The main issue with such a test is that it doesn't test the effect on those who would be footing the higher tax bill.
Universal basic income to be tested in Wales
261–270 of 337 posts
Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
By balls, you mean money. Look at the difficulty the service industry has now hiring people who would rather receive government relief and sit around the house than work a marginally better paying job—it’s not like they are using this time to pursue productive hobbies (pursuing their passions)... and look at the inflation and debt we’re incurring from free money
Haven't we spent the last decade bemoaning the lack of moderate inflation? Plus the primary issue with inflation is that it hurts people at the bottom, so UBI offsets that inherently. As for the money, I am brit so I only know the British numbers. We spend about 300bn a year on benefits (in non covid times). That's £5000 per citizen (including kids) and doesn't count a whole bunch of other subsidies (free houses, loc…
I think that yes some people would work if they got to keep their UBI but there’d a considerable amount who would be okay to scrape by and do nothing or work part time instead of full time. If I understood my high school cohort, this is okay but it’s an unproductive part of society. Some people are just not motivated.
Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
No, the welfare state doesn't receive "the largest fraction" of your taxes. Thinking this is a bit of a meme in the UK. The largest category of spending is actually the state pension (which is partly funded by direct revenue), this isn't welfare. The actual amounts that go towards helping people who actually need help in the UK is relatively small. Unemployment benefits vanishingly small. Even when unemployment was h…
> No, the welfare state doesn't receive "the largest fraction" of your taxes. Thinking this is a bit of a meme in the UK. The largest category of spending is actually the state pension (which is partly funded by direct revenue), this isn't welfare. The actual amounts that go towards helping people who actually need help in the UK is relatively small.
Hmm. On my tax breakdown from HMRC, "Welfare" comes top at ~22%, whereas "State Pensions" comes third at ~12% (Health is second at ~20%). Are you saying HMRC is wrong, or am I misinterpreting this? It does say this is just for income tax and NI, but I'm not aware of income/NI being specifically ringfenced and spent in a different way to, say, VAT.
> The NHS has pretty poor outcomes for a developed country. It is provided at low-cost (interestingly, about half the size of the public health system in the US) but the results are very poor (politically, doctor's unions have had very strong lobbying, so when spending increases it has typically gone into the back pocket of doctors with output unchanged). Private healthcare is better.
I'm not sure there's a consesus on this. The most charitable interpretation I can gather from skimming the research (e.g. https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l6326) is that "It's complex. The NHS does some things badly, and it does some things well, and it generally spends less than its peers". If we accept that, then the next question is naturally "what do we want to change" and "how do we do that". Maybe if the NHS spends less than its peers, we need to fund it more to get better outcomes (I wouldn't be against this)?
I also don't disagree necessarily that "Private healthcare is better" for some things, but as I said elsewhere, they're not the ones who have to deal with emergency trauma cases, so it's not a like-for-like comparison.
Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. If it were universal, companies could just start charging everyday products much more. Boom, all people getting ubi suddenly need to start working again and they need to pay more in taxes to support all the money going in ubi.
> This. If it were universal, companies could just start charging everyday products much more. Boom, all people getting ubi suddenly need to start working again and they need to pay more in taxes to support all the money going in ubi. This is pretty naive. By the same logic, an unemployment rate of 0 would also cause a lot of inflation and still lead to poverty. Everyone's now earning a wage, so prices will just rise…
In (some of) the proposals here, UBI is paired to a much lower minimum wage (a form of compensation, as taxes for corporations will rise). But very few people are going to work for €1/hr or €2/hr, when you get €11/hr from UBI. Instead, they'll probably start a little hustle on the side, or work black. So, if a company wants to keep its employees (and shops etc. really need them), they'll need to raise the wage. This will have a effect on prices, and most likely, prices of food will rise, taking away much of advantage the poorest segment would have, while forcing those who didn't/can't work to take a job, until there's a new balance, where many people will be off worse (because the plans require abolishing all personal subsidies and welfare to pay for UBI). So that's paying a lot of money to make life worse.
Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales
#265Nobody has yet to explain the incentive for minimum paid workers to go to work once UBI payments becomes equal to a minimum paid job.
