What will be the next economic reform gimmick policy to catch on in the U.S.?
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  What will be the next economic reform gimmick policy to catch on in the U.S.?
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Author Topic: What will be the next economic reform gimmick policy to catch on in the U.S.?  (Read 5471 times)
AltWorlder
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« on: October 18, 2020, 06:48:33 PM »

Obviously not all the same amount of sweepingness nor gimmickiness, but some popular ones in recent years include Modern Monetary Theory, Universal Basic Income, Federal Jobs Guarantee, Land Value Tax, Tobin tax, Wealth tax, and a Value-Added Tax (in the U.S.). Each has different aims but are are basically attempts to reform the existing system from a vaguely left of center direction, though both UBI and the LVT has libertarian variants. The VAT as well, since it's often coupled with right-wing flat tax or FairTax schemes.

Are there any other theoretical (in the U.S., at least) policies that haven't been discussed much yet recently but might be in vogue (again)?
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Del Tachi
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« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2020, 12:52:55 PM »

Probably European-style (un)employment subsidies that pay businesses to keep idle employees on payroll (much to the chagrin of new workers or other types of Creative Destruction)
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AltWorlder
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« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2020, 01:29:45 PM »

Probably European-style (un)employment subsidies that pay businesses to keep idle employees on payroll (much to the chagrin of new workers or other types of Creative Destruction)

Is there a snappy name for that program?

There's definitely been more interest towards Euro reforms such as subsidized childcare. The focus on this thread is more on wonkish ideas that seem more incomprehensible to Americans, and your suggestion here counts, but we just need a way to brand it.
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PSOL
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« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2020, 05:18:06 PM »
« Edited: October 22, 2020, 02:58:45 PM by PSOL »

I am waiting for Argentine Lay-off laws, making it incredibly difficult to fire workers without penalties, to be implemented in the US as a way to stop massive unemployment numbers.
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Hope For A New Era
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« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2020, 07:33:47 PM »

I think it's pretty clear at this point that UBI is the next big thing not just in the US but globally.


Seriously, what's the benefit?
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Battista Minola 1616
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« Reply #5 on: October 20, 2020, 04:01:50 AM »

Probably European-style (un)employment subsidies that pay businesses to keep idle employees on payroll (much to the chagrin of new workers or other types of Creative Destruction)

Do you mean things like the Wage Guarantee Fund?

(skip the part about COVID-19)
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parochial boy
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« Reply #6 on: October 20, 2020, 04:51:22 AM »

Probably European-style (un)employment subsidies that pay businesses to keep idle employees on payroll (much to the chagrin of new workers or other types of Creative Destruction)

Is there a snappy name for that program?

There's definitely been more interest towards Euro reforms such as subsidized childcare. The focus on this thread is more on wonkish ideas that seem more incomprehensible to Americans, and your suggestion here counts, but we just need a way to brand it.

The direct translation from German is "Short work" or from French is "technical unemployment", but having said that -

a. Is it really a gimmick? The practice has been in use in Germany since Bismarck, and has been used in Switzerland to get through a number of economic crisis over the last 70 odd years. So its hardly a new, or even untried and tested, idea

b. It differs from the other ideas in so far as it is a means of responding to a crisis. That is, subsidise wages for the short term until the employer is able to recover from whatever emergency it is facing. In that respect, it is a pretty classic ordoliberal policy aimed at helping private companies survive external shocks. That is quite different from all the other proposals, that are all aimed at strucutrally redesigning the way that the tax system or welfare state works or rebalance the distribution of wealth and income.
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Samof94
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« Reply #7 on: October 20, 2020, 07:33:26 AM »

Paid sick leave.
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Benjamin Frank
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« Reply #8 on: October 20, 2020, 01:19:34 PM »

Biden has already signaled it: buy American made for all (federal) public works projects.

I'm not sure how that squares with free trade agreements, but I don't think it's malarkey.

Even if Trump is reelected, there seems to be overwhelming bipartisan support for this populist nonsense.
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AltWorlder
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« Reply #9 on: October 23, 2020, 02:15:01 AM »

Trying to build a classification for these ideas is a fool's errand, but I'm gonna try.

Neat little proposals that Europeans/East Asians/most of the developed world has thought of but is just completely alien to Americans: Short work/technical unemployment/Wage Guarantee Fund, paid sick leave*, subsidized childcare, the Biden buy American public works project(??)

