It is worth noting that all this is not free, but paid for by the tax payer. Many European countries have similar arrangements.
Personally, I think all this is money well spent by the governments as it gives nice financial boost to young parents and a sense that someone/something cares about them and their baby.
Nobody jumps to point out that there's still somebody paying for the "free" tiers of Dropbox or GitHub or whatever. Yet the moment somebody mentions a "free" social program, people suddenly have to hammer on the point that somebody pays for it.
We're not a bunch of imbeciles who think that social programs just rain from the sky....
There are plenty of people that think the government has unlimited money and should spend it on the people. These people don't know that it is literal wealth transfer from one person to another with the government acting as middle man. Sure, you may realize that this is the case but many people don't.
It's the same mentality that leads people to believe that insurance companies should pay for everything until they realize that it is other insurance company customers (including thenselves) that actually foot the bill for it.
> There are plenty of people that think the government has unlimited money
Technically, any government that has sovereign control over its currency does have unlimited money. We have examples of governments utilizing this fact to disastrous results, but that doesn't make it less true.
> These people don't know that it is literal wealth transfer from one person to another
This isn't necessarily true. For state governments or governments that don't have a sovereign, fiat currency, it is true, but not for a national government like the USA federal government. If it were true, all wealth would be a "zero sum game."
You're correct about people's misguided perceptions about government spending and insurance companies, but it's also harmful when the pendulum swings too far the other way, and we don't want the government to spend any money because we think it only obtains that money via taxes.
If you ever have the misfortune to work near or in social services, then you realize yes they exist and are not an urban myth. Sadly, some government programs encourage the behavior (e.g. "free" cellphones).
You would be surprised about how many people don't realize that or who choose to ignore it.
My aunt for example really doesn't understand that the government has any limits on their funds at all. She proposed to me that shopaholics should be given money by the government to found their addiction.
I disagree, there is a tremendous amount of discussion here on HN about the real cost of "free" services, particularly in light of the recent end of Google Reader, sale of Instapaper, etc.
Reading through the comments on the current front-page stories about Bitbucket and Zynga, I don't see a single comment saying that their free services aren't really "free".
Irregardless of your extremely poor attitude, I shall point out the obvious: 'ProcessBlue' himself has stated in capital letters that it is free. I was just correcting that.
Everybody knows what "free" means in that context, so your "correcting" is not actually adding anything to the conversation. Perhaps you think you are informing people, but everyone who reads your comment already knows what you're saying, so it's not informative at all.
Regardless whether or not people are imbeciles, they still have a habit of abstracting away common knowledge, and then forgetting that the common knowledge exists. I see this all the time in the computer industry. It's good to remind everyone now and again that free is not necessarily free.
Because social programs get their money from coercion. GitHub doesn't. (To the extent that you think you can find a private company that can and does use coercion, I object to that too.)
Even as a liberatarian, I'm happy to say some things are well worth the coercion. But it should never be forgotten, because otherwise people do start thinking it's just free money that has no other concerns whatsoever, and start spending it stupidly. We know this by simply looking around at political discourse, to the point that I almost wonder if you're dissembling when you claim that nobody thinks this way. Look harder. We should never forget that social spending is a cost/benefit question that never has zero costs.
I actually personally find it a bit bizarre that people find this an objectionable statement. Realizing that money is not free and should be spent on worthwhile things to account for the coercion should lead to better spending. Defending the proposition that we shouldn't be so concerned about the costs is a recipe for producing less efficient spending, as always happens when costs are misjudged. The fact that this sort of thing has been politicized ought to lead you to wonder who is politicizing it, and what they're hiding behind it.
I don't think any of the people who think taxes are free money post to HN.
Constantly reminding HN posters that "free" government programs actually cost money, like every single other thing in life, just derails the conversation. It serves no useful purpose, because we already know. It's just political grandstanding.
