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Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

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Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#161

Post by Izkata »

tnel77 wrote: post #127
CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, the problem in the US was multi-causal. I mention that case because it is probably the best large-scale deployment of a UBI-like program any country has ever done. While we can't completely untangle the exact contribution magnitude, I think we can deduce that at least some meaningful % of the shortage/inflation situation was caused by the UBI-like program.

I would agree with that. I wish there was a way to know how much though. There was an undeniable impact of giving people “free money,” but it doesn’t seem like most Americans received very much. Most of the people I know of received their 2-3 checks and that’s it. You’d see news articles two years into the pandemic saying things like “Americans finally running out of stimulus money.” It made me laugh because it seeme…

It was the people working close to minimum wage that were most affected - it was common to see small business owners unable to get workers to return because these payments were higher than they were making on the job.

I think this would be the most likely outcome: basic income means no longer needing to work, and even if it just covers the essentials I think a lot more people are going to go that route than most expect.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#162

Post by Izkata »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #131
CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #45

Yes, of course giving people money makes their lives better. It especially works when a very small subset of the population receives such treatment, such that their relative income is higher than those outside the experiment. The issue with UBI is that enacting it at scale has two huge problems: 1. Financing it. These programs are monumentally expensive. You need to get the money from somewhere. The easiest place to…

>"Yes, of course giving people money makes their lives better. It especially works when a very small subset of the population receives such treatment, such that their relative income is higher than those outside the experiment." I've never seen a UBI experiment which demands that the participants pay more in taxes and forfeit all other welfare benefits in exchange for the payment. Every "experiment" so far has been m…

They also have an explicit end date so people know they need to keep working and can't just rely on it.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#163

Post by ryandvm »

CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #45

Yes, of course giving people money makes their lives better. It especially works when a very small subset of the population receives such treatment, such that their relative income is higher than those outside the experiment. The issue with UBI is that enacting it at scale has two huge problems: 1. Financing it. These programs are monumentally expensive. You need to get the money from somewhere. The easiest place to…

> The USA did this during the COVID era. We basically implemented UBI. We expanded the M1 money supply from $4T to $18T and largely handed it out in a diffuse way. For the first 6 months it was awesome. And then shortages started spiking and inflation started creeping in. We ultimately had to roll it back.

Yup. And don't forget where most of that money finally ended up - as absolutely massive corporate windfalls. That COVID money went through the economy like shit through a goose and ended up where it always does, in the hands of those that are good at making money.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#164

Post by dfxm12 »

arp242 wrote: post #62

Most of these are either fairly short-lived limited pilots, or aren't really "UBI" (e.g. Alaska's $1,600 a year hardly qualifies as UBI as it's just enough to buy groceries with, never mind rent or any other basic needs). A large population with basic needs met and nothing particular they have to do is untested. I don't really know how that will end, but I fear it may not end especially well. Let's be real: no one wo…

Most of these are either fairly short-lived limited pilots, or aren't really "UBI" (e.g. Alaska's $1,600 a year hardly qualifies as UBI as it's just enough to buy groceries with, never mind rent or any other basic needs)

You seem to misunderstand what UBI means. UBI doesn't imply an amount of income to keep someone at or above the poverty line (or to meet all of one's needs). There are types of UBI: partial basic income (which is what most people with any sort of political or economic power talk about, including the examples in the article, which includes Alaska's Permanent fund) & full basic income.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#165

Post by tr_user »

CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #45

Yes, of course giving people money makes their lives better. It especially works when a very small subset of the population receives such treatment, such that their relative income is higher than those outside the experiment. The issue with UBI is that enacting it at scale has two huge problems: 1. Financing it. These programs are monumentally expensive. You need to get the money from somewhere. The easiest place to…

> If you do it by taxing the rich, you wind up hobbling and punishing your most productive citizens. Look at China's economic situation right now to see how ultimately unproductive that can be.

What hogwash, if there's anything that's apparent today it's that the rich do not get there either by working hard or by being more smart. They just happen to have rich parents. Why are we ok with billionaires like elon musk who spend most of their day tweeting to control society changing amounts of wealth?

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#166

Post by EasyMark »

CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #45

Yes, of course giving people money makes their lives better. It especially works when a very small subset of the population receives such treatment, such that their relative income is higher than those outside the experiment. The issue with UBI is that enacting it at scale has two huge problems: 1. Financing it. These programs are monumentally expensive. You need to get the money from somewhere. The easiest place to…

One huge hole in your plan: the shortages weren't because people suddenly had more money, they happened because a huge percentage of production and international shipping came to a halt. Demand helped but it was not a majority of the problem.

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#167

Post by gamepsys »

HideousKojima wrote: post #121
gamepsys wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warning: Ballpark numbers ahead The 2022 budget was $1.2T across all welfare programs[0]. This includes programs people don't normally consider welfare such as the Child Tax Credit and parts of the Pell Grant. There are currently 350M people in the USA [1]. $1.2T / 350M People is $3,428/person/year. Please note that while significantly less, there will still be some overhead in the UBI program so the actual number is…

Meanwhile, the median social security recipient gets about $1,700 per month . I don't think most people are going to get behind a "Rob grandma's pension so a bunch of college socialists can write poetry instead of working (and even then actually can't because they're bad at math)" program.

Social security is another $1.4T/year budget that is not considered welfare [0]. Medicare is another $0.9B [1] that isn't considered welfalre [1].

If we raided these programs, along with the previously mentioned programs, we reach an annual budget of $3.5T. The per person math is $10,000/person/year. A two person household would very near the federal poverty line.[2]

It's starting to look like it could be viable if we add state budgets into the mix, and find another solution for elderly healthcare.

[0] https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-fed...

[1] https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo...

[2] https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/povert...

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#168

Post by Izkata »

dfxm12 wrote: post #148
Detrytus wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't depend on how it's funded. It's a simple mechanics: once the word gets out that everybody is getting free money then all the companies raise their prices, trying to capture that money, because why wouldn't they?

Greedflation already exists without any type of UBI in place. UBI is not meant to combat greedflation. You're right to be worried about greedflation, but being against UBI because greedflation exists simply doesn't follow.

There's a big difference between "not combating" and "encouraging". UBI would be much closer to "encouraging".

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#169

Post by [deleted] »

rspoerri wrote: post #119
criddell wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The USA did this during the COVID era. Japan has being doing this for decades now and, AFAIK, there hasn't been any terrible consequences. What are they doing differently? imf.org says Japan's dept to GDP ratio is 214% and the US' is 110%.

japan is mostly in depth to its own residents, while the us is owned by china. update: first thing remains true. but china owns less parts of the us depth by now, its more distributed among other countries.

[deleted]

Re: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried over and over Again. It Works Every Time

#170

Post by derac »

FredPret wrote: post #38
kevingadd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money isn't zero sum. We've never let such concerns interfere with funding wars.

Yes we have? There's an ongoing funding crisis for Ukraine's defense, and there are legions of conservatives who are mad about the trillion + spent blowing up Afghanistan + Iraq. Taxation in the US came about to fund a war. Money is in the top-three concerns people have about war; it's right after lives lost and infrastructure destroyed.

I'm guessing you mean income tax, rather than taxation in general?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_Uni...

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