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A world of free movement would be $78T richer

economist.com

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Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#381

Post by incompatible »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #377
incompatible wrote: post #279

I'm not entirely sold on the idea of cramming the vast majority of the world's population into the subset of countries that are relatively wealthy and well-run. In practice, the cramming continues within those countries into the most favoured cities. If we are thinking of pie-in-the-sky ideas like open borders, then why also try to think of a way to spread good government and wealth across all parts of the world? I.e…

I like the idea of open borders, guaranteed basic income (only for citizens), getting rid of income taxes, making all citizens pay a national sales tax instead (gbi would offset some of this), having a national id (with id you save 10-15% on sales tax without you pay a lot more, say 4-5% for citizens, 15-20% for migrants/travelers from abroad). -- This would make immigrants legal or not pay 3x the taxes, and I think…

How would you collect sales tax without an IRS, and wouldn't a GBI that's high enough to live on cost a fortune? Tax rates may need to be higher than you suggest.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#382

Post by gremlinsinc »

smsm42 wrote: post #379
gremlinsinc wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy solution to all this. End income taxes. Make consumption tax + national id system. With id you pay 4%, without you pay 15-20%. Make the consumption tax be on everything : Wages, Rent, Mortgage, Food, etc... if you spend money on something it's taxed at the point of payment. - By wages - I mean the company pays the tax. If a person or company pays money or exchanges money it's taxed. Shareholder dividends, CEO bo…

> Easy solution to all this. End income taxes. With current political and budget system, I don't see any path to this ever happening. Maybe in theory that could be a better solution (I don't know, it would need thorough analysis) but I don't see how it could happen in reality. > You could then fund a guaranteed basic income (for citizens only), Again, same argument applies. If GBU is a benefit for society, there's no…

I'd be for a universal gbi -- if it's built on blockchain, w/ tax system builtin via transaction fee, perhaps it's tied to an identity coin, and each identity has a 'score' on how unique that person 'appears' to the algorithm, and using a combination of biometrics (like iris scan), and social graph. The more 'unique' or seemlingly unique/trusted the person is as an individual the less transaction fee they pay per transaction.

Something like this could then be adopted as a global currency and have gbi paid out to all members monthly. Perhaps we could create a not-for-profit corp that creates small businesses where 100% of left over income goes back to consumers who use the store (think grocery) and workers who work in the store as a bonus.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#383

Post by gremlinsinc »

incompatible wrote: post #380
gremlinsinc wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea of open borders, guaranteed basic income (only for citizens), getting rid of income taxes, making all citizens pay a national sales tax instead (gbi would offset some of this), having a national id (with id you save 10-15% on sales tax without you pay a lot more, say 4-5% for citizens, 15-20% for migrants/travelers from abroad). -- This would make immigrants legal or not pay 3x the taxes, and I think…

As an immigrant I feel sufficiently discriminated against already: pay the same tax rates as anybody else, but ineligible for various government benefits and unable to vote. All because of a technicality: I don't have a parent born in the country I live in.

But you'd never have to fear being kicked out or deported, I think that would be better at this juncture in history than having a higher tax rate.

GOP'ers claim they hate immigrants because they don't pay their fair share, or will take their jobs. If they paid more than their share of taxes then it would get rid of that entire argument, and is the basis for my idea.

There could be tiers perhaps.. Citizen, ALmost a Citizen, Visiting w/ Work Visa temporarily, No documentation. W/ the last segment having the highest tax bracket. I mean no offense, but you'd then just need to choose does living in America = worth it by paying the extra taxes. At least you wouldn't be pushed out..

Maybe they could have another level Not-citizen but has voting privileges (of course that might come with a higher tax bracket in exchange for the privilege to vote..this would be up for debate obviously... ).

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#384

Post by gremlinsinc »

incompatible wrote: post #381
gremlinsinc wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea of open borders, guaranteed basic income (only for citizens), getting rid of income taxes, making all citizens pay a national sales tax instead (gbi would offset some of this), having a national id (with id you save 10-15% on sales tax without you pay a lot more, say 4-5% for citizens, 15-20% for migrants/travelers from abroad). -- This would make immigrants legal or not pay 3x the taxes, and I think…

How would you collect sales tax without an IRS, and wouldn't a GBI that's high enough to live on cost a fortune? Tax rates may need to be higher than you suggest.

Businesses would pay sales tax, using the same local systems they use now to pay their local sales tax. The sales tax system would then split out what belongs to local govs and which to federal and divvy it out equally. Then we'd expand the sales tax reqs to other areas/expenditures that it normally doesn't apply like wages, dividends, land/home purchases, etc.

GBI wouldn't cost a fortune, if we get rid of existing handout programs, and streamline a lot of systems, also having a sales tax that we could alternate yearly to easily keep money 'balanced' would help with rolling out new features and testing scenarios to make sure we can afford something like gbi or universal healthare.

A lot of the systems can be automated, IRS does a lot of audits on citizens to make sure they're paying income taxes - we wouldn't do that anymore, we might still need a small agency to enforce that businesses are all in compliance, or that could just be on local/states to figure out.

The fact that there's no tax rebates/refunds would mean everyone pays taxes including the formerly in poverty now collecting GBI. GBI would essentially be their reimbursement/help. But it makes everyone a contributing actor, and if we need to raise sales tax to 15% before we can afford reasonable GBI, that makes sure everyone has a roof over their head, then it would still be worth it.