Revolutionary for Americans but existent in other countries: Medicare For All (single-payer or other form of UHC), Federal Jobs Guarantee, Land Value Tax (in its full Georgist form, either as a single tax or in countries like Singapore or Hong Kong** where land can only be leased from the government)

Sweeping ways of thinking: MMT, Universal Basic Income (both in its libertarian negative tax conception or in a sci-fi post-scarcity fully automated luxury space communist forms), the Green New Deal, One Billion Americans

* wait no, that's just a common policy, Samof94 must've been trolling

** not 100% clear if that's how it actually works in those two examples
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Battista Minola 1616
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« Reply #10 on: October 23, 2020, 05:47:41 AM »

Trying to build a classification for these ideas is a fool's errand, but I'm gonna try.

Neat little proposals that Europeans/East Asians/most of the developed world has thought of but is just completely alien to Americans: Short work/technical unemployment/Wage Guarantee Fund, paid sick leave*, subsidized childcare, the Biden buy American public works project(??)

Revolutionary for Americans but existent in other countries: Medicare For All (single-payer or other form of UHC), Federal Jobs Guarantee, Land Value Tax (in its full Georgist form, either as a single tax or in countries like Singapore or Hong Kong** where land can only be leased from the government)

Sweeping ways of thinking: MMT, Universal Basic Income (both in its libertarian negative tax conception or in a sci-fi post-scarcity fully automated luxury space communist forms), the Green New Deal, One Billion Americans

* wait no, that's just a common policy, Samof94 must've been trolling

** not 100% clear if that's how it actually works in those two examples

Universal health care (since you seem to be including any form of it) probably belongs in the first category, since 1. it's less revolutionary than Americans think it is 2. it's something the vast majority of the developed world has.
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Benjamin Frank
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« Reply #11 on: October 24, 2020, 04:04:01 AM »
« Edited: October 24, 2020, 04:07:54 AM by Frank »

Trying to build a classification for these ideas is a fool's errand, but I'm gonna try.

Neat little proposals that Europeans/East Asians/most of the developed world has thought of but is just completely alien to Americans: Short work/technical unemployment/Wage Guarantee Fund, paid sick leave*, subsidized childcare, the Biden buy American public works project(??)

Revolutionary for Americans but existent in other countries: Medicare For All (single-payer or other form of UHC), Federal Jobs Guarantee, Land Value Tax (in its full Georgist form, either as a single tax or in countries like Singapore or Hong Kong** where land can only be leased from the government)

Sweeping ways of thinking: MMT, Universal Basic Income (both in its libertarian negative tax conception or in a sci-fi post-scarcity fully automated luxury space communist forms), the Green New Deal, One Billion Americans

* wait no, that's just a common policy, Samof94 must've been trolling

** not 100% clear if that's how it actually works in those two examples

The Single Tax/Land Value Tax is hardly new though it's deservedly fringe, as its inventor, Henry George, lived from 1839-1897.

I agree with others here on universal health care, it's hardly a gimmick.
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PSOL
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« Reply #12 on: October 24, 2020, 12:38:42 PM »

Trying to build a classification for these ideas is a fool's errand, but I'm gonna try.

Neat little proposals that Europeans/East Asians/most of the developed world has thought of but is just completely alien to Americans: Short work/technical unemployment/Wage Guarantee Fund, paid sick leave*, subsidized childcare, the Biden buy American public works project(??)

Revolutionary for Americans but existent in other countries: Medicare For All (single-payer or other form of UHC), Federal Jobs Guarantee, Land Value Tax (in its full Georgist form, either as a single tax or in countries like Singapore or Hong Kong** where land can only be leased from the government)

Sweeping ways of thinking: MMT, Universal Basic Income (both in its libertarian negative tax conception or in a sci-fi post-scarcity fully automated luxury space communist forms), the Green New Deal, One Billion Americans

* wait no, that's just a common policy, Samof94 must've been trolling

** not 100% clear if that's how it actually works in those two examples
While I don’t think it’s that much of an insane gimmick, you might as well put down Socialism in its many varied variants as something that could catch on. I’m of course talking about giving full worker control to the means of production.
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MATTROSE94
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« Reply #13 on: December 03, 2020, 08:20:21 AM »

I could easily see President Ron DeSantis implementing a variety of right wing populist economic policies such as Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) schemes, increased federal funding for trade and technical schools, increased protectionism, and using anti-trust laws to break up “liberal” big tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, and Apple. While these policies will result in a lot of short term growth starting in 2025, they will result in an imbalanced economy and contribute to a bad economic recession by 2030.
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
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« Reply #14 on: December 03, 2020, 11:20:21 AM »

