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Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

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Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#121

Post by quaquaqua1 »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #48
quaquaqua1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was typing out a really long response to you with many if...then statements, but then I realized there are too many powerful agencies and institutions that don't want to give up their ability to tax/spend. Medicaid/Medicare, Social Security, IRS, all 50 states etc have defined (and flawed processes) and probably will refuse to give up control over welfare spending or tax revenue generation. So if you can't complete…

First off, it doesn't have to be funded. We have a fiat currency. However the extent that new dollars are to be offset because of fear of inflation (not an immediate concern given current deflationary trends), the a partial offset via a VAT tax could work.

I am for a UBI. I think it should replace bureaucracy generated by all these alphabet agencies. Funding sources can all be explored.

If we dont do this, surely robots will replace most jobs.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#122

Post by op03 »

munificent wrote: post #16

I think well before we consider universal basic income, we should consider universal basic services . Many services are already highly regulated and naturally somewhat difficult to exploit. Healthcare is the obvious one. It's not like you can get a surgery and then resell it to exploit the system. (You could, of course, exploit things like pain medication, but overall healthcare is not expoitation-friendly.) Some amo…

Makes sense. I am not too hopeful that UBI will work. Mega corps are deeply programmed to extract as much as possible from the weakest in society.

Each Corp will start saying things like if we can just get 10 bucks out of that UBI bank account for 50 million people a quarter...and if 50 manage to pull it off we end up back in 2008. Its the same way they sold "low cost housing for all".

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#123

Post by petermcneeley »

missedthecue wrote: post #119
petermcneeley wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distri... If you just took 20% of people making over 150k it would be enough to give 1k a month to the bottom 50%. (and yes i understand this is household) And this of course is the silly idea that your giving people making 50k a year 12k more for some reason. This also doesnt include the real money up at the top top end. It also doesnt include any wealth transfer…

But UBI doesnt only pay those making less than the median

Sure but using any definition you want at some point you will be at the end of the distribution that will be contributing not gaining from UBI. This function could be described as a graduated income tax. (Sure on your tax form you might be getting 12k a year in but your getting like 30k going out for UBI)

I think you are describing some system that is sorta some sorta economically inconsistent plan. Everyone gets 1k a month and nobody pays for it doesnt make economic sense.

The people that push UBI dont think in these illogical ways. They know very well that some people will have to pay for it. Some people wont see any gain. And some people will see gain.

Your confused about how this system is a win for everyone. Its not! Thats what I said at top ; its redistributive.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#124

Post by missedthecue »

petermcneeley wrote: post #123
missedthecue wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But UBI doesnt only pay those making less than the median

Sure but using any definition you want at some point you will be at the end of the distribution that will be contributing not gaining from UBI. This function could be described as a graduated income tax. (Sure on your tax form you might be getting 12k a year in but your getting like 30k going out for UBI) I think you are describing some system that is sorta some sorta economically inconsistent plan. Everyone gets 1k…

Yes but there aren't enough people that can contribute to make it cause much sense to implement. The following is a graph distributed by Andrew Yang's campaign. (The most popular proponent of UBI)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQi8jWpWkAMQ_5d?format=jpg&name=...

Examine that graph and you'll clearly see you're taking $500 billion from net contributers and paying out $1.55 trillion to net beneficiaries. AND THIS IS ACCORDING TO HIS OWN CAMPAIGN. He's literally planning to pay out 3x what he's taking in.

In the fine print he admits that he has to pay for it with "future economic growth", i.e. debt. (you cant pay out cash for something now by hoping the economy grows in the future, it's physically impossible... you need debt to bridge the gap)

But explain to me how taking $1050 from the average person in order to pay $1000 to the average person grows GDP?

The simple fact of the matter is that this cannot be achieved without perhaps scrapping every other social program (Medicare, medicaid, social security) AND raising taxes in addition.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#125

Post by munificent »

hyperpape wrote: post #116
munificent wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People choose to spend more or less on food, eat different things, etc. Don't overlook the basic part in the term. The goal is not to provide all the food that everyone wants to eat. It would be to provide basic access to the baseline food needed to be healthy and functioning. If you want more than that, great. Now you have an incentive to work. That's good, because we must incentivize people to be productive membe…

I get the premise, and agree that UBI should leave people with an incentive to work. Still, there are pretty divergent needs, and I think money is best. In the latter two years of grad school, my wife and I ate very cheaply. I was always at home or at the office with a fridge and microwave, had time to make bread and things like that. But there are working poor people work places where that's not easy to do, and so t…

Fair. I'm not entirely convinced SNAP is better than UBI for food.