Imagine if every single post on HN about the success of some company included comments like, "it's not really their success, since they used public roads and electrical infrastructure, oh and that whole Internet thing started out as a government program!" You'd probably get annoyed pretty fast at people shoving their politics in your face where it's unnecessary.
How is pointing this out politics? If pointing it out is politically conservative, ignoring it is politically liberal? I don't get it. It's one of the few economic absolute truths we have.
> "it's not really their success, since they used public roads
Despite a set of politicians views, that wouldn't be the logical conclusion.
The services provided by the government are paid for by the people (citizen and non-citizen) as taxes, foreigners as duties, or debt. The logical conclusion is that a person or company is paying for those roads and infrastructure. It is just another service, no more sacred than the cellular contract or rent on office space. We don't generally attribute the rent to our success.
'Imagine if every single post on HN about the success of some company included comments like, "it's not really their success, since they used public roads and electrical infrastructure, oh and that whole Internet thing started out as a government program!"'
Errr... I don't really have to imagine. That happens pretty frequently. I sort of agree that it's a grandstanding distraction either way.
"Coercion /koʊˈɜrʃən/ is the practice of forcing another party to act in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force,"
I don't see taxes (and I pay a fairly significant share) as our evil government squeezing out our hard earned cash by threatening, or intimidating us.
Quite the opposite: taxes are our entrance fees to a civilized society, to a working infrastructure, to good and fair education and to umpteen other things that make up a society.
You may argue how the public money is spent and how much of it should go into social programs and how deeply the state should get involved. Interesstingly, more equal societies, like the Nordics, seem to provide generally a higher quality of life for their citizens.
You can see taxes as a necessary evil, or hate them, but defining taxation as coercion is pretty loaded and rather close to Orwellian newspeak.
"You can see taxes as a necessary evil, or hate them, but defining taxation as coercion is pretty loaded and rather close to Orwellian newspeak."
In addition to what refurb said, I feel you're exactly backwards. We should always remember that taxes come from the threat of imprisonment if you don't pay and coercive force. There are things that are worth this threat. Civilization is a big deal. It's a good thing. I'm rather Hobbesian on my view of Nature; in that sense I'm probably more enamored with civilization than the average liberal who believes in the inherent goodness of man. I think we have much farther we can fall than such a person would. But people should not casually use this power. To wipe away the fact that taxation is coercive is to encourage attitudes that spend your time and energy on irrelevant, if not downright wrong, purposes. That's not something we should overlook.
Taxation is a big deal. It's intrinsically coercive. It should only be used on really important things, not for things like shutting up some interest group somewhere, or buying votes, or lining the pockets of your buddies, or worthless administration (and please note the word "worthless" isn't superfluous there), or any of the other myriad of ways government can coercively spend the fruits of our precious, precious time on this planet.
That said, by the way, I think this particular thing is a solid use of taxpayer dollars. Or at least it is, provided it's somewhat efficient; if they're managing to blow $10,000 a box or something, as the US government would probably find a way to do (a snipe at our particular government today, not the concept of government in general), that's less true.
Also, if you do not today agree with me, wait three years. When a Republican is President again, it will once again be a popular notion that we shouldn't have to pay our taxes blindly to the government and we should think really carefully about how we're spending on things. I'm just ahead of the progressive curve here, that's all.
Taxation is a big deal. It's intrinsically coercive. It should only be used on really important things, not for things like shutting up some interest group somewhere, or buying votes, or lining the pockets of your buddies, or worthless administration (and please note the word "worthless" isn't superfluous there), or any of the other myriad of ways government can coercively spend the fruits of our precious, precious time on this planet.
That's a very good point. I, for one, consider taxation to be theft, plain and simple. But yet I don't try to defend myself from this theft via force, for pragmatic reasons (they employ more men with guns than I do, for one). So, I grudgingly tolerate a certain level of coercion, even though it is extremely distasteful to me.
