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Enough with Basic Income

salon.thefamily.co

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Re: Enough with Basic Income

#111

Post by d4rti »

stephengillie wrote: post #61
jnbiche wrote: post #46

This guy just seems upset that people are offering up a solution to tech-related job loss that isn't with traditional welfare solution proposed by the team he cheers for. He didn't spent a lot of time offering up specific arguments against basic income, but rather on background, and the primary arguments he has are to me some of the strongest arguments for BI: 1) He worries about division and polarization. Well, BI i…

> On the right is the infamous voucher system. It has been widely experimented, often with negative results, in fields such as education. The principle is to provide individuals with money and let them find providers on a lightly regulated market. Vouchers often deliver poor performance. The money distributed contributes to inflating the prices as the price elasticity of supply is negative—if only because nobody’s su…

The NHS overall works pretty damn well. US insurance complexity wastes at least as much as NHS management.

The NHS is also great value, costing us far less for universal healthcare than the US government spends on healthcare.

The NHS is also amazingly popular, and until the ideological austerity movement was pretty much getting better.

I'm not sure why so many people in the US think that government cannot run things effectively. The NHS is a great example. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than the alternatives? Clearly.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#112

Post by joesb »

blahi wrote: post #31
newjersey wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to fill in many papers, prove that you don’t have sufficient income or any valuable property, go through many humiliating and intrusive controls. If you want to earn (a small amount of) money without working, then you must endure it all. In most cases it is necessary to seek the help of a social worker to carry out the procedure in its entirety. This is exactly the reason I want basic income. I want nobody…

And what happens in the very long term? What happens when kids are raised with the attitude that they are guaranteed to survive on basic income? What happens when their number grows? What happens when that large group feels that bare survival doesn't cut it any more and want more? What happens if the numbers actually don't pan out but scared politicians doon't want to give up power and cook the books for decades? Rem…

What happens when kids have rich parents?

What happens when kids know they don't have to steal or rob to survive?

What happens when kids know living for the good cause will never starve them to death?

What happens when kids know they can pursue their best interest without worrying about being starved?

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#113

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

SmellTheGlove wrote: post #2

There are some good points in here. However, what I think the author misses is that we are within reach of a post-scarcity economy, at which point all of those historical economic references go out the window (since nearly all economic theory assumes scarcity). That possibility makes a UBI experiment very worthwhile to me. I don't think we're there today or anything like that, but it may be within our lifetimes that…

Post-scarcity while a nice idea is something that will never be reached. All we have to do is look a Maslow's hierarchy of needs(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs) there are no absolutes there only relatives. You can never fulfill relative needs for all.

Here's a very simple example. We can make a very strong argument that we've reached a very high mark on safety. We live in a society that's safer now than ever before. Yet we are constantly scared that the world will come to an end. Politicians and the media have made sure we have something to be scared of. Do all people feel safe? No, yet by all statistics we live in a very safe society.

Another one, internet access. Forty years ago, if anyone even mentioned that it needs to be a basic need they would have been laugh at with no mercy. Today, it's not such a ridiculous thought.

You say these are really wants. Yes to some but wants are so strong to some(many) that they become basic needs. How many times have you heard some one say,"I need my coffee." Really, coffee is a need?

Given this what does post-scarcity really mean?

We can define a set of basic needs now but over time they will change and they will grow.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#114

Post by SubiculumCode »

Nicolas_Colin wrote: post #89
jnbiche wrote: post #46

This guy just seems upset that people are offering up a solution to tech-related job loss that isn't with traditional welfare solution proposed by the team he cheers for. He didn't spent a lot of time offering up specific arguments against basic income, but rather on background, and the primary arguments he has are to me some of the strongest arguments for BI: 1) He worries about division and polarization. Well, BI i…

Thank you for your response. I wrote this article because it seems to me the basic income discussion is orchestrated by people, notably in technology, who are unaware of politics and reluctant to get their hands dirty. I know that UBI, on paper, looks like it’s a good answer to many of the challenges listed at the end. But I don’t think that UBI, once put in place, would be as strong, politically, as other universal…

Perhaps I missed it but one large advantage of badic income is 1: not means tested—losing benefits because you found a better job is a huge problem with current systems. I know from first hand experience as I went through school.

2: Universal and free market oriented. You are not told how to spend that income and you can then use it to support small business/entrepreneurial endeavors.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#115

Post by overgard »

Ugh, with any problem there always has to be the "well it's more complicated than that" guy who doesn't actually offer any ideas, they just toss negativity onto any proposed solution. It's always "more complicated" than that, but this line of thinking is obnoxious and pointless.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#116

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Nicolas_Colin wrote: post #89
jnbiche wrote: post #46

This guy just seems upset that people are offering up a solution to tech-related job loss that isn't with traditional welfare solution proposed by the team he cheers for. He didn't spent a lot of time offering up specific arguments against basic income, but rather on background, and the primary arguments he has are to me some of the strongest arguments for BI: 1) He worries about division and polarization. Well, BI i…

Thank you for your response. I wrote this article because it seems to me the basic income discussion is orchestrated by people, notably in technology, who are unaware of politics and reluctant to get their hands dirty. I know that UBI, on paper, looks like it’s a good answer to many of the challenges listed at the end. But I don’t think that UBI, once put in place, would be as strong, politically, as other universal…

> Round #2: left-wing government loses elections, new right-wing government decides to target UBI on the poor in order to master the costs. UBI becomes BI without the "U".

