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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?

#101

Post by alkonaut »

ekianjo wrote: post #78
SwellJoe wrote: post #62

If you'd told me ten years ago I would ever support a basic income, I would have laughed. My thought would have been, "People getting paid without doing anything? Absurd!" But, in the past few years I've thoroughly changed my mind on this, and a number of other fronts. I now fully support a basic income (though I think a debate needs to happen about how much that basic income ought to be and how it ought to be funded…

> The increased cost for extending that type of benefit to everyone, while removing the bureaucracy of maintaining the existing programs (eligibility compliance and case workers, etc.), is actually not as dramatic as it first seems. You are missing one part, though. If you start giving cash for everyone, it's very likely this will result in raising prices for all commodities. And there you go for a another downward s…

> it's very likely this will result in raising prices for all commodities.

Why is that? There wouldn't be any more money in circulation. It's not like a state would print money to supply basic income. It would have to be tax funded, so most likely other public spending would have to be reduced, and taxes would be increased.

If the basic income represents a progressive transfer from high-income to low-income (most likely) then you will see an income in spending simply due to the fact that high-income earners would probably save/invest the last $1000 rather than spending it on essentials such as food, but if the same money was distributed it is more likely to be spent. This is normally considered a good thing, (one of the most positive aspects of a progressive tax system).

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#102

Post by jberryman »

lucaspiller wrote: post #77

One thing I've always wondered about the basic income is wont it just mean prices go up because people are greedy? Take the article about trailer parks that was on here a week ago: The business owners said that they had to be careful when raising prices to make sure tenants can still afford it. If their tenants suddenly get an extra $1000/month, what's to stop them putting the rent up by $1000/month?

There's some discussion here:

    http://www.reddit.com/r/basicincome/wiki/index#wiki_wouldn.27t_basic_income_just_cause_inflation.3F
I have no idea, but I could imagine in your scenario: when people living in mobile home parks have more buying power, the market for serving them becomes more attractive leading to more competition. So maybe Joe opens up a competing park next door and undercuts Bob. Also tenants of all sorts would presumably have more mobility with the extra income.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#103

Post by timClicks »

moonchrome wrote: post #83
vlasev wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of Basic Income goes hand in hand with the process of automation. There are millions of jobs that will go away due to automation. The counter-argument to "will basic income lead more people to stop working" is not "people are working too hard anyway" but rather "most people won't have a job...coming soon". What are all those people going to do once this happens? Find another job? Yeah right. Here [1] is an a…

One problem of minimum income is that it will make it very expensive to find people willing to do "dirty" work. Unless you think robots will take care of nursing (which is grueling and dirty when dealing with disabled people and it doesn't pay well), farm work (they already have trouble finding workers), cleaning, etc. Automation isn't nowhere near to eliminating those and I'm guessing it would increase labor costs v…

On the flip side, there is lots of dirty work carried out that is not recognised by the current economy today.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#104

Post by dcw303 »

If there's $2.98 trillion per year to spend, put it into space travel. We should be colonizing other worlds. With more resources available, there's more work available. More work means more demand for jobs - and life is infinitely better when you are being paid for the value you provide to society than what is really quasi-welfare.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#105

Post by ekianjo »

alkonaut wrote: post #101
ekianjo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The increased cost for extending that type of benefit to everyone, while removing the bureaucracy of maintaining the existing programs (eligibility compliance and case workers, etc.), is actually not as dramatic as it first seems. You are missing one part, though. If you start giving cash for everyone, it's very likely this will result in raising prices for all commodities. And there you go for a another downward s…

> it's very likely this will result in raising prices for all commodities. Why is that? There wouldn't be any more money in circulation. It's not like a state would print money to supply basic income. It would have to be tax funded, so most likely other public spending would have to be reduced, and taxes would be increased. If the basic income represents a progressive transfer from high-income to low-income (most lik…

> Why is that?

Because the market adjust prices based on an equilibrium between what people usually earn and how much they are willing to spend. If you increase the money supply (not talking about nation-wide, but individual base) then there is nothing preventing manufacturers from raising their prices up and take advantage of it, while still being fair ("after all, everyone has minimum income now so they should be able to afford it anyway").

Unless, you know, you have to fix the prices of commodities. And then, penuries and shortages occur. History likes to rhyme.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#106

Post by SwellJoe »

deciplex wrote: post #93
SwellJoe wrote: post #62

If you'd told me ten years ago I would ever support a basic income, I would have laughed. My thought would have been, "People getting paid without doing anything? Absurd!" But, in the past few years I've thoroughly changed my mind on this, and a number of other fronts. I now fully support a basic income (though I think a debate needs to happen about how much that basic income ought to be and how it ought to be funded…

I agree with you, but how do you propose going about giving this underclass the leverage they need to make this happen? Short of encouraging them to kill rich people of course, which anyway would get you killed or neutralized long before you had any hope of success. Our system is simply not set up to reliably make changes for the benefit of people with no leverage over it in the first place.

I have no idea. Systems of oppression do tend to do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#107

Post by nightski »

learc83 wrote: post #100
nightski wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP is value added. If there are less people working, I'd hope that value added would go down.

What about a situation where fewer people are working more productively?

Wouldn't that be orthogonal to basic income? i.e. You'd get that anyways so it would cancel out?

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#109

Post by blumkvist »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #96
blumkvist wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps you read a bunch of pretty words that seem to make sense? They got citations and proper syllogisms and all that jazz. Communist rhetoric always makes sense. It makes sense to your feelings, at least.

Don't equate communism with a minimum wage, that's just intellectually dishonest.

Same rhetoric used by the same people. liberty, equality, fraternity and all that jazz. You just don't know human nature. Especially the low part of its spectrum.

Re: Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?

#110

Post by tinco »

ekianjo wrote: post #97
SwellJoe wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ever heard of minimum wage? Yeah, that one did not work as expected either (and created massive unemployment when the threshold was set too high as well)." Citation needed. Your assertions do not match my understanding of the facts about the result of the minimum wage. (Though I would have agreed with you ten years ago, a better understanding of it has altered my opinion significantly.)

You should not need a citation for anything here. Look at what unions do in general when they get powerful enough in a specific company - they enforce high salaries, protect jobs and protest against any reduction of personnel, making it very expensive for the management to keep the current staff, and very hesitant to hire more (increased costs vs fixed returns, and lack of flexibility to adjust the workforce vs the u…

Are you a troll? Besides the sentence "you should not neer a citation" should never be uttered, you deflect criticism on an unfounded argument with another unfounded argument. Tour first comment was unduly down voted but this one is just blabber.
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