I think from a technical standpoint we also need to cut/streamline government in a lot of places. Healthcare, omnibuses, etc.. One thing I'd like is a github like format for bills, where you commit smaller bills, that are repealable, so big huge omnibuses are outlawed. It doesn't make sense that to get one small piece you as a senator want you have to vote for 10 pieces you don't want. Everything needs to be in smaller pieces so if something works we can keep it, if it fails we can revert the change like we would a bad commit on git.

The problem is the systems we use all require thousands of people to run, when they don't really have to, we could automate tons of stuff in the government but we don't because of all the jobs that would be lost. W/ gbi that wouldn't be a concern. I can't wait for robots/ai to take away 50%+ of jobs over the next decade freeing up mankind for more creative endeavors.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#385

Post by incompatible »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #384
incompatible wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you collect sales tax without an IRS, and wouldn't a GBI that's high enough to live on cost a fortune? Tax rates may need to be higher than you suggest.

Businesses would pay sales tax, using the same local systems they use now to pay their local sales tax. The sales tax system would then split out what belongs to local govs and which to federal and divvy it out equally. Then we'd expand the sales tax reqs to other areas/expenditures that it normally doesn't apply like wages, dividends, land/home purchases, etc. GBI wouldn't cost a fortune, if we get rid of existing h…

I'd love to see more interest in experimenting with alternative economic models. I could also come up with at least one. I'm not sure how this is ever going to happen though, given the politics of the world we live in now.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#386

Post by gremlinsinc »

incompatible wrote: post #385
gremlinsinc wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses would pay sales tax, using the same local systems they use now to pay their local sales tax. The sales tax system would then split out what belongs to local govs and which to federal and divvy it out equally. Then we'd expand the sales tax reqs to other areas/expenditures that it normally doesn't apply like wages, dividends, land/home purchases, etc. GBI wouldn't cost a fortune, if we get rid of existing h…

I'd love to see more interest in experimenting with alternative economic models. I could also come up with at least one. I'm not sure how this is ever going to happen though, given the politics of the world we live in now.

If I were myself rich, and able to hire a dev team, I'd build a global full-proof identity system (iris scanning maybe?) to guarantee identity 1:1, and a crypto coin with guaranteed basic income built in.

Then I'd build a not-for-profit grocery chain/and other businesses, where all fiat/crypto go back evenly to users of the coin. I'd buy up homes rent them below market rent values to try and drive rents back down instead of up.

Grocery stores would sell products cheaper, and profits would be split between gbi coin holders who live in that area, and workers at the local businesses we run. Execs at all companies we build would be capped at 100x worker salary. They'd also be not-for-profit (opposed to non-profit), meaning ALL money has to be paid at end of fiscal year to improvements of business, or to wages/bonuses/charity/etc.

I don't have faith in government to be the change we need, we're going to need to think outside the box and create self-sustaining government agnostic solutions.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#387

Post by tom_mellior »

krferriter wrote: post #360
tom_mellior wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain please? Immigrants pay into safety nets just like anyone else who pays into them.

If 10 million poor people with no employable skillsets move into Europe, they would be withdrawing vastly more from the tax pool than they would be putting into it. People who do not contribute to production would just move wherever the local government will give residents the most resources.

> If

If, yes. All this is conditioned on your racism that tells you that all foreigners are uneducated (and uneducatable)/lazy/freeloaders.

In addition, all of the tax money paid out would immediately be spent by these alleged freeloaders on meeting their needs for food etc., so it would flow back to producers of useful stuff and a lot of it come back as taxes.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#388

Post by candiodari »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #375
intopieces wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because the article proposes a scenario where welfare and public assistance would readily apply to newcomers too. FTA: “If the worry is that future migrants might not pay their way, why not charge them more for visas, or make them pay extra taxes, or restrict their access to welfare benefits? Such levies could also be used to regulate the flow of migrants, thus avoiding big, sudden surges.”

I've thought about that a lot (I'm pro open-borders). I think we should get rid of income taxes, instead move to consumption taxes (money out is taxed) examples: Paying for anything: Rent, Food, Wages, Shareholders/Dividends, Estate transfer, Boats, Trains, Planes, etc... If you exchange money for ANYTHING it's taxed on the payers' side of the transaction. -- Then create a fair-id system so every citizen has an id, i…

So go back to 99% of just taxing the poor (progressive taxes make taxes very low for very low incomes) ? And in the process create an almost absurdly large incentive for the black market to go back to the levels it last existed at centuries ago. Without deductions, owning a house is back to utterly impossible for anyone who doesn't currently own one. At those levels all other laws become ineffective too, as at that point sausages in the supermarket will have the same quality control as illegal drugs have today. Illegal production, dumping, ... all comes with enormous incentives under such a scheme.

Maybe do some research before suggesting something like this.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#389

Post by qaq »

ThomPete wrote: post #372
qaq wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A resident of any Shengen country can work and live in any other Shengen country that's why I cherry picked. Sorry confused EB1 with EB5.

Thats not the argument i made though. Thats like saying a resident of any state in the us. We are talking about coming from outside the EU.

Exactly coming from outside of EU you can become a resident of EU state that has simplest procedure and yet after that you are able to work and live in any EU state which makes immigration to EU trivial compared to US.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#390

Post by baybal2 »

Theodores wrote: post #157
baybal2 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this is all my own, near life long, research: what is power, how modern state came to be, and how one can manipulate it. Few interesting factoids from it: Did you know that theocracy vs bureaucracy was not a decided topic in Europe until mid 19 century? It was a single letter of a British envoy to China that shocked the crown so much as for it to institute the His Majesty Civil Service modelled after Chinese mo…

I wish I had a grandpa like yours. Any links on any topics mentioned that you can share? Prusianness in particular.

I can't name anything in particular. I think pretty much any piece of writing on European history of this period mention something on it.
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