101–110 of 387 posts
Once again no answer to the main Question: What to do with people that blow their UBI by the 2nd of each month on SAAS Startups? Let them starve? Go without Shelter?
Pay out UBI daily? The technology exists, no reason not to do it that way. Also the only way to make a basic income work is through a land or land value tax. Else you get massive inflation.
Something I haven't seen anyone else mention, if UBI is introduced won't that cause prices to increase? For example, supermarket 'own brands' are usually cheaper than branded products, but if everyone is getting a minimum income then those prices won't need to be as cheap, just cheaper than alternatives.
Eggs and milk aren't getting more expensive to produce. So, if the currently-cheapest brand increases its price, it's opening a window for new competition to sell at the old low price. It's possible that anticompetitive forces would prevent that competition from emerging in many cases, but I would not say that it is obvious that prices will increase under UBI.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think these are exactly the right observations. It's no coincidence that a lot of advocacy for the UBI comes from the far right who want to use it as a pretext to dismantle the welfare state. Conventional social programs are not perfect, but they exist to address specific issues and mostly do their job well. The efficiency gains to be made here are minimal. The real cost savings are made by simply paying the needy…
> a single mother with 3 kids has to make do with $10,000 a year? Actually, under Murray's proposal, she has to make do with 10k per year plus whatever she can earn. If she's earning very, then she's probably doing all the childcare herself and her living costs are not much more than a single, childless woman. If she works full time, then her total income (earned and unearned) will be 30k at minimum. I'm not saying I…
1) the subsidies are sufficient for both groups to do OK. This is fine in theory, but taxes would have to go up by a lot to have the minimum take care of the needy with the largest expenses. The UBI would have to be closer to 25,000 USD. If it's politically impossible to raise taxes to the level needed to let poor people live in dignity today, then what are the odds the American people sign off on the massive tax hikes needed to fund a non-destitution basic income?
2) the UBI simply isn't sufficient. Some people are getting money they don't need and other people are getting much less than they need just to survive. Every dollar that goes to the first group means there's less for those who really need it. In other words, the proposed system is a cruel dismantling of the welfare state.
Raising 3 children is practically a full time job, just one that happens to be unpaid. With the UBI the minimum wage would go away, meaning that the single mother is going to make a few dollars an hour in her part time job. That will barely cover the cost of the car she needs to get to her job, and the cost of the babysitter. The suggestion that being a single mother isn't much more expensive than a being a single young adult is absurd. I really struggle to respond to this. Just think about it: a single person can share an apartment and bike everywhere, enjoy the simple bohemian lifestyle. Being a beach bum doesn't cost anything. Do side jobs and hustle whenever you need a few bucks. The single mother in contrast needs a car and a house with rooms, just to start. That's going to take a big chunk out of the 10,000. Just living nearby a school is already expensive, and not optional. And the children themselves cost money too, in a million little ways. Diapers, clothing, entertainment, food, trips to the doctor, the list is endless.
I don't believe I'm misrepresenting the situation, this is just how the math works out. If the UBI means giving money to people who don't really need it then taxes must go up by a lot or the poor are getting a really raw deal.
You can make the case for this as a simplification of social welfare, but btw hey - it's also a cure for the coming AI jobs apocalypse! Giving everyone 10k a year isn't going to help a worker replaced by robots. 10k doesn't get you far as an annual income. BI doesn't solve the jobs crisis. You could view it, as subsidizing corporations to decrease wages. Taxpayers paying what the corporations don't have to. So it won…
1> It's definitely enough for a single person to live comfortably on, though perhaps not in the house they lived in before getting lain-off. (I agree children can be a small problem and the proposal from the article does not consider them. But if you're not working and don't need to pay for professional childcare then the cost of a child per year is only a few thousand for food.)
2> It's 10k per year plus whatever you can earn. If you don't have that pesky minimum wage restricting job openings to only those tasks that the customer base values at >$12/hr, then you can rake in a good amount of money performing tasks that people don't value quite so much.
Several years ago I thought a universal basic income would be a good idea but the longer I thought about it the more that went away. Now I can't even tell which problem it tries to solve. There won't be enough work for everyone in the future? Well then cut down working hours instead of having half the population work full time and pay for the other half. Some jobs don't provide enough income to make a living? Then ha…
The proposed problem - and it's an elitist one - is that if you try to solve the basic income problem with minimum wages, the skill level required to be productive also rises, and eventually you get to the point where employers try hard to automate the job out of existence. The argument is that at some point, the skill level required to justify an income becomes so high, large portions of the populace become unable t…
On the other hand customers may not value the work enough and the job is just not viable, there is no market. Then you have to either bring the costs down by improving efficiency or automating it, or the job has to go away. Not paying a livable wage to the employers is just exploitation, giving benefits to the employers just means subsidizing the business owners and customers.
I am a bit unsure about the scenario when we just let the job go away and have a new unemployed we may have to support with benefits. Wouldn't it have been better to just subsidize the job a bit instead of having to pay for a new unemployed? But that of course creates incentives to underpay employees and take advantage of subsidies. It is probably harder to reason about this case because it is now a dynamic scenario and it is not obvious how things will turn out.
I am still struggling a bit to follow your thought process but I think you may have a point. I will probably have to add something later.
If we are in a situation where a part of the population is plainly unable to perform any work that pays for a living and we are unable to improve their skills, then we are really is some kind of trouble. They would essentially be like handicapped people. In analogy we would have a moral obligation to support them and it seems better to let them do some work not paying for a living and provide benefits on top of that instead of just having them fully on benefits. Kind of contradicting what I wrote above. And we are also back at the point from above of creating incentives to underpay employees.
The obvious solution would be to not get into this situation in the first place, to heavily invest into education and training. But if that is not good enough? How does reality compare to this scenario? What is the outlook? It is also not obvious to me whether a universal basic income or minimum wages and a conventional welfare system would provide better incentives. But I think I now at least understand the argument.
Once again no answer to the main Question: What to do with people that blow their UBI by the 2nd of each month on SAAS Startups? Let them starve? Go without Shelter?
Wouldn't the price of everything raise accordingly, so that you basically can't afford anything with the basic income?
However, under UBI, I think suppliers of goods and services would still be faced with the basic issue of not knowing exactly how much consumers value any given product and competition would still exist so prices would likely still be set by supply vs demand.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He did specify certain caveats that would reduce the cost vs your estimate - adults over 21, and it would reduce as you made more, to a floor of 6500/yr. But yeah, probably still missing some piece.
I agree. (see my edit). I would love to be even more wrong - to the point where the proposal outlined in the article is clearly viable. So, if anyone has solid numbers demonstrating that, please do share.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pay out UBI daily? The technology exists, no reason not to do it that way. Also the only way to make a basic income work is through a land or land value tax. Else you get massive inflation.
How does the redistribution of wealth by using taxes on personal spending or on earned income to fund UBI cause inflation?
Second, under UBI a proportion of the population stops working and this increases over time as robots replace workers. Reducing earned income, lowering UBI cash availability. Solution? Print more money = inflation.
With a land value tax you get a known relatively unchanging set amount of $ based on land value. Balancing the inflation/deflation curve.
Wouldn't the price of everything raise accordingly, so that you basically can't afford anything with the basic income?
Only if the world were zero-sum, which it's not. Remember how only rich people used to have cell phones, and now billions of people have them? The price of most goods is close to the marginal cost of production, which means that giving more people money may actually lower the cost of many goods (by increasing volume). Artificially scarce goods, such as an apartment in SF, may get more expensive however since their pr…