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European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

eci.ec.europa.eu

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Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#111

Post by username90 »

Scandiravian wrote: post #107
username90 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government debt. https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/government-debt-to-gdp For example Sweden where I live has reduced their government debt to GDP ratio pretty consistently the past 25 years, and I haven't noticed any problems with it. People saying that we would have problems if governments balanced their budgets are just big fat liars.

I think calling other "big fat liars" is a sad approach to a discourse. I don't know who the "people" you refer to are, so unless you specify that, I can't comment on it. I can't remember making a claim like that In fact reducing national debt through taxation is an effective way of reducing inflation. Reducing national debt does not mean the economy will fail. The economy is not a binary system ("success", "fail"),…

If a politician funds all their initiatives via debt instead of taxation in order to get popular support and thus push the problems down to the line that is a pretty shitty thing to do, but it is fine sometimes you have to do it and there is a tradeoff. But when they then argue "Taking on debt is actually a good thing, don't blame me for doing it I had to do it! Everyone does it! Paying off debt is actually a bad thing to do for governments!" they crossed the line and I can no longer consider them as good people. So I used those words since that is what they are, shitty people deserve shitty treatment.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#112

Post by oblio »

Scandiravian wrote: post #44
oblio wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what kind of economic books you've read, but mine had terms such as "hyperinflation" in them :-) If anything, stuff like global currencies ($, €) bail out their respective owners because they're world reserve currencies. Some of the smaller Eurozone countries would have definitely defaulted, had hyperinflation, etc, without the Euro. Now they're in recession instead, which sucks a lot but still less than…

I have never understood, why everyone brings up inflation as an argument against this, as if that isn't something that already exists Inflation is only an issue if you spend money beyond what is required to achieve full employment in the workforce, since new money in the system is balanced with new wealth being generated through work Inflation can then be controlled through taxation. Raising taxes pulls money out of…

Greece, for sure.

They would have defaulted and the drachma would have probably been at a point where a loaf of bread would cost millions of drachmas.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#114

Post by pindab0ter »

akvadrako wrote: post #79
Barrin92 wrote: post #57

I dislike UBI a lot. (coming from the left side of the European political spectrum for what it's worth) for a few reasons. The first one is that I think work is a fundamental aspect of personal life and people feel deeply rewarded for being compensated for it. UBI is underpinned by a sort of Wall-E philosophy of human nature. It in a weird way presents itself as humanistic but is deeply apolitical and anti-social. Se…

> The first one is that I think work is a fundamental aspect of personal life and people feel deeply rewarded for being compensated for it. That's a reason to like UBI. (1) It allows more people to work. Current social programs discourage work because earned income reduces benefits; not so with UBI. (2) It allows more meaningful work. People aren't so desperate they need to take any job and we can safely drop minimum…

Makes me wonder what will happen to the parts of the economy that rely on jobs that people aren't lining up to do. I can imagine fast food getting more expensive, for example.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#115

Post by username90 »

pindab0ter wrote: post #114
akvadrako wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first one is that I think work is a fundamental aspect of personal life and people feel deeply rewarded for being compensated for it. That's a reason to like UBI. (1) It allows more people to work. Current social programs discourage work because earned income reduces benefits; not so with UBI. (2) It allows more meaningful work. People aren't so desperate they need to take any job and we can safely drop minimum…

Makes me wonder what will happen to the parts of the economy that rely on jobs that people aren't lining up to do. I can imagine fast food getting more expensive, for example.

It could also get cheaper as a minimum wage is no longer required when you have UBI. People would work because they want $$$, not because they have to. This means that for many who would want to earn $2.5 an hour working a low stress job to pay for some simple extra things they can do so.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#116

Post by rhn_mk1 »

emteycz wrote: post #110
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't claim to have all the answers. But not having a confirmation is not the same as having a refutation. One thing for sure, a big change will require a long ramp up, or a big shock.

So, we have evidence of much smaller ambitions not working out, and you claim it says nothing about much larger ambitions, and yet you don't have any answers. Interesting how all of the UBI discussions end this way.

You're right on most points, so let me justify why I believe it's worth trying.

First, the possibility space of politics/economy is enormous. Presuming European countries are the ones you're talking to which couldn't bear this year's economical help, that's a useful data point, but EU countries share a lot in common: developed, industrialized, capitalist, democratic, old society, efficient etc. That by itself doesn't exhaust all the possible configurations. One could imagine countries that retain the same desirable or unavoidable properties (democracy, old age), but differs significantly in others (simple tax laws?).

Until we determine whether implementing UBI would work from all reasonably reachable configurations, it's still worth evaluating.

There have been semi-successful UBI-like ambitions IMO, when we look at the idea of "bullshit jobs". While they exist in the West, the most interesting example is Soviet countries, where citizens were given the most pointless jobs, which would give them enough money to survive. Perhaps it's not the most successful thing ever, but it's worth noting this didn't cause an immediate collapse of the system.