BUT... I maintain that if you're going to steal my money and spend it - nominally - in my name, then you better damn well spend it wisely and on something important. This is one reason government agencies piss me off so much.. I see so much waste and inefficiency and fraud and other shenanigans, and it just enrages me that they are taking my money and blowing it on idiotic shit, or - worse - things that I'm fundamentally morally opposed to.
"Coercion /koʊˈɜrʃən/ is the practice of forcing another party to act in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force,"
I don't see taxes (and I pay a fairly significant share) as our evil government squeezing out our hard earned cash by threatening, or intimidating us.
And what if you decide that you have a better idea of how to spend your money than the State, and stop paying "your taxes"? Do it long enough, they send men with guns to arrest you, and put you on trial and (probably) put you in jail. If you resist any portion of this process, you will probably be shot to death by the men with guns.
How is this not "use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force"?
All State power is ultimately rooted in the use of force. Just because many (even most?) people happily pay "their taxes" out of rote habit, or because they've grown to accept a certain measure of coercion as acceptable, doesn't change the underlying principle.
You say that using the word "coercion" is repugnant, and then quote a definition that perfectly fits taxation? You've got some nerve. You can see it however you want, but if you don't pay taxes, someone will come and physically haul you off to jail whether you like it or not, someone who is prepared to escalate to deadly force. Sure sounds like coercion to me.
Taxation might make sense as an "entrance fee" if someone asked you whether you wanted to participate, and gave you an honest chance to say no, but we don't really have that. You usually can't even just hide out on your land and not interact with anyone except dealing with trespassers, because of property tax, a form of coercion I find particularly repugnant.
Yes, language matters, which is why "coercion" is the perfect word for taxation.
Are you not also being coerced to conform to virtually every other societal norm? Try walking out naked down the street in broad daylight. See if you're not jumped by the police. Try hunting some deer in the non-hunting season for food, -- because afterall you're hungry and the meat would do: you'll meet the heavy side of law.
You're seeing things from a libertarian-lens I think. Human society is built on a social contract, that pretty much basically boils down to an agreement of certain rules and guidelines so the collective fares better in the end. It's a thing to avoid a tragedy of the commons. We recognize that the unprivileged are not given the same opportunities as the privileged ones (their children are not going to schools where their peers are supportive/smart, they don't have the right role models, they don't have access to the same resources), and we decide that it is only fair that they receive a little help from the privileged. You can choose to stop paying taxes and in the end be left with a deteriorating society with unable customers... but you don't want that do you? What is so hard to understand about this?
Thank you for saying this. It really bothers me how arguments are reduced to meaningless 'facts' around here so quickly, when the real world is a lot more nuanced than that. A 'fact' without context is effectively meaningless (i.e. saying "the sky is blue" would be useless if we had no concept of a "sky"). The simple fact that "coercion" is defined in such a way that aligns with the way taxation is implemented is about as useful as one of those "fun facts" you see under snapple caps. Yeah, that's nice coincidence, but it's really only notable when you look at it for what it is: a relation between a word definition and a system implementation. In other words, the connotation of the word and the context of the system implementation are not necessarily guaranteed to be congruent, as there are many paths that lead to the same destination. And as you clearly stated, taxation is just a special case of the more general practice of governance through law enforcement. And while a lot of people here like to see 'law' as equal to 'right-ness', it too is not necessarily congruent but rather a close approximation (much the same way that I.Q. scores are a rough approximation of 'intelligence' -- another relatively 'vague' concept). What's funny, is that this incongruence makes itself pretty clear whenever drug laws are brought up. Several clamor to "legalize", yet many of the same people then go on use law/law-enforcement as an accurate metric for 'right-ness' in argumentation. The thing is that law is a pretty good metric for what society deems to be right in general for practical usage in implementing guidelines, but the system behind it is never going to be responsive/fast/informed enough to represent a useful snapshot of societal values that can then be used for argumentation[1]. If culture/society were generally static then that would be fine, but this big mess of dynamic interactions is much too complicated, so we just resort to using simple arbitrary factoids to end discussions.
