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Comment by constantcrying | Hacker News Reader

>If this was a genuine concern there wouldn't be so many people skimming off the top of every nation on the planet. We're surrounded by parasites and you're picking on people running calorie deficits for some reason.

Wrong. The only way to go hungry here in Germany is by choice.

The people "skimming off the top" are not the ones paying millions upon millions in taxes. It is those who are to lazy to work, because they and their family get enough Bürgergeld, that actually working would lower their income. If you are able, but not working in some capacity, you are the leech and millionaires are paying for your leeching.

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> because they and their family get enough Bürgergeld, that actually working would lower their income

This means it’s not UBI, and that’s kind of the whole point here. With UBI this welfare cliff wouldn’t exist; if you work, you still raise your income. That means, unlike the current German system, UBI still incentivises people to work to increase their income/wealth.

Of course actively disincentivising people to work will cause them to not work. That’s just rational behaviour, you cannot blame anyone for that.

>get enough Bürgergeld, that actually working would lower their income.

This very rarely ever happens by accident. It's a useful policy hack for people "who pay millions in taxes" because it disincentivizes their workers from pushing for a pay raise.

This way they can leech more of the surplus value of their labor.

This is genuinely insane. No, millionaires want people to work, because more people working depresses wages and more people working allows growing the economy.

If people don't want to work, they have to pay the leeches and they have to pay more to get people willing to work. Your economics are insane.

>It's a useful policy hack for people "who pay millions in taxes" because it disincentivizes their workers from pushing for a pay raise.

No, it incentivizes them, because there are fewer people working, meaning the supply of labor goes down. At a constant demand that means the price for labor goes up. Literally economics 101.

>This is genuinely insane. No, millionaires want people to work

These people do work - generally unofficial odd jobs under the table for shitty wages.

Have you never met any of these "leeches" taking benefits?

I meet them every day of my life.

>These people do work - generally unofficial odd jobs under the table for shitty wages.

Usually dealing drugs.

Evidently not.

I've read plenty about how every working family struggling on benefits is a crack dealer too, written in media that is exclusively owned by the economic leeches who contribute little to no economic value but "who pay millions in taxes" on their unearned income:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2260633/Drug-dealer...

The propaganda that underpins your belief system was designed to foster exactly your kind of resentment against the underclass.

This is a conspiracy theory. There is a labor shortage already, so the people “who pay millions in taxes” would be able to earn much more money if they could find more motivated workers.

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