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A Guaranteed Income for Every American

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Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#321

Post by transfire »

jondubois wrote: post #262

I like the idea of UBI, but the problem with schemes to improve wealth equality is that usually the middle class ends up footing almost all of the bill. If a rich person feels that their wealth is threatened, they can evade the negative consequences of the scheme (taxes) by relocating their head office to the Caymans. On the other hand, if a middle class family is negatively impacted by the scheme - They cannot evade…

This doesn't matter at all. Taxes always work out the same in the wash. Put the tax on the sale of goods, the consumer pays them; put the tax on the rich CEOs income, then he raises the prices of his goods to suite and again the consumer pays them. It's better that the taxes are low in the chain to prevent the tax dodging you cite.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#322

Post by transfire »

fzeroracer wrote: post #164

I am all for Basic Income but the way the author wants to implement it would be a disaster. My mother is fully disabled and unable to work as a result of her stroke and she relies on Medicaid, Food Stamps and SSI to live. $13000 per person would be lower than what she gets right now and that's without considering the insurance issues. These changes would quite literally kill or leave homeless a large amount of Americ…

Her SSI should not go way. She paid into that system and deserves what she was promised. SSI is a retirement plan (albeit a coerced one) not a welfare system. I am all for SSI reform in the light of UBI, but that doesn't nullify the need for retirement, and it should effect only future retirees.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#323

Post by phaemon »

sokoloff wrote: post #154
danbruc wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was meant to read »non-viable«, i.e. if customers are not willing to pay enough for a product or service so that a full time worker can live on the salary, then efficiency must improve, the job must be automate away entirely or the business must go out of business. I consider neither simply exploiting the employees nor subsidizing the business and customers by giving benefits to the employees a good solution. Be…

What's wrong with letting the work be done at a market rate lower than the current (ideally abolished) minimum wage? I'd pay someone $5/hr to pull weeds, but I won't pay them $10 or $15/hr. Now, in which system can a neighbor earn an extra $20 a week for a morning of work? In which system does my front garden look nicer from the sidewalk? Someone (probably a teen) gets some walking around money, the whole neighborhoo…

You think $40 is excessive for a morning's work? I really don't know what to say to that that won't attract the wrath of dang. Perhaps he can suggest some polite words...

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#324

Post by danbruc »

djrogers wrote: post #257
danbruc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is a job that does not pay for a living, then there are two possible reasons. Customers actually value the work enough and pay enough for the product but the business owners take the money. In this case there should be a minimum wage cutting into the profits of the business owners making it a viable job. On the other hand customers may not value the work enough and the job is just not viable, there is no mar…

Why should every job provide a 'living wage'? A high school kid working through the summer at an ice cream shop is learning to work, learning responsibility, and getting a little spending money - why would you want to outlaw that?

I addressed this in other comments, I only want that a normal (full time) job pays for a living, I did not want to discuss all kind of edge cases and so it may not apply to your example. But if working at an ice cream shop is sufficiently easy to learn within a few days and the kid does all the same work including cleaning up and what not, how would you justify paying less than to a regular employee doing the same work and having to live on that income?

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#325

Post by cathartes »

What I find strangely absent in most discussion of the UBI is how these fixed payments will hold up against inflation. Even simple arithmetic based on the Consumer Price Index over the past forty years will suggest that an amount like $10,000 US in 2016 dollars will likely be trivial cash in twenty years time. (And, arguably, it's already trivial cash today for just getting by.)

More than likely, the UBI will have no lasting impact, no matter how it is implemented, unless the buying power of the dollar is realistically accounted for in each year's handout. And I just don't see that happening.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#326

Post by danbruc »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #246
danbruc wrote: post #41

Several years ago I thought a universal basic income would be a good idea but the longer I thought about it the more that went away. Now I can't even tell which problem it tries to solve. There won't be enough work for everyone in the future? Well then cut down working hours instead of having half the population work full time and pay for the other half. Some jobs don't provide enough income to make a living? Then ha…

> There won't be enough work for everyone in the future? Well then cut down working hours instead of having half the population work full time and pay for the other half. Which doesn't work when jobs require uncommon abilities or highly specialized training and thus either can't be done by the other people or would be highly inefficient to train them to do and then not have them working full time. > Some jobs don't p…

I won't address the first to points, they came already up in other comments and made me change my position a bit.

A universal basic income has rich people paying poor people and middle income people paying themselves. A basic income with a phase out instead has middle income people paying poor people so the rich can have a tax cut.

This does not have to be true. You can simply phase it out and then adjust the tax structure accordingly. It is a zero sum game, you lower taxes by the same amount you cut the basic income for that person. At the high end you take away 11k basic income and reduce taxes by 11k, somewhere in the middle you reduce the basic income and taxes by 6k each and at the lower end you do nothing.

With matching tax structures there is really no difference between paying an universal basic income to everyone or only paying it towards the lower income range. I am not disagreeing that a flat basic income might be a lot simpler than trying to carefully adjust tax rates.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#327

Post by aoeuasdf1 »

zeta0134 wrote: post #304
mynewtb wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crime does not have to be violent to deserve drastic penalty.

I feel like the punishment should be appropriate to the crime though. Leave jail for the criminally dangerous, those whose freedom would be a physical danger to others. (Murderers, rapists, etc.) Fraud? If it's money that was gained, then it should be money lost. Fine them into the dirt, but I don't think jail time is appropriate. Making money illegally doesn't make someone a murderer, it just makes then dishonest.

The problem is then the rich will do a simple expected value computation to decide whether to do fraud. A disproportionate and non monetary punishment will be far more effective at deterring them.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#328

Post by sambe »

DennisP wrote: post #202
sambe wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But insurance for those isn't.

Just checked healthsherpa plan prices for a 64-year-old, and it came to almost $900/mo with a $5000 deductible. Maybe it's possible to radically reduce healthcare costs, but we should probably do that first before eliminating Medicare.

The cost and structure of US healthcare is rather a different problem, although potentially both have to be solved to make it work there. In Europe health insurance in many countries is 100-200/month with a few hundred in deductible.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#329

Post by imtringued »

fzeroracer wrote: post #261
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem of course with that argument is that people also need to move into higher-cost areas in order to find jobs for certain industries. If there was no regional adjustment that encourages individuals to stay put. Poor people congregate in low-cost areas with low job opportunities. That isn't a problem. You get a concentration of people collecting a basic income who move into a low cost area, then they have m…

This is far too simplistic, especially when you consider the issue of gentrification and the rise of housing costs associated with it. You ignore that this leads back to the same issue: Poor people are now living in a higher-cost area where their previously held job no longer suffices to live. So now you force these poor people out of homes that they used to be able to afford into even poorer areas with worse job sec…

How is a basic income that scales based off of CoL even supposed to work?

A UBI causes the cost of living to rise in the short run. If you readjust the UBI the cost of living will rise again and again.

Cities like San Francisco will become more attractive because they not only have more jobs they also pay you more UBI. The more people move in, the higher the cost of living if housing supply is constrained. Readjusting the UBI then makes the city even more attractive. At the same time small cities become less attractive because not only are people moving into the city but their UBI is shrinking too.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#330

Post by imtringued »

crdoconnor wrote: post #284
sokoloff wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the new McD's ordering kiosks? They're definitely there, and I find I prefer them to the previous cashier experience. That combination looks bad for fast food front of house workers...

I have. Have you seen the equivalents of McD's kiosks from 1890's Berlin? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat#/media/File:Stollwerck... Those things are bound to replace most food service workers by the 1920s at the very latest.

Indeed!. In the last 126 years technology has not progressed very much. Why should it be different today?
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