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European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

eci.ec.europa.eu

101–110 of 156 posts

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#101
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do empty apartments incentivize creativity and innovation? No, there is no reason to accommodate them, anyone who makes money by making life worse for others should expect society to take their stuff sooner or later.

Alright, and who is going to invest and build future apartments if there will be a high risk their properties will then be confiscated for "the greater good"?

It wont get confiscated if they just rent it out or sell it, it just prevents them from creating artificial scarcity by sitting on perfectly fine homes hoping prices will go up in the future.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National debt and private debt are two very different creatures. National debt is for the most part a good thing, since it's a measure of the amount of a national currency is in circulation Modern economic theory proposes that nations, with full control over their currency, have infinite spending power (aka can go into infinite debt) without any issues, as long as full-employment hasn't been reached This is of course…

I wonder which "modern" theory this comes from... Some debt is a good thing because, like for a business or individual, it is generally a good thing to borrow in order to invest for the future (leveraging effect). But too much debt is not a good thing. Debt must be serviced and one need to find creditors willing to lend. Infinite borrowing based on "full control of currency" only means that the value of the currency…

Hyper inflation is the result of exhausting your countries' production capacity. This is generally a temporary phenomenon because the supply side can always eventually catch up because the demand side is funding it. In economies where it is a permanent problem it is because either the economy is prevented from expanding production (think of preventing new housing in San Francisco or excessively low unemployment) or because there is too much demand for products (generally through printing more money despite the low unemployment or debt).

Well, if we assume that your country is unable to introduce more money into the economy through no fault of its own (well that's never true) you can still fix the problem by investing into more production capacity and education. The unemployment in Zimbabwe is relatively low at around 5% so any additional money it prints will turn into inflation. If you were to follow MMT you would stop introducing more money because that is the core argument in MMT: print until inflation is back on track. Inflation is already on track in Zimbabwe.

The thing is, once you are in this situation you are almost set up to fall into the pit of success. All you need to do is invest into businesses, expand production capacity through automation and also invest into education. Follow the Chinese model by creating special economic zones where foreign investors can easily do business. Follow the German model of vocational training to solve the education problem. These problems are far less intractable than what first world countries are suffering through.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#103
Hasn't it been proven that showering money on an economy only helps to address isolated disruptions where the system's design prevents it from recovering quickly on its own?

Why do we think UBI is necessary, when there are European countries such as Norway and Switzerland with near-zero unemployment and below-average inequality spanning decades (these two are very different countries, so I don't think we can attribute their success to some specific advantage no one else has).

Imo the countries/people advocating UBI just don't want to come to terms with the reality that their institutions and particularly their culture needs to change in order to tackle the problems that they think UBI will magically solve.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#104
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about what the people done and faith in them or their claims from moral or other points of views. These $1200 nearly destroyed the European economies. My country is forever indebted now, and they handed out much less and not even to everyone but a small portion of people.

Does your country suffer from unusually high employment in full time positions or why are you worried about debt? Debt is a way to make people work today for a future reward. If people don't work they lose their productive output irrevocably and can lead to a cycle of poverty. The damage caused by unemployment is far worse than any damage caused by debt because debt can be reversed easily once you have mild inflation…

Yes, the unemployment rate was around 1.5%-2%.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#105
post #82
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not like a universal basic income though: it was not universal. Handing of the money in an emergency situation has also the fundamental difference that it isn't meant to be sustainable: it's one off, and the preparation does not include reworking the financial structure of the state to make it permanent, like all UBI proposals I've seen so far.

I absolutely don't get your point. The financial structure of the state was reworked for these not-universal payouts (this is not the USA, the annual budget is made from scratch each year), and if the payouts were universal and more than one the country would be in literal ruins right now. There is no possibility of making it sustainable in the not-universal form, so how exactly could it be made sustainable if it was…

The difference is: was it reworked to make it sustainable and recurrent, or to make it work this one time?

