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Universal Basic Income and the New Corporatist Democrats

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Re: Universal Basic Income and the New Corporatist Democrats

#51

Post by Bartweiss »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #28
Bartweiss wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lowest labor participation since the '80s, and minimal recovery? Hell, I didn't know things were that bad. The 9% figure is all-source underemployment, though. It's a way better number than unemployment rate, but it's misleading to cite it as though it's the same number politicians reference.

> It's a way better number than unemployment rate, but it's misleading to cite it as though it's the same number politicians reference. Respectively disagree! U-6 is the perfect indicator of why we're having a terrible recovery.

I don't think we actually disagree?

I meant "better number" as in "far more representative than the jobless-and-looking rate". I objected to calling it the "unemployment rate" without caveat, because that term usually refers to jobless-and-looking and therefore threatens to cause confusion.

Re: Universal Basic Income and the New Corporatist Democrats

#52

Post by Bartweiss »

evanpw wrote: post #31
toomuchtodo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a way better number than unemployment rate, but it's misleading to cite it as though it's the same number politicians reference. Respectively disagree! U-6 is the perfect indicator of why we're having a terrible recovery.

It seems to be mostly back to normal: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE

Interesting - I wonder why that's basically recovered, but labor force participation is still at a 30 year low?

Re: Universal Basic Income and the New Corporatist Democrats

#53

Post by Apocryphon »

jeremyt wrote: post #47
Apocryphon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wealthy in the U.S. are nowhere paying that high. I don't think the upper class in Europe even has to suffer that.

Are you kidding? An upper income taxpayer in California pays 39.6% federal, 10% state. On top of that there are sales taxes, property taxes, payroll taxes, unemployment benefit insurance, the 3.4% Medicare surcharge, car registration taxes and fees, transfer taxes on assets, and estate taxes when you die. Explain to me how that doesn't add up to more than 50%?

Mitt Romney paid 14% in 2011, so I'm certain there are ways around paying the full price.

Re: Universal Basic Income and the New Corporatist Democrats

#54

Post by twblalock »

drabiega wrote: post #45
gedy wrote: post #30

It's not 'automation' it's free/low-tariff trade pacts with cheap labor countries supported by both corporations and politicians (both Democrat and Republican) Blaming tech and automation is all a lot of hand-waving and finger pointing away from the real issue.

The jobs lost to those trade deals are generally pretty crappy jobs. We'd be better off if we captured some of the value those treaties create and redistribute it to those negatively impacted... with something like UBI.

> The jobs lost to those trade deals are generally pretty crappy jobs.

Not to mention, that if those jobs hadn't gone to Mexico because of NAFTA, they would have gone to China, or southeast Asia somewhere. There is pretty much no way they would have stayed in the US.

It's also the case that the US manufactures more goods now than ever before, but with fewer people. We manufacture more goods per worker than ever before -- that's because of increases in productivity, only some of which are due to automation. Those increases in productivity almost certainly would have happened with or without the various trade agreements we have put in place over the past few decades.

Re: Universal Basic Income and the New Corporatist Democrats

#55

Post by dTal »

Bartweiss wrote: post #34

> An odd coalition of conservative, libertarian, and liberal intellectuals has advocated for Basic Income over the past 60 years. This, of course, is the (political) downfall of UBI. That coalition will stand together right up until someone has to draft an actual Senate bill implementing the thing. Then, the liberals want to phase out existing social programs gradually, or implement it as a more-palatable negative in…

We need a word for this dynamic, which also surfaced in Brexit. You had the "dey turker jerbs" crowd, the sovereignty crowd, the free market crowd, and the racist crowd - and the only common element between them was "Brexit", rather than any kind of unified vision. And now we're stuck with an a priori decision with no idea how to go about implementing it in a sensible way. Cries of "shouldn't we have thought of this before?" abound. Yes, we should.

I think a more successful democratic process should involve at least three steps:

  1) Should we even consider doing this thing?
  2) What's the best way of doing this thing we can think of?
  3) Having given it our best, should we go ahead with it?

Re: Universal Basic Income and the New Corporatist Democrats

#56

Post by Bartweiss »

drabiega wrote: post #45
gedy wrote: post #30

It's not 'automation' it's free/low-tariff trade pacts with cheap labor countries supported by both corporations and politicians (both Democrat and Republican) Blaming tech and automation is all a lot of hand-waving and finger pointing away from the real issue.

The jobs lost to those trade deals are generally pretty crappy jobs. We'd be better off if we captured some of the value those treaties create and redistribute it to those negatively impacted... with something like UBI.

This point deserves to be made way more often.

People tend to go "trade deals are economically efficient, so they don't decrease employment!", but that's not true. They generally do decrease US employment in shitty jobs, while increasing efficiency. The global economy isn't Pareto optimal, and it ought to be possible to move those gains to the people who would otherwise be hurt.

