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It Is Time For Basic Income

hawkins.ventures

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Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#561

Post by boomlinde »

aianus wrote: post #356
brianpgordon wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government workers in Sweden get 13 months paid maternity leave. That's a pretty good incentive. But they rank 187th in the world by birth rate, according to the CIA World Factbook.

No, that's a pretty shitty incentive since I can't raise the kid for 18 years on my fond memories of paternity leave. A recurring cash payment meeting or exceeding the costs of raising the kid on the other hand...

> I can't raise the kid for 18 years on my fond memories of paternity leave.

How does that make it less of an incentive, though? It's better than no paternal leave.

In the end, though, people usually don't get children on a purely economically rational basis. Sweden also has daycare prices that scale with income, free and relatively high quality public and private schools, child benefits and free dental and healthcare for children.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#562

Post by yummyfajitas »

nkoren wrote: post #553
yummyfajitas wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...conditional social support creates poverty traps, by imposing the steepest marginal tax rates (sometimes exceeding 100%) on the poorest people in society. There are cheaper policies than BI which don't do this. One example is Basic Job - if you need a job real bad the government gives you a really bad job. This has no poverty traps, and (unlike BI) has no disincentive for work. You also get to avoid spending money…

Of course it has poverty traps. I live in the UK, where I get to see how the "workfare" programme creates poverty traps all the time. If you want to get out of poverty, a good way to do that is by getting more education and practicing skills that are valuable to employers. A Basic Job often conflicts with that. If you want to get out of poverty, a good way to do that is by taking part-time and piecemeal work to build…

I don't understand - how does a Basic Job prevent you from either going to school or taking part time work? No one is obligated to work a Basic Job. It's just what you do if you are unable to find anything better.

Basic Job programmes have vast bureaucratic overhead and are far more expensive to implement than Basic Incomes.

Back of the envelope calculation, please.

Incidentally, your study merely shows there is very little evidence of anything due to workfare being poorly implemented and rapidly abandoned. For example, NYC had only 2800 people on workfare in 2003. Additionally, it claims that about half of people on workfare don't actually work and merely loaf about the work site (but presumably continue receiving benefits).

Obviously a BJ won't work if you turn it into a de-facto BI or welfare system.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#563

Post by jokoon »

I think everyone should go first debate what Milton Friedman proposed: the negative income tax.

The negative income tax has the virtue of at least restart the debate on how much taxes should companies pay. Why aren't taxes progressive ? Why are there still oil subsidies ? Why are many companies still able to dodge taxes ?

The basic income cannot happen if the government cannot pay for it. Maybe s very low basic income at something like $3000 or $5000 per year would be nice to experiment, but until then, politically with that congress, and considering the electorate and how hated the poor are, it's just impossible.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#564

Post by yummyfajitas »

nkoren wrote: post #554
yummyfajitas wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If labor is abundant and machines are scarce, why is this stupid?

Because it would be cheaper to use a machine to build the bridge, give the money you save to the people, and then let them add value to society in some other way.

So direct them to do that other thing for their Basic Job and use the machine for the bridge.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#565

Post by this_user »

ja30278 wrote: post #526
yummyfajitas wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...conditional social support creates poverty traps, by imposing the steepest marginal tax rates (sometimes exceeding 100%) on the poorest people in society. There are cheaper policies than BI which don't do this. One example is Basic Job - if you need a job real bad the government gives you a really bad job. This has no poverty traps, and (unlike BI) has no disincentive for work. You also get to avoid spending money…

Exactly so. I don't understand why the 'Basic Job' idea doesn't get more traction. For all of the talk about a 'post work' world, I still see plenty of work that needs doing, every day.

This has been done in the German Democratic Republic. They had a "right to work" article in their constitution that was basically fully implemented. Almost everyone who could work except for older pupils and university students had a job. In fact, not working despite being able to do so was an offence punishable with up to two years in prison.

