As a german, who lives in a system of universal health coverage and unemployment payments i can tell you that that is a very naive way of looking at it. There are two very strong factors that mitigate this:

1. Most humans wish to be useful. Most humans wish to do some kind of work in their lives. This is not theoretical, this is real. We found in germany that unemployment can strongly contribute to depression. Additionally people who are not employed will often find ways to contribute otherwise. We have a strong culture of volunteer workers here in germany.

2. In order to provide a useful, yet humane, push to people, there is one single requirement for unemployment payments: People have to regularly provide copies of job applications they sent out.

There are many more details to the system than i have the leisure to describe here, but please, do yourself a favour and read up on our system before you dismiss the possibility of an implementation.

> These aren't some pipe-dream schemes or ideas, they exist.

Universal health coverage and unemployment payments are also not pipe-dream schemes or ideas, they exist.

"1. Most Germans wish to be useful...."

The German culture tends to value hard work for the sake of hard work higher than other cultures. Even Americans don't glorify hard work for it's own sake. It's all part of the "American dream" to end up well-off, to climb the ladder.

This is a hard thing to argue about, but I think you could not be more wrong about this. Americans identify themselves very strongly with being productive at their jobs. They take few vacations. Any suggestion that people should be paid more or get more time off is denigrated as laziness. Unlike many other countries, having a gap in your work history is seen as a huge warning sign. You saved up money and took 2 years off? Good luck getting another job. America still has a tremendous amount of the Protestant Work Ethic in it. Why do you think America has stood by while companies got rid of pensions, and go decade after decade after decade not giving raises?

Not to mention, that I think pretty much everywhere, the amount of resources society as a whole end up wasting on the idle rich in one form or another, probably makes that wasted on "freeloaders" and "those abusing the system" a rounding error.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_protection_insurance https://www.pps.co.za/pages/faq/INCAPACITY.php

A government one, even though you pay for it: http://www.sars.gov.za/TaxTypes/UIF/Pages/default.aspx

Apparently, the US has it as well, though I'm not sure how equivalent to the above it is: http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/unemployment-insurance/

I helped create it.

Then when the severance begins to run short and you miss a payment of your insurance - just this once - if you get hit by a bus your kids will be left to fend for themselves.

Computers and automation technology have made individual workers so productive that employers no longer need nearly as many workers as there are workers who need jobs. And we know very well what happens, right or wrong on an individual level, when there are large numbers of people who can not work but who still need to eat. And it's not pretty. Protection from that should be something every corporation willingly pays an increased tax rate for. The alternative is a destroyed economy that will take their organization down with it.

Specifically, you are on a high enough income that you aren't worrying about food, much less mortgage repayments, job stability, whether you can afford fuel for the car this week, or whether you need to just rinse clothes in water to save the money you would have spent on detergent for more important things like food, rent, or bus tickets.

There are also pele out there who won't miss another $100k in taxes. Their worries are along the lines of "how can I make all my money work for me without swamping any single market?"

Taxation and social welfare is just the modern version of "feed your slaves." You should be happy to provide universal health care and subsistence income in order to ensure your future workforce is healthy, educated and stress-free. We treat our racing horses better than this.

>"Taxation and social welfare is just the modern version of 'feed your slaves.' You should be happy to provide universal health care and subsistence income in order to ensure your future workforce is healthy, educated and stress-free. We treat our racing horses better than this."

I don't view the majority of our fellow man as "our slaves", that require some sort of food/handout from us. Nor do I seek to optimize their healthy and education with the hopes of some sort of workforce productivity boost / optimization, as you seem to imply.

Edit: made quote clearer.

Really? Mortgages last 30 years, are you sure your current level of income will too?

Do you honestly believe that that was the point I was trying to convey? My point was that there are ways for individuals to mitigate the risk and impact of those "bad luck" situations, without the need for government spending.

zo1's arguments are valid or invalid independent of her/his "privilege" (whatever that even means).

Or something else, entirely? Really, I'm curious... As someone whose parents had no privilege and were poor.

Besides, if that woman were truly destitute, she could have gotten Medicaid. We already fund programs for the truly poor.

Let's say you make $100k per year. Why don't you pay $80k to the government. I don't think you need that extra money right? After all, your take home pay would still be above minimum wage. Better yet, you really only need a studio apartment, you don't actually need a bedroom.

Just as I have no idea about your life, how can you presume to know anything about everyone else's?

If we taxed the 'rich' at 100%, it wouldn't even pay the federal budget for one year.

We don't need fewer people paying more taxes. We need more people paying tax.

Flat in dollars is regressive in utility.

"If we taxed the 'rich' at 100%, it wouldn't even pay the federal budget for one year."

Not that I support the policy, but depending on how you define "rich" it might. Per Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+budget+%2F+us+total+...), the US budget is approximately 30% of total US income. That's going to need more than the incomes of the clichéd 1%, but not terribly much more. If you let us borrow the same amount we're currently borrowing (extracting current revenue by taxing the top at 100%: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+tax+revenues+%2F+us+...) that shrinks down to about 10%. Ignoring, of course, the very important point that those people aren't going to keep earning the same way when they don't see any of it.

The wealth is concentrated into the hands of a few. Higher tax rates for higher incomes makes perfect sense when basing "far" on "ability to cope with the loss".

20% of a low- to middle-income salary is a far greater burden than a 40% tax on someone with an income exceeding $400k.

There is an old saying in my social circles: follow the money. If you want to make money, you arrange to take it from the people with the money. Luxury cars, luxury apartments, gastronomic restaurants, and so forth.

Why not tax these people more? They aren't actually going to miss the money, and ensuring that there are more healthy middle class folks with disposable incomes will actually help the rich get richer still.

Social welfare and a universal single-payer health care system is actually a grand firm of corporate welfare. Throw a living wage into the mix and you can reduce minimum wages to zero. How much better will the outlook be for entrepreneurs and startups in that environment? No longer will volunteer internships be exploitation, no longer will labour costs factor into viability of a business, and you will have many more consumers with spare change to serve.

And most civilizations have come to the conclusion that progressive taxation makes sense. The wealthy benefit much more than in a straight line proportion.

Not that current taxation policy is anything but ridiculous, but flat tax isn't particularly "fair", for many values of fair. For example, the burden of paying, say, 20% of gross income is wildly different for someone making 20k/yr vs someone making 100k/yr.