This video is a must-see for people interested in UBI - Milton Friedman, in 1968, on a negative income tax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM
Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?
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Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?
#52Give me $1000 a month and I'd be able to retire. I wouldn't be rich but with savings and so on I'd be able to manage. So it would cost perhaps $30000 more than that in lost income taxes too as well as lost productivity. I imagine very many people would do this. The whole whole idea is stupid.
And someone younger than you without savings would step in to fill your role. Youth unemployment in first world countries is very high right now.
Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?
#53Give me $1000 a month and I'd be able to retire. I wouldn't be rich but with savings and so on I'd be able to manage. So it would cost perhaps $30000 more than that in lost income taxes too as well as lost productivity. I imagine very many people would do this. The whole whole idea is stupid.
I imagine the idea is great and most people are not like you. But that is just my imagination. On the other hand, the article presents very good arguments for the system and why would it work.
Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?
#54Give me $1000 a month and I'd be able to retire. I wouldn't be rich but with savings and so on I'd be able to manage. So it would cost perhaps $30000 more than that in lost income taxes too as well as lost productivity. I imagine very many people would do this. The whole whole idea is stupid.
I would too. I'd do so immediately. And what would I do with all that leisure time? I'd teach the local children robotics with Arduinos and RasPis, just like I do now with every scrap of my meager free-time only then I'd get to do it every day.
Imagine how impoverished the world would become if thousands like me took to a life of such mooching!
Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?
#55Have the economic consequences been studied on a deeper level? There are so many complex correlations in economics that I'm afraid Basic Income can lead to some kind of disaster that's not so obvious at a first glance. How does it affect the national export/import, monetary value, growth, tax income, GDP, housing market, demand/supply on jobs/goods in different sectors etc etc?
This article touches those things, which is refreshing compared to most things written about BI, but I would still like to see a real study.
Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do people work at non entry-level jobs now?
I'm not looking at it from that point of view, people need to obviously get good jobs. Take away all those 'entry level jobs' and this will decrease GDP no? If the GDP decreases this will decrease tax revenue? And will this not decrease resources available for next years BI? If they have less BI next year there's less spending & less GDP next year too.. and it continues spiralling down. This is far from the claim tha…
People stopping to work does not necessarily mean GDP reduces. Precisely because they still have money to spend, GDP will almost surely go up. Maybe you are thinking of amount of hours worked, that would go down, but that does not mean productivity, or quality of work, or amount of services and goods.
If only 10% stop doing minimum wages and go to school, and pursue a typical corporate carrier, and make 10 times minimum wage, the offset of the 90% not working minimum jobs anymore would be completely offset.
Not to mention that people needing to get a job within 2 or 3 days pick terrible jobs with no future, so those that dont go to school will still be able to pick jobs better.
Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?
#57In principle I like the idea, but : - the System (corporations / politicians) will never allow it - we're on a planet with limited resources and all economic theories fail to acknowledge that
I'd say that simple understandings of economic theories fail to acknowledge limited physical resources. But most "theories" I know don't even talk about limited physical resources.
Economic growth is about "value", not necessarily "consumption of physical resources".
Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see all the arguments for it, but I always find this to be the argument against it which I believe would be the issue myself. If one had basic income why would they need to work? The incentives favour against the need to work. That income could be saved up and used in countries where the PPP value is much higher. Or just live and not work (which would decrease tax revenues forth). If people started to work less the…
If one had basic income why would they need to work? Why do you want people to work? Is there a stack of widgets going unmade that desperately needs to be made? Are we fighting a two-ocean war and I missed it? Right now half of the country is trying to work and there aren't enough jobs for them. It's 2015. What the hell was the point of the past century of technological improvement if we all still have to have jobs o…
Agreed. more and more jobs are being automated and going away. Both in big ways and smaller ones. Heck sometimes as a programmer I have bad feelings about making things more efficient for humans, thereby requiring less of them. In my career there has many projects that fit that description.
This is a complex idea, not without a large amount of challenges.
However as a citizen and programmer, I would rather see more things being automated, and instead of more unemployment, people could either not work, or find work they are more passionate about.
Just imagine if everyone that decided they want to not sit around all day, actually was working on something they were passionate about.
Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?
#59In principle I like the idea, but : - the System (corporations / politicians) will never allow it - we're on a planet with limited resources and all economic theories fail to acknowledge that
The planet offers basically unlimited resources. Assuming the population stops growing, as it is predicted, and settles at some reasonable number, then only limit is the expiration date of the sun.
Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?
#60I always found the idea interesting, at the condition that we suppress all other forms of benefits. It is a simple and elegant way to solve the welfare trap and it also would be easier and cheaper to manage than the layers of benefits from various gvt agencies. To me there are only two real risks. First the idea that this will lead more people to stop working instead of less, which would be counterproductive. And I f…
You couldn't actually not work in former socialist countries though. At least in the Soviet Union this was actively persecuted. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitism_%28social_offense%2... ) But I do think think that countries which offer a great deal of socialized benefits (such as Finland, Sweden etc.) have a significant problem with a unemployment in the youngest generation of the labor force.
> But I do think think that countries which offer a great deal of socialized benefits (such as Finland, Sweden etc.) have a significant problem with a unemployment in the youngest generation of the labor force.
Unemployment and youth unemployment are big problems in my area. I don't think the benefits are to blame though. It's just that ends don't meet and we don't have enough jobs.
In fact, there's been a strong push to get the unemployed to "do something" (however useless it is.. it's fine as long as they look busy..) and so now we have people who are more or less forced to work for 9eur a day in order to be eligible for the unemployment benefits. Which puts them well below the minimum wage for typical low income full time jobs.
I've been involved, and I know for a fact that many of these young people are very unhappy about this. They really would rather have a real job if they could.
EDIT: Finland