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Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

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Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#21

Post by facile3232 »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #4

I really wish people would learn to keep emotion out of this topic. There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?". Not: "Does this feel like the best use of our tax dollars?". Show me how much UBI saves police departments, social welfare services, the health-care system,etc.. and how many new tax paying consumers it produces. Is it a reliable investment on people or is it a po…

> There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?".

The government has far more ways of financing things than taxes. I’m not sure why we refer to money this way—it’s fundamentally disingenuous. A federal budget is not the same thing as a household budget in any way.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#22

Post by mandmandam »

neilwilson wrote: post #19
notepad0x90 wrote: post #4

I really wish people would learn to keep emotion out of this topic. There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?". Not: "Does this feel like the best use of our tax dollars?". Show me how much UBI saves police departments, social welfare services, the health-care system,etc.. and how many new tax paying consumers it produces. Is it a reliable investment on people or is it a po…

The biggest set of data points comes from the most obvious and widespread UBI - the state pension. Available to a certain section of the population That's how all UBIs thus far appear to work. You need a fixed exchange rate area where some people don't get the UBI so that the physical output that actually funds it can be extracted from the people who don't receive it. That separation can be physical area, or age. We…

Empirical evidence from UBI pilots shows most recipients continue working. This invalidates your entire analogy and comment.

However there are still some other points worth making:

1. No, pensions and UBI are different things. Asserting that 18 year olds will react the same as 70 year olds to receiving enough money to live on isn't just against the actual evidence, but against really basic common sense.

2. Without getting too into the weeds, UBI doesn't mean that no one works. It changes the bargaining power of the poorest and most taken advantage of. The carrots will still get grown, but it won't be by abused laborers in de facto slavery.

3. "The data tells us that the qualification age for retirement pensions is heading upwards, due to a lack of productivity gains to support it" - False. Productivity has risen for 50 years. Wages have not risen to match.

> Somebody has to do the work to grow the carrots. If you aren't doing anything meaningful in return, (which means what the carrot grower wants you to do, not what you want to do)

You seem very confused. The person who does the work to grow carrots is the carrot grower. The person who owns the land and imports seasonal workers 10 to a cabin is an exploiter.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#23

Post by mandmandam »

veltas wrote: post #5

The issue with the current system is it gives a lot of money and power to banks, and finance. The issue with the proposed system, is that debt is actually a good thing for normal people. For example if you are young, productive, and come from a poor background, then you might buy a house with a mortgage. If debt is more expensive, then you are less likely -- and older people (and rich kids) are more likely -- to be a…

> Everyone is focused on how the rich are getting richer. This is inevitable in liberal societies. The goal should instead be to stop the poor getting poorer

These things are fundamentally connected. When the wealthy have too much power, they squeeze the middle and the poor too hard.

Unlike much else in life, the pool of money is a zero-sum game (though this is addressed in the paper, notably). When 3 Americans hold more wealth than 50% of the rest of us, that's a real problem. This historic and rising inequality leads nowhere good, and we are in existential crises which require that this be properly addressed.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#25

Post by bsenftner »

Every opinion on UBI is short sighted, and does not understand the macroeconomic poison that is UBI. Our economy, all economies, have lowered ethics players operating at the top of each economy. UBI institutionalizes these low ethics players, as well as institutionalizes the UBI recipients and forever casts their offspring into those economic roles. UBI is nothing less than the death of hope and the elimination of any economic ladder up and out of one's birth situation. The only path is stagnant or down.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#26

Post by 6510 »

logicchains wrote: post #12
immibis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is politics supposed to be about maximizing the government's money? We saw where that lead with businesses. I thought the government was there to do things that weren't good profit maximizers but made the world better.

In most western countries there are few state-run enterprises so there's little "government's money". There's taxpayer's money, and they care how it's spent.

Every time I think about that it strikes me as a dumb idea. Everything that cant be allowed to fail should be a government enterprise.

I would go nuts with the concept, turn city hall into a museum, hotel, grandcafe, restaurant, cinema, casino, conference rooms, desks for rent, city tour guides, etc etc open 24/7. Live music if there are no council meetings on the big screen. It should have a room to smoke weed too.

If you ignore how silly it sounds, what do you think the revenue will be like?

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#27

Post by 6510 »

I suppose the question is if controlling the economy with a single lever for interest rate is a poor solution. The answer seems an obvious yes.

I've always thought a basic income should start with 10 bucks so that we can figure out the logistics of it. Have real world data on how hard it is to implement.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#28

Post by mandmandam »

KolmogorovComp wrote: post #3

> UBI is first introduced at any arbitrarily low amount higher than $0. The fiscal authority then gradually increases the payout until the maximum-sustainable level of UBI spending is discovered > Notably, since this policy is proposed to be 'funded' by a monetary policy contraction, it in theory requires no tax or consolidation of existing government programs to implement; nor does it necessarily imply a net increas…

> What happen if this CBI maximum happen to be a very low amount?

It shouldn't need to be pointed out that that's deeply unlikely, but I'll point it out anyway.

The available monetary contraction is orders of magnitude larger. Economic conditions where it would be constrained to such a low level would likely be rare and temporary. And, it's generally accepted that direct cash transfers increase spending.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#29

Post by DonaldFisk »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #4

I really wish people would learn to keep emotion out of this topic. There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?". Not: "Does this feel like the best use of our tax dollars?". Show me how much UBI saves police departments, social welfare services, the health-care system,etc.. and how many new tax paying consumers it produces. Is it a reliable investment on people or is it a po…

> There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?". Not: "Does this feel like the best use of our tax dollars?".

There have been numerous pilot studies, e.g. those listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income . The problem is that opponents of UBI invariably point out that as only some people received it, and only for a limited time, that it wasn't universal, or that it took place in in some other country, or decades ago, so it doesn't apply in their country, or today.

> Show me how much UBI saves police departments, social welfare services, the health-care system,etc.

Its purpose is to ensure that everyone has their basic financial needs met, not to provide those particular government services.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#30

Post by gampleman »

bsenftner wrote: post #25

Every opinion on UBI is short sighted, and does not understand the macroeconomic poison that is UBI. Our economy, all economies, have lowered ethics players operating at the top of each economy. UBI institutionalizes these low ethics players, as well as institutionalizes the UBI recipients and forever casts their offspring into those economic roles. UBI is nothing less than the death of hope and the elimination of an…

Can you explain this a bit more?
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