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It Is Time For Basic Income

hawkins.ventures

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Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#631

Post by sp332 »

pdonis wrote: post #619
sp332 wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more resources than just money. Metals are in high demand already, and the prices have increased faster than anyone's GDP.

And if that trend continues, at some point in the not too distant future, it will become profitable to mine metals from, say, automobile junkyards, instead of from the ground. Or we'll find substitutes, as we already have for many metals (an automobile junkyard a decade from now, containing mostly cars built around this time, won't have nearly as much metal in it because the car bodies will be mostly composite).

You can't make more aluminum just by wanting it. If our usage of aluminum increases, eventually there will not be enough aluminum.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#632

Post by ArkyBeagle »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #396
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "competitive" mean? Against what? More realistically, figure $20k to 15 million - much less trouble. A mere $0.3T :) But it'll go close to 100% to the Metric Formerly Known as M3 and dissipate. My framework and Maslow-hammer is the PPST framework from Tyler Cowan by way of Arnold Kling - Patterns of Sustainable Substitution and Trade. In this, the bulls get bigger and the china shops get smaller; people don…

"Competitive" means "against alternate policy proposals". For example, Basic Job/Employer of last resort, or the current welfare state. ...people don't have jobs for the reason that employers can't or won't figure out how to hire because business is too hard now. People don't have jobs because they are unwilling to work at low wages. This is pretty well established empirically, is the foundation of Keynesian economic…

Agreed; sticky wages is also part of PSST, but the new thing is perceived fragility of potential hiring companies.

Overseas expansion could be any of a number of things besides wages, it's waning and it fails frequently. Something like the manufacturers aggregated through Alibaba seems different from setting up bespoke manufacturing overseas.

Thanks for the link.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#633

Post by ArkyBeagle »

polarix wrote: post #424
msellout wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In 2013, the total Social Security expenditures were $1.3 trillion, 8.4% of the $16.3 trillion GNP (2013) and 37% of the Federal expenditures of $3.684 trillion" (Wikipedia). Medicare adds another half billion, rapidly increasing. We could get between $6k and $7k annually per citizen by swapping those plans for a basic income. If children don't count, we could bump that to maybe $10k. Obviously, this change would ne…

Why increase consumption taxes? Why add friction? Wouldn't it be better to tax the assets at rest -- real estate, property.

It's arguably better to tax Ricardian rents - if you can.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#634

Post by ArkyBeagle »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #377
ahoy wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have only ever heard basic income proposed as the former implementation, never the latter.

The two formulations are similar. If you just print money to give to everybody, you cause inflation, which is a tax on liquid wealth. The wealthy have ways to hedge against inflation, so it's basically a tax on the middle class.

"Just print money" does not cause unconditional inflation. It depends on initial conditions.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#635

Post by andrewfong »

patja wrote: post #615
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…

I agree we would really benefit from a radical simplification our entitlements. Going through the simplified and unified but still arcane ACA application process personally brought this home for me, especially when I realized it is a system that can become a single entry point to multiple varied entitlement programs that formerly each had their own different qualification rules. Digging into it I saw that one of the…

> While I would much prefer a basic income to an increase in the minimum wage, I am torn by the fear that it would turn us into the world of Neal Stephenson's Anathem or Mike Judge's Idiocracy. I support Voltaire's assertion that "Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need"

You could grant basic income only to people who are employed, similar to how the EITC is administered. This kills some of the administrative overhead advantages, but not all of it, as verification of employment is still less of an overhead than need verification (it's basically built into the income tax system by default). It's also more likely to fly politically.

Incidentally, this also suggests a feasible political path forward for implementing true basic income -- start with EITC expansion, then slowly roll back the employment verification.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#636

Post by stretchwithme »

I encourage fans of this idea to experiment with it. Find a complete stranger and give him a guaranteed income if he abstains from government programs. Come back in five years and share your results.

As for me, I don't wish to be forced into running your experiment.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#637

Post by nitrogen »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #630
nkoren wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. With this comment, it becomes difficult to see how you're arguing in good faith. If your Basic Job tells you to work at a particular time of day -- and classes and/or a part-time job are in the middle of…

Going with your numbers, if a basic jobber costs $7.25/hour and they produce $0.30 worth of value, the Basic Job pays for it's own overhead. And of course, $1T I must commend you on actually thinking things through carefully and checking if, numerically, a policy is remotely plausible. It's so rare to see on threads like this.

You don't actually need all $6T, because most people will be paying taxes that equal or exceed what they receive from BI.

You mentioned earlier that BI disincentivizes work. How so? It seems to me that it would not, because the basic income doesn't disappear the instant you start working even a little bit.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#638

Post by contingencies »

bertil wrote: post #569
contingencies wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's related because if the price you pay for fuzzy utopian governance with near-total compliance is totalitarianism, it's not worth it. Further, if you're setting up paralegal business flows in corporations to avoid personal tracking, then it's but an illustration of the same.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#639

Post by nkoren »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #630
nkoren wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. With this comment, it becomes difficult to see how you're arguing in good faith. If your Basic Job tells you to work at a particular time of day -- and classes and/or a part-time job are in the middle of…

Going with your numbers, if a basic jobber costs $7.25/hour and they produce $0.30 worth of value, the Basic Job pays for it's own overhead. And of course, $1T I must commend you on actually thinking things through carefully and checking if, numerically, a policy is remotely plausible. It's so rare to see on threads like this.

> of course, $1T Your $6T number is false. Even in your strawman, the cost of the Basic Income would be $1T: $6T less $5T as a "cash-back rebate", due to the fact that every single person paying for the BI is also receiving the BI. This has been explained to you many times on this thread, but you keep ignoring it.

> if a basic jobber costs $7.25/hour and they produce $0.30 worth of value, the Basic Job pays for it's own overhead.

But a Basic Income would have $0/hr worth of overhead -- and it can be assumed that a person who is able to seek work and education will produce more than $0.30/hr of value anyway.

> I must commend you on actually thinking things through carefully and checking if, numerically, a policy is remotely plausible.

Thank you. I have an MBA from Oxford and run two businesses. I am very comfortable with numbers.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#640

Post by thehenster »

growupkids wrote: post #541
thehenster wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the redistribution that you’re missing. 300M * $20k does equal $6 trillion but it is returned to the tax payer who stumped up the $6 trillion. The 50M who aren’t contributing tax represent an actual cost of $1 trillion. The remaining $5 trillion is redistributed. 250M people contribute $20k. 300M people receive $16.6k. 300M * $20k - $6 trillion == $0

I'm sure you didn't mean this, but let's be clear the 6T is not returned to the tax payer that stumped it. Since this isn't generated wealth, just redistributed, it's a cost to someone. Someone's getting 20k, and someone's paying for it. And some people are going to be paying a lot more than 20k, and some people won't be paying in anything.

The money does go back to the tax payers.. Its redistributed amongst the tax payers. Its pretty much the core concept.

You thought that I thought they just sent the cheques back in the post? That would be bizarre indeed!

"250M people contribute $20k. 300M people receive $16.6k."

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