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Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#101

Post by Dudeman112 »

sokoloff wrote: post #37
bjackman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason for this lack of interest in the actual outcome is that state benefits are one of the main battlegrounds in the UK's culture war. A lot of the Tories' base comes from the ideological position that poorer people don't deserve to receive aid at the expense (via taxes) of richer people. Whether or not UBI achieves any of its stated aims is totally irrelevant once you see things that way. All the argum…

I have significant sympathy for that base’s point of view. It’s one thing to say that we must provide a social safety net for the most vulnerable, whether temporarily or permanently so. It’s quite another to say “work should be optional and the basics of life should be provided for all [via the work of others]”. I think you’ll find a few people who object to my 2nd paragraph, but extending the argument to the 3rd is…

I would be all for the 3rd paragraph.

I'm a programmer living in a first world country (spent the first two and a half decades of my life in a third world shit hole) . I have a modicum of financial responsibility.

This means before I reach my 40s I'll have more than enough to live indefinitely off my investments. While gaining money.

I am not that smart. I am not incredibly hard working. And yet with less than 20 years of work,starting without debts and less than £1000 in my name I'll have enough to live off the money that my money makes (well, unless the world's stock market permanently crashes)

There is something deeply wrong with the financial and governamental systems if they can sustain me like that but they can't sustain most of the population.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#102

Post by amanaplanacanal »

zozbot234 wrote: post #76
kebman wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The laws are like that, because someone feels that it's not in their interest that people actually get out of poverty. The logic behind that interest is simple. You can't make people dependent on you if you simultaneously give them the tools to achieve independence. And these guys love dependent people, because it gives them power. However this attitude is ruining most Western societies.

Yup, people who actually lift their way out of poverty are not a reliable votebank. You see this happen a lot in the U.S. where minority groups have been trapped for decades by the Democrat party especially. First with sharecropping and segregation then with class warfare, either way they're kept down on the farm.

The people who supported segregation mostly abandoned the Democratic Party decades ago because of the civil rights issue. It’s one of the prime reasons the south used to be solidly Democratic and is now solidly Republican. Neither party is the same as it was in the nineteenth century.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#103

Post by smaryjerry »

anovikov wrote: post #78
gandalfian wrote: post #40

In practice the UK already pays the price for a universal basic income. Most poor people get some sort of tax credit and/or housing benefit. What we don't do is allow people to use it to rise out of poverty. A disabled lady thought saving some of her disability was the responsible thing to do, despite further impoverishing herself, once she built up some savings she was prosecuted for fraudently claiming benefits whi…

Except there is not enough redistributable capital around to let it happen. Even if all U.S. capital stock ($70T) was distributed to everyone evenly, it won't let people out of poverty (sustainable income derived from this will equal to about the minimum wage per adult). So even the most terribly unfair capital redistribution imaginable will ok, maybe pay for food stamps for everyone, but hardly much more.

In the last year 33.8% of all personal income in the US came from the government. It’s crazy to think that number could go much higher but no wonder we are experiencing shortages of just about everything and inflation.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#105

Post by mattlondon »

janandonly wrote: post #6

Interesting how political parties are for or against this pilot project before the results are known. What happened to gathering evidence first and then making up one's mind? There have been other projects in Canada, Finland,Kenya and the Netherlands, all with “positive” results. It is useful to ask what you are trying to achieve with an UBI? * lift people out of poverty? * save money on other social schemes, like pe…

> It is useful to ask what you are trying to achieve with an UBI?

There is suggestions that paying everyone a UBI is actually cheaper than the current approaches to benefit payments. No more means testing, no more form filling, no more benefits offices or case workers etc, no more physical offices filled with admin staff doing stuff, no more claiming a benefit when you are not entitled to it and having to pay it back again in your tax return to avoid missing out on a state pension (this specifically refers to weird child benefit rules in the UK) Everyone gets the same regardless.

That feels like a nice idea to me, but I have no idea if it is actually true or not.

I know for me personally I have the nice problem of earning too much for a lot of widely vaunted benefits (e.g. childcare, child benefit as mentioned above, tax free allowance etc). It would be nice personally if a lot of these cut-offs and clauses and caveats and minimum/maximum levels and then reporting it in your tax return just went away and everyone just got £500 a month or whatever.

I.e. reduce complexity and the machinery needed to run and police it.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#106

Post by growse »

intricatedetail wrote: post #80

That's where my taxes will go. And I have to pay almost a grand a month for private healthcare because of incompetent NHS. Maybe I should move to Wales to get some of my money back.

> That's where my taxes will go.

The welfare state already receives the largest fraction of your taxes. Personally, I'm in favour of things that make the welfare state more cost-effective.

> And I have to pay almost a grand a month for private healthcare because of incompetent NHS. Maybe I should move to Wales to get some of my money back.

You don't have to, you choose to.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#107

Post by cbmuser »

janandonly wrote: post #6

Interesting how political parties are for or against this pilot project before the results are known. What happened to gathering evidence first and then making up one's mind? There have been other projects in Canada, Finland,Kenya and the Netherlands, all with “positive” results. It is useful to ask what you are trying to achieve with an UBI? * lift people out of poverty? * save money on other social schemes, like pe…

> Interesting how political parties are for or against this pilot project before the results are known.

Economists know the results, they don’t need to run such experiments.

It’s like Socialism or rent control, the basic laws of economics will already tell you the outcome.

It just happens that lots of people think that economics is no hard science which doesn’t allow for such predictions.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#108

Post by jokethrowaway »

qwytw wrote: post #83
smaryjerry wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could but no one would because they make more money not working. It equates to basically paying the company to work.

You'd get both the UBI + wage/salary, I'm not quite sure how that translates to "basically paying the company to work".

If I get enough money with ubi I won't waste my life working on something I don't care about.

The amount of people who would continue their job if it wasn't for the money it's slim

I definitely wouldn't waste my time building someone else product and creating value for society. I'd likely build something fun I want to build which is unlikely to be useful for society or make money.

A large part of the populatin on would happily paint, cook, read books, watch movies, play videogames until they die - if they had the money.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#109

Post by sumedh »

zozbot234 wrote: post #76
kebman wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The laws are like that, because someone feels that it's not in their interest that people actually get out of poverty. The logic behind that interest is simple. You can't make people dependent on you if you simultaneously give them the tools to achieve independence. And these guys love dependent people, because it gives them power. However this attitude is ruining most Western societies.

Yup, people who actually lift their way out of poverty are not a reliable votebank. You see this happen a lot in the U.S. where minority groups have been trapped for decades by the Democrat party especially. First with sharecropping and segregation then with class warfare, either way they're kept down on the farm.

> where minority groups have been trapped for decades by the Democrat party especially.

What is the alternative, the party of "Jews will not replace us"?

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#110

Post by lexicality »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #70

Nobody has yet to explain the incentive for minimum paid workers to go to work once UBI payments becomes equal to a minimum paid job.

That's a very interesting way of phrasing that question.

Do you think the fact that no one would want to do these jobs for minimum wage if they aren't being forced to by threat of poverty might suggest that we need to approach those jobs differently?

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