> Martin emphasized the importance of aiding artists in continuing their work. “The minister is conscious of the value that this sector brings to all Irish citizens,” What about the work of health workers, delivery people, drivers, employees in supermarkets, cleaners, constructions workers, etc.?
>What about the work of health workers, delivery people, drivers, employees in supermarkets, cleaners, constructions workers, etc.?
They have salaries. The artists really didn't have a salary beyond the dole.
Implementing social security in the first place took massive social upheaval. UBI as a thought experiment is never going to happen, it would take a massive political movement or economic apocalypse.
I think it's pretty likely that some country will actually try it. Most likely one of the oil-rich welfare states in the nordics. I doubt it lasts very long though especially after they start seeing an explosion of immigration. From my experience, the citizens of those north European countries don't like people that don't look like them.
As a general rule, people in aggregate don't like people that don't look like them. It's certainly not specific to northern Europe.
If you raise taxes and prices a lot, UBI will become basically useless, because it's effects will be eaten up by inflation. Hell, why wouldn't I increase rent to the UBI amount?
If UBI doesn't increase the money supply (aka it is paid for with taxing), it shouldn't increase inflation.
Strictly speaking this isn't the case. If you define inflation with a set CPI basket, and your redistribution moves money to people whose purchasing is more correlated with that basket than the people you're taking the money from, inflation will increase.
The hard part is that UBI is extremely, extremely expensive. The variant I'm in favour of goes something like: 1. $12k / year to everyone 2. 50% flat tax (on non-UBI income) 3. Small federal land value tax on non-wilderness properties 4. Tax on non-resident property owners 5. UBI for citizens only (to mitigate people traveling here just to not work) But try passing that ^ in any major democracy. You can't. The reason…
If you raise taxes and prices a lot, UBI will become basically useless, because it's effects will be eaten up by inflation. Hell, why wouldn't I increase rent to the UBI amount?
I predict that a UBI system will evolve from direct cash payments to a voucher system in order to try and escape the inflation -> higher UBI -> higher taxes -> higher inflation spiral. At some point, a politician will realize that there just isn’t enough money going around and the “solution” will be to dole out resources directly.
Why constantly adjust the amount of money needed to buy essential items like say, toilet paper or menstrual products, when you can just print a voucher for said items?
You can look at the state-financed "art programs" in ex-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe. As artists in these countries were left with nothing to "propagandize" for (their sole qualification, by design) they slowly mutated into non-productive radical leftism and work-for-hire for anybody willing to invest into non-beauty. I hope that Ireland will fare better, although in the last few years their foreign policy seems to have been re-focused onto a domain that also involves LGBT type outbursts.
> two thousand arts and culture workers for a span of three years … earmarked €25 million for the plan … top recommendation … €10.50 per hour 3 years × 2,000 hours per year (estimate of full time employment) × €10.50 per hour × 2,000 people = €126 million, five times as much as is earmarked (even ignoring administrative costs). Perhaps it’s 400 rather than 2,000, perhaps it’s not full-time, perhaps the mention of the…
2,000 hours at 40 hours/week is 50 weeks. As a European, that sounds really really high. I believe around 1,700 is the real average for all of EU, for instance. That is not enough of course to change the result much (at 1,700 hours they would need €107 or just above four times the earmarked amount), I just wanted to point it out.
My figure of 2,000 was estimating the hours you’re paid for, including holidays, not the hours worked, matching Australia’s model for salary, where the figure is normally reckoned annually. It’s still definitely a touch on the high side (standard in Australia is 7.5h/day, which multiplied by 5 days per week and 52 and a bit weeks per year comes to 1,950 hours per year or a little more), but not by much—around 2.5%, rather than 11–12%.
The hard part is that UBI is extremely, extremely expensive. The variant I'm in favour of goes something like: 1. $12k / year to everyone 2. 50% flat tax (on non-UBI income) 3. Small federal land value tax on non-wilderness properties 4. Tax on non-resident property owners 5. UBI for citizens only (to mitigate people traveling here just to not work) But try passing that ^ in any major democracy. You can't. The reason…
If the government takes half of what I make it would probably be time for a revolution. I make a good living, but having half of what I make support 3 other people that are not my family and just giving them cash. Like being on the afternoon of Wednesday and realizing that all the work I did in the week so far was taken away to give to someone else without my input is insane. And I give over 10 percent of what I earn…
I think most of EU countries your total tax burden is already 50% of what employer pays. Mostly we don't see that part and only talk about what employer has to pay that is less than 50%
But even some countries at certain brackets have the only income tax part over 50%.
So flat 50% of total tax burden would not be unheard of.
If you raise taxes and prices a lot, UBI will become basically useless, because it's effects will be eaten up by inflation. Hell, why wouldn't I increase rent to the UBI amount?
I predict that a UBI system will evolve from direct cash payments to a voucher system in order to try and escape the inflation -> higher UBI -> higher taxes -> higher inflation spiral. At some point, a politician will realize that there just isn’t enough money going around and the “solution” will be to dole out resources directly. Why constantly adjust the amount of money needed to buy essential items like say, toile…
Because unless the state starts producing menstrual products and toilet paper himself, including the supply chain to create and distributing that, there will be a price hike.
Me as a toilet paper manufacturer would happily raise my prices and lower the quality when I know the state HAS to buy a certain number of sales units from me.
The hard part is that UBI is extremely, extremely expensive. The variant I'm in favour of goes something like: 1. $12k / year to everyone 2. 50% flat tax (on non-UBI income) 3. Small federal land value tax on non-wilderness properties 4. Tax on non-resident property owners 5. UBI for citizens only (to mitigate people traveling here just to not work) But try passing that ^ in any major democracy. You can't. The reason…
If the government takes half of what I make it would probably be time for a revolution. I make a good living, but having half of what I make support 3 other people that are not my family and just giving them cash. Like being on the afternoon of Wednesday and realizing that all the work I did in the week so far was taken away to give to someone else without my input is insane. And I give over 10 percent of what I earn…
Hello from Scandinavia. No Revolutions in sight, government takes 70% (taking both tax and vat into account)
If you want to give money to artists, why don't you, er, pay them for doing their thing? Like, enlarge art schools, support exhibitions or festivals, whatever. Of course just raining money on (some of) them requires way less effort, but it makes it seem like art is just a money sink and cannot create tangible value (spoiler: it can).
That's also done.
"Funded by the Arts Council" is a phrase commonly seen on posters for all sorts of artistic endeavours. "Funding Opportunities" is front and centre on their website too: