https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/gehaltsrechner-geh...
An article in German, but 1943 Euros a month in Germany is the median income. And it takes only around 6100/month to be 1%.
Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial
61–70 of 348 posts
Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, By that measure couldn’t we say the Capitalism pilot program has failed? Sure productivity is ever increasing and business productivity per employee is at historic highs...but all that productivity has only resulted in a larger wealth gap with all the benefits going to the investor class and net negative to workers whose real wages have been stagnant for…
Lol, no. Just no. The capitalism experiment is everything that has happened from the industrial revolution (really, earlier) forward. Compare with the 19th, 18th, or 17th century, and you’ll find today’s wealth gap is smaller, people live more prosperous lives, happiness indices improved, etc. Not to mention the literally billions of lives that wouldn’t otherwise exist at all.
The old billions wouldn’t even be alive but for capitalism.
Well if capitalism is responsible for all the good it must be responsible for all the bad, like industrial warfare like WWI and WWII.
Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial
#63Not sure how this is going to fly inside the EU. Simply relocate from Riga to Berlin and get 1400€? Or do you have to become a German citizen? Wouldn't that be against the spirit of the EU?
I mean there are a lot of arguments PRO UBI. My favourite is that we are steering towards an ever more automated world. Maybe in 50 years from now a factory only contains half a dozen of people while the output remains the same or increases, meaning there is a heavy imbalance between available work and available workers. I believe Bill Gates proposes to tax the use of robots to compensate for it.
All in all I am not convinced, though. If more money becomes circulated the prices will naturally rise. If you can expect everyone to have at least 1400€ from the get-go then businesses will adjust their pricing accordingly. So the whole thing might result in a net zero.
I also believe the entire premise is wrong that the only thing that separates me from the Bezos, the Gates and the Musks of this world is money. When there are many more factors are at play and most of them can probably not be solved by having more money.
Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial
#64These studies don't really prove anything. Common arguments in favor of these studies - "They prove people don't quit work on UBI!" - No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing. "They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!" - No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program…
Any UBI could be entirely reversed by an equal and opposite tax. Of course this would be pointless, but it shows that there are many possibilities, depending on what sort of taxes you combine it with, and some of them are certainly feasible because the net effect is small. UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of e…
And that is why it will fail.
Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law. Sadly governments and politicians are too corrupt to implement real fairness and have decided instead for the populist way out while keeping their insane advantage intact.
Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is how a decent chuck of macroeconomics works. There are some things that exist at such a scale that you can't accurately experiment with them. You can only theorize, run models or simulations, and observe real world results after implementation.
The problem is that anything besides regulated capitalism with some social features built in has utterly failed. And when it fails, it fails HARD. So implementing something so drastic without knowing if it'll work is extremely risky.
>The problem is that anything besides regulated capitalism with some social features built in has utterly failed. And when it fails, it fails HARD.
Would you say that every country on the planet is either "capitalism with some social features built in" or is currently failing hard? And if all those systems are capitalistic, what specifically pushes UBI over the edge into being something that isn't capitalism? From an implementation perspective, UBI is simply an adjustment of the income tax rate including allowing that rate to be negative. It has nothing to do with ownership, markets, or many of the other mainstays of capitalism.
Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial
#66Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later. Now the only question is: how to you phase in UBI while still rewarding extra productive people to keep creating/innovating? Some will say "those people will innovate out of love". This is not always the case, many people are good at what they do and create many awesome things but given the chance they would rather do some…
> Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later. > Now the only question is: ... "Most jobs will get automated" is actually very questionable. It's called "Lump of labour fallacy", although (I suppose) either not everybody subscribes to it, or it's something that tends to go unnoticed.
Fair point, but for example if trucks get fully automated: the USA has 3.5 million truck drivers.
Where are they gonna find a job? My fear is that little by little people will be running out of jobs to find and the middle class will shrink more and more because of this. At which point will the "automation tipping point" happen where the society acknowledges that it's simply not possible to find meaningful employment for everyone?
Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial
#67These studies don't really prove anything. Common arguments in favor of these studies - "They prove people don't quit work on UBI!" - No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing. "They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!" - No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program…
"No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing." This is a really good point. But it will apply to the government program as well. Just because we have such a program at full scale, doesn't guarantee anything. * The UBI might not always be above the poverty line * The UBI might be terminated at any time, or after…
If I have saved maybe a million in cash, UBI would encourage me to just stop working.
You'd already be "encouraged" to take a lower-paying part time and/or less stressful job. But most millionaires aren't going to be satisfied with the downgraded lifestyle that would entail.
doesn't do much for the poor
It does a lot for the poor. It lets them earn additional money without worrying about losing benefits, which is a big problem with current welfare systems. And more importantly it gives them negotiating power; they can walk away from abusive employers without the worry of homelessness or hunger.
Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial
#68These studies don't really prove anything. Common arguments in favor of these studies - "They prove people don't quit work on UBI!" - No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing. "They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!" - No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program…
"What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation. A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these questions."
Yes, but some skeptics really do object to UBI on moral-based reasons - indolence, buying drugs, laziness, and the joy of work and all that. If it turned out that all the money went to drugs and people got depressed, it would be a good argument against UBI.
Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial
#69These studies don't really prove anything. Common arguments in favor of these studies - "They prove people don't quit work on UBI!" - No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing. "They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!" - No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program…
>What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation. A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these questions.
There is no proof that would actually appease you. There is no way you could measure the effect on inflation without having an entire currency on UBI. There is no way we could be sure about the macroeconomic effects of UBI without first implementing it.
Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial
#70These studies don't really prove anything. Common arguments in favor of these studies - "They prove people don't quit work on UBI!" - No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing. "They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!" - No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program…
There is also the potential for inflation and artificially increased exclusivity, which likewise is not determinate from a temporary or short term project. In order to measure the impact on inflation the experiment would have to be widespread and longitudinal just like any other potential cause of inflation.