[1] Not to mention that a government's body of law as a whole is not generated by a fixed algorithm; different laws arise from different needs/contexts/scenarios, and not understanding what context brought about any specific policy, yet still using it in argumentation, is essentially a strawman.
Where did I say I objected to it? Coercion has it's place, and government's role is to use coercion where and only where it's justified. My point is, let's be clear that when we talk about things the government should do, we're necessarily talking about things for which coercion is justified.
Because social programs get their money from coercion.
Garbage. I quite like paying taxes, because it suits me to outsource some money allocation to the government. You have a vote, and presumably when you benefit from things you voted for you don't go around feeling guilty at how you've coerced other people into going along with it.
Defending the proposition that we shouldn't be so concerned about the costs
You're focusing only on the costs, while ignoring the potential savings. Finland spends this money because it expects to get something in return: lower infant mortality, and its correlate, lower rates of infant ill-health and negligence. Bringing a baby to term and delivering it only to have it die represents a massive loss of productivity, and that loss is not confined to the grieving or irresponsible parents, it ripples out through society, both via spending by the parents' relatives and friends and through loss of economic productivity from illness, despression and so forth, not to mention that underprivileged children who do survive are more likely to suffer from mental illness, fall into crime, become homeless etc.
This notion that social programs are just a cost and deliver no benefit is asinine. It's highly economically efficient to provide new parents with the essential tools for looking after a baby, and a great more productive than issuing homilies about the (tiny) marginal increase in taxation that results.
Bollocks. I'm saying we should talk about the costs, not ignoring the benefits. I actually think this is a net good move on Finland's part. I know you're projecting, since you've imputed claims to me I actively disagree with.
Well, why is it so imperative that we talk about the costs if we're in a agreement that there's a net benefit? Perhaps I am projecting, but generally when people are at pains to point out that things are not free and there's a cost, what they mean is that there's a net cost to society (or think that there is) and that the money would be best spent somewhere else or not collected at all. When you lead off with a complaint that the money from social programs was extracted from you by 'coercion' the implication is that you're being forced to pay for something people should have to finance themselves.
I really don't get how you think this is a net good move but couch your argument in the form of a complaint about the government taking your lunch money. By definition, a net good is economically less costly to provide than to withhold. Even over the very short term (ie within the same fiscal year) I suggest that the opportunity cost of supplying the baby box is no more, or possibly lower than the costs of autopsies and lost productivity resulting from a higher rate of infant mortality.
It just means they feel like the other party is forgetting about the cost. For example, if I hear my friend raving about this new phone that only costs 99 dollars, I might remind him that it would require him to upgrade to a data plan that costs 20 dollars more per month. That doesn't mean that the phone isn't still worth buying, just that it's not as cheap as I think he is imagining it to be.
Honestly, and especially in the case of public goods like the baby box discussed here, I think people are perfectly well aware that they don't fall out of the sky or grow on trees, even if they can't articulate the entire cost-benefit structure at the drop of a hat. But people who say the cost is being forgotten usually complain that it has to be picked up by 'the taxpayer' (meaning themselves), as if the expectant parent(s) had no history or prospects of ever paying taxes themselves.
Intentionally or not, the implicit suggestion that the costs are being picked up by someone else is rooted in economic stereotypes that remain widespread in the US despite a lack of supporting evidence.
This is far from unique to social programs. In the US defense spending is ridiculously over the top stupidly high because in large part because there is little cost benifit analysis just how much can we increase it. The same can be said for targeted tax breaks, capital gains being taxed at 15% shafts everyone that does not have significant investments.
Thinking about it though, if you are assuming people are operating at that level and don't understand what the "free" means in this context, do you really think a simple explanation will all of the sudden enlighten them?
Using the analogy and talking about common knowledge in computer industry, this is basic enough that's the equivalent of "most computers need an electrical supply to work". If you are talking to someone about building a data center or scaling out a database and then you need to remind them that computers don't work based on unicorns but on electricity not sure if it makes sense to even remind them or continue the conversation.
