Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project • Hacker News Board

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#151

Post by dogma1138 » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 8:58 AM UTC

Nomentatus wrote: post #145

brianwawok wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Going one step in direction A should give you information about going further in that same direction So eating healthy for 1 day/week will change your blood results and tell you that a year of it will make you lose 50 pounds? So going to 1 day of college will make you measure differently on a test that checks critical thinking? Different things take different amount of time to see results. I could see behaving very…

It's more that shorter experiments might tell you whether there are deep downsides even in the short-term. Not great information, not full information, but information; even if it's just a one-way test.

It’s not that they are completely useless it’s that they cannot test the actual affects on the economy.

If you have a small scale UBI even if it’s on say a scale of a whole town it’s still not enough to evaluate the economic impact because the supply/demand economy isn’t that localized.

We have other experiments that have shown to have a negative effect for example rent allowance in the UK which essentially set the lower limit for rent as no one rents below what the council would pay, this has increased rent prices even in places where there was no negative change in the supply and demand.

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#152

Post by akvadrako » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 9:29 AM UTC

dandare wrote: post #150

akvadrako wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the whole point of UBI - because it's unconditional it doesn't discourage working.

I don't understand your comment, I never said it discourages working.

You suggested giving it only to those who need it, which makes it conditional.

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#153

Post by dandare » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 9:38 AM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #43

dandare wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for proving my point. And now look at the numbers in my diagram, the administrative costs are negligible compared to the cost of giving money to those who don't need it.

You're missing a section on the bottom of your chart. Who will pay for UBI? -- income tax. Raise the per capita income rate an average of £12,000, (£15,000 pounds minus the ~3,000 in savings you calculated earlier). No net impact on the average taxpayer, little impact on the rich and massive impact on the poor.

I did the calculation for UK 2015-2016:

There are about 31 million taxpayers in the UK. The basic income tax rate of 20% for income up to £42k/year generates 33% of the income tax revenue. Let's agree that these are not the rich people we want to tax. (88,7% of Britons earn less than £50k/year.)

The higher (40%) and additional (45%) tax rates generate the rest 67% or £117 billion of the £174 billion income tax revenue.

In order to raise additional £472 billion, we would have to increase the higher and additional tax rates to approximately 211%.

As you can see, taxing the "rich" cannot raise enough money to give everyone unconditional poverty line minimum income.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-tax-liabilit..., https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#154

Post by dandare » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 9:43 AM UTC

akvadrako wrote: post #152

dandare wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your comment, I never said it discourages working.

You suggested giving it only to those who need it, which makes it conditional.

I don't understand your logic. I never said UBI discourages working.

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#155

Post by el_cid » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 12:15 PM UTC

rickdg wrote: post #136

dandare wrote: post #7

There are two problems with universal basic income: 1/ Many people think UBI is a great idea but everybody imagines something else. This makes discussing UBI very difficult. 2/ Regardless of what version of UBI you personally support, it is probably not a good idea to give money to those who don't need it. Sooner or later people will realize that what they really want is tax/benefit reform, not universal basic income…

What I read from the diagram is that we are looking towards an horizon where corporations can keep increasing profits while employing less people and there is nothing we can do about it. Do we simply have to accept that economic growth ultimately benefits fewer and fewer people? Or do you simply believe that somehow jobs will never disappear?

There is still a LOT of value that people can bring to the table. Instead of paying everyone for nothing, why not pay them for creating value (volunteer in various projects, local agriculture, studying, etc)

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#156

Post by loceng » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 1:06 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #97

loceng wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, we can predict a lot of the major impacts something like UBI will have, however part of the plan must be to implement plans and strategy to manage for these - in particular, whenever new money is introduced into a system, many for-profit systems will increase their pricing, which then trickles down into every other system requiring to increase their pricing. There has to be a floor created, and there needs to b…

I think it's also important to remember that the effects would be wildly different between countries with big social safety nets (such as Finland), and countries withouot. For countries with lots of extensive welfare programs, a small UBI is shifting money from various programs into UBI, thereby removing administrative overhead - rather than "new money". For example: every parent in sweden gets $160 child allowance (…

You can balance out a UBI program with other programs, it would be better anyhow, as an example, you can incentivize more people to be a student.

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#157

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 1:19 PM UTC

swebs wrote: post #101

magduf wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"FairTax" doesn't work because sales tax is extremely regressive. Rich people don't spend nearly as much of their income as poor people, and they frequently don't even spend it inside the country. Sales tax just ends up hurting the working class the most.

