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A universal income is not such a silly idea

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Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#191

Post by lettergram »

I still cannot comprehend how anyone with a basic knowledge of economics can perceive this as a good idea. All universal income can achieve is increasing the cost of living to the point where it is as if there is no universal income.

In other words, the universal income idea simply increases the cost of living by the same factor of the increased income. Perhaps it takes a year or two, so the poor benefit during that time, but in the end all it does is destroy the currency and suppress economic growth.

"There is no such thing as a free lunch"

Point being, there's always some trade off. All universal income does is push the cost of lunch onto the wealthy even more.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#192

Post by gnaritas »

cynusx wrote: post #90
JTon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hate to be the person who earns just over that arbitrary 100k line.

hiring managers would use it to convince people to take sub-100k wages. This pretty much happens already in progressive taxation countries(e.g. belgium) where you can actually make less money by having a higher salary because your tax-rate increases.

> This pretty much happens already in progressive taxation countries(e.g. belgium) where you can actually make less money by having a higher salary because your tax-rate increases.

You don't understand how progressive taxes actually work. This simply doesn't happen. You can't make less money by making more money.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#193

Post by vasilipupkin »

PaulJoslin wrote: post #25

The thing I genuinely don't understand regarding the basic income for all argument is that surely it just moves the goal posts rather than solves the problem at hand? In the current system, you can go stay at home and get income support, which should provide you with the basics i.e. a home, food, electricity etc. If you would like more than this, you can go and get a job and hopefully earn more (have a better lifesty…

The idea is this: in the current system of welfare benefits, they are phased out with income. At those income levels, this phaseout acts as an implicitly high marginal income tax, which creates a disincentive to work. If you give everyone basic income with no phaseouts, you accomplish the same goal of welfare transfers without those ill disincentive effects.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#194

Post by vasilipupkin »

tinco wrote: post #172
switch007 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mention income support, so I take that as the UK, where hundreds of thousands of people rely on foodbanks each year.

Ah, I just took the opportunity to naïvely hate on the U.S. a little. I think their lack of social security is appalling. How can such a well faring nation have such a low income tax, and so many poor people. I guess I just don't understand their definition of liberty.

There is quite a bit of welfare benefits in the U.S. the complete lack of social security in the U.S. is a strawman. Now, it's probably true that the benefits are not as generous as elsewhere, but they are fairly extensive, and depending on the state you live in, are quite generous

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#195

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Maybe the issue is, in the 'western' world its no longer actually necessary or even useful to have people work. That's not where the wealth comes from any more.

So incentive becomes less interesting. Demand, supply, innovation still count. But getting people to pound the streets and dig ditches en-masse is not important any more.

So a basic income makes employment not the goal. Its useful innovation and adaptation to changing conditions that matters.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#196

Post by rguzman »

btilly wrote: post #177
belorn wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the confusion, but its mostly there thanks to misconception about how things works now, > If you would like more than this, you can go and get a job and hopefully earn more (have a better lifestyle) than staying at home not working. Staying home and not working today is not actually an option in most places in the world. The reason is why this new model is called unconditional basic income. The current s…

Your reasoning is severely flawed. Nobody today wants to accept an income below what you need to survive because..you need to survive. Liberals don't want to see other people accepting an income below what is needed for them to survive in a way that we can accept, so pass rules about a minimum wage. With this proposal, there is wage that it too low. As long as you make enough to afford something nice that you want th…

What people need to survive is too low a standard given how much wealth there is in the world.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#197

Post by brazzy »

downandout wrote: post #154
jonknee wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it not welfare in your estimations? It's nearly the dictionary definition of welfare. Why would it negatively impact the value of the currency and how is that any different than the current state of welfare (where only some people receive it)?

Because welfare, being given to only a small percentage of the population, can be funded out of taxes from the much larger pool of people not receiving welfare. But if everyone were suddenly on welfare, the system would quickly run out of money. We would then have to print more money.

Your argument seems to rest on the false assumption that (like welfare) anyyone who receives the basic income is not paying taxes.

In fact, a lot of people would pay considerably more taxes than the basic income they're getting. Yes, that's not perfectly efficient, but still more efficient than the bad-incentive-riddled beaurocracies that exist to ensure that welfare goes only to the "deserving poor".

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#198

Post by JoeAltmaier »

ck2 wrote: post #12

It's not a silly idea at all but I like to think of myself as progressive and I think it is a very bad idea in reality vs on paper. Just look at how college costs magically rise to the availability of loans and grants. What do you think is going to happen to food and rent prices once those supply chains figure out there is much more profit to be made? The Walton family alone has more wealth then the lower 42% rest of…

Not true. We're not talking about some kind of inflation that hits every dollar equally. The first 10000 dollars can't be made useless without affecting all the other money.

A basic income means everybody eats and has shelter. What part of the economy does that affect? Less and less. It may be time to just make that a civil right, and move on.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#199

Post by mariusz79 »

greiskul wrote: post #106
mariusz79 wrote: post #35

Basic income has potential but I think people are waiting for the governments to provide, while there is possibly another way. Imagine creating bitcoin version that does not favor early adopters, but allows everyone participating to get the same amount of coins every week. Of course it's easier said than done, and it would need to be detailed a little more, but I think it's possible.

The problem with this is how do you prevent people from creating multiple identities and gain more than their fair share? Bitcoin solves this problem by tying money generation with something that can't be faked, computational power.

I would imagine something based on bitcoin with an added web of trust.. One person starts it all. Another person joins and their identity is certified by the first person. You then have to run mining software but it's not required that your rig is fpga or asic based :).. few hours a week on a cpu would be sufficient. If you run the software, some coins are mined and added to your wallet. You signup another person, they do the same... could grow pretty fast. Of course there is more questions than answers, your question of how to prevent people from creating multiple identities... Maybe few people will need to sign the cert.. and they can only signed it if their cert was signed by x number of people..

But even if this did not work out, I'm sure it would be a good experiment that could show us how basic income could/would work in a reality.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#200

Post by brazzy »

downandout wrote: post #165
brazzy wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because there is nowhere else to get it. Why that? Nobody's talking about abolishing taxes. Note also that the basic income would replace many other forms of social subsidies that already exist and have harmful side effects.

Why that? Because you can't tax enough to fund a basic income for every single person.

That depends entirely on how high it is, doesn't it?

Ultimately, it's not about money but about productivity. If the economy is productive enough to give everyone a minimal standard of living as well as comforts and luxuries for those who earn them, it doesn't really matter how said minimal standard of living is "funded".

And there is little doubt that the economies of developed countries are that productive for a reasonable minimal standard.

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