201–210 of 292 posts
Plus, it's a cheap way to virtue signal, and goodwill is always good for business!
My best argument for UBI is, “I’d love to be able to work on F/OSS full time.” Kudos for making it a reality. It may be scratching a personal itch, but the positive externalities to society are real.
Do we really have to have a huge long thread on UBI here? Really? This is about a developer working on a cool project turning it into a living.
It would make a lot of sense for larger software houses to donate to open source developers who develop the tools they use. This is win-win since they get the best person to maintain the software, have the developer's ear, and don't have to deal with labor laws or office space or management. They don't even need to be in the same country or time zone. Plus, it's a cheap way to virtue signal, and goodwill is always go…
Are those people available to work extra hours for pay though?
I help maintain some open source software but if someone offered me money to work on it more then sorry but I don't have magic extra hours in the day to do that - I've got a full-time job and hobbies of my own.
I think it's better the companies step forward and put the hours in as well as the money.
It would make a lot of sense for larger software houses to donate to open source developers who develop the tools they use. This is win-win since they get the best person to maintain the software, have the developer's ear, and don't have to deal with labor laws or office space or management. They don't even need to be in the same country or time zone. Plus, it's a cheap way to virtue signal, and goodwill is always go…
> to donate to open source developers who develop the tools they use Are those people available to work extra hours for pay though? I help maintain some open source software but if someone offered me money to work on it more then sorry but I don't have magic extra hours in the day to do that - I've got a full-time job and hobbies of my own. I think it's better the companies step forward and put the hours in as well a…
Of course, with enough donations going on, it would be possible to quit your fulltime job like this fellow has done, freeing up even more of his time.
My best argument for UBI is, “I’d love to be able to work on F/OSS full time.” Kudos for making it a reality. It may be scratching a personal itch, but the positive externalities to society are real.
Yeah, it's the modern version of a minor landed gentleman who can pursue his interests. It's how we got science. Sadly, the best argument against UBI is that vast, vast majority of people will not be working full time on F/OSS or quite possible anything else.
The actual best argument against UBI is that if you used the total of US government Social Security, Other, and Nondefense spending (At least portions of them seem to be UBI-replacable) on it, divided by the population of the United States (326,000,000), you end up with about $7,000 per person, per year. If you take the entire budget (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/...) of $4,000,000,000, you end up with $12,000 per each, per annum.
$1000/month?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Alaska Permanent Fund is the only one of those that even hits both of the U and I points of UBI (the rest are just I); it doesn't even target the B, though.
Of course they are basic. Many people live on social security, pensions. And they're a segment of the population. To study the result of a population receiving a BI, there's plenty of data.
Which of them completely displaces means-tested welfare to provide the support floor for all who are in the eligible population. Social Security doesn't. Pensions don't. Being idly rich might, I suppose, in that that is just “living of capital” but ignoring all the people who don't have a lot to live on.
> And they're a segment of the population. To study the result of a population receiving a BI, there's plenty of data.
Not relevant to UBI there isn't. Some segment of the population receiving income varying a Ross indiciduals based on their past work and investments isn't even loosely similar to the whole population of a community receiving equal unconditional UBI, and there is little reason to expect the former to provide much insight on the latter.
It would make a lot of sense for larger software houses to donate to open source developers who develop the tools they use. This is win-win since they get the best person to maintain the software, have the developer's ear, and don't have to deal with labor laws or office space or management. They don't even need to be in the same country or time zone. Plus, it's a cheap way to virtue signal, and goodwill is always go…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but my point is that these sorts of comparisons are complicated, and the facts matter. Anyone can hand wave the figures and come up with favorable comparisons by including or omitting important figures. I don't think it's fair to make simplistic comparisons and say that Sweden pays 24k more in taxes on 60k income.
Every time I've sat down to do the actual math the difference between "typical HN wages in a high cost state" (call it $200k/yr) to western europe - the numbers are always within a 10% difference. Everyone likes looking at just the federal tax rate and ignores state income tax, local income tax, SS/Medicare tax (which is massive), and real estate taxes. I do ignore VAT and sales taxes typically since they are so diff…
This is because, at least in Sweden, the first ~25% isn't strictly taxes, but fees for public benefits. Like 10% pension and 2% parental leave.
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I think you could get away with a UBI which is substantially less than that. $12,000/person/year seems like it should be easily sufficient - since I live on that much excepting tuition in downtown Toronto (not cheap), in CAD (so really a lot less), just fine. Keep in mind that when you are counting per person that means you are allocating that much for people not in the workforce like children too. A 4 person househo…
That's a good point, the US population of people 18 years or old is ~252 million, so if you only gave people 18+ a UBI handout, you'd cut your costs to 7.862 Trillion dollars per year.
A UBI that pays a portion of a living wage might be a very good idea, but it's not going to allow the majority of Americans to lay on their butts all day watching TV and eating cheesy poofs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except your suggestions here ignore that the surplus given by UBI will be amortized into rent and staples costs. It's all well and good until you get into the weeds and realize that a lot of price fixing or pseudo price fixing needs to happen before UBI becomes realistic. If the argument is getting rid of legislative and bureaucratic bloat, it's definitely not quite so easy or quite so effective, choose one.
Why would you expect inflation to occur? As long as UBI is payed for via taxes and not deficit spending than the money supply isn't changing. And as economists say, inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Supply & demand aren't radically changing either. America's poor eat too much, not too little. And while there are homeless people in America, most sleep in shelters. If anything, you might expect the price of the cheap…
You do realize that is self-contradictory, right? More people buying X means the price of X goes up, not down. (Modulo a bunch of factors that probably don't apply to housing and staples.)
