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Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

businessinsider.com

31–40 of 48 posts

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#31

Every 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…

I accept your challenge. Canada top %1 does ~500k a year absolute min. Take all that and give it to the bottom 50% of the population. Thats 10k per person per year.

The issue is not the math. The issue is the ideology of redistribution.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-top-1-per-cent-saw-fa...

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#32
post #11

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.

> 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?

The point is, I think, that the very concept of a pension will become meaningless by the time millennials retire. Why would you pay more into something that you don't expect will give anything in return?

Not to mention that for a lot of people paying more is not an option since they simply wouldn't be able to afford it.

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#33
post #3

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22795358 (57 comments, 20 hours ago) I think the general view is "some ministers in Spain would like to implement UBI" How that works, especially with freedom of movement from the rest of the EU, is anyones guess

> How that works, especially with freedom of movement from the rest of the EU, is anyones guess

This was already answered. Germany has a welfare-system which is basically a restrictec UBI, and there were non-german eu-citizen demanding access to it and went as high as the European Court of Justice.

Result: they have no right to claim social welfare outside their own country. Freedom of movement in EU has limits and you must behave like a proper local citizen (like working there for some time) to get access to other countries systems. And even then benefits are time limited.

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#34
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

The point is, I think, that the very concept of a pension will become meaningless by the time millennials retire. Why would you pay more into something that you don't expect will give anything in return? Not to mention that for a lot of people paying more is not an option since they simply wouldn't be able to afford it.

I'm not very confident in my state pension as they can take that away any time they want, but my private pension is just a pot of money invested for me with tax benefits. Not sure what better you can do than that? Buy gold and store it under your bed?

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

Counterpoint: Quantitative easing. Instead of giving money to banks give them to the people.

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#37
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 defeat…

Show me a proposal for the US (since I'm most familiar with tax rates, existing benefits, etc. there) and I'll show you how the math doesn't add up. Edit: As far as the three wealthiest in the US owning that much, it still amounts to very little per capita if redistributed to the entire population. You could give every individual in the US a one-time payment of about $3,000, after which there'd be no more money to ta…

Where do you get $3,000 a month from? I’m sure if you set the dollar value high enough the math doesn’t work out.

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#39

Every 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…

I accept your challenge. Canada top %1 does ~500k a year absolute min. Take all that and give it to the bottom 50% of the population. Thats 10k per person per year. The issue is not the math. The issue is the ideology of redistribution. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-top-1-per-cent-saw-fa...

>Thats 10k per person per year.

So if we tax the top 1% at 100%, we can give the bottom 50% enough to not even make rent in Toronto or Vancouver? See item 3 on my list. Also only giving the benefit to the bottom 50% is not universal basic income.

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