> It is worth noting that all this is not free, but paid for by the tax payer.
While its technically true, its really misrepresent it. Every time i hear that argument it sounds like a kid holding one part of a singular share of Microsoft stock, proclaiming to the world that he has now "funded Microsoft!" because of his $10 investment.
Sure, in societies with lower tax, the state would be less likely to be funding a baby box. However, in trade of, society itself tend to then evolve a culture of charities to handle the slack. The US is a good example here, where such a box would likely also exist in some places, but maybe coupled with a bible or a cooperation logo on. People could then argue that such a thing is also "not free", but provide under advertisement for a religion or brand.
So while its technically true that this is a gift paid by tax payers money, that description deserve a lesser attention that we currently are giving it.
Not only that, but I expect the neonatal benefits amount to a public good - an expenditure of public money that saves more than it costs by improving outcomes and reducing the need for expensive interventions.
It's more than a baby box. I do not know how familiar you are with some European countries' social system, but young parents are usually given quite a few months of vacation time and salary from the state, a sort of children allowance until a child is 18 years old (100EUR or so), tax deductions for every child until a child is 18 years old, kindergarten 'bonuses', free health care for every child and similar.
So this definitely deserves a lot of attention as it makes young parents' lives quite easier. And I am not arguing against it, just that in the end someone has to pay for it.
> And I am not arguing against it, just that in the end someone has to pay for it.
What if it turned out that the baby pays for it because the improved average upbringing allows the baby to earn more and consequently pay more tax in absolute terms, though not in percentage terms?
As it happens, I am one of such tax payers, since I live in a country with similar arrangements for young parents as Finland. Also, by having two kids, I have been twice a beneficiary of this system. To repeat, I completely support such system, I just don't agree with ProcessBlue's statement, quote, ".. bit fuzzy but if I remember correctly the FREE tier of forming babby in Finland includes ...".
What if the improved upbringing opens up more opportunities for the child -- in other countries? So now instead of an average taxpayer you get nothing at all?
It certainly gives lots of job opportunities - for example in the USA. With finnish mediocre salaries and high tax rates, americans think young couples are crazy to return here to raise their families. Yet they do. Certainly they're not returning directly because of a cardboard box.
There are many places which extract some high value years from the workforce of some other country, for example I've heard that many educated german speaking young people go to work in Switzerland for a few years but ultimately return.
Not the ones with advanced economies and reliable social safety nets, though. People tend to leave places that don't offer economic security and opportunity for those that do.
... but young parents are usually given quite a few months of vacation time and salary from the state, a sort of children allowance until a child is 18 years old (100EUR or so)...
In the US we earn 30% more money than Finland (adjusted for cost of living, which is quite high in Finland), so we can just pay for these things with savings if we want to. Most of us choose not to, suggesting these benefits are worth less to us than money.
> Most of us choose not to, suggesting these benefits are worth less to us than money.
Or you could be suffering from a Tragedy of the Commons. Your American viewpoint may be preventing you all from pooling your money together and saving overall. Instead you all have to act as individuals, and in this case it is in your individual best interests to not spend the money, since you only get the saving if you all act together.
I don't understand. The tragedy of the commons is about resource depletion in the absence of price signals. If I choose to work rather than take paternity leave, what resource am I depleting? Or more generally, what harmful externality am I creating?
More likely, you prefer not to pay because it costs way more than it should. I am not familiar with analysis of e.g. Day care costs, but Americans pay significantly more for healthcare than Europeans, and get significantly worse results; also, they pay significantly more for education and get significantly less.
The party line is that it is a preference - but anecdotally, I've only heard that preference from people who never really looked at the numbers, and from the obscenely rich.
More likely, you prefer not to pay because it costs way more than it should.
Americans earn 30% more than Finlanders adjusting for PPP. I.e., taking into account higher cost of health care, lower cost of most other things, we still have 30% more on average.
