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If You Think Basic Income Is “Free Money” or Socialism, Think Again

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Re: If You Think Basic Income Is “Free Money” or Socialism, Think Again

#101

Post by Mz »

untangle wrote: post #100
Mz wrote: post #84

I can't manage to get past about paragraph two. What an idiotic piece of writing with zero basis in reality. Money is not a means to "vote" on what we should produce. Money is a means to reduce friction in the trade process. It does other things as well, but its primary purpose is to make it easier to get the things we want by reducing how much time and effort goes into coming up with a thing to trade for the thing w…

The article that you linked was well-thought and well-written. I liked the more bottom-up approach to the issues and that Mr Sarris at least offered kernels of alternatives. Ignoring for a moment that the decision-making ability of the US legislature is all but broken, I worry that the sheer complexity of the issues surrounding UBI would make adoption – or even learned consideration – impossible. And, as you and Sarr…

His article is a delight to read, if only for how he wittily plays with words.

Re: If You Think Basic Income Is “Free Money” or Socialism, Think Again

#102

Post by akvadrako »

Simon_says wrote: post #59
akvadrako wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socialism might be central planning. Basic income is almost the opposite of central planning, because it replaces all sorts of conditional and focused welfare with what is equivalent to a negative income tax. That's why so many libertarians are on board with the idea.

That doesn’t sound right to me. Speaking as someone with mild Libertarian tendencies, UBI seems pretty contra to Libertarian ideals. Not the UBI itself, but the taxation required to fund it. Can you give references to any well-known Libertarian thinkers who are on board with UBI?

Charles Murray is a famous libertarian political scientist who likes the idea:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-guaranteed-income-for-every-a...

And Gary Johnson, the libertarian nominee, was the only candidate in the 2016 US presidential election to comment positively on the scheme. I can't find the source of the claim, but it does seem to be an accepted stance:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Gary+Johnson+%22Basic+Income%22&ia...

Re: If You Think Basic Income Is “Free Money” or Socialism, Think Again

#103

Post by pedrocr »

Simon_says wrote: post #92
pedrocr wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>doesn't really make much sense. Of course investments are pre-sales tax. The sales tax applies after the investments are liquidated to cash and the cash is used to purchase stuff. Say you have 100$ and you're rich. You invest that in the markets, compound for 40 years and end up with 4500$. You then get to pay sales tax on that after you've gotten your capital out multiple times over. If you're poor though you spend…

If a poor person earns $100 and spends it, they're paying ~$9 in sales tax in my hypothetical world of 10% sales tax. The rich guy who earns $100 and invests it, spends $4500 and ~$409 (about 9%) of it goes to sales taxes. Sure, he gets 45x the value of purchased goods, but he also pays 45x in taxes. Did you lose track of the topic of conversation? It looks like you're just detailing the ways that it's better to be r…

You're ignoring my actual points to just restate your conclusion. Money you use to buy properties doesn't pay sales tax, money you use to pass on to your heirs doesn't pay sales tax, money you get to save because you have surplus only pays sales tax after you've gotten your initial capital out multiple times so the sales tax on the initial income is 0.

But lets classify that investment gain as income as well and ignore that bit. Do you actually have any doubt that poor people spend a higher percentage of their yearly income on things where sales tax applies? That they buy less properties, invest less and then pass on less of a percentage of their lifetime earnings to their children?

Re: If You Think Basic Income Is “Free Money” or Socialism, Think Again

#104

Post by Firadeoclus »

Simon_says wrote: post #61
pedrocr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>rich and poor are all going to spend the money they have in their life (ignore or tax the estates). This is a spherical cow in a vaccum style argument. If you ignore estates and also ignore property and other investments that don't pay sales tax then yes, everyone pays the same sales tax. But the rich will disproportionally own investments and properties that will then be passed on to their heirs. Over any period an…

Sure, rich people will invest, and then get (hopefully more) money back and then spend it, subjecting it to same sales tax. And the tax on estates is higher than sales tax (over $5MM), so that’s hardly a dodge. I still really don’t understand the argument, and I still sort of suspect that it’s fallacious, though I’d enjoy being proven wrong. It seems to me that given a sales tax, a flat and identical percentage of ev…

> It seems to me that given a sales tax, a flat and identical percentage of every individual’s spending will go to the sales tax. If a person is “rich” but it doesn’t translate into spending or their estate, then what does that mean?

Investing isn't just neutral storing of value. Owning capital confers a benefit to its owner while they own it. The line between investment and spending is arguably quite blurry, so if you tax just "consumer spending" you hit those who live paycheck to paycheck much harder relative to the benefit they derive from their money.

Re: If You Think Basic Income Is “Free Money” or Socialism, Think Again

#105

Post by uoaei »

Retric wrote: post #66
candiodari wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In risk adjusted terms bailouts lose money by having easier terms than private investments. That's similar to saying I lost money because a bank offered you your mortgage for 4% when I could have lent you that money at 10%.

