand.

That's 1110 people altogether and their total income is 12 million

How much can the town afford to spend on the "Thing"?

 

Well, realistically, they can't take more than $100- because that would be a massive cut to those in the lowest income bracket.

So, in total, they could get $111,000

 

Not a lot- just about 1% of their collective income.

If the "thing" costs $200,000 the town can't buy it with a head tax.

 

Now imagine that they try a simple 2% tax rate.

2% of $12 million is 240,000- so they can buy the Thing and have change.

The poorest group are happy because they are paying just $20- compared to a head tax of $100.

The middle group are paying more- $200 rather than $100 but, at least they get the Thing which simply wasn't possible before.

The rich group are, of course getting hit for a lot more tax- $20,000 rather than 100.

However, like the middle income group they get the benefit of the Thing.

And their alternative was to either pay for the Thing by them self - which would cost then 10 times more or, perhaps, split the cost of the Thing with their rich friends- well there are only 10 of them so that's the same $20,000 each- but they don't get whatever the town spends the "change" on.

 

That's why essentially no country would ever introduce a head tax as their only means to fund the state.

 

The thing is that a flat tax suffers from the same problems as a head tax.

Because you can't tax the poor out of existence, you limit the tax rate.

And, because you can't set the tax rate, you can't decide how much money the state has to spend on things.

 

A tax policy that stops you being able to decide what to spend money on is a very "strange" tax system.

It's also rather rare in practice.

Just have a look at this list of economic powerhouses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax#Countries_that_have_flat_tax_systems

[Sensei]

So, you believe that, even if someone has not got enough money to live on, the government should take 10% of it.

That's an interesting point of view.

 

No. If somebody has no job, will ask government "what job you can offer me?".

 

The only point in its favour is that it's better than a head tax. You pay the same tax- per household- regardless of income.

That's obviously "fair"- everyone pays the same.

 

Head tax looks great- until you think about it.

You are starting analyzing game in the middle of play.

Imagine monopoly: everybody starts with the same amount of money.

Some will invest in hotel one star, then two starts, then further, and suddenly new money will come to them from other players.

others will spend on nothing (overeat) and finally bankrupt. Amount of money in the game is always constant.

Head tax could be implemented when everybody starts game, with the same amount of cash.

 

Imagine a town- where there are some people and they have a tax system and they want to spend some money on some "thing". It doesn't matter if it's a school, or a statue or what.

The town has a small number of rich people, a larger number of middle income people and rather a lot of people who don't have much disposable income.

Obviously, the real distribution of incomes is complex, but lets pretend that

- only household incomes are taxed (so if you have two people earning 1000$ they pay the same as one person earning 2000$), That's not vital to the argument- but it make s the maths easier. and, also to make it easy their incomes are just 3 groups

There are ten people who get a million dollars,

a hundred people who get ten thousand dollars and

a thousand people who get one thousand.

That's 1110 people altogether and their total income is 12 million

How much can the town afford to spend on the "Thing"?

 

Well, realistically, they can't take more than $100- because that would be a massive cut to those in the lowest income bracket.

So, in total, they could get $111,000

 

Not a lot- just about 1% of their collective income.

If the "thing" costs $200,000 the town can't buy it with a head tax.

 

Now imagine that they try a simple 2% tax rate.

2% of $12 million is 240,000- so they can buy the Thing and have change.

The poorest group are happy because they are paying just $20- compared to a head tax of $100.

The middle group are paying more- $200 rather than $100 but, at least they get the Thing which simply wasn't possible before.

The rich group are, of course getting hit for a lot more tax- $20,000 rather than 100.

However, like the middle income group they get the benefit of the Thing.

And their alternative was to either pay for the Thing by them self - which would cost then 10 times more or, perhaps, split the cost of the Thing with their rich friends- well there are only 10 of them so that's the same $20,000 each- but they don't get whatever the town spends the "change" on.

 

That's why essentially no country would ever introduce a head tax as their only means to fund the state.

 

The thing is that a flat tax suffers from the same problems as a head tax.

Because you can't tax the poor out of existence, you limit the tax rate.

And, because you can't set the tax rate, you can't decide how much money the state has to spend on things.

