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Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

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Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#131

Post by dllthomas »

penguindev wrote: post #121
cdoxsey wrote: post #59

I think in the end this wouldn't work. It'd play out something like this: A certain percentage of the population would stop working entirely since they no longer need to. (Particularly when politicians push the basic income amount up to placate constituencies) Because workers bow out of the system certain industries lose productive capacity. Maybe we stop producing enough food, or enough fuel. Prices rise (assuming a…

I'd be far more worried about this sending a false prosperity signal that could exacerbate our already insane and unsustainable population levels. What's really depressing is that not a single comment here or on the article even mentions this. Why the hell should I pay even more and subsidize those who have more than two kids?

I don't think the number of kids goes up with prosperity. Developed countries and upper classes typically have much lower birth rates than their counterparts, and some countries are even experiencing negative population growth.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#132

Post by unclebucknasty »

>"...wealth creation will increasingly be confined to those with capital, and things start to follow a Marxist logic. The middle classes (and their elected representatives) will not let that happen."

In the absence of real campaign finance reform, is the middle class really that empowered to "not let this happen" through their elected representatives? Those representatives, after all, are currently much more beholden to their financial masters--the corporations and its wealthier beneficiaries (executives, prominent shareholders) which provide large campaign donations.

Not that it can't change. There are just a lot of steps between here and there.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#133

Post by nawitus »

effn wrote: post #75
nawitus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It misses the fact that work is fulfilling for (most) people. Basic income is not against working, it's point is to let people work in all kinds of situations. Old-fashion social security usually makes the tax rate for certain part-time / freelancing work 100% (e.g. $100 increase in pay can reduce benefits $100, therefore the actual marginal tax rate is 100% and most people won't do that work). > But just paying peo…

> You can do that in most Nordic countries, and it has many more benefits than disadvantages. For example, you can walk safely everywhere because everyone has sufficient social security. Street robberies and whatnot are practically non-existent. To me that sounds like an argument against BI. You're basically saying that we can have the social safety benefits of BI for only 10% of the cost by using means-tested progra…

>You're basically saying that we can have the social safety benefits of BI for only 10% of the cost by using means-tested programs .

No, BI can cost the same amount as Nordic social security, while increasing motivation to work and helping people more. (Source in Finnish: http://www.vihreat.fi/files/liitto/Perustulolinjapaperi.pdf ).

Nordic social security works better than American social security, that's fore sure, but it can be improved on. The main problem currently is that social security assumes that people are either unemployed or employed full-time. This assumption is increasingly false. There's more and more part-time (and 'part-period', e.g. full-time for 3 days only etc.) and freelancing work.

Basic income really means social security without that assumption. If you work 0h/month, you get 100% social security. If you work 120h/month, you don't get anything (because you'll pay for the basic income through taxes). If you work 60h, you'll get someting in-between.

And there's no paper work or bureaucracy.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#134

Post by BWStearns »

dllthomas wrote: post #117
BWStearns wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If the government adjusted the basic income to account for regional cost-of-living, I imagine it would be popular to maintain a fake residency in an expensive area while actually living somewhere cheaper. Good hack. >> some areas become rich elite enclaves while other areas become basic income ghettos. This is basically the direction we're already headed in already.

>>> some areas become rich elite enclaves while other areas become basic income ghettos. > This is basically the direction we're already headed in already. A flat basic income would make this better not worse , as there would be more money available serving the needs of people in these poorer areas.

I am inclined to agree with you but I'm not certain. There are some arguments that those living off of BI would form a unique subset of the population and might effectively be ghettoized at least in terms of colocation as opposed to the more economic/social aspect due to their similar needs/means.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#136

Post by danielweber »

JonFish85 wrote: post #116
crazygringo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. If you're only on the basic income, then to put it roughly, you don't "deserve" to live in San Francisco or Manhattan. People move to cheaper parts of the country all the time, to fit their budget. I don't know why this would be any different.

This would never work. You're telling me a grandmother who lives in Manhattan will be forced to leave her family and move to a small apartment in Kansas? That's political suicide to suggest anything like that.

