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Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

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Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#161

Post by dragonwriter »

dllthomas wrote: post #155
dragonwriter wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no minimum needed to get started. You probably want the initial value to be high enough that you can actually displace some existing means-tested aid programs, even though you may not initially be able to do all of them.

For any amount, if it's counted as income before the means tested programs, you'll displace many means tested programs for some people . Of course, that also means that those people would likely be made worse off in the short term. Hopefully they could put whatever time they'd spent complying with those means tested programs to better use, and hopefully the other side of the discontinuities in pay-to-takehome would b…

Right, but given the justification for UBI, you don't want to displace some means-tested programs for some people, you want to completely replace at least one existing means-tested program.

Slight adjustments in the number of beneficiaries doesn't really get you much benefit in terms of eliminating the inefficiencies of existing programs (in done ways out actually exaggerated them since there is a fixed component of the overhead costs for each program.) The real efficiencies Congress when you are able to eliminate programs altogether.

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#162

Post by msandford »

afterburner wrote: post #47
msandford wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but those don't exist in a vacuum. There are people who funded that research and think that they should own the fruits of the labor as per the contracts that they executed with the people they paid to perform the work. If you want to do away with various kinds of property rights that's a valid argument to make. But you don't get to pretend that it isn't a new, different way. Ultimately you're going to take som…

It's called taxes, and it doesn't "do away with various kinds of property rights"

The amount of taxes and the laser-like focus of said taxation required to make basic income both workable and meaningful for the population at large won't really feel like taxes.

60% of all income above $X per year versus the 40% now is a tax, sure.

But the original comment was "The money for basic income will come from automation driven productivity improvements."

So you're going to make a new tax of 500% on sales of automation equipment? Or 50% of the money saved per year by your installation of automation equipment? And then hire several million auditors to go inspect every facility in the country every year to ensure that people aren't installing unregistered automation equipment?

There are already a bunch of tax laws on the books that should make those automation drive increases in profitability get taxed and go into the government's coffers. But companies are very adept at finding loopholes, getting new loopholes, etc. Structuring their business so as to minimize their tax burden. I think it's pretty obvious that just "raising taxes" won't accomplish enough revenue to make basic income work. So that means you've got to do something new, and something that probably won't feel like any previous tax ever levied.

While you might argue that if it's a tax it's a tax (and that's probably technically true) there's a huge difference between increasing existing tax rates and generating substantially new tax law.

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#163

Post by dllthomas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #161
dllthomas wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any amount, if it's counted as income before the means tested programs, you'll displace many means tested programs for some people . Of course, that also means that those people would likely be made worse off in the short term. Hopefully they could put whatever time they'd spent complying with those means tested programs to better use, and hopefully the other side of the discontinuities in pay-to-takehome would b…

Right, but given the justification for UBI, you don't want to displace some means-tested programs for some people, you want to completely replace at least one existing means-tested program. Slight adjustments in the number of beneficiaries doesn't really get you much benefit in terms of eliminating the inefficiencies of existing programs (in done ways out actually exaggerated them since there is a fixed component of…

You miss some of the benefit, to be sure, but you also reduce the risks. $100 probably doesn't make much sense as the long term goal for a UBI, but it might well be a good place to transition through.

One benefit of that kind of ramp up is that it naturally phases out existing programs, making them easier to kill when their time comes (and much clearer when their time has come).

It also means (to the risk point above) that if we discover some ruinous dynamic caused by the UBI, we can more easily scrap it and fall back on existing systems.

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#164

Post by dllthomas »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #145
afterburner wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice try with the commie scare. The Soviet Union was the opposite of UBI. They maximized employment, even if it meant multiple people doing one boring job (imagine 5 convenience store clerks in one store, forced to the there all day). And most people couldn't actually choose what they would do in life. This is the opposite of what UBI would do for people.

commie scare? labeling away you opponents is a very nice method of arguing, it also is not without historic precedence. Now concerning choice - you better ask some long term unemployed about the degree of choice that they are experiencing. I guess that this UBI thing is only a catchword to turn long term unemployment into the socially accepted norm. Still in my book: UBI creates a situation that is very similar to th…

"indifference and apathy is the result when your salary and living conditions have absolutely no connection to the effort that you have to put into it all."

I generally agree, but that doesn't resemble the situation with (realistic) basic income.

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#165

Post by dllthomas »

donatj wrote: post #4

If I could live and not have a job, I wouldn't have a job. I could do my art and enjoy my life and the economy would crumble while everyone else watches Netflix.

"while everyone else watches Netflix."

You can do some productive things while watching Netflix. Personally, I fill that time with cleaning, maintaining my wardrobe, and exercise.

