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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

#311

Post by ElComradio »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #275
ElComradio wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long term this may indeed happen but in the short term, it seems unlikely. Like with school vouchers, if I ran a private for-profit school and knew my students suddenly had an extra $X,000 to spend on tuition, my short term move would understandably be to raise tuition at least some percentage of that amount. If the market responds in a couple of years by forcing me to dial it back, so be it, but in the meantime I've…

In this context "long term" is the time it takes for the market to respond by building more schools or housing or whatever, which generally takes a low single digit number of years (like one). To which the response then becomes, so what? And that's assuming your argument is true, which in general it isn't. If you raise prices then some of your customers will go elsewhere. That's why sellers don't raise prices already…

It feels ambitious to suppose an equilibrium state for schooling to be met within a year. I'd buy two or three.

Is it the case that existing private schools have much excess capacity? Frequently the argument for private schools is smaller class sizes; a rapid influx of new students without new, excellent teachers defeats the purpose. Presumably new classrooms would need to be constructed and so on.

If you receive a $5,000 voucher and your private school jacks up tuition by let's say $1,000, it is unlikely many parents are going to disrupt their routines and children's routines to reclaim that amount, especially since they are feeling relief from a net $4K tuition break. Tuition has effectively decreased, so why rock the boat?

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#312

Post by JeremyNT »

dzink wrote: post #192

During Brexit, people in job-starved areas of UK were reported as resentful for receiving handouts. They wanted gainful employment and their dignity back. You could have corporations foot the bill for basic income and people with certain values would still not want it. The image of being a breadwinner is so deeply instilled in some people that for them not being that, triggers mid-life-crisis: a depression, sense of…

UBI combined with single payer health care and a removal of the minimum wage addresses this problem. It's called "basic" for a reason; the idea is that people will continue to supplement it with work that they find enriching and rewarding.

Whole new sorts of currently "worthless" work become possible when not shackled by a minimum wage.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#313

Post by drewrv »

pdelgallego wrote: post #282
drewrv wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automation has already replaced some service jobs, for example at grocery store self checkouts. Expect more to come (taxi/uber driver for example).

self checkouts is not automation, is shadow work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_work

From your wikipedia article:

> (Craig Lambert) includes the rise of technology and robotics as forces leading to the growth of shadow work

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#314

Post by AnthonyMouse »

prodmerc wrote: post #297
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have the theory that if you give money to everybody, prices would go up because sellers will figure they can increase the price of everything without it negatively affecting sales, since every buyer simply has more money to spare, no excuses. That's how monopoly markets work. But if you're a grocery store and you realize everybody now has $4 more in their pockets, you can't start charging $5 for an apple when the…

You'll definitely start charging $2, otherwise you would not have stayed in business for long. If you keep the same price, but everyone is charging 4x as much, you are losing, because everyone else needs 4x less customers to make the same profit as you, not to mention the work involved. You'll run out of supply soon enough, too.

> You'll definitely start charging $2, otherwise you would not have stayed in business for long.

If I'm buying apples wholesale for $.50 and selling them retail for $1, how many apples does it take for me to go out of business?

> You'll run out of supply soon enough, too.

Are people now eating more apples than farmers can grow?

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#315

Post by stale2002 »

tomp wrote: post #50
jganetsk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you read neither my post nor the article itself. The article was proposing redistribution of income, so it's definitely NOT equivalent to the government printing money. And in my post, I listed several cases of stuff people will buy less of and other stuff people will not buy more of in a basic income society.

I'm not sure if you're purposefully ignoring the main issues with UBI, but in case you're not: the most important stuff (things like food, rent, clothing, energy, medicine, basic services) will have more demand (from all the people who can't afford these right now), and less supply (because a lot of these are done with low-paid labour - definitely clothing, food and basic services, along with things like garbage coll…

Supply for food would increase. Because resources are being taken away from rich people and given to poor people.

Less Yachts, more food factories.

