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Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

openresearchlab.org

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Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#291

Post by irjustin »

Serious question, didn't we have a glimpse into UBI w/ all the stimulus packages? I'm very open to discussion here because I'm quite naive.

My current lens is that UBI ultimately inflates prices leaving everyone back where they were before. The problem with openresarchlab's test is it's limited scope. It did increase the spending power of a particular group because the prices around them did not increase.

If everyone has more money the "open market" raises prices to simply meet that. The root problem is non-limited capitalism? The price of basic goods cannot be allowed to rise vs cash on hand.

I do believe UBI's ultimate goal is to increase "spending power", but simply giving money doesn't change the problem long term and thus UBI is doomed to fail in its current form.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#292

Post by TeaBrain »

whimsicalism wrote: post #285
TeaBrain wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't describing anything. A negative income tax is approximately what the guy I replied to was describing. It obviously wasn't a perfect description, but I didn't think my label of the description in his comment would be taken so literally. If you'd care to describe why you believe this isn't an approximation of the outcome of a negative income tax, then feel free to explain.

because in the scheme described the effective tax on your income is positive (the more you earn, the more is transferred away) as opposed to negative (the more you earn the more is transferred to you).

What you are describing might intuitively sound like what a negative income tax should mean, had you never heard of a negative income tax before, but that is not what a negative income tax is. A negative income tax, which is a name for a type of benefit system, does not mean that people are literally negatively taxed, regardless of their income.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#293

Post by briHass »

karmajunkie wrote: post #257
Kamq wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers don't line up for that. The sum total of the wealth of all the billionaires in the US in 2021 was ~$4.1 Trillion [0]. That's about the same as the government budget in a normal year pre-pandemic, or about 2/3 of the government budget post-pandemic. Assuming a $1000/month and a population of ~350 million, you're looking at $4.2 Trillion per year. You could almost fund it for the first year by taxing all of…

just curious, but why is there always an implicit assumption in this debate that we only tax the wealth of billionaires? is the money of a half billionaire somehow less green than a full billionaire?

Keep going until you're taxing everyone that makes over $80K/year or so, and you pretty much have it being balanced.

I never understood the UBI argument. 30 seconds of napkin math would show you how insane the proposal is, even at the rate of $1000/month. If you want to increase welfare for those below the median income, fine, let's have that discussion. Don't play games with the word 'universal'

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#294

Post by dbrueck »

karmajunkie wrote: post #257
Kamq wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers don't line up for that. The sum total of the wealth of all the billionaires in the US in 2021 was ~$4.1 Trillion [0]. That's about the same as the government budget in a normal year pre-pandemic, or about 2/3 of the government budget post-pandemic. Assuming a $1000/month and a population of ~350 million, you're looking at $4.2 Trillion per year. You could almost fund it for the first year by taxing all of…

just curious, but why is there always an implicit assumption in this debate that we only tax the wealth of billionaires? is the money of a half billionaire somehow less green than a full billionaire?

I don't think that's the case. Instead, it's just that the "let's tax the rich people more!!" idea is ill-founded to begin with, and the easiest way to show that is to point out that if instead of just taking some percentage more, you took everything they have, it still wouldn't solve the problem, not by a longshot.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#295

Post by adolph »

falcolas wrote: post #78
eamsen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value production is needed, because the value we produce is fleeting and healthy societies grow. How much value is needed is determined by the society through a free market.

How much value can a disabled veteran provide to the free market? If that value is zero, should they just lay down and die? What if they're not a veteran, but just an unfortunate soul with a disability that provides "zero" value?

I’ve worked with organizations that employ people whose physical or mental condition makes it difficult to obtain/maintain a typical job. In all likelihood the type of work performed (stuffing event participant packets) was a net negative in a small view of value. The folks there seemed pretty happy to do what they did in a supportive setting with other folks who had similar life circumstances. That leads me to believe that there were larger value-concepts at play than what a cash amount can enumerate.

