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The history of the end of poverty has just begun

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Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#161

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #138
willjp wrote: post #135

I'd be much happier if UBI proposals were higher. Living on ~900$/month nowadays would be difficult. 20 years ago I was able to split rent for a tiny concrete windowless-basement-bedroom for 450$/mo, trimmed my grocery/cleaning bill down to 100$/mo by eating nothing but rice, beans, and frozen vegetables, 120$/mo for a phone and internet (which I consider essential), and another ~80$/mo in bus tickets. That's ~750$/m…

The solution to your housing costs isn't increased payments, but cheaper housing. Housing prices are spiraling out of control almost everywhere because we refuse to build more of it through asinine zoning restrictions. High housing costs have such ripple effects on the cost of everything else that it's incredibly frustrating to see everything else but cheaper and more available housing be proposed as a means to help…

Also - giving people money is likely to increase the cost of housing.

You could give everyone $1 bajillion dollars a month. The cost of housing would go up until a lot of people are still homeless.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#162

Post by sokoloff »

zozbot234 wrote: post #146
willjp wrote: post #135

I'd be much happier if UBI proposals were higher. Living on ~900$/month nowadays would be difficult. 20 years ago I was able to split rent for a tiny concrete windowless-basement-bedroom for 450$/mo, trimmed my grocery/cleaning bill down to 100$/mo by eating nothing but rice, beans, and frozen vegetables, 120$/mo for a phone and internet (which I consider essential), and another ~80$/mo in bus tickets. That's ~750$/m…

$900/mo. is near the high-end of the feasible UBI range. If you want to live on your UBI, it's pretty much expected that you'd move to the lowest-cost feasible area, and content yourself with a somewhat dignified subsistence. UBI has by far the most potential as a supplemental income to low-skilled, entry-level or low-intensity work. The key aim is to make it seamless for people to enter or leave the job market as th…

If you doubled federal individual income taxes for everyone in the US, you could pay each adult US citizen around $750/mo in UBI with that increase.

If you doubled ALL federal income taxes in the US, you could pay each adult US citizen ~$1500/mo in UBI.

And of course, the higher you set UBI, the less point there is to work like a chump and pay 2x current tax rates so other people don’t have to, so fewer people would work (which is one of the promises of promoters of UBI), meaning taxes would have more than double to make the payments.

The math is daunting because the number of people is so high.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#163

Post by maerF0x0 »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #138
willjp wrote: post #135

I'd be much happier if UBI proposals were higher. Living on ~900$/month nowadays would be difficult. 20 years ago I was able to split rent for a tiny concrete windowless-basement-bedroom for 450$/mo, trimmed my grocery/cleaning bill down to 100$/mo by eating nothing but rice, beans, and frozen vegetables, 120$/mo for a phone and internet (which I consider essential), and another ~80$/mo in bus tickets. That's ~750$/m…

The solution to your housing costs isn't increased payments, but cheaper housing. Housing prices are spiraling out of control almost everywhere because we refuse to build more of it through asinine zoning restrictions. High housing costs have such ripple effects on the cost of everything else that it's incredibly frustrating to see everything else but cheaper and more available housing be proposed as a means to help…

> we refuse to build more of it

We also refuse to move to cheaper places. I still think from time to time, "what's stopping 10k smart young people from just moving into empty land?"

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#164

Post by [deleted] »

noahtallen wrote: post #144
WalterBright wrote: post #33

The end of poverty began in the US around 1800, when the specter of famine was finally eliminated. Throughout the 19th century, Americans grew in height and life expectancy, resulting in America's poor being the richest poor people in the world. Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings.

> Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings. This can’t be true. Just look at the homelessness situation across the US. No shelter, no income, no sanitation. That is certainly worse quality of life than a king. You must starting your definition of poor quite a ways up the income scale. Maybe you could make make an argument for solidly middle class and above? Even then, there are even a l…

[deleted]

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#165

Post by kashkhan »

zozbot234 wrote: post #146
willjp wrote: post #135

I'd be much happier if UBI proposals were higher. Living on ~900$/month nowadays would be difficult. 20 years ago I was able to split rent for a tiny concrete windowless-basement-bedroom for 450$/mo, trimmed my grocery/cleaning bill down to 100$/mo by eating nothing but rice, beans, and frozen vegetables, 120$/mo for a phone and internet (which I consider essential), and another ~80$/mo in bus tickets. That's ~750$/m…

$900/mo. is near the high-end of the feasible UBI range. If you want to live on your UBI, it's pretty much expected that you'd move to the lowest-cost feasible area, and content yourself with a somewhat dignified subsistence. UBI has by far the most potential as a supplemental income to low-skilled, entry-level or low-intensity work. The key aim is to make it seamless for people to enter or leave the job market as th…

there is no feasibility limit for UBI. The limit is inflation and that is decided by the component costs of products.

For example if you put $30T into UBI, and everyone saved it, you wouldn't have any inflation.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#168

Post by __john »

sokoloff wrote: post #162
zozbot234 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$900/mo. is near the high-end of the feasible UBI range. If you want to live on your UBI, it's pretty much expected that you'd move to the lowest-cost feasible area, and content yourself with a somewhat dignified subsistence. UBI has by far the most potential as a supplemental income to low-skilled, entry-level or low-intensity work. The key aim is to make it seamless for people to enter or leave the job market as th…

If you doubled federal individual income taxes for everyone in the US, you could pay each adult US citizen around $750/mo in UBI with that increase. If you doubled ALL federal income taxes in the US, you could pay each adult US citizen ~$1500/mo in UBI. And of course, the higher you set UBI, the less point there is to work like a chump and pay 2x current tax rates so other people don’t have to, so fewer people would…

I wonder how many businesses could survive doubling the federal income tax?

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#169

Post by guerrilla »

dustintrex wrote: post #158
greysphere wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we should not forget that the same system that abolishes poverty also creates enormous inequality Is this true? The post uses Sweden as the exemplar, which has the lowest poverty (on its chart) and also one of the lowest inequalities as measured by the Gini coeffcient (30). This page [1] seems to offer a handful of data, but nothing that outlines a clear 'higher Gini -> less poverty.' If anything it seems pretty unc…

You could argue that the wealth of Swedes comes from the (indirect) exploitation of the poor. IKEA and H&M are household names that give Swedes and the world cheap clothing and furniture, virtually all of which is made by comparatively much poorer people in China, Bangladesh, etc.

I think that's definitely true but we have some heavier examples than the ones you listed and at the same time massive natural resources which include iron (and many other metals), hydro and timber as well as significant local value generation in high-tech and services. The lack of inequality comes definitely from the very strong labor movement though.

> The main industries include motor vehicles, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, industrial machines, precision equipment, chemical goods, home goods and appliances, forestry, iron, and steel

> The 20 largest Sweden-registered companies by turnover as of 2013 were Volvo, Ericsson, Vattenfall, Skanska, Hennes & Mauritz, Electrolux, Volvo Personvagnar, Preem, TeliaSonera, Sandvik, ICA, Atlas Copco, Nordea, Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget, Scania, Securitas, Nordstjernan, SKF, ABB Norden Holding, and Sony Mobile Communications AB

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#170

Post by sokoloff »

__john wrote: post #168
sokoloff wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you doubled federal individual income taxes for everyone in the US, you could pay each adult US citizen around $750/mo in UBI with that increase. If you doubled ALL federal income taxes in the US, you could pay each adult US citizen ~$1500/mo in UBI. And of course, the higher you set UBI, the less point there is to work like a chump and pay 2x current tax rates so other people don’t have to, so fewer people would…

I wonder how many businesses could survive doubling the federal income tax?

Probably a higher percentage than middle and upper middle class taxpayers could sustain doubling their federal taxes.
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