Increased demand CAUSES increased supply.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#316

Post by stale2002 »

DougN7 wrote: post #58
jganetsk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you read neither my post nor the article itself. The article was proposing redistribution of income, so it's definitely NOT equivalent to the government printing money. And in my post, I listed several cases of stuff people will buy less of and other stuff people will not buy more of in a basic income society.

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…

It is NOT a fixed amount of goods.

All this money going into food, means that businesses would enter the market.

That is called supply and demand.

Increased demand CAUSES increased supply. Read an econ 101 textbook.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#317

Post by notahacker »

gdix wrote: post #270

The first graphic is geniusly deceptive: "See, we take a little bit from everyone, shuffle it around a bit and return it back to everyone. Hooray!" When it reality, the actual result is the red section loses dots which just go blue green and yellow groups.

I particularly like the way they don't put an earnings scale on the second graph to show that it implies everyone earning more than about $40k per year has less money than before.

Now try telling someone on $50k in the Bay Area that their net tax increase is mostly going to go to people not receiving any welfare at the moment, most probably because they don't actually need the money enough to even think of registering as looking for work...

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#318

Post by stale2002 »

DougN7 wrote: post #244
jganetsk wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another simple example. Let's assume that basic income will cause net income to go up for the poor (otherwise, what's the point?) But let's also assume that prices on certain goods will go up (a totally reasonable assumption). Then let's measure wealth in terms of "Big Macs". As in, how many Big Macs can you buy in one year? If basic income causes this number to go up for you... then you've benefitted from bas…

With that thinking, the government should just turn on the printing presses and hand money out. People who had zero now have non-zero. Surely Big Macs can't go to $12,000, right?

No, you don't turn on the printing presses. You take the money away from someone else.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#319

Post by barnacs »

chriskanan wrote: post #207
dzink wrote: post #192

During Brexit, people in job-starved areas of UK were reported as resentful for receiving handouts. They wanted gainful employment and their dignity back. You could have corporations foot the bill for basic income and people with certain values would still not want it. The image of being a breadwinner is so deeply instilled in some people that for them not being that, triggers mid-life-crisis: a depression, sense of…

I think that's one of the biggest open questions with UBI. What percent of people would use UBI to do productive or self-improving works vs those that solely play video games, watch TV, and feel like life is meaningless? I think psychologically, people need something to do with themselves. However, a counter argument is that many of the people that UBI may benefit the most might have jobs that they loathe. I'd love t…

I believe basic human nature includes curiosity. Living in a society means one will naturally seek the appreciation, acceptance and respect of their peers. I think these alone will eventually lead most people to contribute something useful to our world one way or another.

Mentally and/or physically exhausted after a long day of performing a meaningless job, or unable to get one and living off welfare, despised by the rest of society, no wonder one tries to escape reality by playing video games or watching tv excessively. Actually, escaping into 'work' is no more healthy.

But when everyone enjoys the security of having their basic physiological needs satisfied by default and not knowing what the hell you're supposed to do is a feeling widely shared and accepted by society, the situation is completely different. It's an enormous community building force. Additionally, we could build or designate community places and workshops where people get together to converse, build, play, create, cooperate to further help everyone find a direction, or find themselves.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#320

Post by stale2002 »

jganetsk wrote: post #258
sokoloff wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Demand for luxury goods won't change at all: yachts, private jets. Are you sure about that? Who will be bearing the tax burden to pay for UBI? Are not those the people who are currently buying yachts and private jets? Business jet usage may decline as well as a substantial part of that usage is to generate income and growth for their businesses. With higher taxes, there is less incentive to risk money to grow your…

It is unlikely that the kind of income tax increase suggested in the article will have a material impact on the extremely wealthy. But that's beside the point. I was trying to answer the claim that "demand for goods will only go up" with examples of goods where demand stays the same or goes down. So whether demand for luxury goods stays the same or goes down, you are only reinforcing my point.

Ug, you don't get it.

The resources that are being spent on luxury goods will be converted to resources spent on food.

That's called economics 101. Supply and demand. If you take money away from rich people, they will have less money to spend on rich people things, and the world will produce less of those things.

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