Americans do pay more for education than Europeans, but our results are quite good compared to most of Europe. The only reason it appears our educational system is poor is because certain subgroups of the student body drag our averages down.
>> The only reason it appears our education system is poor is because certain subgroups of the student body drags [sic] our averages down.
Yeah, lots of people forget how great we really are once you compare our best to everybody else's average! It's pure bias. Individually (booyah!) almost every one of us is well above average. It's just that there are too many of the others who don't deserve to count.
Perhaps American's would be even more educated if they used a system like Finland's, often held up as the worlds best education system. Paying less and getting better results sounds good to me. Maybe Finland's high educational achievement level starts with the picture book in the box?
Some parts of Germany now rank as well as the Finnish average in the PISA tests. (And Singapore ranks pretty well, too, but that was not a result of an effort spurred on by the testing.)
> Americans earn 30% more than Finlanders adjusting for PPP.
You're taking PPP to mean much more than it actually does. Just consider the fact that there's no accepted "PPP" measurement methodology.
But even assuming one existed (pick your favorite), it only effectively encodes one specific consumption profile - one that e.g. takes into account the health care costs of a 30-year-olds with healthy 4-year-old kids, but not that of your average 50-year-old which are considerably different.
> taking into account higher cost of health care, lower cost of most other things, we still have 30% more on average.
Averages are totally the wrong tool to measure anything like that - especially when disparity in the US is so much higher.
Compare the proverbial USElbonia to Eulbonia:
In USElbonia, 1% make $16100/month, 99% make $100/month' avg=$260/month
In EUlbonia, 1% makes $400/month, 99% make $200/month, avg=$202/month
USElbonians, make, on the overage 30% more - but every single EUlbonian is at least 100% better off than 99% of the USElbonians.
Real stats are not quite as bad, of course - but disparity in the US is ridiculously high. But there are many respects in which all EU people are better off than US people which do not make it into any PPP comparison -- e.g., http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/05/bankruptcy.medical.bill... "Unless you are Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, you are one medical emergency away from bankruptcy" - I can't find a real European comparable, but http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2009/11/17/no_one_goes_ban/ suggests that there's more the quality than 30% parity-adjusted purchasing power can buy.
> The only reason it appears our educational system is poor is because certain subgroups of the student body drag our averages down.
Cherry picking statistics will get you anywhere you want, regardless of any "truth" however that may be defined.
Consistently in STEM, about 50% of PhD and postdoctoral students in the US are not USA citizens, and this has been going on for at least 20 years. I would take that as empirical evidence that the US STEM education is, indeed, poor.
Or another way to look at it, Infant Mortality rates in Finland are so much lower than in the US, suggesting they value a babies life higher than Americans value money.
Not to mention all the Americans who choose to consume at American levels (considerably higher than European levels), rather than saving.
As for people at the bottom, they typically do choose free time over money. About 90% of those classified by the government as poor choose not to work full time, for example.
They choose not to, or there's no full time work for them to take so they work part time instead?
It may be that they make the choice (I admit to not having read the paper), but lets not jump to that assumption just because they're not in full time work.
So this definitely deserves a lot of attention as it makes young parents' lives quite easier. And I am not arguing against it, just that in the end someone has to pay for it.
The beneficiaries likely return it and more through increased productivity. It's a lot easier to be productive when you don't have to worry too much about essentials.
Also there is more bang for the buck making sure babies are raised well and healthy, over trying to fix maladjusted and unhealthy teenagers and adults years later.
> It is worth noting that all this is not free, but paid for by the tax payers
Not sure why you are saying that. It is something I would tell my 5 year old maybe. Perhaps some do think God makes cardboard boxes magically appear in Finland out of thin air, but is it really worth mentioning that in this forum, if you expect your audience to operate at that level?
Personally, I think all this is money well spent by the governments as it gives nice financial boost to young parents and a sense that someone/something cares about them and their baby.