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Why we should all have a basic income

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Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#271

Post by tomp »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #174
tomp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inflation is always a monetary phenomenon I don't understand this reasoning. Look, only one of the following can be true: (1) everyone can buy basic necessities of life, in which case nobody is poor and we don't need UBI, or (2) not everyone can buy the basic necessities of life. If (2) is true and we introduce UBI, then there will be more demand for the basic necessities of life (coming from all the people who wer…

> Look, only one of the following can be true: (1) everyone can buy basic necessities of life, in which case nobody is poor and we don't need UBI, or (2) not everyone can buy the basic necessities of life. We have discovered the source of the misunderstanding. (2) was true, which means we need a UBI or welfare and we already have welfare, so (1) is now also true. What we are discussing is replacing welfare with a UBI…

So you're saying that everyone who's promoting UBI is actually just doing it to incentivise poor people to work?

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#273

Post by Chris2048 »

johanneskanybal wrote: post #246
TulliusCicero wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are absolutely people like you, and absolutely people who will just play WoW all day, every day. The question is, how many of each?

So the more controversial question here is if we should do it anyway even if it turns out to be a net loss because.. we can. Then the more dystropian view would be how else are we gonna keep the plebs under control if we think the unemployed will be the majority in the future? Just pointing out there's a couple of different angles on this not just the net gain one.

> if it turns out to be a net loss because

Doesn't this assume a fixed loss? What if this encourages the former behavior to grow?

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#275

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ElComradio wrote: post #235
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prove me wrong. Ok here we go. > If everyone gets $1000 every month guaranteed for "basic needs", the prices for those basic needs will increase accordingly. And independently. So you'll end up spending that $1k on either housing, bills or food. They don't get $1000/month for "basic needs", they get $1000/month for whatever they want . It's completely unconditional. Which means people wouldn't go out and buy twice…

Long term this may indeed happen but in the short term, it seems unlikely. Like with school vouchers, if I ran a private for-profit school and knew my students suddenly had an extra $X,000 to spend on tuition, my short term move would understandably be to raise tuition at least some percentage of that amount. If the market responds in a couple of years by forcing me to dial it back, so be it, but in the meantime I've…

In this context "long term" is the time it takes for the market to respond by building more schools or housing or whatever, which generally takes a low single digit number of years (like one). To which the response then becomes, so what?

And that's assuming your argument is true, which in general it isn't. If you raise prices then some of your customers will go elsewhere. That's why sellers don't raise prices already. If you raise prices and your competitors don't, even if your customers have extra money, people can still count and a dollar is still a dollar. The profit-maximizing strategy isn't to raise prices, it's to expand capacity as quickly as possible (which in many cases is immediate) so that you can make your existing profit across more customers who can now afford your product, without losing them to competitors with lower prices.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#276

Post by Chris2048 »

chris_va wrote: post #218
ng12 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when they voiced anger about the government accepting immigrants when there already wasn't enough work to go around they got called racist. I think UBI's effect on immigration is an interesting topic and one I don't see discussed in most articles. What does it mean to be a citizen of a country when, statistically speaking, you're a drain on the economy? How does immigration fit into that model? In my mind UBI doe…

I think your explanation on the racist name calling shows why this is such a difficult topic. There is a incorrect assumption that people often make, without malice, about economics being a zero sum game. It really is not, almost by definition. The more people in an area, usually the more opportunity people have for employment over a long time period, and the higher the economic output. Also, there is a difference be…

> taking the same stance when the alternative for the immigrants is potentially far more catastrophic

refugees also tend to be better off economically in coming to the US. There are a lot of people in the world that can be saved from death by granting them asylum, but who don't get it. To what extent can, and should, the US help the world outside its borders?

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#277

Post by lg »

protomyth wrote: post #216
lotharbot wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "attempting to cloak itself in free market rhetoric" ... Friedman and Hayek both advocated for a UBI. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-aren...

from the article you cited: Milton Friedman advocated a minimum guaranteed income via a “negative income tax.” Minimum guaranteed income is different than basic income.

... which also disincentivizes work more than UBI, because why work a low-wage job for that minimum income when you can get it for nothing instead? whereas with UBI it's always in addition.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#278

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tomp wrote: post #271
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look, only one of the following can be true: (1) everyone can buy basic necessities of life, in which case nobody is poor and we don't need UBI, or (2) not everyone can buy the basic necessities of life. We have discovered the source of the misunderstanding. (2) was true, which means we need a UBI or welfare and we already have welfare, so (1) is now also true. What we are discussing is replacing welfare with a UBI…

So you're saying that everyone who's promoting UBI is actually just doing it to incentivise poor people to work?

> So you're saying that everyone who's promoting UBI is actually just doing it to incentivise poor people to work?

What I'm saying is that is a primary difference between a UBI and the status quo. Giving money (or less efficient money-equivalent things) to poor people is not, because we already do that.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#279

Post by TheSageMage »

lg wrote: post #262
dzink wrote: post #192

During Brexit, people in job-starved areas of UK were reported as resentful for receiving handouts. They wanted gainful employment and their dignity back. You could have corporations foot the bill for basic income and people with certain values would still not want it. The image of being a breadwinner is so deeply instilled in some people that for them not being that, triggers mid-life-crisis: a depression, sense of…

I don't know about the UK, but in the US, you effectively have a choice between getting welfare and working. So people have the option to take some low-paying job, but they don't do it because then they lose welfare benefits that pay almost as much, sometimes subsidizing childcare etc. so it's an unemployment trap. UBI is much saner because you get it in addition to any income you earn from working, so you can go ahe…

This is an earned income tax credit(https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/earned-in...).

Personally I could get behind the "lower federal minimum wages regulations" if it were met with a "but increase a EITC to help tweak the income of those who need help".

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#280

Post by lg »

sokoloff wrote: post #198
Balgair wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The fact that you have to work for the dollar is the thing that gives the dollar value." Wait, so then how does inheritance work? Like, your grandmother worked for it, but you just snowboard all year long. What am I missing here?

Money can be thought of as a claim check on labor. You work doing something valuable and get money. You spend some and save some. What you have saved/invested and not spent and passed on to someone else still has value. In the snowboarder's case, someone worked for that money and gifted it to them. Totally consistent if you don't overly focus on the " YOU have to work for it" but rather " SOMEONE has to work for it"

right. so i work, pay taxes and those get distributed to my neighbor's UBI. what i have passed on to someone else still has value.
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