I am entirely convinced that universal healthcare should happen well before we start worrying about UBI.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#126

Post by xyzzyz »

throwaway287391 wrote: post #63
xyzzyz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Yang numbers weren’t even close to adding up. Last I checked them, even if you are very optimist and assume that he’ll get exactly as much as he expects in taxes, this wouldn’t fund even half of $1000/mo.

How do you figure? A 10% VAT would bring in $2.1T on the $21T GDP. There are about 200M adults in the US. 200M * $12K is $2.4T, which is certainly in the right ballpark.

Look at countries that actually have VAT. Germany for example has VAT at 19% rate, and it brings 6% of GDP to government budget. For Yang’s plan, he’d need more like 30% VAT. Of course this would be on top of already existing taxes.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#127

Post by throwaway287391 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #126
throwaway287391 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you figure? A 10% VAT would bring in $2.1T on the $21T GDP. There are about 200M adults in the US. 200M * $12K is $2.4T, which is certainly in the right ballpark.

Look at countries that actually have VAT. Germany for example has VAT at 19% rate, and it brings 6% of GDP to government budget. For Yang’s plan, he’d need more like 30% VAT. Of course this would be on top of already existing taxes.

Ok, but your previous post said "even if you are very optimist and assume that he’ll get exactly as much as he expects in taxes", so I was operating under that optimistic assumption. Was Yang planning to exempt any part of the GDP from his VAT? Genuine question but I didn't think he was.

Speaking of which, I googled Germany's VAT and it seems there are quite a few exemptions ("food, books, hotel accommodation, cultural services and other goods and services") that only get VATed at 7%, which is much closer to the 6% they apparently collect in practice. But sure, they probably do fail to collect quite a bit of what they theoretically could.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#129

Post by LaEc »

cbhl wrote: post #76
LaEc wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elimination of the price mechanism eliminates a key way to sort out who truly needs healthcare (or whatever service). Consider a safe elective knee surgery. If you knew it was paid for by the government, you would just sign yourself up for the surgery for even the slightest ache. If there was a copay, you might reconsider unless your pain was actually painful enough to warrant it. Ask any Brit about NHS waiting times…

The problem with price as a mechanism to determine who truly needs a resource is that it excludes people who don't have money. For example, children who would greatly benefit from early therapeutic and/or psychiatric care.

That's where the health savings accounts (HSA) and subsidization comes in. We want people to be able to afford healthcare but not abuse it. So what should we do?

First, require each person to set aside part of their income to a HSA.

Second, top up the values of those HSA's through government transfers for the poor and lower income.

Third, mandate that HSA's can only be used for real healthcare (and not alternative medicine). This way, individuals can afford healthcare but will still take responsibility to not deplete their accounts unnecessarily.

Fourth, (and in response to the NhanN's question) subsidize healthcare providers because healthcare tends to be underconsumed. Why is healthcare underconsumed? When we think about the importance of our own health, we only think of ourselves or our families. But we are valuable to our employer, to our friends. To correct for these positive externalities, some subsidization is essential to bring down those costs.

You are right in that my post didn't address the issues of childcare, let alone genetic diseases, long term conditions etc. where the price mechanism doesn't really make sense or fails. Any healthcare policy will have nuances that I cannot capture in a comment. But for the majority of healthcare consumption, we should really be trying to be as efficient as we can be precisely because of how costly it can be. Throwing away the price mechanism just because it fails for the edge cases is not ideal.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#130

Post by LaEc »

basch wrote: post #94
mister_hn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By really applying taxation to rich?

Or a tax on natural resources, extracted from America. Instead of a few people owning the mineral rights to everything underneath the country, you make American oil, coal, natural gas, sunlight, wind, nuclear energy something the people own. It's something that already happens in part of America, and it works in Europe. Supplement it with a VAT on luxury items above a certain threshold (yachts, jewelry, property) and…

I agree with most of your ideas except energy ownership. However, as a Singaporean I have to say that Singapore has HSAs. They are called MediSave accounts and are separate from CPF although both earn interest. CPF is the retirement plan.
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