"Socialism works so well there! We should do it here."
"They have such low recidivism there! We should use their sentencing as a standard!"
I think violent offenses are more than something that requires reform for the perpetrator. It requires justice for the victim. Rape and murder? Fuck you, you're going away FOREVER.
In the case of drug crimes, I agree with you. Appeal of the logic starts to break down when you scale it out for violent offenders. In fact, I find the lax sentencing in Scandanavian countries appalling.
Looking through the comments, I see a combination of anecdotal evidence about Unions being bad/good and a few (very logical) statements about how collective bargaining leads to higher wages & benefits.
Here are my two pennies:
Private sector unions are great for collective bargaining, though I prefer they abstain from broad political platforms (immigration, for example), as these are so far removed the intent of the union. I tend to view these Unions as being political vehicles first, collective bargaining agents second. That isn't a compliment.
Public sector unions are awkward in that tax payer is not represented at the bargaining table. They should be restructured to make bargaining comparable to the private sector case (or reverse Aboud).
My personal experiences with Unions are very negative.
In the first experience, in SoCal in the early 90s, I saw first hand when the Teamsters moved to unionize drywall framers. My dad was a small scale developer in the San Gabriel Valley and during a protest, a Teamsters boss on a megaphone encouraged a mob of picketers to run through the project with hammers and destroy recently hung drywall. My dad also received death threats and we had a rock thrown through a window.
My second experience was doing campaign targeting for AFSCME. The people I met from that org were in the extreme far left part of the political spectrum (as in "Stalin had some good ideas"). Take from that what you will.
In the absence of federal support programs, are people who would drive for Uber or any of these gig-type apps better or worse off with the opportunity to earn $4.40/hr?
If you raise that wage, most likely the business model ceases to be worthwhile for Uber, so the job goes away. I don't think that means it is replaced with something better.
> Isn't this kind of what happened in the 2008 collapse?
Not at all.
The housing crisis resulted from credit expansion. Specifically credit was extended to people that should not have been able to take on risk. A secondary cause was the structure of the debt (long term risk with short term volatility).
I'm suggesting reduction in one's tax base based on interest paid for existing debt, not the creation of new debt.
The financial crisis was the result of expansion of credit. What I suggest is a reduction in the tax burden of owning a home.
There are many valid reasons to be against my suggestion; the subprime crisis is not one of them.
EDIT: There was definitely some sarcasm in my suggestion. This is a hot button topic for a lot of progressives because the impact of being able to right off one's interest payments is viewed as regressive. I see arguments both ways.
Sounds like we should increase it to make home ownership more attractive, resulting in greater civic engagement from the population ("skin in the game").
Quick question for anyone who actually studied Baumol's theories:
Did he bring into consideration how some services, such as education and health care, exist in an awkward limbo between services we pay for (right/libertarian view) and services we're entitled to (left view), resulting in a smash up of public subsidies and political quicksand?
At face value, his theory is totally reasonable. BUT it seems totally reductionist to claim his drivers of cost are the only drivers (even calling them primary drivers seems foolish to me).
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