How does she afford to live there now?

If you want to live some place forever, buy the property. Buying and renting each have risks. Buying risks that you will lose your initial capital, but you get to live there. Renting risks that you might have to leave the property, but the landlord absorbs the risks of the property value declining.

We can't really have effective policy if someone experiencing some kind of risk vetoes it.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#137

Post by dragonwriter »

crazygringo wrote: post #123
dragonwriter wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anything, taxing corporations is regressive No, its not. > the taxes ultimately get passed on to consumers through higher product prices, regardless of their income levels. It increases producer prices which shifts the supply curve to the right, but its pretty self-evident that the effect on actual prices is dependent on price elasticity of demand in the markets for particular products, and that price elasticity…

> but its pretty self-evident that the effect on actual prices is dependent on price elasticity of demand in the markets for particular products Of course, but there's still the "minimum profitability" that a business seeks to have. Suppose three firms compete to sell widget X, and consumers are willing to pay up to $10 for it, but the companies sell it at $5 due to competition (it costs $4 to make and distribute). T…

> That just doesn't make any sense -- words can't be redefined like that.

I used the quotes and the "just as much as..." reference because I was applying your logic about corporate taxes to the alternative you proposed. I don't agree that either is regressive, obviously, and I laid out exactly why that logic was wrong earlier in the post, before showing how if you ignored the fact that the logic was wrong and applied it consistently, it would say the same thing about your alternative as it said about the thing you proposed the alternative to.

> The very definition of progressive taxation is taxing high salaries of individuals at a higher rate than lower ones.

Actually, the usual definition is about taxing higher incomes at a higher rate. Confusing income with wages or salaries , so that one ignores non-labor (and, particularly, capital) income in considering the progressivity of taxes, is a pretty serious error.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#138

Post by crazygringo »

sologoub wrote: post #96
crazygringo wrote: post #73

> "How would we pay for it? We could start by getting corporations to pay their taxes." I don't know why people keep harping on corporate taxes. If anything, taxing corporations is regressive -- the taxes ultimately get passed on to consumers through higher product prices, regardless of their income levels. Taxing corporations doesn't produce magic money -- it's still taxing people in the end, but it's the consumers.…

So in a no corp-tax world, if a US C-corp just keeps retained earnings and not pays out a dividend, then what? (Like Apple did for years.) Granted, you still have capital gains from stock trading, etc. But if corporate profits not taxed, the company can simply sit on the money. They don't have to spend it on R&D, or anything else, as they do not need a tax write off. It's a double-edge sword and there really isn't a…

> you still have capital gains from stock trading, etc.

That's the whole point -- without corporate taxation, shares in corporations are more valuable, and the taxation is drawn from capital gains instead -- and capital gains tax should be far higher, of course (and ideally progressive as well, based on your total income).

Sure, companies can "sit on their money", but they already can. And that money is presumably invested anyways, so it's still being productive (on R&D in other companies, for example), and it certainly gets spent eventually.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#139

Post by penguindev »

dllthomas wrote: post #106
jeffasinger wrote: post #69

One worry I have with Basic Income discussion is that what most people think the minimum required just to live is very high, which frames the discussion wrong. Basic Income probably shouldn't cover much beyond rent in cheap, shared accommodation, heat and some electric, and groceries, and healthcare, if that is provided separately.

Basic Income should never be enough to live comfortably on with no drain on savings, at least until we've reached a place where we don't need human labor for very many tasks (if ever). I say this as an avid supporter of a basic income.

How would you adjust for # of children per household?

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#140

Post by steveklabnik »

cpursley wrote: post #103
steveklabnik wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you knew the answer, it would have taken you less time to type it than it would have to make yet another meaningless platitude.

I'll bite. What I mean is people were paid a basic wage to do very unproductive (even counter-productive) work. So I suppose that's a little different than getting a basic wage without working at all. At least that's what my USSR-born wife explains.

Right, that's a completely different concept, with a completely different implementation.
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