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A universal income is not such a silly idea

timharford.com

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Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#301

Post by handzhiev »

agilebyte wrote: post #297
handzhiev wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That people should be forced into wage slavery to keep them from becoming lazy or alcoholic or drug addicts." No. People should be forced to do something useful, because the goods don't come out of the blue. This is not the same as "wage slavery".

What if goods are produced by automation and where we cannot automate we have people that want to work. What kind of task would you give to all the other people? Edit: I am alluding to the fact that we are way past full employment .

I don't think we have past full employment. We are not even close to it, at all. I'll give you several entirely random but real examples. The street here needs new paving. There is no public transport in our town and no taxi after 6PM (need drivers and support staff). I need someone to fix my roof, and it's hard to find good one. There is a need of better trains, better cars, better software, better technologies, more original movies, better restaurants... And someone to check my teeth more frequently (zero good dentists in town). I have tons of work in my backyard as well. There are loads and loads of work to do, and it's all work which can't be automated. Work is not something that will ever finish unless of course we want to stop progress.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#302

Post by cynusx »

gnaritas wrote: post #192
cynusx wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hiring managers would use it to convince people to take sub-100k wages. This pretty much happens already in progressive taxation countries(e.g. belgium) where you can actually make less money by having a higher salary because your tax-rate increases.

> This pretty much happens already in progressive taxation countries(e.g. belgium) where you can actually make less money by having a higher salary because your tax-rate increases. You don't understand how progressive taxes actually work. This simply doesn't happen. You can't make less money by making more money.

yea, I might have gotten it wrong about progressive taxation. The context I picked it up on was in choosing a higher salary vs. some benefits. The benefit did lead to more spending power compared to the salary increase and HR would push for this as salary increases would lead to more costs for the company.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#303

Post by brazzy »

philwelch wrote: post #276
brazzy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nope, I say make sure poor people have that basic income. > You don't have to give it to everyone. Then it's not a basic income. Giving it to everyone, period, is the defining characteristic of a basic income, and what makes it different than welfare. Proponents believe it to be a superior model because it eliminates a lot of beaurocracy, bad incentives and paternalistic structures that communicate to poor people t…

Giving it to everyone, period, is not mathematically tenable. A thousand dollars per month to every adult US citizen would represent over 2 trillion dollars in additional spending per year. At the very least you have to change the tax structure to claw it back from people as they earn more money.

It would not be simply additional spending, as it would replace many existing (much more beaurocratically complex) social security programs.

And yes, the tax structure would have to change as well.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#304

Post by brazzy »

maxk42 wrote: post #273
brazzy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nope, I say make sure poor people have that basic income. > You don't have to give it to everyone. Then it's not a basic income. Giving it to everyone, period, is the defining characteristic of a basic income, and what makes it different than welfare. Proponents believe it to be a superior model because it eliminates a lot of beaurocracy, bad incentives and paternalistic structures that communicate to poor people t…

Yes, but once you give everybody $X,000 dollars per month you'll spur inflation and in a couple years $X,000 will no longer be enough to live on. So then you've got to adjust your basic income to $(X+Y),000 per month to make sure everybody has enough, but that will spur more inflation and you'll be right back where you started. Meanwhile, that money has to come from somewhere and it will come out in the form of taxes…

> once you give everybody $X,000 dollars per month you'll spur inflation

> Meanwhile, that money has to come from somewhere and it will come out in the form of taxes.

These two statements are contradictory. If it comes from taxes, it's not "printed" money and thus does not directly lead to inflation - unless it's through increased spending, in which case it means increased consumption and thus a growing economy.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#305

Post by scotty79 »

lgieron wrote: post #219
agilebyte wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is not just about moving goalposts. What is different is that it frees you from the worry that you need to eat and have an abode. And the hope is that this comfort will make you engage in work you really want to do , rather then turn you into a couch potato.

