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A comment on Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they can retire a millionaire. Parent comment

Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by sparrc on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @07:52PM (#25367974)
To be fair, the USA federal government has plenty of money to pay for programs like this, they just choose not to. The lion's share of the money goes to the military, so there's quite a lot of room to re-allocate funds that would directly benefit people.

Napkin math: 4,000,000 babies per year in the USA * $6750 = $27 billion.

USA 2020 defense budget: $738 billion

So this would cost ~3.5% of the 2020 annual budget of the defense department.

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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by lisper on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @07:58PM (#25368032)
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the current system depends on keeping a cadre of people on the financial hairy edge so that they can be coerced into doing the actual work. If everyone were a millionaire, the result would not be a bunch of happy, financially independent people, it would be rampant inflation while the newly expanded money supply went chasing after what remained of a rapidly shrinking pool of accumulated goods, and then, when those were gone, we'd end up right back where we started, just with a few extra zeros on all the price tags.
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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by pmoriarty on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @08:11PM (#25368177)
"Not to put too fine a point on it, but the current system depends on keeping a cadre of people on the financial hairy edge so that they can be coerced into doing the actual work."

Not just to do the work, but also to do the dying.

Enlisting in the military is often a resort of financially destitute people who don't see many other options.

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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by brewdad on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @08:43PM (#25368483)
It's not something most people want to admit given the US worship of our veterans but the military in the past 40 years has largely been a successful jobs program.
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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by pmoriarty on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @08:54PM (#25368571)
"the military in the past 40 years has largely been a successful jobs program"

Well, among other things, like participating in mass murder.

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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by bassman9000 on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @09:07PM (#25368695)
It's not something most people want to admit

I think it's pretty well known and understood. Not only a successful jobs program: a training/education one too, and the prime social ladder.

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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by sparrc on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @08:07PM (#25368130)
The proposal isn't to make everyone a millionaire, it's to give everyone an index investment at birth that they can't touch until they retire, at which point it would presumably be worth around a million dollars.

btw I'm not saying this is a good idea, I just wanted to make the point that there is plenty of money to pay for something like this.

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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by throwaway2245 on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @08:35PM (#25368412)
> depends on keeping a cadre of people on the financial hairy edge so that they can be coerced into doing the actual work.

Which is maybe why Bill Ackman's proposal here doesn't really make money accessible to working-age people, when they most need it to set up a less hairy lifestyle.

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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by pmoriarty on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @08:06PM (#25368127)
The spending on the military is actually much larger, because the US also spends a lot of money on veterans.

$250.9 billion for 2021, according to this article:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-passes-2509-bi...

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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by nceqs3 on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @08:36PM (#25368419)
Military spending is around 15 percent of total federal spending. Definitely not the "lion's share of the money".

https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/is-us-defens...

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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by sparrc on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @09:11PM (#25368730)
It's the single largest category of spending, outside of medicare and social security, which are taxed and funded within their own category separate from regular income taxes, and are "mandatory spending".

Also note that Brookings tends to lean pro-military so 15% is likely an under-representation.

If you remove mandatory spending it's more like 50%: https://prospect.org/economy/tax-dollars-really-go/

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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by dismalpedigree on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @08:21PM (#25368289)
Medicare and social security are significantly higher and growing faster than military spending. They are the lions share.
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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by sparrc on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @09:01PM (#25368625)
sure, although seems a little disingenuous to compare those since medicare and social security are not funded via regular federal income taxes, they are taxed in their own dedicated categories and rates.
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Re:Bill Ackman: give every American cash at birth so they ca... by mordymoop on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @08:40PM (#25368449)
So weird to me that nobody has managed to package social support as a matter of defense.
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