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Ireland to launch basic income program for artists

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Re: Ireland to launch basic income program for artists

#231

Post by headmelted »

DocTomoe wrote: post #155
headmelted wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, OK, but one could also argue that the reason a given artist is struggling is because their work is not highly valued in the first place. Maybe the artist is making under-appreciated contributions, or maybe their work is just not good. It's subjective, which means criticism is subjective too, but it seems a poor place to start with any UBI scheme executed in good faith. I would think it would have more value a…

Remember: van Gogh was undervalued while he was alive. I guess he should just have thrown his stuff away early and become a baker. Mozart had virtually non-stop money troubles, even before he started becoming a party animal, and died a pauper who was buried in a linen sack in a mass grave. Guess he would have had a better life being a potter. Art is something that may only be valued highly ex post facto, and which ta…

I get this with regards to Van Gogh, and I assume a thousand Van Gogh’s we never got to hear about or appreciate. I wasn’t suggesting at all that he should’ve given up if he wasn’t making money.

I’m just saying that there are easily hundreds of creative activities people do every day just for the love of it. Each of them could be artistically appreciated later. Narrowing in on this one subset, especially with taxpayer funding, seems not only unfair but also uninformative at large (we learn little about the economic impact of UBI as the U is missing here).

As others have said though, this appears to actually be an artist’s grant labelled as UBI, which makes the whole thing moot (these have been around for a long time with allocated funding).

Re: Ireland to launch basic income program for artists

#232

Post by Retric »

nybble41 wrote: post #229
Retric wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a question of what a single immigrant does, but what all immigrants do as a group. It might be that immigrants on net cost more in UBI than they contributed to the UBI program but such imbalance could just as easily go the other direction. In the end working must provide incentives for natives to work for any UBI system to exist and those same incentives would apply to immigrants.

> working must provide incentives for natives to work for any UBI system to exist Well, yes, and that's kind of an unsolved problem. The immigration issue doesn't help. > It’s not a question of what a single immigrant does, but what all immigrants do as a group. Agreed, but what kind of immigrants will a country with a UBI (available to immigrants) tend to attract, ones that want to work or ones that want to collect…

> ones that want to work or ones that want to collect the UBI?

It’s likely that a country with a UBI will have better paying low level jobs even adjusting for tax action than a country without. That’s going to attract people who want to work. A tiny country implementing UBI may be swamped by people seeking UBI, but I doubt the global pool of people willing to move just to be very poor in some country and are willing to stay that way is all that large.

Put another way, many countries have a functioning social safety net. But immigrants tend to be seeking a better life which is generally why they became immigrants in the first place. It’s a massive filter on people willing to step up to new challenges which is why immigrant populations tend to be more economically mobile than native populations.

Re: Ireland to launch basic income program for artists

#233

Post by richrichardsson »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #224
richrichardsson wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the welfare trap real though? I suspect it may be for tiny minority, but imo most people would prefer to actually do something than sit on their ass and collect money for nothing. Again I may be grossly naïve in this area.

It is absolutely real and the biggest cliffs are for those already working full time. Here's an example showing how someone making 31k per year needs to find a job making 80k a year to increase their net income. Regarding who this impacts: Approximately 35% of Americans make 31k. Another approximately 40% of Americans earn between 31-80K and would be better off financially if they took a pay cut to 30K (at least in t…

OK, that is a different kind of welfare trap. Something similar occurs in the UK, where earning more money from an employer can reduce benefits payments and you end up worse off in real terms. However I was really asking about the welfare trap of "get money for doing literally nothing", which I personally believe is a nonsense that only a tiny minority would be happy doing.

Re: Ireland to launch basic income program for artists

#234

Post by nybble41 »

Retric wrote: post #232
nybble41 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> working must provide incentives for natives to work for any UBI system to exist Well, yes, and that's kind of an unsolved problem. The immigration issue doesn't help. > It’s not a question of what a single immigrant does, but what all immigrants do as a group. Agreed, but what kind of immigrants will a country with a UBI (available to immigrants) tend to attract, ones that want to work or ones that want to collect…

> ones that want to work or ones that want to collect the UBI? It’s likely that a country with a UBI will have better paying low level jobs even adjusting for tax action than a country without. That’s going to attract people who want to work. A tiny country implementing UBI may be swamped by people seeking UBI, but I doubt the global pool of people willing to move just to be very poor in some country and are willing…

> It’s likely that a country with a UBI will have better paying low level jobs even adjusting for tax action than a country without.

You think a UBI will increase total after-tax purchasing power for above-average earners (i.e. those paying more in taxes to support the UBI than they receive in UBI) compared to not having the UBI? I would be very interested to see how you came to that conclusion as it seems inherently contradictory.

> But immigrants tend to be seeking a better life which is generally why they became immigrants in the first place.

I'm not disagreeing with that at all. I'm just saying that I don't see countries with UBIs being very attractive to these kinds of immigrants. For the same amount of work they would be better off somewhere else where they can keep a larger share of the fruits of their labor rather than paying to support others who aren't as motivated.

Re: Ireland to launch basic income program for artists

#235

Post by Retric »

nybble41 wrote: post #234
Retric wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ones that want to work or ones that want to collect the UBI? It’s likely that a country with a UBI will have better paying low level jobs even adjusting for tax action than a country without. That’s going to attract people who want to work. A tiny country implementing UBI may be swamped by people seeking UBI, but I doubt the global pool of people willing to move just to be very poor in some country and are willing…

> It’s likely that a country with a UBI will have better paying low level jobs even adjusting for tax action than a country without. You think a UBI will increase total after-tax purchasing power for above-average earners (i.e. those paying more in taxes to support the UBI than they receive in UBI) compared to not having the UBI? I would be very interested to see how you came to that conclusion as it seems inherently…

> You think a UBI will increase total after-tax purchasing power for above-average earners (i.e. those paying more in taxes to support the UBI than they receive in UBI) compared to not having the UBI? I would be very interested to see how you came to that conclusion as it seems inherently contradictory.

Not will, can. Also, the comparison point is other countries not the same country before and after UBI.

UBI doesn’t exist in a vacuum, I doubt poor countries would set one up. A country could set one up specifically because the benefits in say reduced crime outweigh the tax burden. But the kind of country which is rich enough to make that choice is also the kind of country rich and stable enough to attract a highly skilled and motivated immigrants.

Or such a country could tightly control immigration, biasing it toward high incomes etc. In other words you can’t assume anything about such a system without knowing how and by whom it’s implemented.

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