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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

#441

Post by rayiner »

jsnk wrote: post #366
rayiner wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in favor of corporate taxes for practical reasons--I think they're too hard to make work in an international setting. That said, it is not necessarily the case that taxes on corporate profits are passed on to consumers through higher product prices. At always comes back to prices being the equilibrium of supply and demand. Taxes on corporate profits obviously have no impact on demand, so we must look at suppl…

I think Apple would offshore more and more businesses as every other large companies who can afford to has been doing for decades now. And that I think is always the problem with simply raising more corporate taxes in US. As you raise more corporate tax in US, doing business in US becomes less and less attractive. As business move away from US, there will be less and less jobs in US. This already and undeniably happe…

Right, I think practical reasons militate towards eliminating corporate taxes and shifting the burden to capital gains taxes. A number of companies have recently reincorporated from the U.S. to high-tax (but low corporate tax) jurisdictions like the U.K. and Switzerland. Companies have shown that they don't care about forcing their executives to move to jurisdictions with high personal income taxes, if they can get the benefit of lower corporate taxes to show higher earnings per share.

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

#443

Post by [deleted] »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #149
crazygringo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> "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…

[deleted]

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

#444

Post by jeffdavis »

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #190
jeffdavis wrote: post #159

Though some more reasonable forms of this idea exist, this particular description has some major problems: * What if the money you pay someone does not go as far as expected? Maybe they lose some of the money in various ways, or maybe they are just very bad at negotiating economic transactions or buy the wrong kinds of things from the wrong places. Maybe they are trying to live in an expensive area -- do we kick them…

If the number of nurses willing to work for current rates goes down, then the market rate for nurses will go up. Eventually it will be high enough that being a nurse is more attractive than being a programmer.

Nursing is hard work, and if someone is already "comfortable", there's not a lot of incentive to study for it and do it unless the pay goes WAY up.

There are a lot of jobs like this, where the threat of discomfort is the primary motivator. Across the economy it would take a huge amount of money to incentivize already-comfortable people to do them.

And if the jobs don't get done, then someone else is uncomfortable.

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

#445

Post by el_zorro »

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?

Surely Social Security wasn't meant to be the biggest item on the Federal Budget. I suppose you can argue about its popularity, but it has become enormous.

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

#446

Post by dllthomas »

superuser2 wrote: post #429
jerf wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It should grow with inflation, but not necessarily automatically with CPI.

My quite tentative, back of envelope analysis:

If it grows at a fixed rate, then when inflation outpaces it we will see the real value shrink. Since a larger BI is likely to be inflationary, this shrinkage would lead to some deflation (or at least reduced inflation), which will grow it again. Hopefully this would act as some stabilization and give the Fed a hand at targeting a particular rate of inflation, and a predictable rate of inflation seems to be what's best.

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

#447

Post by toomuchtodo »

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.

Let me be more specific:

Who is blocking comprehensive reform of the banking sector (which arguably drove not only the US into a recession, but the world as a whole)? Republicans

Draconian anti-abortion laws? Republics

Raising student loan interest rates while keeping lending rates to banks near zero? Republicans

Supporting egregious amounts of defense department spending (The US spends more on defense then the next 10 countries COMBINED; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e...)? Republicans

Blocking immigration reform? Republicans

Trying to prevent the implementation of universal healthcare? Republicans.

I could go on, but it would be pointless.

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

#448

Post by washedup »

I disagree with the first couple facets of the new system definitions:

"Every single adult member receives a weekly payment from the state, which is enough to live comfortably on. The only condition is citizenship and/or residency." - This is a government.

"You get the basic income whether or not you’re employed, any wages you earn are additional." - This is welfare.

"The welfare bureaucracy is largely dismantled. No means testing, no signing on, no bullying young people into stacking shelves for free, no separate state pension." - So a government run welfare program to replace the welfare bureaucracy. Doesn't sound to radical, in fact, it sounds the same.

"The system would be harder to cheat when there’s only a single category of claimant, with no extraordinary allowances." - Some one can always cheat the system, and there will always be extraordinary allowances because there are people in the system whose desire is for those things. Opportunism has always been a part of evolution. Sure we don't "need" it

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

#449

Post by jeffdavis »

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #190
jeffdavis wrote: post #159

Though some more reasonable forms of this idea exist, this particular description has some major problems: * What if the money you pay someone does not go as far as expected? Maybe they lose some of the money in various ways, or maybe they are just very bad at negotiating economic transactions or buy the wrong kinds of things from the wrong places. Maybe they are trying to live in an expensive area -- do we kick them…

If the number of nurses willing to work for current rates goes down, then the market rate for nurses will go up. Eventually it will be high enough that being a nurse is more attractive than being a programmer.

Nursing is hard work, and if someone is already "comfortable", there's not a lot of incentive to study for it and do it unless the pay goes WAY up.

There are a lot of jobs like this, where the threat of discomfort is the primary motivator. Across the economy it would take a huge amount of money to incentivize already-comfortable people to do them.

And if the jobs don't get done, then someone else is uncomfortable.

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