Re: Universal Basic Income and the New Corporatist Democrats

#57

Post by BigDaddyD »

Kevin_S wrote: post #19
BigDaddyD wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the nutty "taxation is immoral" argument. I agree that argument is nutty! That's why I didn't make it. Where did I say, in fact you supposedly quote me, "taxation is immoral". I said taking money from some and giving it to others by force is immoral for the reasons people like him give. Taxation is moral so long as it is spent on programs that benefit everyone. The military, roads, a court system, the post office,…

> Taxation is moral so long as it is spent on programs that benefit everyone. The military, roads, a court system, the post office, police, etc. > Taxation is immoral when you take from someone you "feel" has to much money and give it to someone you think "deserves" it. Dude... you're just framing it differently. You can easily look at UBI and taxes as they currently are as moneys from individuals that go into a larg…

I'll try and be more specific.

If there are ten people in a country and money is dispersed in this way:

Bottom 2 each have $10 Middle 6 each have $20 Top 2 each have $50

I would support a system that takes say... 10% from everyone.

Bottom 2 are taxed $1 each == $2 Middle 6 are taxed $2 each == $12 Top 2 are taxed $5 each = $10

They then put all of the money in a "pot" to be spent on a military. This benefits everyone because a poor homeless person in Alabama will be defended equally as well as a middle class secretary in Georgia.

However, if you tax the Top 2 for an extra 10% which comes out to $10 more and then put it in a "pot" that will only be spent on the Bottom 2, we have a problem.

This is a problem because you are treating 20% of the population unfairly simply because they have more money than the other 80%. This is being charitable with their money and not letting them decide to do with it as they please. I support the poor in my own way by donating money, volunteering for charity, etc. but it is wrong for you to take a larger percent of my money and give it to another group of people for arbitrary reasons.

> It would be a calculated number that is used to maximize total utility of the economy.

I would love to see the geniuses and God level economists who can make those calculations and factor in every aspect of the economy. You can't, it's impossible.

Re: Universal Basic Income and the New Corporatist Democrats

#58

Post by BigDaddyD »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #7
BigDaddyD wrote: post #4

The UBI and this article are terrible. First of all, it's expensive. Guaranteeing every American a certain sum of money will cost a ridiculous amount. Second, it's immoral. Taking money from one person and giving it to another by force is wrong, especially when your justification is that you think they have too much money. Third, it's funny that he points to Social Security when it is approaching disaster. http://www…

> Why hasn't the unemployment rate skyrocketed due to the automation in agriculture that allows us to produce more crops cheaper and with less people? Because the increase in labor and decrease in food costs allowed other industries to flourish! The unemployment rate is still high (~9%), and thats just people still looking who haven't given up yet. Labor force participation rate: https://i.imgur.com/v9sD9PB.png U-6:…

The unemployment rate would be closer to 50% if everyone that "should" be unemployed now were. We can argue about the recovery and other economic problems, I'm simply saying automation isn't a source for unemployment, maybe in the short term but definitely not in the long term.

Re: Universal Basic Income and the New Corporatist Democrats

#59

Post by Bartweiss »

twblalock wrote: post #54
drabiega wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jobs lost to those trade deals are generally pretty crappy jobs. We'd be better off if we captured some of the value those treaties create and redistribute it to those negatively impacted... with something like UBI.

> The jobs lost to those trade deals are generally pretty crappy jobs. Not to mention, that if those jobs hadn't gone to Mexico because of NAFTA, they would have gone to China, or southeast Asia somewhere. There is pretty much no way they would have stayed in the US. It's also the case that the US manufactures more goods now than ever before, but with fewer people. We manufacture more goods per worker than ever befor…

Pretty much all the "death of American manufacturing" stories neglect this.

You can find a lot of unemployed steelworkers and abandoned factories, but those factories have largely been supplanted by newer, more efficient ones. 'Onshoring' is becoming popular because domestic production is actually cost-effective once you factor in the low ongoing costs and defect rates for automated production.

So NAFTA mattered, and it may have changed how automation happened (I'll bet automating still-running factories looks very different than offshoring, then onshoring from scratch). But it didn't change the essential structure of what's happened - manufacturing was going to move away from mass American labor regardless.

Re: Universal Basic Income and the New Corporatist Democrats

#60

Post by lastyearman »

BigDaddyD wrote: post #43
lastyearman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone benefits from a strong middle class and not-too-poor class. Including you. Also I believe there is an argument to be made that more equal society is better for everyone involved.

I agree, that's why I support a system that benefits them the most, free market Capitalism and a government that does only what it should.

What if it were true that free market nor capitalism no longer benefit the poor, what do we do then? I think this can be argued since all markets are already regulated (thus not entirely free) nor is capitalism taken to its logical extreme anywhere in the world.
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