I don't know anybody who thinks VAT is left-of-center except "socialism is when the government levies taxes; the more taxes the government levies, the socialister it is" mouth-breathers (which, to be fair, many Americans are). Taxes on consumption almost inevitably have a regressive effect.
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ultraviolet
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« Reply #15 on: December 03, 2020, 04:42:13 PM »


Inshallah
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DC Al Fine
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« Reply #16 on: December 04, 2020, 06:49:13 AM »

I don't know anybody who thinks VAT is left-of-center except "socialism is when the government levies taxes; the more taxes the government levies, the socialister it is" mouth-breathers (which, to be fair, many Americans are). Taxes on consumption almost inevitably have a regressive effect.

Ah, this takes me back to my early days of following politics, when people called Stephen Harper's VAT cut regressive... and then my provincial NDP raised it. Good times.
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Kingpoleon
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« Reply #17 on: December 13, 2020, 06:32:15 PM »

I suspect zero inflation - as advocated by Bob Dole - might come back around.
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
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« Reply #18 on: December 15, 2020, 01:44:16 PM »

I suspect zero inflation - as advocated by Bob Dole - might come back around.

Not anytime soon. Inflation remains low and almost unaffected by this year.
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Kingpoleon
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« Reply #19 on: December 17, 2020, 03:43:58 PM »

Not anytime soon. Inflation remains low and almost unaffected by this year.
The proponents of zero inflation have traditionally said that low rates of inflation are the second best option, but there are some very authoritative economists who prefer zero inflation.
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
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« Reply #20 on: December 22, 2020, 02:37:18 AM »

Not anytime soon. Inflation remains low and almost unaffected by this year.
The proponents of zero inflation have traditionally said that low rates of inflation are the second best option, but there are some very authoritative economists who prefer zero inflation.

Then they are ivory tower idiots of the sort who thought bimetalism could work.
It has been repeatedly shown that it impossible to fix any economic value at a constant, so it is impossible to achieve sustained zero inflation. Moreover, any attempt to achieve such a thing is likely to bring about deflation which is far more damaging to economies than modest inflation. Yes, we do need to guard against hyperinflation, but deflation is at least as poisonous. Whatever the theoretical benefits of zero inflation might be, they are unachievable in reality.
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Beet
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« Reply #21 on: December 22, 2020, 02:44:46 PM »

As the OP noted, there are already plenty of good ideas, ranging from universal healthcare to $15 minimum wage to UBI to Modern Monetary Theory. The task now is implementation.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #22 on: December 22, 2020, 03:03:11 PM »

I don't know anybody who thinks VAT is left-of-center except "socialism is when the government levies taxes; the more taxes the government levies, the socialister it is" mouth-breathers (which, to be fair, many Americans are). Taxes on consumption almost inevitably have a regressive effect.

Ah, this takes me back to my early days of following politics, when people called Stephen Harper's VAT cut regressive... and then my provincial NDP raised it. Good times.

I think it's basically a sure thing that the next Republican trifecta will do a VAT and lower income tax rates further to offset it. 
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Mr.Phips
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« Reply #23 on: December 22, 2020, 08:19:04 PM »

I don't know anybody who thinks VAT is left-of-center except "socialism is when the government levies taxes; the more taxes the government levies, the socialister it is" mouth-breathers (which, to be fair, many Americans are). Taxes on consumption almost inevitably have a regressive effect.

Ah, this takes me back to my early days of following politics, when people called Stephen Harper's VAT cut regressive... and then my provincial NDP raised it. Good times.

I think it's basically a sure thing that the next Republican trifecta will do a VAT and lower income tax rates further to offset it. 

That would be politically very difficult. 
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #24 on: December 23, 2020, 01:13:37 PM »

I don't know anybody who thinks VAT is left-of-center except "socialism is when the government levies taxes; the more taxes the government levies, the socialister it is" mouth-breathers (which, to be fair, many Americans are). Taxes on consumption almost inevitably have a regressive effect.

Ah, this takes me back to my early days of following politics, when people called Stephen Harper's VAT cut regressive... and then my provincial NDP raised it. Good times.

I think it's basically a sure thing that the next Republican trifecta will do a VAT and lower income tax rates further to offset it. 

That would be politically very difficult. 

Trump and House Republicans already flirted with it, but the senate majority was too narrow and too traditional to consider it.  That won't be the case for the next Republican president.
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