That it failed in the current political landscape doesn't mean that it will fail in every case, and you haven't presented any evidence ruling it out. Thus "There is no possibility of making it sustainable in the not-universal form" is an unfounded claim.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#106
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely don't get your point. The financial structure of the state was reworked for these not-universal payouts (this is not the USA, the annual budget is made from scratch each year), and if the payouts were universal and more than one the country would be in literal ruins right now. There is no possibility of making it sustainable in the not-universal form, so how exactly could it be made sustainable if it was…

The difference is: was it reworked to make it sustainable and recurrent, or to make it work this one time? That it failed in the current political landscape doesn't mean that it will fail in every case, and you haven't presented any evidence ruling it out. Thus "There is no possibility of making it sustainable in the not-universal form" is an unfounded claim.

How exactly can it be made sustainable in recurrent and universal form, if a low one time not-universal payment nearly crushed the country? Believe me, we really tried to make it work more than one time and for more people. I say we because it required massive amounts of charity on top of the governmental aid.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're skipping over "for the most part" in my post Are you talking about private debt or governmental debt? They are, as stated in my first post, two entirely different things

Government debt. https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/government-debt-to-gdp For example Sweden where I live has reduced their government debt to GDP ratio pretty consistently the past 25 years, and I haven't noticed any problems with it. People saying that we would have problems if governments balanced their budgets are just big fat liars.

I think calling other "big fat liars" is a sad approach to a discourse. I don't know who the "people" you refer to are, so unless you specify that, I can't comment on it. I can't remember making a claim like that

In fact reducing national debt through taxation is an effective way of reducing inflation. Reducing national debt does not mean the economy will fail.

The economy is not a binary system ("success", "fail"), so the more interesting question to me, is whether Sweden's economy would have done better if they had chosen a different economic policy

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is: was it reworked to make it sustainable and recurrent, or to make it work this one time? That it failed in the current political landscape doesn't mean that it will fail in every case, and you haven't presented any evidence ruling it out. Thus "There is no possibility of making it sustainable in the not-universal form" is an unfounded claim.

How exactly can it be made sustainable in recurrent and universal form, if a low one time not-universal payment nearly crushed the country? Believe me, we really tried to make it work more than one time and for more people. I say we because it required massive amounts of charity on top of the governmental aid.

I don't claim to have all the answers. But not having a confirmation is not the same as having a refutation.

One thing for sure, a big change will require a long ramp up, or a big shock.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#109
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in a way people go to work for reasons other than simply the salary. This is critical. Most people think passion first, then you'll find the perfect job, and it's not always like that. You may need to work for a while in order to find what you truly are good at, and enjoy. For that to happen, though, there needs to be reduced red tape and taxes, so switching jobs is easy and affordable for both parties. UBI torped…

It cannot be stressed enough how limited job mobility is here when compared to somewhere like the US. As a personal anecdote, I have been threatened with legal action by two CEOs when I gave them my notice. The first time it was because I mentioned that I was interviewing for positions at local competitors, the second time it was because I gave them a week's notice instead of two weeks, even though I wasn't required…

This will sadly ring so many Spaniard bells. I was told, upon giving my first job's two week notice, that I'd never find a better job and that I was wasting a lifetime opportunity.

But that's because employers know mobility is close to none when no one wants to risk moving, so they're emboldened by the asymmetric relation. Fun fact: this was a large consulting company with its own union, aside from the national and local ones. Never heard or saw any of their doings.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly can it be made sustainable in recurrent and universal form, if a low one time not-universal payment nearly crushed the country? Believe me, we really tried to make it work more than one time and for more people. I say we because it required massive amounts of charity on top of the governmental aid.

I don't claim to have all the answers. But not having a confirmation is not the same as having a refutation. One thing for sure, a big change will require a long ramp up, or a big shock.

So, we have evidence of much smaller ambitions not working out, and you claim it says nothing about much larger ambitions, and yet you don't have any answers. Interesting how all of the UBI discussions end this way.
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