sstrudeau

The example of exactly this happening at Niagara Falls was part of the impetus for the National Park System in the first place.

Right now we tax workers in NYC to subsidize people on in Alabama. (NYC gets < $0.60 for every $1 of federal taxes collected; Alabama gets > $2).

I are at the Linkery once, as well, and had an excellent meal & service.

The market doesn't capture and represent all value created by labor. When I call a tow truck to jump start my car, that transaction is captured by the market, but when I call my friend with cables to do the same thing, it is not represented in the GDP. The same thing goes for a lot of "work" that is not done for compensation but adds a great deal of value to community. Basic income recognizes this fact that merely existing as part of a community you are providing some basic value even if you're not paid for that work. I think the critics are right that there are potential cultural problems around entitlement and an unwillingness to contribute in any form, but I'm more optimistic about human nature.

The EITC and a basic income are actually very similar in effect. The difference is largely in the mechanism of distribution. With a basic income, every citizen gets a check every month. With an EITC you get it in a lump with your tax refund, if you qualify for it.

Yeah, I got a red light ticket there. My court date got postponed to more than a year after the original infraction. The cops like to pick off cyclists along the north side of Flushing because cyclists will (quite rationally) run those lights -- there is no crossing auto traffic (bike lanes run along the top of T intersections) and very low volume (and easy to see) pedestrian traffic. Sucks.

There is plenty of "work" that happens outside of the labor market. Some days I pay a babysitter to take care of my daughter; other days my wife has off instead and does the same job.

Once, my battery died and a paid a tow truck for a jumpstart. Another time, I was able to call a friend to get a jump instead. Both times the same service was provided.

The last time I moved, I paid movers to haul boxes. The time before that, my brother and I did the work.

Money in exchange for labor isn't the only way useful work gets done and counted. Some things will still get done even when people aren't paid to do them.

Because when your design requirements change, you need to reprocess your entire corpus, among other reasons.

Yes, there are a number of voluntary, tax-privileged retirement savings options, some of which may only be provided by employers, but not all employers provide (e.g. 401k/403b).

Why except land taxes? Replacing property taxes with land taxes makes a lot of sense to me...

Yes, but MADD and other interests have pressured the federal government to set the age to 21 via highway funding, so states are constrained from deviating.

Anywhere USA

Haven't posted a formal listing yet (will edit later) since this just opened up today.

We're for a strong back-end web engineer to join our small, distributed tech team building two large (combined audience > 15 million uniques/month) consumer-facing web sites. Ideally:

* strong ruby experience

* interest in image processing and/or "community" tech (comments, forums, contests, etc)

Nice-to-haves:

* strong front-end skills (e.g., with a framework like Backbone; w/ responsive design techniques)

* experience w/ search tech (e.g., elasticsearch)

* a design sense (not a designer role but good to have an instinct for what is good/bad visually and in UI)

Full-time, work from anywhere. Must be a strong communicator via email/chat; team-oriented. Strict "no assholes" hiring filter.

email [email protected] for more info.

edit: formatting