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Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

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Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#141

Post by zimbatm »

jasonlfunk wrote: post #115
carbocation wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the optimist's view, think how many people whose lives are being spent working at Walmart or McDonald's who could instead be at home developing skills they are actually interested in (which school does a poor job of teaching), such as programming or sculpture, etc. Imagine the entrepreneurs who might feel freed to give business a chance, rather than feeling that they can't quit their day jobs? It would be a gran…

From the pessimistic point of view, why would anyone choose to work a crappy job at Walmart or McDonalds when the government would give them the same money without having to do anything. Walmart and McDonalds (and everyone else) would therefore either go out of business or raise their wages. Raising their wages would increase the price of their goods. Increasing prices of goods would increase the cost of living which…

But the government is already subsidizing the base salary. Everything that Walmart gives is in addition to that which would probably reduce their costs.

Also not everything is in the function of pay. Once people have enough for living, the deciding factor like having an enjoyable and meaningful job also do count. It's then up to Walmart to transform themselves to become that place and attract employees.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#142

Post by beat »

It's nice to see Reason, the voice of mainstream American libertarianism, getting behind this idea. I think it's possible to win over significant elements of the left as well (although you'd probably have to fight labor and others that benefit from the current political structure). I've thought for a while that a libertarian/liberal alliance makes far more sense and could shake the American political system far more effectively than the current structure where the libertarians are unhappy puppets of the Republicans. This is the issue that could make it work.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#143

Post by ExpiredLink »

pinaceae wrote: post #60

As a European we are bit further down that path than the US. I assume most of the readers here are "wealthy", would not need basic guaranteed income. So let me explain why this is a good idea from a rich man's perspective. You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. That's it. Behind all the nice language this is what it boils down to. It is paying off poor…

Actually, the European model isn't "free money" but subsidized education, healthcare and housing. Actually, the European model is the opposite of "free money". People here are not paid to leave the rich alone but to enhance their prospects using their own resources. The libertarian dream - free money and free dope - would be a nightmare for the target groups: expelled from society with an apanage without hope to ever come back.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#144

Post by jiggy2011 »

ManFromUranus wrote: post #137
ctdonath wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. Once you've established a "protection money" system, establishing their "right" to your money & property, they are now incentivized to demand - and take - more. Panem et circenses is the last stage of polite society; the cost eventually becomes unbearable as fewer work and more expect comfort & leisure for nothing…

All you have to do is ask yourself, if you were getting this basic sum, would you be content to do nothing? The answer is probably no. I would do something, some kind of job, as would many people. If only for their sense of self worth / self esteem. I believe that almost everyone would get a job even though a basic income means they don't have to. Also keep in mind, that no matter what you do, there will ALWAYS be pe…

You might be surprised. A friend of mine who is a very smart guy got laid of from his job with a bunch of redundancy money. All he did was sit and play WoW until the money started to run out and then went out and got another job.

If you can do whatever you want, you will probably want to do stuff that makes you happy. One of those things will probably not be reporting to a boss or person to whom you are accountable but that accountability is an essential part of the economic feedback loop that tells you that what you are doing is a good use of time.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#145

Post by pinaceae »

ctdonath wrote: post #99
pinaceae wrote: post #60

As a European we are bit further down that path than the US. I assume most of the readers here are "wealthy", would not need basic guaranteed income. So let me explain why this is a good idea from a rich man's perspective. You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. That's it. Behind all the nice language this is what it boils down to. It is paying off poor…

You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. Once you've established a "protection money" system, establishing their "right" to your money & property, they are now incentivized to demand - and take - more. Panem et circenses is the last stage of polite society; the cost eventually becomes unbearable as fewer work and more expect comfort & leisure for nothing…

Right, and looking at stats like murder rates, incarceration numbers, etc. the US system is clearly working and superior.

I can walk any street at 2am in Vienna without looking over my shoulder.

Oakland? Philly?