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#166

Post by dllthomas »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #24
philipov wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are happy to say that because you don't currently have far, far more than everyone else, and so in your mind, "I get a lot more money, but I have to pay some of it back" sounds like a nice bargain. However, the people who already have far, far more wealth than everyone else have nothing to gain from that way of thinking, as they already have most of the wealth without having to pay UBI. So why would they allow it…

On a global level if you're posting on this board you almost certainly have far, far more than everyone else. So by "everyone" you really mean "not everyone but only certain geographic groups of someone".

For the record, I believe I would support a low, global UBI. That said, the devil is most certainly in the details...

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#167

Post by [deleted] »

lambdapie wrote: post #36
chrispeel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'unconditional' I take to mean that everyone, rich and poor, would get the same money. So even though the people with high income are paying more in taxes to cover this, they're also getting the same amount paid to them in a separate check. So yes, they're paying more in taxes, but they're also getting the same benefit as everyone else, and this will take some of the sting off. UBI is an excellent libertarian/sma…

UBI might be a great policy, but your argument makes no sense from an accounting point of view. Every kind of redistribution must sum to zero across all people. Basic income is no different in this regard. So to say that basic income is different because the right and poor both receive it is pure sophistry.

[deleted]

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#168

Post by nosuchthing »

dllthomas wrote: post #157
omnomrentier wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income is not going to be able to provide housing in the absence of other programs; it will just end up captured as increased rents against a static supply of deteriorating housing stock. This model of BI (replacing existing programs) is nothing but a giveaway to landlords, which I assume accounts for the PR juice behind it. It's possible to have social housing that's not terrible or stigmatized. Having moved f…

"Basic income is not going to be able to provide housing in the absence of other programs; it will just end up captured as increased rents against a static supply of deteriorating housing stock." Rents are a matter of supply versus demand. There is a tremendous supply of housing. What is limited is desirable housing - and a big part of that is housing somewhat near a stable income. A basic income - even a modest one…

Building low cost municipal housing within commuting distance to large cities would be significantly more productive as a long term economic and city/nation infrastructure investment than the BI alternative of low income citizens being forced out of city centers and into undesirable real estate areas.

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#169

Post by dllthomas »

nosuchthing wrote: post #168
dllthomas wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Basic income is not going to be able to provide housing in the absence of other programs; it will just end up captured as increased rents against a static supply of deteriorating housing stock." Rents are a matter of supply versus demand. There is a tremendous supply of housing. What is limited is desirable housing - and a big part of that is housing somewhat near a stable income. A basic income - even a modest one…

Building low cost municipal housing within commuting distance to large cities would be significantly more productive as a long term economic and city/nation infrastructure investment than the BI alternative of low income citizens being forced out of city centers and into undesirable real estate areas.

Building low cost municipal housing has been done before, has often gone very poorly, and doesn't fundamentally change the dynamic - everyone still needs to move to the city, and the problem is still that we haven't built enough municipal housing.

We're presently seeing low income citizens forced out of city centers and into "undesirable real estate areas" within some stretch of what could be called "commuting distance".

The point is, "undesirable real estate areas" is not static. There are tons of wonderful places that are undesirable simply because they are unaffordable (not expensive - often cheap - but without sufficient income sufficiently available). A basic income will make more of these more desirable to more people. Some of these people will chose to move there rather than SF (or Hayward). This reduces demand for presently-desirable housing, which means fewer low income citizens being forced out of city centers.

Now it's true that centralization allows some efficiencies that decentralization does not. But it has some extra costs - and (especially) some extra risks, as well. I really don't think the ideal outcome is "everyone moves to San Francisco."

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#170

Post by nosuchthing »

dllthomas wrote: post #169
nosuchthing wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building low cost municipal housing within commuting distance to large cities would be significantly more productive as a long term economic and city/nation infrastructure investment than the BI alternative of low income citizens being forced out of city centers and into undesirable real estate areas.

Building low cost municipal housing has been done before, has often gone very poorly, and doesn't fundamentally change the dynamic - everyone still needs to move to the city, and the problem is still that we haven't built enough municipal housing. We're presently seeing low income citizens forced out of city centers and into "undesirable real estate areas" within some stretch of what could be called "commuting distan…

Mixed use development could really happen anywhere. It's a matter of infrastructure, people need to sleep near where they work/buy/participate in the local economy. I assume it makes sense to build large amounts of affordable housing within commutable distance to large cities.

It'll be interesting to see which countries are willing to address housing as infrastructure for their economy. I imagine real estate bubbles will continue to happen as long as NIMBYism and tax policy facilitate speculation. There's no sensible reason housing should cost every citizen of each generation 20 entire years of daily income.

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