Political parties in Japan have pledged in their campaigning for the July 20 Upper House election to reduce social security premiums, which have been rising due to the aging population and higher prices. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/07/09/japan/politics/wages-election-focus/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #japan #politics #2025upperhouseelection #wages#nursingcare #aging #dpp #ldp #cdp #nipponishinnokai #socialwelfare

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the government's cuts to welfare benefits between 2013 and 2015 were unlawful, marking a significant victory for welfare recipients. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/06/27/japan/crime-legal/welfare-benefits-cuts-ruled-unlawful/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #japan #crimelegal #socialwelfare #japanesecourts #poverty

"... this is actually going to cost the government more money. Because, you take away the [equal pay protections], this will lead to higher welfare payment. It will lead to more accommodation supplement. It will lead to higher Working For Families payments. It will lead to a lower tax take, which will cost the Crown money."

#CraigRennie, 2025

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/pat-brittenden/episodes/BHN-Brooke-Van-Velden-cancels-Equal-Pay-Act--Chris-Hipkins-on-Erica-Stanfords-emails--Luxon-ban-on-under-16s-on-social-media-e32evtg

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#NZPolitics#EqualPay#PublicFinances#SocialWelfare

My half-baked deep thought of the weekend:

Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem should be renamed Arrow's Context-Sensitivity Theorem, and re-interpreted as saying a social choice function that neglects context leads to dictators.

I say this because the axiom of independence from irrelevant alternatives--one of the assumptions behind the theorem--states that a social choice function should be such that the relationship between A and B is not changed once a new alternative C is introduced. Unpacked, this means the choice function should be insensitive to any context C might bring with it.

Arrow's theorem essentially says that a social choice function satisfying this and a couple other axioms leads to dictators (meaning, one individual's preferences dictate the social choice function's preferences, overruling everyone else involved in the choice who might disagree). Hence the re-interpretation: neglecting context in social choice leads to dictators.

#economics #SocialWelfare #SocialChoice #WelfareEconomics #DecisionTheory #ArrowsTheorem