You are not the market. If the government pays above market rates for gold then they are clearly losing money. Why do you think there is a difference if they offer a loan at say 1%?

Transactions do not occur in vacuo. Your question must take into account who is buying, who is selling, and what the alternatives are for both parties.

If the government is offering a loan at 1% it's probably because it's a better option than offering a loan at 3% and losing the partner who would otherwise be a net positive for the country.

Re: If You Think Basic Income Is “Free Money” or Socialism, Think Again

#106

Post by Retric »

uoaei wrote: post #105
Retric wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not the market. If the government pays above market rates for gold then they are clearly losing money. Why do you think there is a difference if they offer a loan at say 1%?

Transactions do not occur in vacuo . Your question must take into account who is buying, who is selling, and what the alternatives are for both parties. If the government is offering a loan at 1% it's probably because it's a better option than offering a loan at 3% and losing the partner who would otherwise be a net positive for the country.

I doubt buricrats are capable of regularly making that choice correctly. Remember communism failed in large part because central planning is hard.

Further, if a company's option is to fail or give up 90% of it's stock it's going to give up 90% of it's stock. The idea the government needs to give great terms to a failed company is simply corruption talking.

Re: If You Think Basic Income Is “Free Money” or Socialism, Think Again

#107

Post by uoaei »

Retric wrote: post #106
uoaei wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transactions do not occur in vacuo . Your question must take into account who is buying, who is selling, and what the alternatives are for both parties. If the government is offering a loan at 1% it's probably because it's a better option than offering a loan at 3% and losing the partner who would otherwise be a net positive for the country.

I doubt buricrats are capable of regularly making that choice correctly. Remember communism failed in large part because central planning is hard. Further, if a company's option is to fail or give up 90% of it's stock it's going to give up 90% of it's stock. The idea the government needs to give great terms to a failed company is simply corruption talking.

Not sure why communism was brought into this, but your repetition of that common trope is misinformed. A planned economy theoretically works just fine as long as external adversaries aren't manipulating the global market to your detriment, deliberately excluding you from global bank dealings, and aren't putting a bunch of pressure on you to develop a massive military budget overhead. Without these influences, the inherent cost in running a communist economy is lower than a capitalist one. Why do you think communism was villified so much pre-Stalin? (During and post-Stalin the USSR got a lot of flak, and rightly so, for breaking up citizen collectives and killing millions of its citizens.)

Also not sure where the "failed business" idea came in here. It seems like you're just swinging your sword at the closest straw men.

Re: If You Think Basic Income Is “Free Money” or Socialism, Think Again

#108

Post by mmjaa »

flotillo wrote: post #77
mmjaa wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is incorrect, and you are clearly inexperienced on the subject of being poor, or rich. Perhaps somewhere in between? I started off poor. I worked very hard. I'm much richer now as a result of it. Nobody will ever take that away from me.

Your experience is not universal, and you are lucky that your work resulted in you becoming considerably richer.

>the vast majority of people

The vast majority of the rich people I know started out poor. I believe this is the case for the majority of the wealthy in the western world too.

Re: If You Think Basic Income Is “Free Money” or Socialism, Think Again

#109

Post by Retric »

uoaei wrote: post #107
Retric wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt buricrats are capable of regularly making that choice correctly. Remember communism failed in large part because central planning is hard. Further, if a company's option is to fail or give up 90% of it's stock it's going to give up 90% of it's stock. The idea the government needs to give great terms to a failed company is simply corruption talking.

Not sure why communism was brought into this, but your repetition of that common trope is misinformed. A planned economy theoretically works just fine as long as external adversaries aren't manipulating the global market to your detriment, deliberately excluding you from global bank dealings, and aren't putting a bunch of pressure on you to develop a massive military budget overhead. Without these influences, the inh…

It just a loan if the business is fine. It's only a bail out if they are sinking.

I don't mean communism failed because of central economic planning. But, China is a great example of how totalitarianism can survive, but central planning is hard.

If it makes you feel better I can point to plenty of US examples. Central planning seems like a good idea, but it's really harder than most assume.

Re: If You Think Basic Income Is “Free Money” or Socialism, Think Again

#110

Post by sn9 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #30
pjc50 wrote: post #15

Well, it is free money, that's the point; but neither that nor being "socialism" automatically makes it bad. This article is an interesting way of pitching basic income to a "capitalist"/right audience by phrasing it in ways like "basic income is fuel for markets", "buying is like voting" (!) and "I like markets. I want to reduce the size of government. I want less bureaucracy. I want less administration. I want fewe…

Yes, it was an unusual article in that the author was doing a lot of work to strawman-out conservatives and then make the UBI pitch. It wasn't a bad pitch, but it felt really loose and meandering, like it could have ran a third of its length and been much more cogent and direct. Instead of direct and succinct, I got the feeling of an author standing out in a field, waving their arms around, while breathlessly making…

Like most Medium posts, the author could have used an editor.
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