What's your one magic thing to fix the country?

[Reluctantadult]

If you could do something to sort out the country / world, what would it be? Your one magic wish. You can have more than one of you want, I'm not adverse to a green point plan!

Back to Robin Hood then! Steal off the rich to give to the poor. The "rich" being banks, pension funds, individuals, etc.

Someone who's worked hard all their lives, scrimped and saved, to buy their home is not affected, but someone who's lived a life of barely no work, spunking all the money they have on booze, fags, holidays, etc., living in a rented home gets it given to them!

I don't think so!

"For whoever asked about UBI, the idea is that everyone is paid a basic amount of money each month, and this is enough to live on."

Would those who are disabled (getting dla or PIP) get more. Otherwise those people would always be worse off than those without disability because their costs would always be higher. Disability benefits exist because they acknowledge the higher costs.

And this is one of the fundamental flaws. One of the biggest "benefits" of UBI is the deconstruction of the admin/management of the benefits system which is said to cost enormous amounts of money. That benefit is immediately lost or severely reduced if we need to keep vast swathes of staffing, management etc of benefits depts (even at reduced levels) in order to administer disability benefits, as you'd then need to keep assessments of disability, means testing, etc. Then comes carers allowance - would a "carer" still get carer's allowance despite already being paid UBI themselves and if so, would it be taxed in the same way as a wage (after all someone else on UBI would be heavily taxed on a wage if they got a job). I think the disability "benefit" system would also have to be radically changed at the same time otherwise you really don't get the "benefits" promised by dismantling the benefits system.

Pay all the violent, ignorant, anti-social people NOT to have children. Stop the worst people having kids and you’ll transform society within a generation. And before anyone calls me a snob, it is the good people on low incomes who’d benefit the most.

Globally, I would build a family planning clinic in every village on earth. I would also discourage people from having more than two or three kids. Birth control is the greatest invention in human history. It has done more to reduce poverty and misery and suffering than anything else. Family planning is at the heart of female emancipation. Catholics who preach against birth control in the slums of Africa and India should be in prison. How can they look a poor, exhausted woman in the face, someone living in a tin shed with five kids, and urge her to have a sixth? How do they sleep at night?

If I could have a couple more, I’d get rid of organised religion. Maybe replace it with a vague New Age spirituality, something that combines Buddhism and quantum mechanics (Eckart Tolle, Fritjof Capra, etc).

Finally, a massive investment in science, and especially in the life sciences. We really could cure most diseases and possibly even slow and reverse ageing. If you don’t believe believe me, read Andrew Steele’s new book.

What about making voting mandatory? And then they do a mandatory quiz on government policies that tells them which party they agree with and casts that vote.

Stop the worst people having kids and you’ll transform society within a generation. Could have done with this before Stanley Johnson got going

Obviously I'm not seriously agreeing as it is fascist.

@Suetwo

Pay all the violent, ignorant, anti-social people NOT to have children. Stop the worst people having kids and you’ll transform society within a generation. And before anyone calls me a snob, it is the good people on low incomes who’d benefit the most.

Fully agree. At the moment, having children is a career choice for too many people who basically can't do anything else useful and don't really "want" children for reasons other than benefits etc. We'd be far better finding a way to occupy them and pay them NOT to have children they don't want who are themselves likely to become a drain on society and perpetuate more children who aren't going to contribute positively to society.

Honestly, education. Throw everything at education. It won't be a quick fix, but if you want a country which will be healthy, industrious, and socially conscious, if you want to break cycles of poverty and abuse, if you want to regenerate poor areas, educate the children.

How are you defining "the worst people"? Who gets to decide that? And then how do you screen for whether someone is in that group or not? What happens if somebody in the not-allowed-to-have-children group gets together with somebody who already has them? How do you prevent pregnancy in this group? What happens if somebody gets pregnant by accident? It sounds sensible for about half a moment until you think about these questions.

Easy to say, but what does it actually mean to "throw everything" at education.

Does it mean thousands of new teachers? New schools? Before/After school clubs? In-school clubs & societies? Smaller classes? Reformed curriculum? Longer school days? Holiday clubs? Reformed holidays? More tech, computers for all?