Treating coronavirus help as a data point is also dangerous. The results are confounded because of how the world economy was affected by the lockdowns.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#117

Post by mantas »

username90 wrote: post #93
mantas wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tall woman needs as much as a tiny man. Should UBI account for body mass? What should it do with underweight or overweight people then? :)

I don't think UBI should take anything into account, no, but an average man needs more money than an average woman. That some women needs more than some men doesn't really matter, women arguing that they as a group need more money than men is nonsense.

You'll have to drop all historical and societal context for that.

Get X peas per kilo of body weight, a piece of a cloth to wrap yourself and you're good to go...

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#118

Post by Scandiravian »

username90 wrote: post #111
Scandiravian wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think calling other "big fat liars" is a sad approach to a discourse. I don't know who the "people" you refer to are, so unless you specify that, I can't comment on it. I can't remember making a claim like that In fact reducing national debt through taxation is an effective way of reducing inflation. Reducing national debt does not mean the economy will fail. The economy is not a binary system ("success", "fail"),…

If a politician funds all their initiatives via debt instead of taxation in order to get popular support and thus push the problems down to the line that is a pretty shitty thing to do, but it is fine sometimes you have to do it and there is a tradeoff. But when they then argue "Taking on debt is actually a good thing, don't blame me for doing it I had to do it! Everyone does it! Paying off debt is actually a bad thi…

I'm sad to hear that you automatically label people you disagree with as "shitty people" and they "deserve shitty treatment". It eliminates the possibility for dialogue, empathy and learning

You essentially block yourself of improving yourself by realising you might be wrong about something

It sounds to me like you think of a national economy as a household budget. Taxes are income and welfare is expenses, you take loans from banks, which have interest and needs to be paid back or you get punished

It's a nice and simple explanation, which also happens to be 100% wrong

Government debt have no interest and there's no creditor who needs to be paid back. Whenever the Swedish government prints 100 crowns, it goes 100 crowns more into debt

Whenever it gets 100 crowns in through taxes it resolves 100 crowns of debt

National debt is not the same as private debt. They're two completely different things, that unfortunately have kind of similar names

National debt is simply the amount of the national currency in circulation. To be "debt free", Sweden would have to remove every single crown from circulation, which obviously is not a good idea for the economy

Additionally - the government does not use taxes to fund spending. Swedish crowns are essentially worthless to the Swedish government, because they own the money printing press and could make infinite money if they wanted to

If parents setup a system for their kids, where they get small paper notes for doing chores, which can be traded in for the daily WiFi password, the notes have no value for the parents and the WiFi would work without the kids paying chore notes, but they're still useful because they facilitate the "doing of chores" and have value to the kids because of the "WiFi tax"

In other words the purpose of taxes is to create demand for the currency to match the supply the government is creating by printing more money. By having a demand for the currency, the government can use it to pay people to do "chores" it wants done by simply turning on the money printer, then collecting taxes at a later date

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#119

Post by mytailorisrich »

Scandiravian wrote: post #66
mytailorisrich wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder which "modern" theory this comes from... Some debt is a good thing because, like for a business or individual, it is generally a good thing to borrow in order to invest for the future (leveraging effect). But too much debt is not a good thing. Debt must be serviced and one need to find creditors willing to lend. Infinite borrowing based on "full control of currency" only means that the value of the currency…

Sovereign nations don't indebt themselves through banks. They're not taking out loans to fund their spending, so they don't need a creditor Avoiding hyperinflation is about "how" you spend the money, not where they come from. In the case of Zimbabwe, the events leading up to their crash was massive destruction of productivity, which meant their wealth generation no longer matched the amount of money in circulation Th…

This is patently false and a rather strange claim.

Sovereign nations do indebt themselves through banks and financial markets in general, most often through the issuance of bonds, which can be defined as highly tradeable loans.

This is why sovereign debt is given a rating by credit agencies and why interest rates on debt freely vary based on the perceived risk by creditors. This also means that it can become difficult for a country to borrow at all (hence organizations like the IMF sometimes stepping in)

There is no magic.

However you spend money, inflation is created by an excess supply, not least when money is printed to cover debts (an effective devaluation). This is actually what happened in Zimbabwe.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#120

Post by Scandiravian »

oblio wrote: post #112
Scandiravian wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never understood, why everyone brings up inflation as an argument against this, as if that isn't something that already exists Inflation is only an issue if you spend money beyond what is required to achieve full employment in the workforce, since new money in the system is balanced with new wealth being generated through work Inflation can then be controlled through taxation. Raising taxes pulls money out of…

Greece, for sure. They would have defaulted and the drachma would have probably been at a point where a loaf of bread would cost millions of drachmas.

On the contrary, the eurozone is a massive reason for the Greek economy collapsing as catastrophically as it did in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis

It also doesn't matter how "many" of a currency is needed for a loaf of bread, as long as the supply is available. The Italian lira was extremely inexpensive, but as long as the government made sure the supply matched the demand there was no issue

Edit: I'd also say that Greece is not really a "smaller European country", being the 14th most populous European country

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