Comments on: Open thread 4/21/2025

By: om

om — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 04:32:03 +0000

Like the Excalibur artillery shell?

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 03:46:53 +0000

I don’t care for monkeying with the tax system to incentivize having children. Doesn’t Welfare do this already, and how is that working out? I
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The tax system is a mess and would benefit from a menu of adjustments anyway. No, ‘welfare’ does not do this. While we’re at it, AFDC was replaced with TANF in 1996. AFDC rolls in 1992 encompassed 12 million people. The population has increased by 30% since then. Current TANF rolls encompass 2 million people.

By: Chases Eagles

Chases Eagles — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 03:39:59 +0000

Future war will require drones in numbers like artillery shells. Tens of millions or more.

By: om

om — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 03:18:36 +0000

Open thread notional (national) defense stuff (don’t worry Russia wants to be your friend)

NATO’s Munition Challenge – Costs, Recent Lessons & Rebuilding Magazine Depth – Perun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfmZ_rajdrs&t=57s

Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Opening Words
00:01:19 — What Am I Talking About?
00:03:37 — the Cost Problem
00:12:18 — Nuances
00:15:13 — Meeting Demand?
00:22:17 — Conversion
00:37:58 — Scaling Down
00:47:22 — Technology Substitution
00:50:04 — Industry
00:55:10 — the Risk
00:56:58 — Teaming
01:00:34 — Channel Update

Regarding care for the elderly (with or without children) for a progressive view go back to J. M. Keynes , when asked about a long term problem he replied

“In the long run we are all dead.”

The maths don’t care, that’s where religious community (some types) make a difference, or are supposed to.

By: AesopFan

AesopFan — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 02:52:42 +0000

Back to the topic opener:
Here’s another fun video by the author of the Black Hole speculations, sf writer John Michael Godier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4-Sgf6c1kU
10 Unpleasant Alien Civilization Scenarios

By: Dax

Dax — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 02:32:45 +0000

I don’t care for monkeying with the tax system to incentivize having children. Doesn’t Welfare do this already, and how is that working out? I support a return to traditional values, including not having children outside of marriage.

There will be no one to care for old people? What about bringing in guest workers or immigrants for that purpose?

By: Chases Eagles

Chases Eagles — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 00:05:18 +0000

None of this will matter. Humanoid robots will massively change the calculus. There will be whole populations of useless, unwanted people.

The donkeys are already warning about revenge. Carthago delenda est. Do what ever it takes.

By: Niketas Choniates

Niketas Choniates — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 21:41:38 +0000

@Kate:Your tax for people without children looks like punishment for my daughter who never found the right man to marry.

I’m afraid the math does not care why anyone didn’t contribute their share of children. The children your daughter did not have will not exist to help care for her when she is old and sick, and there’s an end on it. The tax may feel like a “punishment”, but how will the lack of care at the end of life feel? The extra money can go for a tax, or it can go to pay for much more expensive care due to lack of young working people, but go it will, regardless of anyone’s feelings or intentions or good faith efforts…

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 21:23:44 +0000

Dubious about baby bonuses and about higher rates for the childless.
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IMO, one’s personal income tax liability (federal), should be calculated thus:
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(0.4 x T) – (P) – (m x c), where ‘T’ is a broad definition of taxable income (with all sectoral preferences shorn from it, so no deductions or exemptions), P is one’s payroll tax withholdings through the year, “m” is the membership of one’s household defined for tax purposes, and ‘c’ is a dollar-value credit. The dollar value would be a function of nominal personal income per capita and adjusted each year. If the result of the formula was positive, that would be your liability for the year. You subtract what was withheld during the year and that’s what you are due to pay or due for a refund. If the formula result is negative, you’re due a net rebate. The maximum value you might be due is the absolute value of the formula result. You have to compare that to the caps applicable to your household to determine your actual net rebate. If none of the signatories on the return qualify as elderly or disabled, the cap is a linear function of your earned income. If all of the signatories are elderly or disabled, the cap is a function of nominal personal income per capita in your region. If one signatory is and one is not, the cap is an average of these two values. Your actual net rebate is added to what was withheld from you during the year and your total remittance is sent to you in quarterly installments.
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The foregoing replaces EITC. At the same time, you could eliminate a scrum of federal welfare programs, among them all the housing subsidies (accounting for 99% of the budget of HUD), all the subsidies for groceries and meals (currently 72% of the USDA budget), TANF, LIHEAP, &c. You could also limit federal financing of education to veterans and a menu of niche clientele like reservation Indians. You collect for the federal treasury somewhat north of 3.6% of GDP in revenue from income and capital gains taxes and you place that in a loosely dedicated fund to be devoted to overseas development and relief, domestic disaster relief, veterans benefits, the federal contribution to Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, and a menu of subsidies for certain niche clientele. The net rebates would amount to a similar share of GDP and would function as matching funds for earned income or supplementary income for the elderly and disabled.
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General revenues for the federal government could be got from a value-added tax and a reformed corporation tax.
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At the same time, you could recalculate payroll tax levies, with Social Security and Medicare being entirely financed out of a flat levy on your total compensation with a maximal value adjusted each year and unemployment compensation financed in part by such a levy and in part by an actuarially-rated charge on employers. Worker’s payroll tax liability increases, but that offsets their income tax liability.
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At the state level, you could make use of value-added taxes. corporation taxes, and gift-and-inheritance for general revenues. You could use specialty income taxes whose proceeds flowed to dedicated funds to finance higher education and Medicaid. You could have actuarially-rated charges on businesses to finance workman’s compensation. Your general income tax liability might be calculated thus: (0.065 x T) – S – (m x c) as above, with ‘S’ however being equal to your liability for specialty income tax payments applicable to your first dollar of income (I.e which did not include a per person exemption). You’d collect little for the state treasury from the general income tax except some funds for internal disaster relief; the bulk would be remitted to the public. At the same time, the state could eschew any spending on subsidies for mundane expenditures or for cash doles apart from disaster relief. Your welfare state would consist of Medicaid, providing direct services to certain clients (people on the spectrum between normal and insane, people with severe intellectual deficits, physically disabled and infirm people), financing foster care and orphanages, ancillary features of the prison system (e.g. medical and l/t care for convicts); administration of unemployment compensation (with referral services), workman’s compensation, and the Job Corps; and providing subsidized education at the primary, secondary, and (more selectively) the tertiary level.
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I think we encourage fertility through these tax credits and through the issuance of vouchers and partial rebates on property taxes to allow parents more choice in primary and secondary schooling, replacing tuition and room-and-board charges at state colleges and universities with financing via voucher redemptions. You have a global budget for the state’s higher education, you vend the vouchers to parents at discounted rates which are a function of the parents’ history of filing tax returns in the state, and the dedicated funds to finance the voucher redemptions are financed by an income tax which consists of a flat levy on any income you have over a per person exemption, so impecunious people and people with large families have slight liability.

By: neo

neo — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 20:56:32 +0000

Barry Meislin: I literally just put up a post about that: see this.