With EU’s declining population growth, UBI may very well be the way out of impossible retirement plans in the future. Something that IMO millennials in the EU will face sooner or later. I don’t claim to know all the economic implications of UBI, but I’m really convinced that as an EU citizen and millennial my retirement is questionable to say the least.
Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income
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Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income
#12Isn’t one of the central selling point of UBI that it would replace the existing welfare state with one single payment? What’s the likelihood that countries that implement this just tack it on the existing welfare state as yet another payment? I’m putting that is almost a certainty.
> I’m putting that is almost a certainty. Why? States aren't made of infinite money.
We're about to test whether they are. If we somehow manage to print all this money and nothing bad happens, then why not?
I have some doubts about whether it can work, but if it does, we should think about the new economic reality.
At the moment though, I get the image of Wily E Coyote running over the cliff edge, but he hasn't looked down yet.
Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income
#13With EU’s declining population growth, UBI may very well be the way out of impossible retirement plans in the future. Something that IMO millennials in the EU will face sooner or later. I don’t claim to know all the economic implications of UBI, but I’m really convinced that as an EU citizen and millennial my retirement is questionable to say the least.
> I’m really convinced that as an EU citizen and millennial my retirement is questionable to say the least.
Hear, hear! :D
I share your condition and concerns.
Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income
#14With EU’s declining population growth, UBI may very well be the way out of impossible retirement plans in the future. Something that IMO millennials in the EU will face sooner or later. I don’t claim to know all the economic implications of UBI, but I’m really convinced that as an EU citizen and millennial my retirement is questionable to say the least.
> I’m really convinced that as an EU citizen and millennial my retirement is questionable to say the least
If you know it's questionable why aren't you paying more in now so that it isn't as questionable? Rather than hoping for potential UBI?
Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income
#15Every single UBI proposal I've seen has failed to work even with back of the envelope math, even when using generous assumptions and estimates. They end up either 1) Gutting existing entitlements by a huge amount (and current receipients of those entitlements get far less under UBI than they did before) 2) Raise taxes by an obscene amount that destroys most if not all of the benefit of a UBI for the middle class and most of the lower class (and that's before you get into potential economic effects) 3) Provides such a paltry amount that it fails to support the basic needs of the average person/family 4) Depend on massive amounts of money printing and/or debt well in excess of most nations' current debts, or 5) Some combination of the above.
People vastly overestimate how much money the wealthy have even if we taxed them at 100% and somehow prevented them and their wealth from fleeing to some tax haven somewhere.
Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably it would be citizens rather than residents.
I'm not sure that would be legal, would it? I think there was a test case in 2015 that said you could have tests that a resident was not there just to claim benefit, but I think the point was that it was illegal to just completely restrict a benefit to your own citizens.
It would probably be modeled the same way as social benefits are modeled. A mixed of citizenship and residency...
Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income
#17With EU’s declining population growth, UBI may very well be the way out of impossible retirement plans in the future. Something that IMO millennials in the EU will face sooner or later. I don’t claim to know all the economic implications of UBI, but I’m really convinced that as an EU citizen and millennial my retirement is questionable to say the least.
> I’m really convinced that as an EU citizen and millennial my retirement is questionable to say the least. Hear, hear! :D I share your condition and concerns.
US citizen here. Can y'all go into detail? If you have universal healthcare, and you've paid off a residence, what shortfall and outsized expenses do you project in retirement?
Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income
#18Comment from the other discussion: bwb 1 day ago I am in Spain and Bloomberg is just translating the comments of a far left party that has no ability to do that. Bad reporting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22792359
Thanks for clarifying this. I also live in Spain and daydreaming is too good to begin describing this “move”.
Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I’m putting that is almost a certainty. Why? States aren't made of infinite money.
We're about to test whether they are. If we somehow manage to print all this money and nothing bad happens, then why not? I have some doubts about whether it can work, but if it does, we should think about the new economic reality. At the moment though, I get the image of Wily E Coyote running over the cliff edge, but he hasn't looked down yet.
>We're about to test whether they are. If we somehow manage to print all this money and nothing bad happens, then why not?
Fortunately, other states already have tried this, and shown that it causes immense economic harm. Specifically, we have the examples of Venezuela (53,798,500% inflation since 2016), Zimbabwe (peaked at 79,600,000,000% per month), and Weimar Germany (merely 29,500% per month at its peak).
So you should be asking, what if we manage to print all this money and something truly terrible, horrible, and damaging to the lives of everyone in the country happens? And what if it's something easily predicted by almost any economist and with massive historical precedents? And what if it sets the stage for genocidal dictators and the most violent war in history, as it did in the case of Weimar Germany?
Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income
#20Every single UBI proposal I've seen has failed to work even with back of the envelope math, even when using generous assumptions and estimates. They end up either 1) Gutting existing entitlements by a huge amount (and current receipients of those entitlements get far less under UBI than they did before) 2) Raise taxes by an obscene amount that destroys most if not all of the benefit of a UBI for the middle class and…
Which proposals don’t work? What math are you speaking of? Do you have any data to back up your claim?
I only mean to push back on this because your comment seems to be dismissive of the entire concept while seeming to closely align with the interests of the kinds of people who don’t want it (the wealthy).
I find the idea of just not bothering to tax wealth because they’ll just find a tax haven elsewhere to be defeatist nonsense. It’s not hard to craft legislation that forces the wealthy to pay.
If we are overestimating how much wealth the wealthy possess, how is it that three people own more wealth than over half of the entire United States?
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/gates-bezos-buffett-have-mor...
Excess wealth needs to be taxed because being excessively wealthy is bad for society as a whole, just like we tax alcohol and cigarettes.