241–250 of 498 posts
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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"
Why do you care if someone spends it on alcohol? Where does this paternal instinct to tell someone else how to spend money come from?
I almost stopped reading there. Sweden is not socialist, and never has been.
Public ownership of production, workers control and management, social equality and a democratic plan of production. Nope, none of those. Just as much privatisation and market forces as other economies.
They just chose to fund their welfare state, education, prison reform and pensions rather better than some others. There's been some drawbacks, but you won't be hearing many renditions of the Red Flag.
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The counter argument is that human labor has an actual cost. That is the cost to keep a human alive and in some level of comfort. Government benefits of many different types have "artificially" lowered this cost. Where employees refuse to pay enough for a human to live on, the government picks up the slack. Raising the minimum wage may be "artificial," but its not the first control placed on some otherwise natural la…
Critical omission on your part: not everyone needs to live on this wage. Think about high school kids trying to get a summer job. They don't need to survive on this wage, they simply need something productive to do over the summer. Should my business be required to shell out $15/hr for a high school kid, when the value of his/her labor is way less than that?
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Playing devil's advocate, what happens to businesses in the presence of an even higher regulatory and tax environment and what will the impact of increased taxes be on employment and business viability as well as the cost of living? For the sake of argument, think about businesses with razor thin margins like restaurants. In the presence of increased taxes, their margins significantly diminish, if not vanish, and it…
> For the sake of argument, think about businesses with razor thin margins like restaurants. In the presence of increased taxes, their margins significantly diminish, if not vanish, and it becomes increasingly unviable for the business to stay in business. Once they shutter their doors, the tax base and employment decreases. That's a big assumption. As long as there is demand in a free market, they will stay in busin…
Also to be clear, we're not talking about anything remotely like a free market.
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…
NIC is analogous to basic income. At a certain point, the taxes you pay in a basic income scheme are equal to the basic income you earn. Those who earn less than you are earning a NIC, those above are paying income tax. It is the same thing.
NIC is generally tied to working. A part time employed person will make less than a full time one.
Under BI it is not tied to working. The incentives are worse.
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I'm sure we have all had terrible bosses. I have probably had one of the worst bosses you could imagine. Quitting that job was one of the best days of my life. However it still isn't a persons birthright or written anywhere in the constitution that you have only have to work for people you like. If you want to avoid bad bosses you need to learn a skill that makes you highly sought after or be self employed.
It's not about not having to work for an asshole, it's about being protected from abusive business practices. Not everyone can afford lawyers to sue bosses that made them work overtime without overtime pay, for example. Usually the people who need worker protections the most are the ones being abused the most, for the same reason: they are poor and have no other choice. They have no union and their cases are usually…
Not everyone needs a 100k CS degree and to move straight out to San Fran to be useful or productive and there are plenty of things someone can do (plumber, electrician, skilled trades of whatever kind) without shelling out 100k for a degree.
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Why would you want to have as many babies as you can?
What if having a big family brings me joy? If welfare and basic income provide the support I need to have a huge family without being productive, why would I choose to live a life that is inconsistent with my life's motivations? Why work for a living when I can do what I want, and be just as comfortable? I don't need a Tesla, so I'll leave the working for the chumps.
Sincerely. Many people don't desire large families, if any, or are physically incapable of reproduction. So why pressure them to when others are perfectly willing to pick up the slack?
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Whereas universal income means that everyone in society can tell terrible bosses that they can take their shitty job and shove it, and still live with dignity, a greater dignity than having to work at the absolute minimum of pay, regardless of whether 51% of politicians choose to call it a "living wage."
A minimum wage raises the floor for workers making below the minimum. A basic income raises the floor for all. The former results is fewer steps to climb for someone at the bottom to reach your floor, the latter results in an unchanged amount of steps but the stairs just happen to be located further from sea level. If workers leave walmart to live off of basic income, all walmart has to do is increase prices and work…
What are the root causes?
I'd imagine that companies would make MORE profit in a world with UBI because more individuals have more disposable income to use on their products.
Would they raise prices? If so, how do we make it work?
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That's some fine whataboutism, but a poor answer to my relatively straightforward question. Again, every UBI implementation I've ever seen includes basically destroying the existing welfare structure. If someone blows their UBI due to, not just drugs/alcohol, but just plain old poor finanical management skills, what happens to them? They've got nowhere to turn for two weeks or more because we tore all that shit up .
How is that different than today? The very point is that less people will be in this situation because getting your basic needs met is shown to make your more responsible. Se further up in thread for some of the studies.
Okay, now that stuff goes away, and you just get the one (significantly increased, but still, just the one) payout every so often. There is no safety net under the safety net anymore.
Those two stories I see linked reference other countries with radically different cultures. How many studies have been done with families that live in the USA and are subject to its cultural norms? Culture drives spending and expectations.
I say this as someone that thinks UBI is a Great Idea, but this is a question that from what I can tell remains unanswered.
> 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…
Realistically, for people with disabilities that aren't being able to be in the regular labor market, there are some societal useful things to do, like volunteering(say in a soup kitchen), helping their community,etc. Those are probably activities that wouldn't be done otherwise, carry a real sense of value, and usually in a custom fit environment.
That is the situation at least in enlightened places with decent government services. I'm not sure about the US.
I wouldn't want that to be replaced with people at the margin being exploited at a shitty factory , where the work is meaningless and often depression inducing, sometimes risky, etc.