In my region, there are a lot of able-bodied man in their forties and fifties who, thanks to the state policy, are already retired. The sad fact is that, due to a ton of free time that's suddenly appeared in their lives, a lot of them have become drunks. I fear that for every person doing something meaningful with the freedom given to them via basic income, there'll be 10 or 20 who become couch poatoes or worse, self…

They turn into drunks not beacuse they have too much free time and money. It's because they were raise in a culture that said that a man is only worth as much as his job. Now they feel worthless and self-destruct. They also are too old to use modern entertainment. With internet, electronics and wide variety of recreational consumer goods hardly anyone should have become drunk to not be bored.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#306

Post by scotty79 »

ck2 wrote: post #12

It's not a silly idea at all but I like to think of myself as progressive and I think it is a very bad idea in reality vs on paper. Just look at how college costs magically rise to the availability of loans and grants. What do you think is going to happen to food and rent prices once those supply chains figure out there is much more profit to be made? The Walton family alone has more wealth then the lower 42% rest of…

Did you noticed how farmers are subsidized? This is actually form of basic income in artificially lowered food prices.

I think there will be some adjustments in real estate necessary for the rent not to skyrocket after introducing basic income. I'd go for tax rate on housing directly proportional to how much housing you own, reaching 100% tax when you won 50 or so times the amount of housing necessary for one family.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#307

Post by maxk42 »

brazzy wrote: post #304
maxk42 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but once you give everybody $X,000 dollars per month you'll spur inflation and in a couple years $X,000 will no longer be enough to live on. So then you've got to adjust your basic income to $(X+Y),000 per month to make sure everybody has enough, but that will spur more inflation and you'll be right back where you started. Meanwhile, that money has to come from somewhere and it will come out in the form of taxes…

> once you give everybody $X,000 dollars per month you'll spur inflation > Meanwhile, that money has to come from somewhere and it will come out in the form of taxes. These two statements are contradictory. If it comes from taxes, it's not "printed" money and thus does not directly lead to inflation - unless it's through increased spending, in which case it means increased consumption and thus a growing economy.

They're not contradictory:

Prices for basic necessities such as food and housing would rise, causing an increase in inflation. Meanwhile, spending for luxuries would see a contraction as additional tax burdens shrink discretionary spending.

The net effect is to shrink the middle class, as I explained.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#308

Post by scotty79 »

amerika_blog wrote: post #22
draugadrotten wrote: post #21

Meanwhile, Europe apart from Switzerland is busy building thicker walls around Fortress Europa. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/razor-wire-divi... http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/asylum-policy-and...

Good. Immigration contributes to overpopulation, both by importing new people and causing replacement breeding in the emigrant nation.

I think the problem is not the overpopulation but immigrants approach to religion which Europe haven't seen pretty much since the dark ages.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#309

Post by brazzy »

maxk42 wrote: post #307
brazzy wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once you give everybody $X,000 dollars per month you'll spur inflation > Meanwhile, that money has to come from somewhere and it will come out in the form of taxes. These two statements are contradictory. If it comes from taxes, it's not "printed" money and thus does not directly lead to inflation - unless it's through increased spending, in which case it means increased consumption and thus a growing economy.

They're not contradictory: Prices for basic necessities such as food and housing would rise, causing an increase in inflation. Meanwhile, spending for luxuries would see a contraction as additional tax burdens shrink discretionary spending. The net effect is to shrink the middle class, as I explained.

> Prices for basic necessities such as food and housing would rise, causing an increase in inflation.

Only if previously a significant portion of people could not afford basic necessities at all and/or it's impossible to produce more of those basic necessities. Both of these seem rather dubious.

> The net effect is to shrink the middle class, as I explained.

You didn't explain anything, you made a bunch of predictions.

Re: A universal income is not such a silly idea

#310

Post by brazzy »

johndevor wrote: post #104

I don't think this is a good idea. It could do a lot of harm to future generations. If we pay for this through debt, we're slapping a bill on our children. I also don't like this idea because it increases personal dependence on the state. If the goal is to make people independent and self-confident, how does this help (on the whole, excluding edge cases)? And as the top commenter said, I think this will move the goal…

> It could do a lot of harm to future generations.

Or it could do them a lot of good.

> If we pay for this through debt, we're slapping a bill on our children.

That's obviously not the correct way to implement it.

> I also don't like this idea because it increases personal dependence on the state.

It does the opposite, by replacing paternalistic and beaurocratic social security programmes.

> If the goal is to make people independent and self-confident, how does this help (on the whole, excluding edge cases)?

By enabling them to do things like working on art or science or startups without having to worry about starving or homelessness.

> I also think this will enable some peoples' destructive habits

Ah yes, the poor must not be given money lest they spend it on booze. Otherwise they wouldn't be poor. Just world fallacy, anyone?

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