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Why exactly is this worth noting?

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....

300bps 4758 days ago

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.

jordan0day 4758 days ago

> 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.

Do any of those people post on HN?

ceol 4758 days ago

Or exist, for that matter?

protomyth 4758 days ago

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).

theorique 4758 days ago

"Obama gave me a phone!"

tomjen3 4758 days ago

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.

mhurron 4758 days ago

> Why exactly is this worth noting?

Because it's one of the best ways to make sure it never happens in the US. Another good way is to call it Socialist.

snowwrestler 4758 days ago

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.

mikeash 4757 days ago

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".

efa 4758 days ago

There are many imbeciles who think that social programs just rain from the sky. Maybe not so much here.

jan_g 4758 days ago

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.

flagnog 4758 days ago

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.

rdtsc 4758 days ago

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.

Why do people only ever bring this up with social programs, and not any of the many other "free" things that are discussed around here?

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.

Domenic_S 4758 days ago

> people shoving their politics

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

That happens already. You didn't build that! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_didn%27t_build_that

protomyth 4758 days ago

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.

CaptainZapp 4758 days ago

  Because social programs get their money from coercion

Language matters, and the verb 'coercion' in this context, to me, is actually repugnent.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercion):

"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.

mindcrime 4757 days ago

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.

refurb 4758 days ago

Different strokes for different folks.

Taxes are certainly not voluntary. If you do not pay them, you will be coerced into doing so. Hence the use of the word.

andrewflnr 4757 days ago

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.

sneak 4758 days ago

> 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.

By your own copypasted definition, how can they be anything but?

Even if you love taxation and government spending, this is factually true.

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.

"You're focusing only on the costs"

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.

Retric 4758 days ago

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.

sneak 4758 days ago

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

belorn 4758 days ago

> 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.

RyanMcGreal 4758 days ago

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.

jan_g 4758 days ago

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.

rlpb 4758 days ago

> 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?

Would it be a cost to the taxpayer then?

jan_g 4758 days ago

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 ...".

Domenic_S 4758 days ago

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?

Gravityloss 4758 days ago

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.

It's a bit unclear to me who wins here.

saraid216 4758 days ago

Obviously the opportunities afforded in your own country weren't sufficient and you should probably work on that rather than crippling children.

jrokisky 4758 days ago

I think this idea is often over looked. How much money/time is spent solving problems caused by overwork?

icebraining 4758 days ago

It depends. "Brain drain" is a real problem for many nations.

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.

flagnog 4758 days ago

but you're assuming that this improves the upbringing.

saraid216 4758 days ago

If you're suggesting that health and parental attention does not contribute to a quality upbringing, I'd like to see some studies cited.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

... 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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

rlpb 4758 days ago

> 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?

rlpb 4758 days ago

> The tragedy of the commons is about resource depletion in the absence of price signals.

This is a narrow view. Think about it more generally, and you'll see that the same concept applies here.

Ask your kids.

beagle3 4758 days ago

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.

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...

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.

Timberline 4758 days ago

>> 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.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index

_mulder_ 4758 days ago

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?

beagle3 4757 days ago

> 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.

Nursie 4758 days ago

That's right kids, Americans choose never to have any vacation time and spend all their lives in work...

Also LOL @ Savings. From what I've read only around 55% of Americans have more savings than credit-card debt.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_m...

_mulder_ 4758 days ago

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.

nollidge 4758 days ago

> so we can just pay for these things with savings if we want to.

Uh, who's "we"? You mean the 60% of Americans with more than $500 in savings? Are those the people who can "just" pay for it out of savings?

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2010.pdf

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.

jon-wood 4758 days ago

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.

naradaellis 4758 days ago

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.

ProcessBlue 4758 days ago

True, true, I didn't want to go into that because that way lies a never ending comment chain on fiscal policy ;-).

rdtsc 4758 days ago

> 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?