Tolentino
2024-11-29 09:22:17
- #1
Phew, that's the problem, not that you don't know anything and just parrot what the neoliberal populists are throwing out there. But that you don't even begin to question these platitudes and have no interest in statements to the contrary, which are even backed by facts.
That is simply not true. We are not competing with the Bahamas and Bermuda.
Serious economies have higher wealth-related taxes than Germany! In Europe, for example, the UK, Belgium, Norway, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland. Worldwide: USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and many more.
(measured in % of GDP)
That aside from the systemic thought raises.
But even within a systemic framework that puts us in competition with other countries (which will not last forever), it is by no means harmful to have wealth-related taxes. Because there are a bunch of countries that levy much more than Germany and still grow stronger than Germany.
Investments are currently being made in the USA precisely because there is a huge subsidy package and not because less wealth tax has to be paid there (on the contrary, property tax there is, for example, many times higher than in Germany).
Labor costs themselves are not the problem. Labor unit costs are the issue. You can afford the highest nominal labor costs per hour worked and still be competitive if you are correspondingly productive.
Interestingly, there is also a strong connection between productivity and minimum wage. Because when human labor becomes (too) expensive, companies start to innovate to reduce labor unit costs.
What Agenda 2010 achieved was to make human labor so cheap that it never paid off for companies to increase productivity because you could always throw a few temporary workers and low-wage earners on overtime. That is medium- and long-term detrimental to competitiveness.
How many of the 15 thousand "total refusers" are under 30 years old? Do you have data on that?
Furthermore, you can have disabilities, illnesses, injuries, psychological problems, and much more at any age; age only has a statistical correlation with higher health values.
But 15 thousand out of 5.5 million is also a statistically small number.
And whether someone rightfully receives citizen's income or not, I actually don't want to leave that to any caseworker who knows as much about medicine and psychology as my poodle; you have to involve experts and expert opinions before you can implement a decision of such magnitude as Linnemann proposes. And in the end, that costs more than it saves on the other side. Especially since you still have the problem that no one hires such a person. As said, 1.7 million really available on the labor market BG recipients are opposed by 676 thousand open jobs. And then it is acted as if it were solely the fault of the unemployed that they are unemployed.
Apart from the fact that various instruments (such as the sacred debt brake) assume that full employment must not exist (then a boom overheating switch triggers, which leads to a further limitation of borrowing and ultimately is supposed to raise interest rates; this thing is the biggest nonsense, see Sigl-Glöckner: "Good Money: Ways to a Just and Sustainable Society").
Exactly, and at the moment it is such that the rich child not only receives better starting chances but has a selection bonus over all stages of their life. So in doubt, someone who is less gifted, less willing to perform and capable, and has exploited less of their potential is in an important position, while the woman from the precarious family environment who has worked her way up with diligence and hard work to an academic degree at best becomes a department head and has to justify why she is once again taking sick leave for a child.
That is why the state must intervene here in a corrective way and ensure equal opportunities over the entire route.
But that is fundamentally a different issue than citizen's income, which is only supposed to ensure a dignified life for those in need.
In reality, we are in international competition with countries that simply do not have such taxes
That is simply not true. We are not competing with the Bahamas and Bermuda.
Serious economies have higher wealth-related taxes than Germany! In Europe, for example, the UK, Belgium, Norway, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland. Worldwide: USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and many more.
(measured in % of GDP)
That aside from the systemic thought raises.
But even within a systemic framework that puts us in competition with other countries (which will not last forever), it is by no means harmful to have wealth-related taxes. Because there are a bunch of countries that levy much more than Germany and still grow stronger than Germany.
Investments are currently being made in the USA precisely because there is a huge subsidy package and not because less wealth tax has to be paid there (on the contrary, property tax there is, for example, many times higher than in Germany).
Labor costs themselves are not the problem. Labor unit costs are the issue. You can afford the highest nominal labor costs per hour worked and still be competitive if you are correspondingly productive.
Interestingly, there is also a strong connection between productivity and minimum wage. Because when human labor becomes (too) expensive, companies start to innovate to reduce labor unit costs.
What Agenda 2010 achieved was to make human labor so cheap that it never paid off for companies to increase productivity because you could always throw a few temporary workers and low-wage earners on overtime. That is medium- and long-term detrimental to competitiveness.
What exactly does one have to have so that a 25-year-old cannot work? Really nothing at all?
How many of the 15 thousand "total refusers" are under 30 years old? Do you have data on that?
Furthermore, you can have disabilities, illnesses, injuries, psychological problems, and much more at any age; age only has a statistical correlation with higher health values.
But 15 thousand out of 5.5 million is also a statistically small number.
And whether someone rightfully receives citizen's income or not, I actually don't want to leave that to any caseworker who knows as much about medicine and psychology as my poodle; you have to involve experts and expert opinions before you can implement a decision of such magnitude as Linnemann proposes. And in the end, that costs more than it saves on the other side. Especially since you still have the problem that no one hires such a person. As said, 1.7 million really available on the labor market BG recipients are opposed by 676 thousand open jobs. And then it is acted as if it were solely the fault of the unemployed that they are unemployed.
Apart from the fact that various instruments (such as the sacred debt brake) assume that full employment must not exist (then a boom overheating switch triggers, which leads to a further limitation of borrowing and ultimately is supposed to raise interest rates; this thing is the biggest nonsense, see Sigl-Glöckner: "Good Money: Ways to a Just and Sustainable Society").
The starting position for a rich child is much better than for a poor one. But and that is important. If the poor child folds their hands in their lap and says "I am poor, nothing will come of it anyway, I have no chance..."
Exactly, and at the moment it is such that the rich child not only receives better starting chances but has a selection bonus over all stages of their life. So in doubt, someone who is less gifted, less willing to perform and capable, and has exploited less of their potential is in an important position, while the woman from the precarious family environment who has worked her way up with diligence and hard work to an academic degree at best becomes a department head and has to justify why she is once again taking sick leave for a child.
That is why the state must intervene here in a corrective way and ensure equal opportunities over the entire route.
But that is fundamentally a different issue than citizen's income, which is only supposed to ensure a dignified life for those in need.