The incentive for such jobs will be higher wages which in return means higher prices which eventually compensates for the whole UBI in the first place. Money _cannot_ have any value if it’s not backed by any goods or labor. If your baker gets his UBI, why would he want to get up early and bake your bread in the first place when there is no incentive? Or why would anyone want to sell you anything when the money isn’t…
> If your baker gets his UBI, why would he want to get up early and bake your bread in the first place when there is no incentive?
This is why I'm asking. I actually know two bakers, and can guarantee that there's no way they would go to work if they had exactly what they were earning but didn't have to get up and go to work.
Extending this out, no baker would consider working unless their pay was above and beyond UBI. And the only way to pay them more while having the same profits to the bakery owner would be to raise prices. This is a direct example of how UBI would definitely cause inflation.
Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think it’s honestly that sophisticated and malicious? Public policy is hard. Adjusting benefits appropriately as people climb out of poverty is a known challenge. It’s called a “welfare trap” and has its own Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap
Yes, there is a huge sentiment among the conservative public in the UK that people should not use benefits to gain capital or for social mobility. This isn't just a policy issue, it does come along with a commonly held attitude.
Can there be social mobility that is independent of social social status, or does "social mobility" have a literal definition where if someone gains social status someone else must by definition be lower on the social ladder. If one follows that definition it seems not too strange logic that social support should go towards those at the bottom of the social ladder, and if you change the social ordering then who receive support will also change.
One way to resolve the problem seems to be to decouple benefits from social status and instead see them as human rights. Health care is not something that you buy, but rather a service that the government provide to every citizen equally. The top 1% get the same cancer treatment as the homeless and both pay zero.
Decouple benefits from social status does not seems to be strictly a left vs right issue, at least not here in Sweden. Is the UK different here?
Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm not sure you understand your own comment because what you are saying is basically that people are asking for way too high wages. Why? Because governments don't force people to work for them, they have to hire them on the open market, which means that they have to pay the prevailing wage and that wage is too high for private companies, which forces them to raise their prices, in short, higher wages drive inflation, which means wage growth is leading inflation, which means workers are actually benefiting from the current situation.
This is true to some extent and it explains 2% inflation, but the boring answer is that gasoline prices are rising much much faster than wages which is another 2% for 4% inflation in total.
Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I'm not quite seeing how the pie gets bigger. You have a UBI at the cost of massive wealth destruction in the housing market. How does LVT favor dense housing? And why would people be building more now that they don't expect the price of homes to ever increase? I'm not seeing how the scenario you've outlined is the most likely to happen.
It's not wealth destruction, it's deflating paper wealth that's held at the expense of one's surrounding community. Your built structure will still be as valuable as it was, and quite possibly more.
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Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes, if you have £18k in savings...you don't need help. Do you understand what being poor is? You are not poor if you have £18k in savings. Savings is not income. One is a stock, the other is a flow. People might be in need of income support even if they've been saving responsibly for a while.
Yes, you can use your savings. Savings are income. The only reason for savings is to consume in the future. Believing that you should have permanent savings that can't be used for consumption is just out of this world...I would speak to someone who has no money. The welfare state exists for people who need help, not those who wish the state to keep them in a luxury to which they have become accustomed. EDIT: most ben…
> The only reason for savings is to consume in the future.
Yes, but try amortizing £18k over any number of years. It's peanuts when judged on an income basis. This person is just as much in need of help, whether or not they're prudent enough to keep £18k in the bank as a precautionary buffer.
Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of LVT is that it replaces some of your taxes. So you're paying the same as you would on a mortgage (except it would be less, because land use would be more efficient) but saving on what used to be your tax bill. And, sure, you can't really "pay it off" but that's true of any tax. This would also shift quite a bit of savings towards more productive endeavors than opportunistically betting on the future appre…
But if it's replacing my taxes then it can't be used to fund a UBI. I guess I could be open to such a tax but only if I thought I would be able to sell my home before the massive price deflation. It seems like implementation of such a tax would have huge negative economic implications in the short term. Imagine taking out a mortgage on a property, then LVT is implemented and now your home is only worth 50% or less of…
Hence why I said that the shift can be done slowly over 20 years. Say ramp up the taxes 5% per year until home prices reach equilibrium.