A personal gun doesn't stop anyone. Fantasy from lala land.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#146

Post by DougWebb »

cobrausn wrote: post #73
rayiner wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, of course not. But the idea that minimum income would cause everyone to just quit their jobs is predicated on the presumption that the poor are morally inferior. Thus, analogies to what middle and upper class people do once they reach a certain level of income are irrelevant, because those people are not morally inferior. You might see a middle class person leave his comfortable line engineer job to get an MBA or…

Nice straw man, but no - I'm not concerned about the poor who work for a living, they genuinely tend to want to improve their lives and their families lives - that's why they are willing to work 40 hours or more a week for barely more money than could be gained on welfare. I've been there. I'm worried about the children of middle and upper-income families deciding that 'mincome' is good enough. I have yet to see any…

Just look at the children today who have parents that are wealthy enough to support their children through adulthood. Most of them, I suspect, go through college and then work, either in the family business, some business of their own (possibly a boutique business that can never earn a profit but still pays rent and tax and maybe some salaries), or in some kind of charity/fundraising business.

With mincome, more children whose parents couldn't give them that kind of support would probably behave this way. And that would probably be a good thing.

There are also the brats of the super-rich which do nothing but throw away money, but even they are throwing their money towards people who can make better use of it. So maybe we'd have middle-income brats living off mincome and throwing it all away without doing productive work, but so what? They're not going to hoard the money, they're going to spend it, and that will drive the economy and put the money into the hands of people who are working productively.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#147

Post by Daishiman »

cobrausn wrote: post #50
nanidin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally the income level is below "Owns 42" flatscreen, can go to anything more expensive than McDonald's, owns latest xbox, owns other luxury goods" such that people are no longer living in poverty, but still have motivation to excel beyond their current situation. Unfortunately, if you hand someone with poor money management skills a bunch of cash, they may end up with all of those luxury items & no food on the tab…

Considering how cheap consumer electronics and entertainment are these days, I'm genuinely concerned that this 'minimum income' would be high enough to permit many to live in perpetual 'childhood' - cheap food, cheap entertainment.

I fail to see the problem when humanity reaps the rewards of automation.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#148

Post by ctdonath »

barrkel wrote: post #129
ctdonath wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. Once you've established a "protection money" system, establishing their "right" to your money & property, they are now incentivized to demand - and take - more. Panem et circenses is the last stage of polite society; the cost eventually becomes unbearable as fewer work and more expect comfort & leisure for nothing…

Ideological response: Police are the thugs that rich people buy to defend themselves from the poor. Actually, basic income / negative income tax is a very good idea, much better than welfare schemes of almost all kinds - it has almost no administration overhead. Charity, like you advocate, has huge amounts of overhead. Milton Friedman was an advocate, for example, and he was hardly a socialist. And the idea that char…

Police are assigned to serve all, protecting poor as well.

If welfare is going to be provided to such a large scale as we do, then yes I'd rather the BI approach just to keep things simple and efficient - and to reveal the veiled problems a complex welfare system conceals.

And no, charity is not utter bullshit. What I do isn't signaling anything to anyone, as I keep it as low-profile & anonymous as possible. Altruism exists, and the nature of it means you don't know much about that of others precisely because its nature is to be low-profile & anonymous.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#149

Post by kevingadd »

philwelch wrote: post #134

One question: has anyone else ever done the math on this? Let's suppose we have a basic income of $1,000 per month per citizen. This is barely enough to get by in someplace like eastern Washington and not enough to get by in someplace like Seattle but it's a nice round number so let's go with it. The US population is about 300 million. But let's assume only adult citizens receive basic income. If you want children yo…

Virtually every minimum income proposal I've read about involves it being clawed back through taxation when you're earning more money. A key difference is it isn't means tested - you don't have to prove that you deserve a living - instead, at the end of the year at tax time, the income you report determines whether the government decides to basically claw back the basic income in the form of tax.

In practice I don't think that would be any different for the middle and upper classes in the US than it is now - you sort out your withholding in advance and pay it during the year, and then you don't owe much at the end of the year. You'd just be withholding your basic income because you're not poor.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#150

Post by bubbleRefuge »

pinaceae wrote: post #60

As a European we are bit further down that path than the US. I assume most of the readers here are "wealthy", would not need basic guaranteed income. So let me explain why this is a good idea from a rich man's perspective. You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. That's it. Behind all the nice language this is what it boils down to. It is paying off poor…

Also, the income boots aggregate demand in the economy by that much which benefits the wealthy as that income is used to pay rent and buy goods and services from entities that wealth people own; some folks may call this trickle up economics.
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