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My own private basic income

opendemocracy.net

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Re: My own private basic income

#71

Post by jedmeyers »

opportune wrote: post #16
maerF0x0 wrote: post #6

> I lucked into money. The basic point is that he gets paid more whilst not doing more "work". For those whom "Work" is the only lever they use to convert into money, they see inequitable work:cash ratios as "unfair" (a morality statement). Market economies do not function on work, but on value. He did the same work in a high value scenario. A glass of water provided in the middle of a developed city is worthless and…

I couldn't disagree more. As a society (and this goes from a community to a global scale) we should make it a priority to give everyone the resources to meet their maximum potential. I don't mean that we should give everyone a million dollars to invest of their own. What I mean is that we should ensure that everyone gets provided with a good education and food/water/shelter, etc. The author specifically mentions the…

> As a society (and this goes from a community to a global scale) we should make it a priority to give everyone the resources to meet their maximum potential.

Provided that I am willing to concede this point for the sake of the argument: what makes you think that your redistribution model will actually allow everyone to achieve their maximum potential?[1] Given that similar redistribution systems have been tried before, where governing bodies were thinking they actually know what's good for "everyone/society", but all of them miserably failed, what differentiates your proposed approach from what have been already implemented?

[1] I don't even know what "achieving maximum potential" means. Is it achieving someone's goals in life? Producing the most widgets possible? Killing as many unbelievers as possible to get into heaven?

Re: My own private basic income

#73

Post by tunesmith »

What I got out of this was the suggestion to fund Basic Income by taxing unearned income. I'd like to read more on how the numbers would actually work out. If that were the only funding source of BI, then how much impact would that be on the rich, and how much benefit would that be for the people that could use BI?

Re: My own private basic income

#74

Post by bigtunacan »

Can someone clarify this piece for me? I don't understand how the author is able to completely avoid taxation on the rents.

>My wife and I don’t need the money we make from owning most of the business. We live off the salaries of our jobs, and reinvest virtually our entire share of the business. These reinvestments count as “losses,” and so officially we have never made any income or paid income taxes on our share of the business.

Re: My own private basic income

#75

Post by opportune »

jedmeyers wrote: post #71
opportune wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't disagree more. As a society (and this goes from a community to a global scale) we should make it a priority to give everyone the resources to meet their maximum potential. I don't mean that we should give everyone a million dollars to invest of their own. What I mean is that we should ensure that everyone gets provided with a good education and food/water/shelter, etc. The author specifically mentions the…

> As a society (and this goes from a community to a global scale) we should make it a priority to give everyone the resources to meet their maximum potential. Provided that I am willing to concede this point for the sake of the argument: what makes you think that your redistribution model will actually allow everyone to achieve their maximum potential?[1] Given that similar redistribution systems have been tried befo…

They all miserably failed? The US does this to an extent right now: we have a decent (of course it's not the best) public education system, and we have programs like SNAP/TANF/Section 8 so that children don't grow up underfed on the street. There's no reason it could not also be done globally; the global GDP/capita is about $15k.

Of course, simply providing these services doesn't always cut it. Look at the generational poverty in the US "ghettoes" for obvious confirmation of this. But in general it's a good thing to do and it benefits people. It's certainly not impossible and definitely does not always miserably fail.

For maximum potential, I mostly mean the ability to do what you want in terms of jobs with only intelligence and work holding you back, not the circumstances you were born in.

Re: My own private basic income

#76

Post by defined »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #63
dragonwriter wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How have slaves ever historically created leverage?

Slaves have frequently been among the most high-status, most powerful people in their society. The slave who manages an important man's affairs is himself an important man. Concubines frequently wield power through their well-placed lovers. At the historical extreme, Wu Zetian was a concubine who worked her way up to being formally crowned emperor. The Mamluk Turks were slaves. This didn't stop them from taking contr…

These are, IMO, exceptions. Most slaves probably got worked half to death, beaten, and generally abused. Certainly history tells us that many slaves simply died en route from where they were captured. I can't prove this, but it's much more likely than the fate of high-status slaves.

