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Why we should all have a basic income

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Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#81

Post by witty_username »

trfgbv wrote: post #75
witty_username wrote: post #42

UBI is inefficient--taxing someone and then giving them money. NIT (negative income tax) makes more sense and can actually have the same effect as UBI depending on the slabs.

http://overweeninggeneralist.blogspot.com/2011/08/universal-...

Those are good points, but there are ways to fix that.

There's no reason why NIT needs to involve large amounts of paperwork. NIT only involves income, so a person simply needs to give their income (unlike taxes, which are much more complicated).

The NIT would presumably have a minimum amount given even if you earn 0$. That amount can be given to everybody can't do the paperwork. Then, the amount remaining above that can be distributed as a NIT.

Basically, give UBI to people who can't do the paperwork to cover them. The rest can use NIT.

The time lag is not a necessary property of the tax system. The NIT can be done on a monthly basis.

Anyways, this is just an implementation issue. Either way they both redistribute money.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#82

Post by eviltandem »

DougN7 wrote: post #25
jganetsk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claims are misleading, wrong, and unsupported. > Demand for goods increases. Citation needed. Demand for some goods will possibly decrease: like payday loans or bankruptcy law. Demand for luxury goods won't change at all: yachts, private jets. But even the demand for Big Macs probably won't change all that much. Apply the same exercise to a bunch of other sundry cases: buying a house, life-saving medication, buying a…

More people buying stuff increases demand - econ 101. If more people aren't buying stuff, why bother giving them the money? Of course prices will rise. The only way this isn't equivalent to the government printing money is the money comes out some rich people/company's savings accounts where it wasn't being spent anyway.

Sure - if you assume these goods have a fixed quantity. For example, I'm willing to bet McDonald's is capable of making many, many, many more big macs than they currently do.

They've simply pegged their supply chain to the amount of demand they currently see while minimizing costs and trying to optimize profit.

Almost all industries get significant savings the larger they scale. There's very real reason to think many industries would get cheaper if they were suddenly trying to produce a multiple of the same product.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#84

Post by dang »

We changed the URL from https://medium.com/world-economic-forum/why-we-should-all-ha..., which points to this.

Although basic income is obviously a well-worn topic, this article seems a bit more substantive than average. So we'll try downweighting this thread less than we usually do for well-worn topics.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#85

Post by lotharbot »

prodmerc wrote: post #35
jbmorgado wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you just advocated there, is that "basic needs" must be denied to part of population in order to make them cheaper to the other part. That's both economical and morally wrong.

People with jobs have income for the basic needs. Those without jobs get state assistance for the basic needs. No need to give everyone a basic income.

One major point of a basic income is to simplify and streamline the "state assistance" part, to eliminate the "cliff" between that and a job.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#86

Post by [deleted] »

programmarchy wrote: post #23

UBI is attempting to cloak itself in free market rhetoric, but it's bullshit. Yes it may "incentivize" some individuals to work, but only by disincentivizing others. It takes money from top wealth producers, discouraging their labor, and gives it to people who aren't producing as much wealth, effectively subsidizing unproductive work. This will make everyone poorer in the long run. The struggling artist meme is an ap…

[deleted]

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#87

Post by vostok »

prodmerc wrote: post #15

If everyone gets $1000 every month guaranteed for "basic needs", the prices for those basic needs will increase accordingly. And independently. So you'll end up spending that $1k on either housing, bills or food. So you will still need a job if you want all three of those things, not sit around and contemplate what you should do with your life. It's sort of like how the ACA raised the overall price of insurance. Givi…

> If everyone gets $1000 every month guaranteed for "basic needs", the prices for those basic needs will increase accordingly.

Couldn't you just inflation adjust the $1000 as the prices for those needs increase?

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#88

Post by lotharbot »

programmarchy wrote: post #23

UBI is attempting to cloak itself in free market rhetoric, but it's bullshit. Yes it may "incentivize" some individuals to work, but only by disincentivizing others. It takes money from top wealth producers, discouraging their labor, and gives it to people who aren't producing as much wealth, effectively subsidizing unproductive work. This will make everyone poorer in the long run. The struggling artist meme is an ap…

> "attempting to cloak itself in free market rhetoric"

... Friedman and Hayek both advocated for a UBI.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-aren...

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#89

Post by DougN7 »

jganetsk wrote: post #68
DougN7 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the price of yachts won't increase, but who cares? Do a simple thought experiment. Imagine there are 1 million poor. They, and everyone else, receive $12K per year. The poor (and those just above them on the economic ladder) will spend all of that on basic needs: food, housing, clothing, transportation. That's $12 Billion more now competing for a fixed amount of goods. What would any company/retailer/landlord do…

Very little of what you said is reality. > They, and everyone else, receive $12k per year. You didn't read the article. The only people who receive net $12k per year are those who have zero income. Everyone else receives net > The poor (and those just above them on the economic ladder) will spend all of that on basic needs: food, housing, clothing, transportation. Incorrect. Who are you to dictate to people how to sp…

I'm starting to think you're trolling. You're zeroing in on phrases and ignoring the principles they explain.

And what is a 'healthy way' for prices to change for basic needs? They aren't going to drop. Any other change hurts the poor.

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