101–110 of 761 posts
I've read this thread; and I think my biggest hope here is the realization in the bureaucrats that are afraid of losing their job ... that they'll be getting money anyway because the basic income will provide their money now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many huge cultural and socioeconomic implication of Basic Income. Inflation is dependent on money supply, you don't need to print new money to apply basic income. You would worry as much of its inflation impact as you would for bailing out banks, if its the same printing. Its not a BI specific concern. Pricing, on the other hand, would probably change drastically, as there would probably be a solid market o…
Do you assume people would be spending their BI rationally? Spending everything on gambling and drugs would still be possible, having more than the least possible income by shady means would still appeal to some. It seems to me reasons for crime wouldn't be exactly destroyed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a person were getting 10x the amount a person gets on unemployment + food stamps, you might be able to call that basic income. Please show us all how a person living in a US city could survive on food stamps, ethana.
this guy: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2568109/Unemployed-b...
I am not at all an economist, but I wonder: if everyone had the same amount of fixed income (in addition to whatever else they made from their jobs), wouldn't there be continual inflation, rendering that money worthless? Wouldn't the fixed income become the new zero income? Also: How does Macdonalds work in this situation, if the fixed income "replaces" minimum wage. Does Macdonalds pay on top of this wage? Do they d…
To make things simple let's assume a flat tax of 20% pays a 10k per year basic income. Someone making 0k ends up with .8 * 0k + 10k = 10k. Someone making 10k ends up with .8 * 10k + 10k = 18k. Someone making 50k ends up with .8 * 50k + 10k = 50k. Someone making 100k ends up with .8 * 100k + 10k = 90k. Someone making 200k ends up with .8 * 200k + 10k = 170k. Thus the only people that get the full amount are those who…
Also I'm not sure what you'd do w/ payroll taxes.
You're just grossly understating what tax rates would have to be to accommodate this. You think there will be economies of scale that SS today doesn't already achieve that could somehow offset this in a meaningful way? I disagree.
I personally believe in "basic income" in a very elastic sense to increase demand in the economy when it's weak. It's something different than what's discussed here. And I'm not against it strongly, it's just I'm not able to see how we would accomplish that without tax rates similar to what you see in Europe and I don't relish that thought.
Will a robot fix your car when it breaks? Will it be designing new and better cars? Will it even design the automation systems that let those new cars be built more efficiently?
Will those robots provide legal advice to the companies that operate them? Will they provide medical care to your kid when he breaks a bone? Will they provide him with counseling when he's struggling emotionally? Will they give him a lesson on algebra, and then work with him one-on-one to make sure he understands it?
Will robots patrol the streets and keep you safe from crime? Will they prosecute people who hurt others, or preside over those trials to make sure everyone's rights are protected?
Will robots invent the next Google or Facebook, and will they code it up and design a nice-looking and intuitive interface for it? Will they entertain you from a stage or a movie set? Will they write new jokes for a stand-up act, write an original novel, or provide an author with advice on how to make his characters more lifelike?
Maybe McDonald's fry cooks will eventually be replaced with robots, but "labor" isn't going anywhere.
Obviously this is not a new idea... Twenty years ago I sat around with college mates, in Canada, listing the merits of the "Guaranteed Income" and quite frankly I still support the idea today. If you took all the salaries, property and operations cost associated with distributing old age security, welfare, disability, unemployment wages etc etc, it would probably pay for much of the cost associated with the Guarantee…
A major source of trouble now is that money is tightly coupled with politics. It boggles the mind how it's not universally understood that politics should be entirely de-coupled from private money. All of politics should run 100% (including elections) on a public fund.
Unless this is done, very few things of true substance will be fixed.
> The real solution is to move to a resource managed economy that eliminates money all together.
I don't think that's doable unless we've made work entirely optional. When AI and robots could do any job we don't want to do, then you could instate some form of basic income, or even your more radical idea.
But until then, it's going to be very, very hard to change things in a fundamental way.
The idea that you absolutely must work hard in exchange for the necessities of your life, is so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness, like a fundamental law of conservation, that it seems a lot of people cannot conceive otherwise.
Obviously this is not a new idea... Twenty years ago I sat around with college mates, in Canada, listing the merits of the "Guaranteed Income" and quite frankly I still support the idea today. If you took all the salaries, property and operations cost associated with distributing old age security, welfare, disability, unemployment wages etc etc, it would probably pay for much of the cost associated with the Guarantee…
> The real solution is to move to a resource managed economy that eliminates money all together So, rationing? I wonder if that's been tried before. Money is a repesentation of resources. And resources cannot be allocated efficiently by central authority, because of the calculation problem[1]. But maybe some college dorm discussions will bear some other solution. [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculatio…