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The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic Income

businessinsider.in

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Re: The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic Income

#61

Post by refulgentis »

shripadk wrote: post #48
rm2889 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your metric for success seems to be "not enough people died relative to previous such moves, hence its a success", which is rather morbid. Also your point about "major move that directly affected the entire country but did not end in large scale riots" is vague in its definition of "major move". During the partition, people were forced to leave their homes, belongings, ALL material wealth in the name of religion/poli…

> Your metric for success seems to be "not enough people died relative to previous such moves, hence its a success", which is rather morbid. Why is it "morbid"? Did you call out the OP for associating the death of a 100 people due to an economic move like demonetization morbid? If not, then why am I being singled out? Just because my opinion doesn't fit your narrative? > Also your point about "major move that directl…

You're incredibly rude, short sighted, and all your huffing and puffing amounts to is a poor utilitarian defense of a horribly executed demonetization.

Sorry to be brash, but I'm appalled at your behavior and I'm about to walk into work so there's no time to dance around the facts.

Re: The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic Income

#62

Post by RealGeek »

shripadk wrote: post #57
RealGeek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a possibility of large-scale riots, but ended with only 100 deaths. I don't see how it cannot be termed a success. What is the upside we got with demonetization that we can call success? Did it end black money? No. Will it end counterfeit currency? No. Does it help citizens in any way? No. Then what exactly is the success we achieved here? Modi have blood of 100 citizens on his hands this time instead of thousands…

> Did it end black money? No. > Will it end counterfeit currency? No. > Does it help citizens in any way? No. 70% of those polled (average of all polls conducted by media and independent media houses) disagree with you. I, as a Free Citizen of India, disagree with you. You fail to mention about all those getting caught with counterfeit currency and black money and still continue to be caught. Are those the figments o…

> 70% of those polled (average of all polls conducted by media and independent media houses) disagree with you.

We measure success or failure of such economic policies with statistics, not by political opinion polling.

> You fail to mention about all those getting caught with counterfeit currency and black money and still continue to be caught.

They have been conducting raids to catch black money hoarders and counterfeit currency forever. They have escalated it recently, but it could have been done without demonetization as well.

> I'm sorry that you are incapable of understanding a perspective beyond the deaths of 100 people.

What benefit did we get out this whole scheme?

My family have personally suffered significant monetary loss on our 100% tax paid cash, and suffered significant loss in business because of this chaos.

Millions of citizens have hard time feeding their family because of this jumla.

Re: The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic Income

#63

Post by RealGeek »

lenkite wrote: post #55
RealGeek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a possibility of large-scale riots, but ended with only 100 deaths. I don't see how it cannot be termed a success. What is the upside we got with demonetization that we can call success? Did it end black money? No. Will it end counterfeit currency? No. Does it help citizens in any way? No. Then what exactly is the success we achieved here? Modi have blood of 100 citizens on his hands this time instead of thousands…

It has reduced black money significantly . Especially for terrorist and militant groups - both Pakistan sponsored and home grown Naxalites. They are now being forced to raid banks for new cash. The new notes are also much more difficult to counterfeit. That's two points crossed in your list.

They have been able to convert their cash to new Rs. 2,000 notes through the underhand deals with corrupt Government and Banking officials.

Re: The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic Income

#65

Post by _jgdh »

shripadk wrote: post #41
peteretep wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how it cannot > be termed a success Has it actually cut corruption? If not, the last few days of pounding payment in Jodhpur trying to find working ATMs, and being stuck for 30m in queues when they finally got their money delivered all seems in vain. That, and, you know, the 100 deaths.

> Has it actually cut corruption? Yes it has. It depends again on your perspective. Looks like you have only read news of 100 deaths but failed to read news of the many political babus, black money hoarders and tax evaders getting caught with huge amounts of cash (with both old and new notes).

> Yes it has

It would be helpful if you cited your sources for this. From what I've seen and read, most people found a way to launder their black money through brokers. [2] That's not just speculation, most of the 17 trn rupees of cash has found its way back into legal channels. [1]

You were also very cavalier about the downsides of this move. Yes, those 100 deaths are a loss, but far more people were affected. Many did not have any money for a month or more because their employers did not have cash to pay them. There were 8 million affected workers in the beedi industry alone, more in other sectors. These are daily wage labourers, remember. [2]

Many farmers were forced to sell their crops for pittances to make ends meet. One example is cauliflower being sold for ₹ 1/kg. Its usually sold at ₹ 12. The prices of soyabeans was down by 77% [2]

Judging by your comments on this thread, you neither know nor care about this. You speak as if the only downside to this entire affair was 100 people dying, all the while citing 0 sources.

[1] https://espresso.economist.com/4cf0ed8641cfcbbf46784e620a031...

[2] http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21711094-without-cash-ind...

Re: The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic Income

#66

Post by rm2889 »

shripadk wrote: post #48
rm2889 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your metric for success seems to be "not enough people died relative to previous such moves, hence its a success", which is rather morbid. Also your point about "major move that directly affected the entire country but did not end in large scale riots" is vague in its definition of "major move". During the partition, people were forced to leave their homes, belongings, ALL material wealth in the name of religion/poli…

> Your metric for success seems to be "not enough people died relative to previous such moves, hence its a success", which is rather morbid. Why is it "morbid"? Did you call out the OP for associating the death of a 100 people due to an economic move like demonetization morbid? If not, then why am I being singled out? Just because my opinion doesn't fit your narrative? > Also your point about "major move that directl…

> "Why is it "morbid"? Did you call out the OP for associating the death of a 100 people due to an economic move like demonetization morbid?"

