271–280 of 809 posts
I don't think this fits the definition of basic income. > Whatever income participants earned was deducted from their basic income at 50 per cent That is equivalent to a massive 50% tax rate on every dollar earned. It seems to me the whole point of UBI is that its universal and not conditional on how much you earn otherwise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Would fewer people in the workforce really be so bad? Yes. Someone needs to work to produce the goods and services they use, as well as fund their UBI. The more people who opt out of working, the harder everyone else must work to compensate. > What’s the carbon and water footprint of all of these goods we really don’t need but we bust our humps for anyway? People dropping out of the workforce doesn't reduce the dem…
So why don't managers and administrators work to produce things? They seem capable of labor, and they're paid extra, but they work less. Why? Edit: You downvoted me within a minute of my posting. I asked two questions. If you can't answer them, then it is because you fear their answers. So let's answer them! Managers and administrators don't produce things because they claim that their positions allow them to optimiz…
This is very misleading reporting. First: All studies so far show a pretty consistent ~10% work disincentive. This is what all the detractors say when they say it disincentivizes work. So how about this one? From actually reading the study's conclusion: > Slightly less than one-fifth were employed before but unemployed during the pilot (17%) So even worse than what we've seen so far. 17% dropping out of the labor mar…
For life.
The other side of the fallacy is that any occupation based on investment or speculation is essentially parasitic, unless it includes a rare commitment to stick with an enterprise until it's a net benefit to all stakeholders. (Not just shareholders and the board.)
The latter occupations are "in the labour market" but still making a net negative contribution.
Essentially you're attempting to frame this as if UBI encourages freeloading. In fact the most influential freeloading is mostly at the other end - and the fact that it's considered a heroic and noble kind of sanctioned freeloading doesn't change its basic nature.
So unless you're sure that everyone who is temporarily out of the labour market does nothing of value to anyone, ever, and also that their negative influence is worse than that of speculators and rent-seekers, it's hard to be convinced that this is a serious problem.
The other issue - social capital - is a complete different problem. People who are in work don't necessarily have access to social capital either. But as a rule it's easier to start a business with a safety net than without one.
UBI could always be associated with opportunities for extended education. Money alone is rarely the issue, and there aren't many downsides to extended adult ed.
I want UBI and a 30-32 hour work week, so I guess I’m proposing a 20% “disincentivization”. Would fewer people in the workforce really be so bad? What’s the carbon and water footprint of all of these goods we really don’t need but we bust our humps for anyway? At this point, more robots don’t mean more of the stuff we need. they mean more stuff we don't need.
To use different phrasing, what you're saying is that you want people to be poorer. Please understand that I don't mean this as a personal attack on you, your beliefs or philosophy. But from a different perspective, that really is what you're saying. Do you really want to say that? Perhaps a better alternative is: a good goal would be to allow people to have more while using less natural resources and polluting the e…
This is very misleading reporting. First: All studies so far show a pretty consistent ~10% work disincentive. This is what all the detractors say when they say it disincentivizes work. So how about this one? From actually reading the study's conclusion: > Slightly less than one-fifth were employed before but unemployed during the pilot (17%) So even worse than what we've seen so far. 17% dropping out of the labor mar…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would we not want the baseline to improve over time? I genuinely do not understand the attitude that we should establish some extremely low bar like “is not currently at risk of starvation” and then never move the bar, but merely congratulating ourselves when more people pass that bar.
Because humans need an objective minimum to survive. Below that they face slow death. There's a difference between social norm vs existential need, and many people have a vested interest in conflating the two. There has to be a baseline standard, amounting to triage, above which "your core needs are met, and you have a path to thrive on - up to you to do you now." Maybe there's another moving standard of minimum stan…
> many people have a vested interest in conflating the two.
Just like you are conflating being poor and being a bad person:
> your core needs are met, and you have a path to thrive on - up to you to do you now.
This implicitly suggests that you are only poor because you were too lazy/stupid/ to follow that path. Maybe there are people like that, but many people are poor because being poor is expensive.
> The project worked by recruiting low-income people and couples, offering them a fixed payment with no strings attached that worked out to approximately $17,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples. Why discriminate so heavily against couples? It creates every incentive to lie about your relationship status. Or to avoid sharing a household altogether, creating greater economic inefficiencies and less built in soc…
Maybe those setting the rates believe most of the money will be spent on housing. Two people each living in their own one bedroom apartment will pay more in total than two people living in a two bedroom apartment. The gap is even larger if the couple lives together in a one bedroom apartment. Healthcare, food, and many other expenses will tend to double but not all will. If UBI is meant to cover the basics rather tha…
Exactly, so you are incentivizing people to be less frugal in order to get a bigger check.
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> From my personal point of view, basic income SHOULD disincentivise work; it's a boost for society, health, well-being, children, etc. Somebody has to do the work though, until robots do everything (and then declare war on us), you need somebody to take away the garbage, pick the fruits and unclog the toilets. Disincentivizing work doesn't make that go away, it just means you'll put that load on fewer shoulders.
Thank you. That's the part of automation that no one wants to discuss. What happens when we're like 90% automated and there simply isn't enough jobs for everyone. Who do we force to work and is that ethical?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is punishing couples, not rewarding them. The amount given to two single people is $34,000. The amount given to two people in a relationship is $24,000.
Probably under the assumption that pooling resources and sharing a house means their expenses are NOT the same as two single people.