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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

#291

Post by SapphireSun »

lettergram wrote: post #249

I disagree with this article almost entirely. Yes, labor jobs are on the decline, but service jobs are staying steady if not increasing. The "demand for unconditional basic income" is a joke, yes it's possible to attempt to initiate something where every person receives $10,000 a year, but the money has to come from somewhere. If the money for this basic income comes from taxation, then both the government loses net…

300,000,000 people in the US. You give them each 10,000 dollars. That's 3T dollars, or roughly the size of the existing federal budget (~3.5T). US GDP is ~16T. It's a lot, but that's not beyond the pale of possibility, and the poorest people will spend that money nearly instantly, reving the economy and making the world a little bit better for everyone.

"If corporations essentially pay their customers (via the government) to buy their goods the world would eventually collapse."

I feel like this betrays a misunderstanding of how money works. First of all, 10k per person isn't enough to create an extreme situation. Secondly, it is the circulation of money that drives progress. If companies didn't disperse the money they accumulate somehow, the economy would stall.

On a more noble level, giving people the option to not work is simply removing additional coercive elements from society. People should be free to choose what they wish to do with their lives. 10k isn't enough to remove the incentive to better yourself, but it is enough of a cushion so that you don't need to submit to awful situations simply to survive.

If janitorial tasks become in high demand, they will pay appropriately or design machines to do it - just like everything else.

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

#292

Post by antitrust »

btilly wrote: post #202
tokenadult wrote: post #174

I see no one in this active discussion has mentioned yet Charles Murray's book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0844742236 in which Murray goes into detail about how much a program of guaranteed income for everyone would cost in the United States, and some probable effects that would have on everyone's everyday behavior. I read the book a year or two after it was publi…

The other problem with "targeted social welfare programs" is that it is very easy to dislike programs that someone else (particularly someone that you don't like) benefits from. A program that you yourself benefit from tends to be less likely to get eroded by future politicians. Compare welfare and social security for a classic example of the difference.

> A program that you yourself benefit from tends to be less likely to get eroded by future politicians.

This could be bad. Very popular programs never get reconsidered, even if they have bad effects.

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

#293

Post by Jd »

ticviking wrote: post #275
king_jester wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medicare and medicaid wouldn't really apply so much to this as there are systemic problems that make spending money on healthcare not such a good idea. Rather, with a BI we should also include a universal health care option to avoid the issues with consumer healthcare spending and marketing.

Let consumers face those issues and watch as the market responds to consumers who are paying cash.

The problem is that when consumer make bad decisions (i.e. don't go to the doctor and develop serious health problems), the government in the end still has to foot the bill. You can't turn people away from emergency rooms and have them die on the street.

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

#294

Post by absherwin »

mistermann wrote: post #280
absherwin wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. Of course, the direct effect of corporate taxes is mostly on the wealthy who own most of the stock but that's not necessarily the group who gets most of the wealth--more on that below. Even in terms of direct payments, wealth isn't the only important factor. As significant is a company's willingness to be creative. I have never seen a corporate tax scheme that's ungamable that doesn't involve gi…

re: It can use that money in three general ways: Lower prices, raise pay or return it to shareholders. Or, paid out to executives as bonus.

Yes, given executive compensation trends, I wouldn't be surprised if executives would get a disproportionate share. That's largely irrelevant to understanding the aggregate impact. At large corporations, CEO compensation is usually less than 0.1% of profits.

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

#295

Post by antitrust »

ihsw wrote: post #285
antitrust wrote: post #268

The problem with unconditional basic income is that there's no incentive to do anything beyond the minimum. Like most utopian plans, this idea relies on the belief that humans will get up and do things in large numbers. We can't even get them to voluntarily recycle and quit beating their kids.

It's becoming increasingly clear that some people can't work despite their willingness. Full-time job growth is at an all-time low while temporary job growth is at an all-time high. Most of the jobs gained since 2008 have been temporary jobs or jobs with too few hours.

I think that's an entirely separate argument. Do you?

The fact that right now the economy stinks (P-U) and that some people who want to work, cannot, does not really have any bearing on future plans for guaranteed basic income.

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

#296

Post by rndmize »

rayiner wrote: post #263
unclebucknasty wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "corporate taxes are ultimately passed onto people" I don't really get this argument. It's always made as if the taxes are applied in a vacuum where market forces no longer exist. If corporations are operating in a competitive market, they will seek cost advantages and continue to compete for market share. Raised taxes represent an additional expense (for the purposes of this discussion), much like raised energy pr…

> Raised taxes represent an additional expense (for the purposes of this discussion) Raised income taxes aren't really an additional expense, because they are taken out of after-tax net income, not gross income. That complicates the analysis substantially.