I call it morbid because "not enough people died hence its a success" is a bad argument. What is your cutoff for the number of people to have died for it to have become a failure? How do you arrive at that cutoff?

> "The displacement of people during the Partition was of a small percentage of the entire populace. Yet it was not managed properly at all"

Yes a relatively smaller percentage than demonetization (but not small by any means). Furthermore, less people were affected by partition but the impact to those affected was much higher. In demonetization, more people were affected but the average impact to those affected was much lower. They might even be the same area under the curve in terms of suffering. But how do we quantify that? Simply saying that "less people were affected yet more people died during partition in contrast to demonetization where more people are affected but less people died" is an incomplete argument. More people are affected by the poor air quality of New Delhi but less people die because of it than the partition, does that mean that the air quality measures that the government has taken (banning unleaded fuel etc.) is a success?

> "And most of those converting their cash were caught and the rest are still being caught. Did you fail to read the news?"

Survivorship bias. You only hear of the ones that got caught. There are so many that got away scot-free.

Also, do you always believe or agree with what the Supreme court says or recommends? How do you feel about the mandatory standing for the national anthem before any movie? Should that be something that the state should enforce? Hitler made it mandatory for civilians to perform the Nazi salute towards him.

Re: The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic Income

#67

Post by shripadk »

refulgentis wrote: post #61
shripadk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your metric for success seems to be "not enough people died relative to previous such moves, hence its a success", which is rather morbid. Why is it "morbid"? Did you call out the OP for associating the death of a 100 people due to an economic move like demonetization morbid? If not, then why am I being singled out? Just because my opinion doesn't fit your narrative? > Also your point about "major move that directl…

You're incredibly rude, short sighted, and all your huffing and puffing amounts to is a poor utilitarian defense of a horribly executed demonetization. Sorry to be brash, but I'm appalled at your behavior and I'm about to walk into work so there's no time to dance around the facts.

Ok so now my "behavior" is under question with my statements being called "morbid", "rude", "short sighted", "huffing and puffing". Is it because I have a contrary opinion to yours? I fail to understand how my comments are "rude" when it's very apparent that you are the one being rude here (and you admit it yourself: "Sorry to be brash").

> "I'm about to walk into work so there's no time to dance around the facts"

I wasn't expecting a factual rebuttal after you called me "rude, short sighted" and "huffing and puffing" anyways.

Re: The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic Income

#68

Post by geodel »

kranner wrote: post #44
shripadk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I'll take the liberty to correct your understanding of my comment: I spoke about: a move that directly affected livelihood of billion Indians, "with a possibility of large-scale riots". Since those large-scale riots did not happen it can be termed a success. Why am I talking about "large-scale riots"? Because the Opposition (even the Supreme Court of India) predicted large-scale riots: http://www.merinews.com/mo…

> Since those large-scale riots did not happen it can be termed a success. You can't be serious.

Perhaps you are not in or have not been to India. Even minor situation can lead to deadly violence there. Associating those 100 deaths to demonetization is absolutely pushing a political agenda by media.

Check how death of popular politicians can lead to 100s of ppl committing suicides in India. Or check how 1000s die every year in train accidents in just one city of Mumbai.

The sad part is even most Indians I meet in US are mostly clueless about conditions of masses. They remain preoccupied with food/bollywood/cricket etc.

Re: The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic Income

#69

Post by ythn »

IslaDeEncanta wrote: post #51
gyey wrote: post #49

I don't see how they would afford this. Rough approximations show that even giving $20 a month to India's 900 million adult population would mean an annual expenditure of 216 billion dollars, more than 4 times the country's annual defence budget. Where does all this money come from? Increased taxes from the middle class (so that they pay $40 to get $20)?

There's a class of wealthy people they can tap into.

You gotta be careful of the Laffer Curve[0] though. Tap into the rich too much and they'll leave. Make it illegal to leave... well, your country is going downhill fast.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

Re: The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic Income

#70

Post by jerf »

IslaDeEncanta wrote: post #51
gyey wrote: post #49

I don't see how they would afford this. Rough approximations show that even giving $20 a month to India's 900 million adult population would mean an annual expenditure of 216 billion dollars, more than 4 times the country's annual defence budget. Where does all this money come from? Increased taxes from the middle class (so that they pay $40 to get $20)?

There's a class of wealthy people they can tap into.

Numbers?

Plus at societal scale "wealth" doesn't necessarily work the way it does at the personal level. I can go to the gas pump and buy as much gas as I could personally want at the price posted on the sign. You'll find that if you stepped out and tried to buy ten billion gallons of gas at that price that the situation will change in numerous ways. Confiscating the "wealth" of the rich and trying to use it to buy things that nobody is even making right now is not something you can casually assume will work; the economy itself will need time to adjust before it could even supply the desired goods at such a different scale.

The point here being not that it's impossible, or even undesirable, but merely that naively taking stock of what "the wealthy" have by current measures and assuming you can confiscate arbitrary amounts of it and use it to buy arbitrary amounts of consumer goods without having to account for any of the prices of the goods involved in that operation changing in the process isn't effective.

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