231–240 of 278 posts
Communists shared alright 110 years ago in Russia, tens of millions of people failed to cope with that much prosperity and wellbeing, and then even more with unbearable freedom and peace.
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> I don't want a higher income, I want to benefit from the productivity gains I and everyone else made happen by having more time to do things I like. Why don't you just do that now and work half the amount of hours you're currently working?
> Why don't you just do that now and work half the amount of hours you're currently working? Show me the job like mine where this is an option, and I'll take it in a second. Hire another me and we'll split duties. These sorts of "professional job that pays a professional hourly rate but is for 20 hours a week" are exceedingly rare. You'll usually be taking far less than 50% pay - far worse if you include benefits in…
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They benefit from greatly lowered tax rates on their earned income (this is also a 'carrot' for the UBI net-receivers themselves, at least at the higher end), and high growth because you don't need to 'soak' higher-earning folks, who only pay moderately progressive rates. The alternative either has the lowest earning folks getting screwed out of receiving a meaningful subsidy (which is really bad) or pushes the break…
> They benefit from greatly lowered tax rates on their earned income Lowered marginal tax rates. Raising the marginal rates on the lowest earners is raising the effective rates on the lower middle class. That they don't get anything is essentially the purpose of your proposal. > and high growth because you don't need to 'soak' higher-earning folks, who only pay moderately progressive rates. But did you actually have…
Those are just clawback rates. The lower middle class don't need UBI in order to pay for the necessities of life, and most UBI proposals don't expect them to be net recipients, any more than they'd be net recipients of current welfare.
> it's also lowering the effective rate on everyone above them
That's balanced by the gradual progressivity of tax rates on upper-middle incomes.
> while making sure the extra money comes from the middle rather than the top
The low rates for the lower-middle class are actually ensuring the exact opposite of that claim. The upper incomes are the source for the bulk of income redistribution in the usual optimal system as it comes out of these analyses; they just don't face prohibitive rates.
> And having the highest rates at the bottom is pretty bad incentive-wise.
It's the opposite. The bottom clawback rates apply to a smaller part of the population, that can escape them simply by earning more than the UBI breakeven point. Meanwhile the high rates there help make the whole tax schedule sustainable. It may be a counterintuitive point but it's confirmed by rigorous, automated analysis.
> marginal rate arbitrage you're reintroducing is large
The most likely response is not necessarily arbitrage, it might just be earning enough that you start paying low marginal rates after the UBI is clawed back.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2019/07/03/738569508/university-of-alask...
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Not sure if that would work better: 1. The idea behind UBI is that it is near-zero effort, the cost to operate UBI should be minimal. UBW cannot be low overhead I suppose. 2. What motivation do I have to do the work if I can’t get fired?
You have to work if you want to get paid. Otherwise you will get fired. The obligation of the state is to provide you with a guaranteed alternative job offer, not a guaranteed income. It’s up to you if you take up the state’s offer or not. The UBI removes the motivation to work and turns everything into volunteering. The result is a rise in the “reservation wage gap” - the amount the private sector has to pay to get…
I mean, people who will create negative utility in a workplace or cost more in supervision expense than you get from them as output.
They create hazards for others by being drunk or on drugs on the job, or by harassing or bullying others, injuring themselves or others, causing personality conflicts or dramas due to trauma or unresolved mental health issues etc. I don't mean this as a value judgment, it's just like some people really aren't in a place in life where they can function well in work settings.
I'm not sure how you "guarantee" something that is dependent on complex situational decisions.
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Inflation is a common red herring that people arguing in bad faith throw at policies they don't like, because most people don't know enough to reject it. The monetary side of the economy deals with money volumes orders of magnitude larger than the real side, and reacts to change also orders of magnitude faster. Because of that, inflation is almost always completely determined by monetary policy. A real shock that can…
Oil is up due to shortages due to the war in Iran. RAM is up in price due to supply shortages due to AI. During COVID much of the early inflation was caused by supply shortages due to factories shutting down. Then house prices shot up in suburbs as people moved out of cities so the demand went up there. None of that is due to monetary policy. Saying that the total money supply is the cause of inflation is a very simp…
I don't know what relation you see between that and UBI.
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Oil is up due to shortages due to the war in Iran. RAM is up in price due to supply shortages due to AI. During COVID much of the early inflation was caused by supply shortages due to factories shutting down. Then house prices shot up in suburbs as people moved out of cities so the demand went up there. None of that is due to monetary policy. Saying that the total money supply is the cause of inflation is a very simp…
Yes, we are in a situation today where the real economy may send inflation out of control in some countries. As we were at the early days of covid (but not an year or two later). I don't know what relation you see between that and UBI.
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I'm sure there are other things that call themselves unions but don't serve the same function we expect of organizations using that word. I'm not really knowledgeable about either of the things you mention, so I don't know if I'd view them as fitting this description or not. Both seem unlikely to have the kind of broad negative impact police unions have, which is particularly egregious because they effectively make p…
> I'm sure there are other things that call themselves unions but don't serve the same function we expect of organizations using that word No True Scotsman. All unions are unimpeachable. Because those that aren’t aren’t real unions.
I get the sense that you feel strongly about this subject, but it would do you some good to read the messages you're replying to, as not doing so makes you sound pretty foolish
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Except that doesn’t work as there remains a systemic shortage of jobs on offer. The societal deal with the private sector is that it employs everybody at a rate that allows an individual to live in return for the chance to make a profit. A job guarantee ensures that the private sector overall cannot shirk that responsibility. If the private sector does its job, nobody will be employed on a job guarantee.
An income subsidy does the same thing at lesser cost. Whether that subsidy is a UBI or a wage supplement is to some extent a political choice: we got the EITC instead of a proper UBI (managed as a "negative" income tax bill for low-earning folks) largely due to political objections to the notion of getting money "for doing nothing".
The result is political pressure to remove the state pension or increase the age at which it is received.
If UBI worked as you suggest then the resulting increase in productivity would drive the state pension age down not up.
The evidence is against you. Giving people money reduces productivity and makes it more difficult for firms to get the labour they require, and at huge cost to the state that uses up the finite taxation space there is available.