This is precisely the reason I don't understand it when people say the cost of the tax will be passed onto consumers. What cost? The tax is on profits...

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

#297

Post by wutbrodo »

mynewwork wrote: post #235
hackinthebochs wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absurd. People will work, they just won't "work for the man" if they don't want to. They will do things they enjoy. They will be creative. They will play sports. They will volunteer, etc etc. Ask yourself: what would you do with your life if you had nothing to compel you into the daily grind for survival? If your basic needs were guaranteed to be met, what would you want to accomplish? Imagine a world where t…

Being a waiter, cook, barista, janitor, retail floor worker, or cashier are all 'working for the man' that few people really enjoy. So restaurants, coffee shops and basically all stores disappear in your proposed only "do things they enjoy" world. Which is good, because no one would work construction, or do plumbing, or review building permits for safety in a basement office in city hall for fun either, so there woul…

What people seem to be missing in this thread is the fact that the concept of the basic income is that it's _basic_.

Construction already (surprisingly) pays pretty well, so does plumbing, etc etc. More tedious jobs will either be automated (which is far more efficient) or if they absolutely require a human brain, there will be a rise in the cost of that labor until the work is worth the money for enough people.

Money is fungible enough that it can be converted into "doing things [you] enjoy". With a well-designed, subsistence level basic income, you won't have enough money to do things you enjoy (unless your hobbies start and end at eating, having shelter, and sleeping). If you work construction, or plumbing, or any "boring job", you'll make substantially more money than the "basic income", and can spend that money on things you enjoy.

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

#298

Post by Jd »

khill wrote: post #189
danielweber wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in an expensive area is a consumption choice. If I live in a mansion in that Grover, NC, would you say that my expenses were high so I deserve more basic income? High prices are the market telling you to consider looking someplace else to live. This is how the good ideas of progressive intellectuals get destroyed: other progressives want to weigh them down with all sorts of other social engineering baggage. (C…

I agree that choosing an expensive lifestyle is a consumption choice. I was just trying to make the point that it's difficult for a government to determine what basic income is "enough to live comfortably on". Those kinds of decisions alienate voters and, as a result, are desperately avoided by congress critters.

Doubly true if you are talking about a globally applicable basic income.

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

#299

Post by hackinthebochs »

mynewwork wrote: post #235
hackinthebochs wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absurd. People will work, they just won't "work for the man" if they don't want to. They will do things they enjoy. They will be creative. They will play sports. They will volunteer, etc etc. Ask yourself: what would you do with your life if you had nothing to compel you into the daily grind for survival? If your basic needs were guaranteed to be met, what would you want to accomplish? Imagine a world where t…

Being a waiter, cook, barista, janitor, retail floor worker, or cashier are all 'working for the man' that few people really enjoy. So restaurants, coffee shops and basically all stores disappear in your proposed only "do things they enjoy" world. Which is good, because no one would work construction, or do plumbing, or review building permits for safety in a basement office in city hall for fun either, so there woul…

This isn't true. Our usual concept of ownership and hiring might have to change. There are people out there who dream about running a coffee shop. There are people out there who are the restless type who have to be working on "something". Yes, you'd have a hard time finding baristas to work for 5 dollars an hour. You could probably find plenty of people who would join a "co-op" type ownership situation where everyone shared in the less than pleasant responsibilities for a shared sense of ownership of the entire endeavor and a shared cut of the profits. No doubt society would look different than it does now, and there would be a lot of problems to solve. But these problems aren't unsolvable.

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

#300

Post by ticviking »

axus wrote: post #151
khill wrote: post #39

Wouldn't the basic income value need to vary across regions? For example, the notion that: "Every single adult member receives a weekly payment from the state, which is enough to live comfortably on" would mean a different value in San Francisco than in Grover, NC. 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 expen…

Without having to depend on the job market, people are free to move to areas with no work and a very low cost of living, and not be bunched up in the areas with the best handouts. The net result will probably be higher costs of living everywhere, but in the US there is so much space that the effect is diluted.

Add to that the increased demand for basic services in those areas, and you'll wind up with something that looks an awful lot like economic growth in those areas.

Add to that the ability to grow food for oneself, and I bet we see lots of people move somewhere they can rent a home with a large garden, and turn their basic income into a small scale farm with extra earned income at local farmers markets. As that money moves around in a community, even if %40 of every pay cycle is extracted by walmart, the local economy has people who have time to build small bussinesses. Now a mom and pop store doesn't have to support the family, it just has to pay the rent on the store and bring in enough extra money and or good will/personal satisfaction that mom and pop keep it running.

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