The flaw here is that this would seem to apply to any form of social assistance. Why hasn't the same thing happened to social security?

The answer is that Round #2 doesn't make sense. You can't take someone who is making $60K/year + $10K UBI and take away the UBI without lowering their taxes unless you want them to burn you in effigy. But if all you propose to do is replace $10K in UBI with $10K in tax cuts for the same people, who is going to be the lobby in favor of that?

The dynamic you're describing is what happens to things like education assistance. Because people would rather have in $1 in cash money tax cuts than $1 in education vouchers. But the UBI is cash that spends just the same as the tax cut would.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#117

Post by SubiculumCode »

stephengillie wrote: post #61
jnbiche wrote: post #46

This guy just seems upset that people are offering up a solution to tech-related job loss that isn't with traditional welfare solution proposed by the team he cheers for. He didn't spent a lot of time offering up specific arguments against basic income, but rather on background, and the primary arguments he has are to me some of the strongest arguments for BI: 1) He worries about division and polarization. Well, BI i…

> On the right is the infamous voucher system. It has been widely experimented, often with negative results, in fields such as education. The principle is to provide individuals with money and let them find providers on a lightly regulated market. Vouchers often deliver poor performance. The money distributed contributes to inflating the prices as the price elasticity of supply is negative—if only because nobody’s su…

Given the nature of fiat currencies, taxes are irrelevant except as a means to control inflation by removing excess circulating currency. Moreover, a certain quantity of currency in circulation leads to inflation only relative to a given capacity to produce goods and services. Given that our economic system sees only very limited inflation, and can quickly ramp up production further, your arguments seem mostly strawmen.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#118

Post by SubiculumCode »

stephengillie wrote: post #61
jnbiche wrote: post #46

This guy just seems upset that people are offering up a solution to tech-related job loss that isn't with traditional welfare solution proposed by the team he cheers for. He didn't spent a lot of time offering up specific arguments against basic income, but rather on background, and the primary arguments he has are to me some of the strongest arguments for BI: 1) He worries about division and polarization. Well, BI i…

> On the right is the infamous voucher system. It has been widely experimented, often with negative results, in fields such as education. The principle is to provide individuals with money and let them find providers on a lightly regulated market. Vouchers often deliver poor performance. The money distributed contributes to inflating the prices as the price elasticity of supply is negative—if only because nobody’s su…

Given the nature of fiat currencies, taxes are irrelevant except as a means to control inflation by removing excess circulating currency. Moreover, a certain quantity of currency in circulation leads to inflation only relative to a given capacity to produce goods and services. Given that our economic system sees only very limited inflation, and can quickly ramp up production further, your arguments seem mostly strawmen.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#119

Post by naasking »

stephengillie wrote: post #61
jnbiche wrote: post #46

This guy just seems upset that people are offering up a solution to tech-related job loss that isn't with traditional welfare solution proposed by the team he cheers for. He didn't spent a lot of time offering up specific arguments against basic income, but rather on background, and the primary arguments he has are to me some of the strongest arguments for BI: 1) He worries about division and polarization. Well, BI i…

> On the right is the infamous voucher system. It has been widely experimented, often with negative results, in fields such as education. The principle is to provide individuals with money and let them find providers on a lightly regulated market. Vouchers often deliver poor performance. The money distributed contributes to inflating the prices as the price elasticity of supply is negative—if only because nobody’s su…

> On one side, it's economically unsound

Dubious claim. Most serious proposals are largely revenue neutral and simply redistribute.

> and will require massive taxation to be sustainable.

Not anymore than already exists.

> Second, who's going to administer it? Governments, being made from people, are notorious for corruption and scandal, and poor service.

It requires no new infrastructure if given as a tax rebate. It also introduces no additional corruption than already exists via tax loopholes. Centralizing all debate and scrutiny over corruption in one location is a benefit of the proposal, not a problem.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#120

Post by k-mcgrady »

aminok wrote: post #48
k-mcgrady wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "it is authoritarian. It depends on throwing people who refuse to hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade in prison" If that's what you believe then any tax would meet the criteria and you would have to consider almost every government in the world authoritarian. Is that the case?

Not all taxes demand a share of the currency we receive in private trade. A split rate property tax for example does not require making such a demand. My preference is to replace all taxes with user fees for use of government services and assets (like roads), and a heavy split rate property tax, and compensate property owners for the loss of value in their real estate that this tax shift causes.

Interesting.

>> "replace all taxes with user fees for use of government services and assets (like roads)"

I'm guessing with this we would also have to drastically reduce the number of services the government is providing? For example there will be certain services that they few people use but cost a lot to provide so if we aren't all contributing they can't continue to offer them.

As for a split rate tax I hadn't heard of it before but after a quick glance it looks interesting.

However I don't understand how you can think tax on trade is authoritarian yet other tax forms aren't.

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