Quote from: anu on March 26, 2014, 07:24:29 PM

Quote from: phelix on March 26, 2014, 05:37:19 PM

Quote from: anu on March 26, 2014, 09:04:54 AM

Frankly, the only reason BIG is not adopted by the power centers is that they do not (yet) understand how well it serves their purpose. So proponents should maybe change their strategy: In addition to explaining to the sheeple how they get goodies, they should explain to really powerful people like Cheney, Haass and Schäuble how BIG can be used to centralize power.

How would a well balanced BIG empower the government? It would simplify so much and make the government much leaner.

It requires much higher taxes and/or central planning, as this thread' poll suggests. It will result in even more involvement of govt in every day life. It will result in more tax evasion and thus a war against tax evasion. I'd expect the prison population of BIG countries to exceed that of the US today if BIG is financed through taxes. If, for example Switzerland were to introduce BIG and finance that partly through VAT, the current habit of Swiss people to shop and fill the tank in neighboring countries can no longer be tolerated. Bern will need more, much more law enforcement.

Naah, it depends very much on how the BIG is implemented. For a start I would recommend a cost neutral implementation. It would save hundreds of thousands of government clerks paying out welfare. It would prevent people from being stigmatized and humiliated because they lost their job. Together with a flat tax with as few exceptions as possible it would not only be much more efficient but also be more fair than what most countries have today.

The question is how to balance it. Votes on the height of the BIG would have to be coupled to the height of the flat tax percentage (a nonlinear relationship) to prevent deficit spending. Please note that in Switzerland there was a vote on a very high BIG before and people voted against it. The majority is much smarter than most people think. No one in his right mind with a time horizon of more than five years would agree to long term general government indebtedness.

It's not that politicians are idiots. But the system makes them act like idiots in a lot of cases. Here people need to take control and force politicians to do the right thing for the long term.