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Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income

nerdinvest.blogspot.com

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Re: Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income

#41

Post by debacle »

ef4 wrote: post #29

Prediction: if universal basic income starts to become an imminent possibility, the existing public and private sector welfare bureaucracy will lobby against it. Because it will put them all out of a job. Not coincidentally, this is also how you can sell the idea to people with libertarian leanings: universal basic income means much less discretion for unelected administrators, and more discretion for each individual…

You're already right. See: universal healthcare. No one has been lobbying harder against universal healthcare than insurance companies.

Re: Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income

#42

Post by drabiega »

jerelunruh wrote: post #36

Let's say that currently rent is $1,000 per month, food is $500, and Alice is earning $2,500. Now UBI is implemented and Alice and all fellow citizens receive $1,000 per month. What will keep the market from easing the entry level rent up to $1,500 and food to $1,000 since the money is available? At first glance it seems like we'd just be choosing a different number representing "broke".

Because markets still exist. The change in the distribution of income will necessarily incur a change in the distribution of production of goods and services. You would probably expect the price of some necessities to increase a little, especially in the short term, but it's not like we're anywhere near our capacity to produce food and housing.

Re: Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income

#43

Post by manyoso »

jerelunruh wrote: post #36

Let's say that currently rent is $1,000 per month, food is $500, and Alice is earning $2,500. Now UBI is implemented and Alice and all fellow citizens receive $1,000 per month. What will keep the market from easing the entry level rent up to $1,500 and food to $1,000 since the money is available? At first glance it seems like we'd just be choosing a different number representing "broke".

We tie the UBI to the cost of living index.

Re: Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income

#44

Post by DiffEq »

hackuser wrote: post #5

A rarely discussed benefit to minimum income: The higher the social benefits, then I think the greater the labor market liquidity, for both employers and workers. Currently everything else depends on your job: Either you have one, and you have income, benefits, and all that goes with them in a society where everything costs money; or you don't and you have nothing (or very little). But if you don't lose you house, st…

Yet nowhere has this been "field tested" for any length of time. Unless one makes the case that it has been tested in the form of several countries in the 20th century. Places like the the Soviet Union, China, etc. We see that it failed in those places and in Soviet countries it failed fantastically. The fatal flaw in all of this...who is going to pay for it?

Re: Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income

#45

Post by jonnycowboy »

devonkim wrote: post #38
Domenic_S wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This handwaviness is typical of pro-BI rhetoric. If there's a tech implosion and 500k workers lose their jobs, is $900/month in BI really going to offset their $3,000/month mortgages meaningfully?

It's the difference between living on the street homeless like a lot of families experienced in the Rust Belt and getting some breathing room to make a move elsewhere where there may be jobs available. My big concern with BI is that costs of many staples could simply rise as consumer spending goes up due to such depressed wages for most people and we'll be back in the same situation where a shocking number of people…

In a limited supply environment staples will rise (ie: real estate in certain cities) but with BI you can move anywhere and have a roof over your head. Food prices will not raise meaningfully.

Re: Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income

#46

Post by debacle »

Domenic_S wrote: post #32
debacle wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this! If you create UBI and have universal healthcare, entrepreneurship, makership, lifestyle businesses, etc, are going to explode.

"and have universal healthcare" is the functional clause here, but it's thrown in as an afterthought. All the BI in the world isn't going to help you if you incur a $200k broken arm 'cause you didn't have health insurance.

It's not really an afterthought - the cost of universal healthcare is close to 50% of the cost of UBI.

But we're already paying out the nose for universal healthcare in the US. It's just done poorly, and has a lot of fraud and abuse, as well as insurance companies taking a lot off the top.

Re: Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income

#47

Post by drabiega »

locopati wrote: post #34

Honest question - how does UBI address hikes in the cost of basic necessities (food, shelter, clothes) by companies knowing that everyone can afford them?

With markets. As the distribution of income changes so does the distribution of goods and services produced.

Re: Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income

#48

Post by herge »

graeme wrote: post #33
herge wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think about Jean-Robert Sansfaçon's critique in Le Devoir ( http://www.ledevoir.com/economie/actualites-economiques/4624... ), where he calculates that to give only 10,000$ per inhabitant in Quebec per year, you would need 68 billion dollars, ~22 times the amount currently spent on social welfare. Also, that would constitute 70% of the current tax revenue of the Quebec government.

Does that take into account that for middle class people it's effectively a wash? i.e. Your taxes go up $10,000, but you get a $10,000 payment. I haven't seen a cost calculation that explicitly factors this in. I imagine it's still expensive, but perhaps less than it seems? It's a good article though. A lot of people vastly overestimate current social payment expenditures. They're much lower than I thought, and I am…

You still need an administration that handles all that money coming in and out, probably doubling the amount of money Revenu Québec manages. All that for a poverty line payment of 10k.

Re: Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income

#49

Post by manyoso »

drabiega wrote: post #21
manyoso wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is also sold and paired with an elimination of the general income tax I think it could have wide support on the right and left. And how would we pay for it without a national income tax? A value added tax and a carbon tax.

VAT is a great alternative to a US style sales tax, but it is still regressive and UBI + regressive taxation seems like a pretty terrible combination.

Not if the UBI is tied to the cost of living index. Essentially, this means the UBI will be immune to the regression of the VAT.

Re: Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income

#50

Post by danharaj »

jerelunruh wrote: post #36

Let's say that currently rent is $1,000 per month, food is $500, and Alice is earning $2,500. Now UBI is implemented and Alice and all fellow citizens receive $1,000 per month. What will keep the market from easing the entry level rent up to $1,500 and food to $1,000 since the money is available? At first glance it seems like we'd just be choosing a different number representing "broke".

That would be the Marxian claim: wages trend for most workers towards subsistence. Caveat: subsistence is a relative term.

I think it's a reasonable question because UBI doesn't change much about the structure of capitalism. And also just like every other welfare program, it will be rolled back inch by inch every time there's a systemic shock and the poors are held to blame.

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