201–210 of 1001 posts
What I don't understand with BI is this: if you give everyone the same amount of money, won't prices and rents adjust accordingly by exactly that amount, thereby nulling the effect ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit". There's got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensive to help. That's where family and charity hopefully take over. At the same time, I think your instinct is right, and it's something I've never heard mentioned before. It's almost inevitably that there'll then be the "food security" fund, and the "housing gua…
You'll find there are two voices for BI, the liberal and the liberatian. The liberal would prefer to keep universal healthcare and food programs and put cash on top, making the total distribution to the poor larger. The liberatian would prefer to simply move the complex paternalistic safety net into a simpler cash payment which doesn't disincentivize work while not increasing it's size. As an aside, if you pay attent…
The YCR statement says: "We think everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs—no matter what, especially if there are enough resources to make it possible." Why give free money to people who are too lazy to work?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit". There's got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensive to help. That's where family and charity hopefully take over. At the same time, I think your instinct is right, and it's something I've never heard mentioned before. It's almost inevitably that there'll then be the "food security" fund, and the "housing gua…
"Tough shit" sucks when parents blow their handout on lottery tickets and drugs, leaving their children in perpetual poverty.
Honestly, I think any "Basic Income" research where the recipient classes aren't 100% of the members of some well-defined polity and where the policy is explicitly a close-ended pilot is researching something so fundamentally different from Basic Income (it is well-known that close-ended benefits have a different effect on behavior) that, while there may be some useful insights that have applicability to actual Basic…
The one thing that I never actually see any of the people who tout BI answer is why it won't just cause an increase in the price of low income goods. Why won't laundry detergent just cost x% more money, etc. I think that the effective spending power low income individuals have under BI would be practically around the same that they had pre-BI if it's used a supplement to our current programs, and lower if BI is used…
It won't just cause that because of the way supply and demand curves for real goods tend to work. It will definitely cause an increase in the market-clearing price of many goods demanded at the low end of the income scale (because of how demand curves are shaped, and the influx of cash), which will increase the quantity supplied of those goods in most cases (because of how supply curves are shaped), resulting in people who are net beneficiaries (after considering where the funding comes from) affording more total goods, even though they are also paying higher prices for each unit of goods.
So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Tough shit" sucks when parents blow their handout on lottery tickets and drugs, leaving their children in perpetual poverty.
Short of internment camps, how does any welfare/safety net program address this?
So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…
I believe that (like the rest of the world, but NOT the US) medical care ought to be provided to all, so I'd take medical emergencies off the table.
I also think it is important that there not be a way to confiscate one's basic income for the repayment of a debt -- everyone gets to keep their basic income no matter what.
Furthermore, we need to continue (as we do today) to allow governments to run programs intended to keep the price of food and housing low, like zoning laws requiring developers to produce a certain amount of low-income housing. We also need to continue to provide government sponsored care for those incapable of caring for themselves (for instance, those who need institutional care due to severe mental or physical handicaps).
And after that, if we create a basic income that is sufficient to cover basic living expenses, I think we DO get to eliminate much government aid for poverty. Eliminate unemployment insurance (or rather, the mandate to provide it). Eliminate aid to the poor. Eliminate social security. Eliminate a minimum wage.
You ask "what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all their money and now can't afford rent and/or food"? I think that yes, you DO tell them that. You example is someone who says "my car broke down" and I think we, as a society, could leave that person stranded without their own automobile. (Today I know of no government programs to help people whose cars have broken down, so I'm pretty sure we can all agree to live with that.)
So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…
What sort of emergency do you envision? Most of today's financial emergencies hinge on either losing your job or incurring extreme debt due to uninsured medical care. I can't speak for all BI proponents but I, personally, support universal health care in addition to BI. With health care taking care of medical expense emergencies, basic income is left to take care of job-related emergencies. Your example of "my car br…