 

A tax policy that stops you being able to decide what to spend money on is a very "strange" tax system.

It's also rather rare in practice.

Just have a look at this list of economic powerhouses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax#Countries_that_have_flat_tax_systems

 

Your example is in many ways flawed.

The first thing, is that income of somebody is expenditure of somebody else. Money must match on both sides of equation.

Baker pays for flour miller, and miller pays for grain farmer.

Farmer and miller buy bread from baker.

There is flow of money, were money=constant (or ultimately 0, if they would agree to do what is their responsibility, and what is good for their community)

In your example these 10 millions dollars for the richest appeared from literally nowhere.

While they should be from 10 millions people $1 each, or 1 million people $10 each, or 100k people $100 each, etc, per month.

 

I was telling "what is fair", not "what is good to town administration".

What is good to town administration (or country government) is endless flow of money

And you are analyzing it from point of view of administration/government.

Head tax is not fair in my opinion.

 

Money does not exist. It's illusion to keep people busy working doing their responsibility.

To force get out of home every day, and do what they often even don't like to do, to be able to survive a week, or month more.

If they would be smart, they would get rid of money, and agree to do their responsibility everybody without getting paid, and not having to pay for anything also.

But at the beginning there would be issues with people from other regions where money still exist.

 

See what result it has to human kind: do NASA engineers "forgot" suddenly how to build rocket after trip to the Moon?

Government cut NASA money, money which would be in large percentage spend on engineers wage.

They didn't lost knowledge. They didn't want to work for free, even if that work could be great for human kind..

I am wondering whether these engineers would also refuse to work for free (not to mention the all other people around the world),

if there would be flying comet to hit Earth, and there would be needed rockets to get out of planet..

 

Actually this whole thread is about "let's give people house for free and see what they will do"..

 

[CharonY]

 

Your example is in many ways flawed.

The first thing, is that income of somebody is expenditure of somebody else. Money must match on both sides of equation.

Baker pays for flour miller, and miller pays for grain farmer.

Farmer and miller buy bread from baker.

There is flow of money, were money=constant (or ultimately 0, if they would agree to do what is their responsibility, and what is good for their community)

In your example these 10 millions dollars for the richest appeared from literally nowhere.

While they should be from 10 millions people $1 each, or 1 million people $10 each, or 100k people $100 each, etc, per month.

 

 

 

The way I see it your example does not illustrate a flat tax very well. Since at each step the buyer pays progressively more until the consumer who pays for the whole cost plus overhead. I.e. the total cost is distributed according to the respective contribution (material plus work time). And if one digs deeper there are also various degrees of margin and leverage.

Edited May 19, 2016 by CharonY

[Endy0816]

Basic cost of living doesn't scale with income. Main issue of a flat tax. Nice for the wealthy, not so much for everyone else.

 

 

You don't necessarily need to work for money, but you do have to work to survive.

 

I think this is what is gradually changing as we move towards a form of post-scarcity economy.

[CharonY]

I am actually curious how the basic income experiment in Ontaria is going to work out. There have been earlier attempts but the outcome were ambivalent and the experiments were often terminated prematurely, from what I understand.

[EdEarl]

Endy #23 said,

You don't necessarily need to work for money, but you do have to work to survive.

I think this is what is gradually changing as we move towards a form of post-scarcity economy.

Although I agree, the devil is in the detail. Automation will consume jobs, leaving more and more people without an income. The number of homeless people is gradually changing as we move towards a form of post scarcity economy. However, the rate will probably increase until most jobs are automated. Things will be abundant, but will distribution be limited by owners of the automation or will jobless people be given food, clothing, shelter, medical care and education?

 

Whether the tax rate is graduated or flat makes little difference to a jobless, homeless, foodless person.

 

We can consider providing homes to the homeless now (relatively few homeless people), in the far future (99% homeless), or in between. In the far future, automatons might provide homes, food, clothing, medical care, and education for everyone...everyone gets a fig.

 

IMO the important issues are related to public opinion and political solutions required to make the transition from the current economic system to one with full automation. How people react to Canada's "experiment" with eliminating homelessness is important; will it continue or be abandoned? How will the affected individuals change, and how will their stories affect public opinion and politics?