101–110 of 809 posts
I really, really like the idea of UBI. However, some napkin math: In the US, with ~250 million people being eligible, a $1000 UBI would cost ~$3 trillion. That's almost the entire budget of the US. How is this even remotely realistic right now? Even if you can cut other spending in half due to it, you'd need an additional $1.5 trillion in "income" essentially. Is that something that would even be possible? How many r…
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> With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. The problem with this argument is that it proves too much. It's true of anything that causes the poor to have more money . Lower unemployment, higher wages, anything. Heck, it's true of lower healthcare costs, because people would have more money for housing, or vice versa. Housing costs and healthcare costs are problems, but they're independent problem…
>Right now there are explicit subsidies for housing and healthcare. If they get replaced with a UBI in the same amount Good luck with that. UBI is barely tolerated by the left and progressives but only under the constraint that it doesn't replace any existing social welfare programs. The minute UBI advocates start pushing it as a replacement is the minute that progressives will squash it.
Where can I read some of these articulated positions for myself? Any particular articles or writers that made a substantial impression on you with these positions that you'd recommend I read?
The issue I see with basic income is that most money is spent on housing and health care. These two things are supply constrained so it's more of an auction for who can afford them. With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. This problem wouldn't appear in a study that distributed to only some individuals. We need to solve the regulatory or otherwise organizational problems of these things to prov…
I disagree on the housing point. With basic income, people who can’t afford housing in expensive areas would move to towns with cheap housing/land but less lucrative/efficient work. There’s no housing shortage in rural areas.
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We already have a pilot project - the Alaska Permanent Fund, it's been running since 1976.
> Alaska Permanent Fund About $133/month in 2019, which might offset the fundamental additional expenses associated with living in Alaska.
edit: but I suppose you get the $133 even if employed, nvm
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> With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. The problem with this argument is that it proves too much. It's true of anything that causes the poor to have more money . Lower unemployment, higher wages, anything. Heck, it's true of lower healthcare costs, because people would have more money for housing, or vice versa. Housing costs and healthcare costs are problems, but they're independent problem…
> The problem with this argument is that it proves too much. It's true of anything that causes the poor to have more money. Lower unemployment would be associated with a greater availability of goods and services, so that would get it out of the trap. Higher wages would also be associated with a supply increase if they came with increased productivity, but if you raised the minimum wage then prices of low-end product…
> The three-year, $150-million program Three year. Would you quit your job, and move somewhere cheaper if you knew the money will run out after three years, and you'll have a three year gap in your CV? Are there really no lottery winners winning lifetime monthly payouts to study? Because, if you gave me 5x average earnings for three years, I wouldn't quit my job. But if you guaranteed the money for the rest of my lif…
At or near Poverty: Yes, I would use this opportunity to focus on education/training that I might not have had the chance/maturity to focus on earlier in life.
Your income level will play a significant role. Being able to escape a violent neighborhood would be more than worth it for some people.
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Yes, this is the glaring flaw in all of them as far as I've seen. On the other hand, who knows how long UBI would stay in place in a democratic country? It might get voted out in the next election, too.
It's been about 40 years for the Alaska permanent fund dividends and it's popular AFAIK.
Some people use it well, putting some in the bank for their kids, paying off loans, etc. But many people just splurge every fall. There's an increase in alcohol and substance abuse-related incidents.
It has impacted politics significantly. We are no longer getting large influxes of cash every year, so there's an open question about how to fund our state's services. We could implement an income tax, but that's a hard sell. We could start tapping into the permanent fund principal, but anyone who proposes that gets trounced by politicians willing to "protect" people's pfd by slashing services. We could offer so much as a state, but people won't have it because they want their $1500 each fall.
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It seems Americans often believe that, but virtually nobody in Western Europe would even think of going to the US for healthcare. I would assume the same for Canadians. I have no idea if that's actually true, but the widespread opinion is that the ~free (it depends a lot between countries, it's usually simply affordable, rather than free) healthcare here is much better than what a normal person can afford in the US.
> It seems Americans often believe that, but virtually nobody in Western Europe would even think of going to the US for healthcare. I would assume the same for Canadians. This is not true. It's just ignored because people would rather believe that universal healthcare is infallible. We moved from Canada to the US precisely because of healthcare for our children. In Canada, care was non-existant and the private servic…
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I disagree on the housing point. With basic income, people who can’t afford housing in expensive areas would move to towns with cheap housing/land but less lucrative/efficient work. There’s no housing shortage in rural areas.
Why doesn’t that happen today?