Arguably the only good thing that came of this was that equal pay for men and women was also assured by their constitution.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#566

Post by fishy929 »

nkoren wrote: post #554
yummyfajitas wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If labor is abundant and machines are scarce, why is this stupid?

Because it would be cheaper to use a machine to build the bridge, give the money you save to the people, and then let them add value to society in some other way.

But the economy doesn't want them, or is unable to utilize them under present conditions. Eating what you have in front of you is still more filling than waiting (or letting someone wait) for that next, bigger meal.

Of course, that also doesn't mean we shouldn't eliminate the incentives that contribute to inefficiencies being preferable. There are plenty of scenarios where people are employed to dig a proverbial hole and others are paid to fill it (patents and copyright enforcing intellectual poverty; interest on public debt, etc), even if each side spares no expense and might use the best tools available. If we were actually solving problems, prices would be going down and people would be happily unemployed (because there were less problems to resolve and less to need money to buy) at the same time as quality of life were going up. That is not what is happening.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#567

Post by ThomPete »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #497
BvS wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs more on a nominal basis but if implemented right nobody will have less money in their pocket even after taxes. If you didn't earn any money before you will get what was spend on you before + the saved overhead (+ a lot of wasted time and hassle). If you made a lot of money before you will still get a free handout but you also have to pay higher taxes so in the end you should have about the same amount. Obvio…

Numbers, please. And see my other comments on the disincentive to work - in the pilot projects, BI was a massive work disincentive.

Not at all

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

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#568

Post by ThomPete »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #313
kalvin wrote: post #164

I think if you could see close-up how these systems work now, you'd be convinced that it's completely not worth the cost in practice to try and figure out who "deserves" each of the many, many special benefits/allowances/exemptions available (plus it's incredibly difficult for potential recipients to figure out what they're eligible for, plus it imposes those costs on the people who aren't eligible, but end up having…

...it's become increasingly clear to all of us that the implementation of well-meaning policies intended to separate the deserving from the undeserving ends up adding an incredible amount of complexity and overhead,... Unless the overhead is truly massive (read: 5x more than the actual benefits), it doesn't matter. It's still vastly cheaper to pay only a small set of deserving people than to pay everyone. Consider a…

You have to factor a multitude of other things in.

Such as capital gains, tax deductions, very low corporate taxes, the actual control etc.

The overhead is many times more than you seem to indicate when it comes to targeted programs.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#569

Post by bertil »

contingencies wrote: post #550
bertil wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a few [hundred dollars] -- for what?

I dunno, something liberating and non government approved, like binge recreational drug consumption or anonymous object/service acquisition?

Oh, for unjustified expenses? I pass those as personal expenses, and get they out of my corporate accounts.

Sounds tight, but Denmark has a history of corporate corruption in the 70-80s they are trying to curb.

More importantly, not sure how that is related to individual benefits; on the contrary: seems like they are focusing on tax dodging.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#570

Post by ThomPete »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #562
nkoren wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it has poverty traps. I live in the UK, where I get to see how the "workfare" programme creates poverty traps all the time. If you want to get out of poverty, a good way to do that is by getting more education and practicing skills that are valuable to employers. A Basic Job often conflicts with that. If you want to get out of poverty, a good way to do that is by taking part-time and piecemeal work to build…

I don't understand - how does a Basic Job prevent you from either going to school or taking part time work? No one is obligated to work a Basic Job. It's just what you do if you are unable to find anything better. Basic Job programmes have vast bureaucratic overhead and are far more expensive to implement than Basic Incomes. Back of the envelope calculation, please. Incidentally, your study merely shows there is very…

You cant live from a job that the government doesnt already consider worhthy of paying a salary for.

It doesnt work and never have. Denmark tried this too it does nothing cause it doesnt solve the basic problem.

There is not enough jobs for all of us and will increasingly be so.

BI is the best solution we know of and we should try it.

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