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Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

timjrobinson.com

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Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#191

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

> A UBI paid for with a carbon tax

This can’t work for one very obvious reason:

The incentive is supposed to be to reduce carbon emissions, but a UBI funded by carbon emissions has the opposite incentive.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#193

Post by fiblye »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #12

I can’t help but think that UBI would distort job markets. Let’s pick an example of a “sucky job” (and I say this as just an example, I realize these guys work hard and are vital). A garbage man. He get’s paid $42k a year because they have to find people who would be willing to do this sucky job and need to pay higher than minimum wage to do so. At some point of income, people would be willing to accept the suckiness…

Garbage men are working one of society's most important jobs. They're deserving of respect for the hard work they do. If UBI results in underpaid people leaving, employers will have to raise wages to match the true value of the job or they'll invest in automation. Either way would be good.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#194

Post by naveen99 »

jMyles wrote: post #146
alexmingoia wrote: post #82

Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…

What is so bad about reduced "work"? Maybe people who are currently working at stupid, unnecessary jobs will make art and poetry and music. Or maybe invent cool things. Or maybe just relax and learn about themselves. I have never understood this obsession with 100% employment.

Also women are less likely to prefer employed men and will be more free to be with artists, poets and musicians.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#195

Post by sroussey »

petermcneeley wrote: post #174
alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

Carbon taxes tend to be regressive. Using a regressive tax to fund "ubi" sounds cunningly evil. Are you familiar with the yellow jacket protests in France?

Include carbon production as well. Look at the UBI that Alaska has in place.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#196

Post by [deleted] »

thephyber wrote: post #153

The elephants in the room are the extremely cheap labor that already undermines the legit goods and services: - extremely cheap prison labor - undocumented laborers who have (almost) no legal rights and who take difficult jobs - ex-cons who have to pay a portion of their wages to employers who are willing to hire them - jobs where wages must be subsidized by government programs (eg. WalMart encourages their lowest pa…

[deleted]

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#197

Post by Someone1234 »

alexmingoia wrote: post #82

Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…

- The cost of deciding who qualifies (and enforcement) is relevant. Particularly as you're spending money on every citizen, but only making savings from a small minority.

- You can "claw back" the money other, cheaper, ways (e.g. income tax increases).

- Negative income tax don't work for children, disabled, or the elderly like UBI does. If they don't work, it doesn't work. Therefore, you wind up with two schemes.

People keep on tacking on complexity, which breeds costs, which makes the whole scheme disproportionately expensive. It is universal because universal is cheap to run.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#198

Post by Jedd »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #79

I understand and agree with how a UBI will benefit those that are currently falling between the cracks and not receiving any assistance. I can also see the benefits of greatly simplifying the social security system. (If it was implemented in a way that was actually simple. i.e. no distinction between sick, unemployed, old, lazy) But I don't understand why people don't believe the UBI will just become the new definiti…

> But I don't understand why people don't believe the UBI will just become the new definition of poverty. People will still be miserable and feel like they have nothing when comparing themselves to those who get UBI and have a job.

We don't know that people will 'still be miserable', let alone the ratio of misery in the current versus the proposed economy. My expectation is that fewer people will be in poverty / misery, but that's just as speculative as your opinion.

In any case, it's not cause to avoid considering a UBI. We should not be constraining our goals to a perfect first attempt [1] - merely to obtain some improvement over the current arrangement.

[1] https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#199

Post by ahdeanz »

alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

The UBI Center has a lot of good information about how tax revenue could be raised to pay for UBI: https://www.ubicenter.org/

It's interesting to see more and more rigorous analysis of UBI enter the discussion.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#200

Post by Ericson2314 »

Aerroon wrote: post #166
alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

I don't see how this would really work. A carbon tax in an ideal situation is just a consumption tax. This means that it's the consumer that pays it. Rich people don't eat more food nor do they drive dozens of cars at once. If we want this carbon tax to offset our greenhouse emissions then that means it will necessarily disproportionately impact poor people. And then you want to turn around and pay that money back to…

> This means that it's the consumer that pays it. Rich people don't eat more food nor do they drive dozens of cars at once.

Rich people may not consume more in proportion to their wealth, but they do consume more in absolute terms. WRT carbon tax in particular the rich do consume substantiall more with plane rides, so the tax side would be more progressive than a plain VAT.

Also, they buy their kids cars.

> It'll be a slight redistribution of wealth from the wealthy to the poor and that's it. It won't fulfill the role of a UBI.

Maybe it's not enough but that doesn't make it a bad thing. One could combine a bunch of externalizes taxes (carbon, land, etc.) which together could create a better UBI. Or yes, throw in VAT Yang style too.

> In an unideal world it will just be gamed to all hell instead.

"gaming" is finding ways to maximally consume / Cabon impact. Yes, please game this as much as possible!

> Also, good luck getting people to swallow a doubling of their tax bill even if you give it back.

By definition only the people that consume 2 / punative-rate the average double there taxes. I'm sure these few rich people will raise a fit and have outside political power, but this applies to any progressive tax.

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