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A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

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Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#181

Post by OntheFlipside33 »

Karunamon wrote: post #19
paulpauper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proponents of the UBI make the generous assumption that recipients will be as careful with money as they (the proponents) are . Choosing between food & housing credits vs. cash, the former has less room for abuse. Its like "I would never use my UBI on alcohol"...well you're not "most people"

Given the frankly despair-inducing statistics of what happens to poor people when they acquire a sudden cash windfall (and if you're flat broke and living on the streets, a few hundred every couple weeks is HUGE), I intend to agree. Most UBI implementations I've seen require gutting existing welfare systems - okay, fine, but what happens to the person who inevitably squanders their money?

We bail them out the same way we do the rich?

I'm curious how this is of any real value or concern outside the usual "Well because it's MY tax dollars so I should have a say."

Why focus on poor people spending their social welfare when the result will be far less harmful to humanity as a whole than how the rich spend their social welfare?

The superfluous resource consumption by the wealthy, and I include not just the uber wealthy, but also those that can afford to fly around fairly regularly, buy new iPhones every 12-24 months, lease new vehicles ad naseum, is a much more dangerous situation.

If anyone is about to say well they earned their money and the right to spend it how they see fit, come on. It's social welfare that allows their wealth in the first place. It's government subsidized hand me downs from generation to generation. It's not at all acquired by the creation of novel goods and services.

But hey, let's focus on the cost of giving away money to people that will spend it on liquor.

Not on how giving away money to support our wholesale destruction of the environment is going to wreck the species as a whole. There are more immediate impacts to my own pocket book to consider, vis-à-vis the negligible increase to my tax bill!

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#182

Post by yanilkr »

twoquestions wrote: post #131
yanilkr wrote: post #95

A Basic Income from Govt comes at a huge price of loss of individual liberty. If someone gives you free stuff, they will expect controls like where you are allowed to spend your money and time. This model of taking from the productive sources and rewarding everyone else will have to break at a certain point. how come you get rewarded for enjoying the gossip column and I spend extra effort doing something else which i…

I'll bite, UBI is in my opinion the least worst antipoverty program I've seen. What else can you do when someone's broke, homeless, and can't provide enough value to sell to get a roof over their head? Just telling people to "Work Harder!" in a market that's become increasingly hostile to unskilled labor seems callous and short-sighted. We can't just get rid of nonproductive people.

how about insurance and charities?

If we have a transferrable health savings accounts for everyone, a parent can insure their child incase of worst case scenarios and the savings transfer from parent to children.

If we have a productivity savings accounts for the days where you cant be productive that would handle individual level failures.

Govt works best when it does less and is a last resort system instead of the first.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#183

Post by ThomPete »

knodi123 wrote: post #179
athenot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to knock on the poor for making bad choices with their resources. But what the well-off percieve as "frivolous" or "irresponsible" may very well be the most cost-effective way to maintain sanity when undergoing stress that is not unlike what founders experience when struggling to keep a company afloat.

Let's not portray alcoholics as reasonable people making the best mental-health decisions available to them.

Lets not assume that the definition of an alcoholic is well defined.

To most americans, Danes would be considered raging alcoholics , yet nothing make them less rational than their american counterparts.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#184

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

yanilkr wrote: post #168
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income is necessary to distribute benefits for citizens with intangible value creation. Ex: Stay-at-home parent raises children while breadwinner works. Breadwinner is freed from tedium and can be more productive at work. Children receive enough attention to become well-adjusted and productive adults. What is the non-breadwinner worth? How do you calculate it? How do you compare value to non-working person taki…

Citizens are not some helpless victims. They make their life choices and they should by exercising personal responsibility. The same benefits also applies to non-value creators who want to avoid tedium of work and the incentivizes to not do anything and takes risks goes away. There is a natural Darwinism involved in influencing who wants to have kids. If someone is already struggling in their life, why should they ge…

1: Some people are helpless victims, especially poor and minorities. Much bigger chances of arrest and fewer starting opportunities significantly limits where they can go and what debts they are chained to for how long.

2: Lazy people have and will always exist. Better in general for them to collect their check and not bother anybody. Otherwise you end up with more criminals, homeless, bad employees who can tarnish your brand, and so on.

3: Great point about children! I do believe that maintaining the replacement rate is of paramount importance (if you don't believe me, look at China by 2050), but excessive offspring should be discouraged, and even taxed at certain rates.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#186

Post by ThomPete »

RivieraKid wrote: post #81

Negative income tax makes more sense to me. (NIT is a system where you either get or give money from/to the governement, depending on your income.) First it's both a simple welfare and tax system in one package. Basic income as typically understood is only half of the story. It's also easier to reason about, the money flows are way more obvious, it's immediately clear whether you are a net contributor or receiver and…

Thats solving a very different problem.

UBI is based on the premise that there are fewer and fewer jobs to be had which gives a proper salary.

So negative income tax under this premise makes no sense.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#187

Post by knodi123 »

empath75 wrote: post #59
Karunamon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the frankly despair-inducing statistics of what happens to poor people when they acquire a sudden cash windfall (and if you're flat broke and living on the streets, a few hundred every couple weeks is HUGE), I intend to agree. Most UBI implementations I've seen require gutting existing welfare systems - okay, fine, but what happens to the person who inevitably squanders their money?

I think probably the only thing that would have to go along with UBI is extreme restrictions on credit and borrowing for people that are relying on it. It's not really a huge problem for someone to blow all their UBI money for a month or two because they'll have more coming in. If they compound that with high-interest debt, they can dig themselves into a whole they can't get out of of.

> extreme restrictions on credit and borrowing for people that are relying on it

Everyone relies on it. It's an equal amount of cash in pocket for every person.

If you want to talk about restrictions on borrowing- well, what idiot is lending this money to a person with minimum income without checking into their background ? I think we can leave that one up to the banks.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#188

Post by gozur88 »

rmc wrote: post #120
kough wrote: post #29

> No one wants to hire them at a high minimum wage, especially when locals are readily available The main drawback to a minimum wage is that it artificially increases the cost of labor, to the point where it's no longer worth it to an employer to hire a low-output employee. I think we'd all agree that increasing employment is a good goal, but an increased minimum wage actually hinders progress on that front. As the m…

> it artificially increases the cost of labor That's the point. A floor. Through which people should not have to work below at.

Yes, and what that means in practice is instead of making a little bit of money, people whose labor is worth less than some arbitrary amount can't get work at all. You can't mandate a minimum wage, because the true minimum is always zero.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#189

Post by Absentinsomniac »

dandermotj wrote: post #163
Nogwater wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we'd all agree that increasing employment is a good goal I don't agree, and I'm not sure why people would see employment for its own sake would be a good thing. I want to increase some of the things that employments brings (purchasing power, a sense of purpose, etc...) and not others (loss of time, feeling trapped, etc...).

I suppose from an individual standpoint examples like yours are very relevant - a big fear for myself is working a job we're I am unfulfilled - but from a broad view we must agree increasing employment is a good goal. The more people working, the greater the output and the cheaper it costs, from which everyone benefits whether we are employed ourselves or not. A highly employed nation is a bountiful one.

Unless you're just hiring people for the sake of employment to do things that don't need done. I've read China's housing market is in a bit of a pickle due to this. Course they also apparently have really clean streets.
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