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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

#421

Post by pjungwir »

talmand wrote: post #377
dragontamer wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate profits are taxed, and then they are taxed again when they redistribute the dividends. Arguably, you get double-taxed if you own stocks.

The same thing happens with payroll taxes though, it's not an uncommon practice to tax money as it continuously changes hands. Your employer makes money and is taxed. Some of the resulting money is given to you as payroll and is taxed.

I don't think it's the same thing, because your salary is an expense to the company, so they don't pay taxes on that amount. (Some states/cities do tax corporate revenue as well as corporate profit, but not federal taxes.)

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

#422

Post by mikeurbanski »

My favorite quote about this comes from Douglas Rushkoff:

"Our problem is not that we don't have enough stuff -- it's that we don't have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff."

Are jobs obsolete?: http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/07/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete...

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

#423

Post by agilebyte »

recusancy wrote: post #393
speeder wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain?

He wrote a book arguing the black people, as a race, are less intelligent than white people.

They seem to be saying that nature & nurture is at play. Your comment mentions only the first bit.

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

#424

Post by Afforess »

recusancy wrote: post #393
speeder wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain?

He wrote a book arguing the black people, as a race, are less intelligent than white people.

Some ethnic groups do have different average levels of intelligence. Ashkenazi jews, for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence

My own guess is that for some blacks, there has not been enough time for the Flynn Effect to occur for them to catch up with the general population. This is not due to any fault in them, but a result of no/substandard education for many generations. I imagine in a few generations any difference from the average will disappear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

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

#425

Post by dllthomas »

oijaf888 wrote: post #282
throwit1979 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No more than taxing labor income (which the US does disproportionately) If you have a point to make, please try doing it without blatantly lying. It's common knowledge that the US has substantially higher corporate tax rates than almost anywhere else: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/feb/21/corporat...

Seriously? What tax rate do you pay on your regular 40h a weke job? What tax rate do you pay on investments? Most people are taxed roughly 36% (28% income tax, 2% medicare, 6% social security) on their labor, however investments are only taxed at a flat 15%. Hence, the US disproportionately taxes labor over investments. Do you have other evidence that shows that investment income is in-fact taxed higher than labor in…

Really the FICA portion (medicare + social security) is nearly twice that, because your employer has to match it. You explicitly see the 2X if you're self-employed, but even otherwise that's money they're spending to employ you that could be going to you and is instead being taken as tax revenue.

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

#426

Post by mikeash »

tomjen3 wrote: post #319
Jd wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I often find that when somebody claims "you can't do x" that we learn a lot by asking, why exactly is that. In your case I am wondering why exactly is that we can't turn people away - in aggregate it is likely to save more lives since seeing people dying would be an excellent motivating factor for others to make sure they pay their health care insurance -- and since they would therefore have it and would be able to g…

Aside from all the obvious issues with poor people or people who just don't like the idea of insurance, I want to know how turning people away works with employed, well-paid, insured people like me who might just be coming in without ID after some sort of accident or medical emergency.

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

#427

Post by anonymoushn »

abstractbill wrote: post #382
antitrust wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Just to help me better understand what you're saying, can you give an example of a program that's very popular, and which has bad effects?

For instance, Detroit has created pension obligations that it cannot possibly make good on, and is having some difficulty dealing with those as it is bankrupt. Many other local governments have similar programs, but are not yet bankrupt.

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

#428

Post by lifeisstillgood »

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…

Nor has anyone mentioned Ancient Rome.

There an elite few controlled all the money, and the middle classes simply had no economic room to exist. The result was patronage, on a scale equivalent to a welfare system, with ordinary Romans queuing each day to recieve a daily "wage" in return for loyalty / obligations / it's complicated - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage_in_ancient_Rome

I mention it simply because Rome also could afford to pay all its citizens a living wage, but instead choose to keep the money in the hands of the powerful and use it for political purposes

Trends do not make a destiny.

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

#429

Post by superuser2 »

jerf wrote: post #392
btilly wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is my biggest concern with the idea, which I don't see being addressed (checked the entire conversation on this post to date). I don't think having the vote and having the basic income is compatible with each other. Why aren't people going to vote themselves larger basic incomes every year? How can you both have the (modern conception of the) vote, and a basic income at the same time? Attempts to answer this que…

Inflation exists. They should vote themselves a larger base income every year (unless it's automatically pegged to the CPI or something).

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

#430

Post by icebraining »

ctdonath wrote: post #403
toomuchtodo wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GOP Platform: "I've got mine, f * you."

Leftist Platform: "I'm taking yours, f* you." Yeah, this line of discussion is going to get us far.

I'd say the real Leftist Platform is "there is no mine or yours, only ours". Everyone else is a faker ;)
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