-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Harka wrote:
-=> Quoting In:anon@anon.efga.org (Monty Cantsin) to Harka <=-
In> The government is not Janice's friend. It takes away $18,000 In> from her each year and plunges her into poverty, sort of. If In> you are appealing to the government to assist Janice, first In> ask it to get the hell out of the way. (I realize you may In> just be saying that Janice's plight is unavoidable, not that In> she should be helped with government money.)
Hmm, we all agree, that the government is not somebody to be trusted to be your friend. However, we also know the amount of laws possible to "violate" and the consequences that would have. And one of the worst things you can do is evading taxes. At least when they clamp down on you. Not something, I'd recommend to a mother of four kids (that she really doesn't want to give up to government-so-schill-workers). Jim Choate commented on that already, so I save further words.
Ignoring the ethical issues (Is it ethical to lie about your income? Is it ethical to break the law?), the consequences would probably not be too severe, if there were any consequences at all. We've seen several cabinet level people conspire to shield their employees from paying income tax and at least one of them (Ron Brown) did not even leave office. Nobody went to jail. Or, consider the record for prostitutes. How often do they go to jail for neglecting to pay income tax? Never, I believe. Prosecution would be hard after all, they receive cash and they spend cash. You could also do other low risk or even legal things like trading services. Maybe a discount is given to parents who will watch Janice's kids once in awhile. Maybe they trade services for food. Etc. Etc.
In> Janice should be baby sitting. Were she to take in 4 kids at In> $500/month, she would make as much as her job and be able to In> watch her own kids during the same time.
True in short-term. But after 8 kids have been rummaging around in your apartment every day (even without licence and off-the-books and all that stuff) you can definitely expect to spend a couple of grands on repairs in a matter of a month.
You would be of more help to your friend Janice if you did not try to find reasons for her to fail. The reality is that 8 kids will not cause thousands of dollars of damage every month. Also, I left some play in my calculations. She doesn't actually have to make $2000 a month to break even because she already "makes" $1000 by watching her own kids. That means she only has to make $1000 each month to break even with her job. Let's say the tax rate is 50% (it's much lower), and she charges $500/month per kid. Then, 4 kids will result in an income of $1000/month. There's still some fat there. We haven't computed how much she'll save in work related expenses. You mentioned $120/month in mass transit costs. How much for clothing? If she has to dress professionally, $1000/year is quite a conservative figure. (Don't forget dry cleaning.) And we haven't considered the fact that she can charge more money because she is a babysitter and not a daycare center.
In> The food is generous because four of the five are kids, the In> oldest only being 12. Kids don't each much.
You're confirming my suspicion about not having kids :)
Seriously, I don't think my figures are inaccurate. How much can a three year old eat? And, incidentally, I doubt very much that you or Janice even know with any accuracy what her actual expenses are. Janice should be tracking every expense to the penny. She should review her spending on a regular and scheduled basis to see where she could be spending it better. An adult who is not all that careful can comfortably buy enough food for $200/month. But, Janice should be more than careful. She should be fanatic about lowering this expense. This will work better if she looks at as an interesting puzzle to work out rather than a chore. She should practice vegetarianism. Not only that, she should be carefully studying other poor people for ideas on how to get by on just a little income. Peasants of India, Mexico, and China will all have interesting tricks. For instance, the stereotypical Mexican diet of corn and beans just turns out to be an optimal combination. The amino acids missing from the corn are found in the beans and vice versa. (How a bunch of "ignorant" peasants figured this out is a mystery to me.) There are many books on living inexpensively on a vegetarian diet. They tend to have titles like "Chinese Cooking on 25 Cents a Day". These books may be found at the library, or at a used bookstore, or even be borrowed. It is somewhat ironic that you can spend much less money and eat better than most Americans. Also, she should hunt up a food coop. I am sure there is one in her area. Usually you can volunteer some nominal amount of time and receive at least a 10% discount. Sometimes more. Also, buying staples in bulk can dramatically lower costs. (Best to make sure you like lentils before buying a fifty pound sack, though.) Food coops usually have people around who know a whole lot about living inexpensively. They may also have a lending library. Anyway, you will find (hopefully) that there are thousands of ways to improve one's situation. They (usually) aren't painful - when you find a new one it's fun. After awhile you discover you are not in a bad situation any more. Isn't that exciting?
Talking about freedom at the same time then is an oxymoron and you're confirming my "criticisms about the free market" (Yes Tim, I have re-considered my position without changing my perspective in the end). Capitalism in it's current form does not allow for individual freedom for most people (exceptions apply), because they have to make the money to be free (independent). If that requires doing for years, what you don't want to do (working in computers, although you hate them and all you really want to do is paint and live as an artist but can't afford to, for example), then that means by definition, that freedom has to be given up. At least temporarely and as mentioned before, that can be a _very_ long time for most people (who have been born into the "wrong" families, for example).
But of course you have to do things you don't want to do to put food on the table! This is true everywhere. The key question is this: why should somebody else labor all summer so you'll have food in the winter? All a "free market" advocate is saying is that you should not force the other guy to raise your food. You have to persuade him to do it for you, perhaps by doing something for him in return. If you think about it for awhile you will realize that this is a profoundly pacifistic belief. And a very reasonable and realistic one. If nobody else values your natural painting talent it won't be of much use getting food on the table. You'll have to find something else you can do for other people which they want and which you don't mind doing. How could this possibly be unjust?
Cypherpunks sometimes tend to become somewhat theoretical about things, neglecting the possibility, that it may not apply on a larger (real-life)scale.
No, you don't understand the idea. You are looking at it like this: "How can we engineer this system so that everybody will do just fine (by my definition.)" The Cypherpunk point of view, to the extent there is such a thing, is something like this: "It is not right to dictate to other people what their life choices should be." People will make mistakes. People will get unlucky. Some people will get very unlucky and die (early). Most Cypherpunks prefer this to a world where we all live in little cells and have food brought every day. One way to solve the problems of the Janices in the world is to tell them what to do: Do not raise four kids. Do not get a lame degree. Do not get divorced. This would solve Janice's "problems". So what's wrong with the picture? Well, Janice apparently wanted four kids. She apparently wanted a degree in education instead of computer science. How can we judge whether getting married wasn't a worthwhile risk? How can we judge the value Janice places on her children? The answer is: we can not and should not. But, likewise, just because Janice took some chances and it led to minor problems, that does not mean that anybody else is obligated to worry about them. The problems Janice has are called "real life". Things may not be what she wants right now, but they result from her choices and her decisions. To me, and most Cypherpunks, that is preferable. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNFOteJaWtjSmRH/5AQFy4Qf9FwMV1Swp0YSwuaSNhaSnaUGpIe9B6Ndf m3eaSiiOhcQXaJH88CUUYUz2RvYqxqFpjfDp7Wzik9yncwuOHR1sd+LKzcAcD437 5DehzEhxnRSLBwVGVXy94FmLUXaEJCw5woedEhOa9GOPw2e8LUYkKOjG074Od1V1 Gs6XnBMnx/oa0lI1RNBi2oWbfBFzNSCiv24pp5PeMZVkb4e/MB51HOhv8FhH/f2J Te1SF/w2awXbv0BU8B4bZAc660DMVaXgi+uqMs2gUB6HRqmOjek3fuVK0cS8YRzC TMJSMehCZJbcoPEI+RkK2mnTqoivqdRdnYD4CnjiJ4KuSsqmGDWVNw== =oSqR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----