Re: My own private basic income

#77

Post by nql »

patrickdavey wrote: post #49
ManFromUranus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effort is irrelevant though, if they spend their effort on something that could never succeed or is useless or irrelevant to the market then their effort should obviously fail and it is not unfair. So it matters a lot what they choose to apply effort to. Generally life is an IQ test and rewards those who make optimal choices WRT events in their life.

> Generally life is an IQ test and rewards those who make optimal choices WRT events in their life. Do you think that if you'd been born in a slum you would have a decent chance of winning in the IQ test & optimal choice events in your life? I would imagine that almost anyone reading these comments has been unbelievably fortunate to be born into relatively wealthy circumstances & had things like "books" around to hel…

Being born in a slum more than likely means that your parents failed the IQ test, which is a strong signal about your IQ.

Re: My own private basic income

#78

Post by uiri »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #13
gitpusher wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I dont see it as unfair that a person making $1 a day is unlikely to become a deca-billionaire in their lifetime (total mobility); Do you see it as unfair that there are people stuck making $1 a day?

When you get to the bottom of this kind of thinking, there's always some form of a just world fallacy. Despite the fact that the wealthy engineer circumstances to keep the poor in their diminished condition for their own profit, it's never "unfair" because of this foundational error. See also programmers thinking they're "highly paid" despite years of collusion by tech giants to reduce their salaries and capital owne…

The term "rent" in the phrase "rent-seeking" has nothing to do with the meaning of the term "rent" as payment pursuant to a lease.

Rather, the phrase rent-seeking refers to seeking money without actually providing any economic value. It would be more accurate to view such payments as taxes (often levied by a private entity). Adam Smith categorizes income into profit, wages, and rent. Rent-seeking refers to the last one of these.

In a traditional residential lease, the landlord is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the property along with property taxes and, sometimes, some of the utility payments. Residential rent is based upon the value of the property as a residence, along with maintenance, taxes, etc that the landlord is responsible for. The income the landlord receive, according to Adam Smith's classification, is profit rather than rent.

Capital owners typically receive profit by controlling profitable assets such as stocks, bonds, and real estate.

Re: My own private basic income

#79

Post by opportune »

dota_fanatic wrote: post #54
maerF0x0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for the record I'm speaking of a "Real" multiplier (taking in account inflation / standard of living) . IMO if every generation is 2x-ing their parent's lifestyle, its nearly instantaneous wealth in the scale of humanity. In the developed world today's poor live like kings of old. In 1000 yrs I would imagine that their poor will live better than our wealthy "Playboys" of today. I see nothing wrong with people being i…

Poor people in the developed world do NOT live like kings of old. They have bosses. They struggle to find mates. They live in small, impermanent homes with no land of their own. They tend to be in debt, and don't even understand how permanent that debt will be for them. They're socially at the bottom. This is nothing like a king, who could have a large family, and was well fed, had permanent shelter, didn't pay rent,…

But Obama bought them IPHONES

Re: My own private basic income

#80

Post by jedmeyers »

opportune wrote: post #75
jedmeyers wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a society (and this goes from a community to a global scale) we should make it a priority to give everyone the resources to meet their maximum potential. Provided that I am willing to concede this point for the sake of the argument: what makes you think that your redistribution model will actually allow everyone to achieve their maximum potential?[1] Given that similar redistribution systems have been tried befo…

They all miserably failed? The US does this to an extent right now: we have a decent (of course it's not the best) public education system, and we have programs like SNAP/TANF/Section 8 so that children don't grow up underfed on the street. There's no reason it could not also be done globally; the global GDP/capita is about $15k. Of course, simply providing these services doesn't always cut it. Look at the generation…

> we have a decent (of course it's not the best) public education system

What's your take on the current student loans situation where almost everyone is able to obtain resources to go to a limited number of colleges and pay for whichever degree they like? Should we expand this and instead of loaning money give it away for free, if this goes towards achieving maximum potential? In your opinion, how much would a regular 4 year degree cost in such a case?

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