Technically, it's a flat tax. You can argue that it's "effectively" regressive if you divide mean spending by income across the income distribution or something, but it doesn't really matter since as long as the prebate value is large enough, the poor still come out ahead. Needless to say, I'm not claiming that FirTax would work. I'm just pointing out the similarities between it and UBI. If this experiment shows evid…

> Technically, it's a flat tax.

It's a flat tax on consumption, which is a regressive tax on income; when unspecified, progressive/flat/regressive in regard to taxation conventionally refers to relation to income.

> but it doesn't really matter since as long as the prebate value is large enough, the poor still come out ahead.

The size of the prebate (and the 23% rate) is part of the FairTax proposal (though a slighlty incoherent part, since it is defined in terms of income, not spending)—it is defined at the level that a taxpayer would pay 0 net FairTax with poverty level income (presumably, this assumes 100% spending at poverty level.)

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#158

Post by yardie » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

whb07 wrote: post #139

yardie wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Florida, the Seminole tribes distribute thousands of dollars/month, to each of their members just for being alive. Many of them end up having chronic issues with drug and alcohol abuse. Okay I was with you for a little bit but this part of your comment is completely off the mark. The casinos are built on tribal land. And in many cases owned by the tribe. For all intents and purposes the tribe is a corporation. M…

I mean, my little sister grew up with a member of the Seminole tribe in SFla, I can tell you from experience that her family didn’t have what is considered a “job”. Also, my friend was a medical doctor tending to a large group of them and would constantly comment on their alcoholism and shenanigans (which sounded awesome) with atvs and off-roading. I don’t really understand what you’re nitpicking with the money passe…

Most of the rentier class also don't have a "job". Dividends, leases, and IP checks arrive into their bank accounts and they are free to choose what to do with it. Invest wisely or blow it on vices.

In concept UBI is closer to welfare than the tribal or Saudi model. Gamblers willingly go to their casinos. We willingly purchase Saudi oil. Since the government owns the means of production they are within their right to give it to their constituents. If fewer people gamble, buy tax-free cigarettes, or use less petrol that is less money the tribe and Saudis have to give out.

UBI is not voluntary. The government extracts that cash from me in the form of taxes to distribute it. I cannot use fewer government services and therefore give less money to them.

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#159

Post by bryanlarsen » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

dandare wrote: post #153

bryanlarsen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing a section on the bottom of your chart. Who will pay for UBI? -- income tax. Raise the per capita income rate an average of £12,000, (£15,000 pounds minus the ~3,000 in savings you calculated earlier). No net impact on the average taxpayer, little impact on the rich and massive impact on the poor.

I did the calculation for UK 2015-2016: There are about 31 million taxpayers in the UK. The basic income tax rate of 20% for income up to £42k/year generates 33% of the income tax revenue. Let's agree that these are not the rich people we want to tax. (88,7% of Britons earn less than £50k/year.) The higher (40%) and additional (45%) tax rates generate the rest 67% or £117 billion of the £174 billion income tax revenu…

"Let's agree that these are not the rich people we want to tax."

I definitely do not agree. BI is only viable if the average taxpayer sees no or very little net benefit from BI. So the average taxpayer would pay £15k extra in taxes if they receive £15k in BI. And £42k is above average (but not a lot, the medium income is £21k, but only a little more than half of adults are taxpayers)

Re: Finland is scrapping plans to extend its basic income project

#160

Post by dandare » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 3:27 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #159

dandare wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the calculation for UK 2015-2016: There are about 31 million taxpayers in the UK. The basic income tax rate of 20% for income up to £42k/year generates 33% of the income tax revenue. Let's agree that these are not the rich people we want to tax. (88,7% of Britons earn less than £50k/year.) The higher (40%) and additional (45%) tax rates generate the rest 67% or £117 billion of the £174 billion income tax revenu…

"Let's agree that these are not the rich people we want to tax." I definitely do not agree. BI is only viable if the average taxpayer sees no or very little net benefit from BI. So the average taxpayer would pay £15k extra in taxes if they receive £15k in BI. And £42k is above average (but not a lot, the medium income is £21k, but only a little more than half of adults are taxpayers)

The average taxpayer with income between £20k and £30k pays on average £2630 tax, some 10.7%. If you hand him over £15k and them tax him on average additional £15k then his tax rate must be around 44%. This will be extremely demotivational. A hard-working person will have barely more than absolute freeloader and if he tries to work extra hard you will take half of his reward.