Throwing money but not actually doing things differently means vast sums would be lost. We need to properly reform the whole thing.

Schools shouldn't be closed every evening, every weekend, all school holidays. I'm not saying teachers are expected to work longer, but we should be using the facilities, pitches, gyms, halls, equipment etc a lot more out of normal school hours. That's something I'd like to see properly funded. I'm not so keen on pumping millions into schools just doing the same old thing with a few more staff as that won't be enough.

We'd need to be radical.

Take away funding for simply having children, and you'll soon see who has children only for the money. That's a good start in defining the "worst" people.

If people knew they'd get no extra money, they'd be a lot more careful about life choices such as contraception and choice of partner.

@Kazzyhoward I think you live in a warped world made up in your own head, not the real world.

Not really. I see feral kids roaming the streets causing trouble, from a VERY young age, whose parents clearly show no interest in them. Most grow up into feral adults.

Teachers constantly complain about classroom disruption from kids who aren't interested, kids sent to start school in nappies and unable to write their own name. That doesn't sound like parents who have the remotest interest in their kids!

We need kids to have parents who are invested in them, who actually want them for who they are, not for the financial benefits, who are willing to put a bit of effort into raising and nurturing them.

A healthy eating drive:
Food rationing with a huge vegetable and fruit allowance.
Ban nearly all food that isn't nutritious, massive taxes on luxury foods.
Food education, free community cooking sessions everywhere.

I believe healthy body has a profound effect on healthy mind. Truly healthy people wouldn't seek happiness through power, greed, materialism so the knock on effects could be huge - authentic people not driven by making a profit would be the greatest benefit to society.

AgnestaVipers · Today 09:08
Oh, and institute a land tax

How much land would someone have to won before they were taxed on it?

In theory UBI leads to a reduction in wages - so you would get £20K plus £33k for example

So you'd increase business taxes to pay for it? What about businesses who don't have significant wages costs - you'd hit them with higher taxes but they wouldn't save much money if they didn't have many staff.

Housing is such a complicated issue

A developer where I live in a suburb just outside the m25 wants to build 300 houses on a disused golf course with a school , community centre etc etc
The locals are red fit to burst and all agree that we need more houses , but just not here !!
well where then ? and why does it all go on for years

The irony is lost on all the Nimbys that also call their 3000 home suburb a village , that their house was also built on a field at some point
The average price for a house round here is 9 times average income

The developer needs to make a profit but if the council and locals engaged with them he would give them a skate park or whatever else they wanted , rather than their no attitude

If we dont start building a lot more homes year on year to get over the supply and demand prices will never drop to an affordable level not just here but everywhere , and if they sell any council housing build two to replace it

a lot of vested interests everywhere keen to see that their House price does not drop !!

I Understand your perspectives, but overall I'd prefer to see a more emotionally suppressed society, think of the film equilibrium, with Christian bale. That's what gave me the inspiration for my perspectives.

Some ideas here. I don't pretend to be an expert!

Four simple things, provided free, clean and safe for every person:

Housing
Water
Energy
Wifi

I think it's in our nature to need to hunt/gather, so I don't include food. But with provision of the above, people can then be secure enough to only need to earn enough to eat. Then more if they want to better their lives, pay for more education etc.

Companies will want people to earn enough to buy their produce, but they won't have a stranglehold on employees because staff wouldn't need a job more than the job needed them.

There is no money for having children in America. But there are still abusive parents. Is that what you mean? People having children for financial gain is such a tiny minority. Most people couldn't because the cost of bringing up a child is at least equal to, usually more than the money you can claim in benefits. So the only people who are really financially gaining from having children are those prepared to neglect them. I don't think stopping that tiny group of people would have any effect overall on the country.

Also, it's been proven now several times that reducing or stopping child related benefits does not reduce birth rates or family size, it just leaves more children in poverty. More proof that people are not basing the decision to have children or not on finances. It's more complicated than that, so you'll have to start again with your theory

This

Some ideas here. I don't pretend to be an expert!

AgnestaVipers

To read it required registering which required all sorts of questions about the name of my company and so on none of which applied to me.
Land tax was your suggestion so you must have some ideas how it would be executed.