The value that any person can create is principally limited by imagination, not the free market. The wonderful thing about a moderately regulated free market is that the imagination of more people can be used to engage the value creation inherent in every person.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#296

Post by ssl-3 »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #267
beejiu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have different definitions of UBI, but in my mind 'basic' doesn't translate to quitting your job and not working. People in a functioning society still have to work.

I read it as all the human essentials are covered without work (sufficiently nutritious food, safe, clean, shelter with sufficient heating and water for basic needs, basic healthcare, basic internet, and a small extra for discretionary spending) with the assumption that most people will happily do some work to upgrade their circumstances and get more fun and interesting food/entertainment/shelter. If quitting your jo…

There's a mindset that I often run into with IRL discussions that revolves around the premise that if a person has some minimal essentials met by doing nothing, then they will have no motivation to ever improve their situation at all.

That if a person can afford to accomplish nothing but still have enough money to smoke weed and play video games, then all anyone will ever do is smoke weed and play video games.

I don't subscribe to that mindset: I want a nice place to live, with room for all of my hobbies and for guests to comfortably visit overnight. I want a good car and a nice place to park it and to work on it. I want to be able to afford a glorious steak dinner out or an amazing gyro without having to sacrifice. I want the best tools to create my own food in my own kitchen. I want the fastest internet and an ample homelab to do stuff with it. I want to make an annual thousand-mile pilgrimage to hang out with some friends for a week doing cool shit together (which requires real money), and I want to be able to take an actual-vacation some other time in the year where I can afford to go camping or something. I want to be able to provide thoughtful and useful gifts to my people, even if they happen to be expensive. (And if I were allowed to smoke weed [my job doesn't permit it and testing is both thorough and regular], I'd want the best weed.)

I wouldn't be able to accomplish these things with UBI, so even in a hypothetical future where UBI is a thing: I won't want to sit around and do nothing: So far in life, I want quite a lot more more than the basic essentials and I'm willing to work for those things.

(I do know some people who don't seem to be capable of more than nothing, due to mental and/or physical conditions, and it's likely that all of us know someone like this -- and these folks will have a rough time with life with or without UBI. But I firmly believe that most people would prefer staying in the rat race, because most people who are capable of work also have some fondness for whatever they consider to be *nice* things.

But I might fall down in the future; it's happened to me before for a variety of reasons. And it'd be nice to be able to afford to fall down without becoming homeless when my income drops from something useful to near-zero.)

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#297

Post by [deleted] »

TeaBrain wrote: post #292
whimsicalism wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because in the scheme described the effective tax on your income is positive (the more you earn, the more is transferred away) as opposed to negative (the more you earn the more is transferred to you).

What you are describing might intuitively sound like what a negative income tax should mean, had you never heard of a negative income tax before, but that is not what a negative income tax is. A negative income tax, which is a name for a type of benefit system, does not mean that people are literally negatively taxed, regardless of their income.

[deleted]

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#298

Post by bryan0 »

teractiveodular wrote: post #289

Interesting to see the largest increase in consumption is "beverages". As far as I can see the commentary completely ignores this, but I presume this includes alcohol?

If you look at the percentage breakdown it’s much more modest, so it appears to be an indication of how much the participants were already spending on alcohol. Also if you filter by “high income” beverage spending appears to switch to marijuana, and there the % breakdown remains high (no pun intended)

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#299

Post by singpolyma3 »

jewayne wrote: post #188
ixwt wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a podcast or video about this exact same issue in... Sweden? Some anecdata from people receiving welfare, but couldn't start a job or a business because if they received any money, they get nothing from welfare and wouldn't be able to support themselves. This resulted in people that were trying to start a business not get paid for their work (I believe one of the anecdata was a photographer) because doing s…

> Personally, I'm a big fan of the "for every $2 you make, you get $1 less from UBI/Welfare" That's..that's not UBI, at all. UBI is universal . If there are any means tests whatsoever , that's not UBI.

It's not about means-testing, it's about setting income tax rates/brackets sanely so that it gets taxed back in an appropriate way and not in a way that prevents people from picking up work, etc.
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