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Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#321

Post by emteycz »

Dudeman112 wrote: post #293
emteycz wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't any financial and governmental systems sustaining you, it's you offering what the market wants and can't get enough of. It may be luck in your case, it was calculated choice in my case; most people would be able to make the choice if they really cared to (and sure, let's offer welfare to those who couldn't possibly make this choice). Help other people get in your position or donate your money, but don't…

>There aren't any financial and governmental systems sustaining you, it's you offering what the market wants and can't get enough of I use public utilities like streets, the NHS, and a stocks and shares account that I won't pay taxes on gains when I start living off it. The main thing that will allow me to not work is having a certain amount of money that is making me money. If I were to have a kid they would be fina…

Your parents didn't pay taxes? Mine paid unthinkable amounts of money (without even considering interest compounding) and that's what the infrastructure was built with; the government certainly didn't create it out of thin air. New infrastructure is paid for with my taxes - and my parents are still active too. If your parents never paid then be thankful to those who did, not governments.

Sure, your money makes you money - you made enough to live off capital gains, these are taxed - and capital gains are usually money taxed in multiple layers - and you can give that money to others, e.g. your children but you could choose anyone else.

I don't see how that's relevant to anything here though... Yes, your children, partner or maybe your extended family or best friend will be considered very lucky - but why does that mean that all others - most of whom aren't as lucky as you or calculating as me and have much less money - must sponsor other people's work-less lifes?

I wouldn't ask if this meant that nobody has to work ever again, but that is not the case right? The reality is that a lot of people will have to work a lot harder to make life work-less for a much smaller group of people content with merely surviving. The world isn't just rich/poor... - and simply distributing government welfare evenly among all people will never work, many people require much bigger amounts to even stay alive due to their health.

If you consider yourself overly lucky, donate to a charity or research, and your government certainly accepts excess taxes if you ask, but don't force this onto others.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#322

Post by dragonwriter »

hogFeast wrote: post #164
rodiger wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't lose UBI by working. UBI should be intended to be the lowest possible amount of money to live. Life won't be fun/good if you're only relying on UBI. In that model I imagine plenty would prefer to keep their job in addition to UBI.

What is the functional difference then? Your comment elides the point that almost everyone who wants UBI views at this mythical source of extra money from nowhere. The UK already has a welfare state, we have Universal Credit which is basically a consolidated welfare payment to people who need money, and the main complaint (justified if we consider housing costs) is that this isn't enough. I am not exactly sure how pa…

> I am not exactly sure how paying everyone money helps people who need it more than a system that just gives money to people who need it

UBI funded with additional high-end tax progressivity avoids the pervese incentives with traditional means-tested welfare where benefits are cut rapidly with additional income (sometimes at a more than 1:1), disincentivizing outside income and tending to trap people in dependency. You can view it as equivalent to means tested welfare where the means test is shifted upward not to the survival level but to the level where the social utility of incentivizing additional income-seeking has gone negative.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#323

Post by toyg »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #127
toyg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are not forced to take low-paid jobs to survive, the surplus skimmed by tory-voting classes disappears.

It's not the 80s anymore, rich people are mostly liberals these days (especially the ultra wealthy)

And Boris Alexander de Pfeffel-Johnson is clearly a man of the people. /s

The bedrock of Conservative support, and main source of their rank&file and leadership, is in the owners’ class. Whether they own a pharmacy (Sunak), a shop (Javid), newsagents (Patel), or factories (Osborne), they own; hence they support the mechanisms that generate money for owners.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#324

Post by toyg »

dll wrote: post #170
toyg wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might help to look at the Welsh political landscape. Labour is in power but is permanently at risk of being replaced by the national-populist Plaid Cymru (like it happened in Scotland, where the Scottish National Party literally wiped the board). PC (like the SNP) supports UBI, so Lab has to coopt the policy. This also helps them attract LibDem voters (another pro-UBI party), whose votes are otherwise wasted (LDs…

There's some interesting post election anaylsis that picks up on this (in Wales at least). There's a view [0][1] that while results are bad for Plaid, they're getting a lot of what they want, and shifting the window on the most important issue (independence). In addition to UBI, it's interesting that Welsh Labour have started the push for "home rule" [2], something that is likely to win them a lot more votes from tra…

Yep, Welsh Labour clearly learnt the lessons of Holyrood and are determined to avoid a Scottish scenario playing out in Wales. They are also helped by the fact that Labour is unlikely to get any sort of realistic shot at a Westminster majority anytime soon, so the periphery is quite free to set their own agenda. English Labour can quietly support a breakup of the Union that will then try to tie around the necks of Tories and SNP, they have little to lose now.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#325

Post by swift532 »

cm2187 wrote: post #68
janandonly wrote: post #6

Interesting how political parties are for or against this pilot project before the results are known. What happened to gathering evidence first and then making up one's mind? There have been other projects in Canada, Finland,Kenya and the Netherlands, all with “positive” results. It is useful to ask what you are trying to achieve with an UBI? * lift people out of poverty? * save money on other social schemes, like pe…

I’d argue what is happening in the US is already a country wide test. People are taking the benefits rather than going to work for marginally more. It is not a good outcome for society. And high benefits countries like France know that very well. Lots of harder job openings there are never filled even though the country has a permanent large unemployment. I like the idea of UBI on paper but I feel it is counterproduc…

Perhaps those harder jobs should be paid more and people would then apply.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#326

Post by kwhitefoot »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #275
kwhitefoot wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. No one would allow a full scale experiment until they see some compelling evidence so we have to do what we can.

That’s the point, these small studies never give compelling evidence.

Do you have a better idea? Please don't suggest a nationwide trial because that would be politically impossible in most countries; unless you can explain why this time it would be possible to get politicians and people to agree to it of course.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#327

Post by helsinkiandrew »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #326
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the point, these small studies never give compelling evidence.

Do you have a better idea? Please don't suggest a nationwide trial because that would be politically impossible in most countries; unless you can explain why this time it would be possible to get politicians and people to agree to it of course.

Perhaps western governments (or some organisation or philanthropists) could do a large scale long term trial in a 'cheaper' country which is close enough to the west so the results are transferable (The 12 year Kenyan trial is costing $13B)

But it may be like Communism or Capitalism - you can't do a trial, you just need to persuade enough people and jump in.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#328

Post by pietrovismara »

smaryjerry wrote: post #57
pietrovismara wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever thought that the problem could be with your wages, rather than with the UBI?

Wages are a market. If everyone wants to be something then the wages will be low. The way around it was to hire many more people but for only 15 hours per week so they can all continue collect unemployment (with an extra $300 per week from the federal government).

Well if nobody wants to work for you it means you are way off with the wages you offer. That's the market.

You got to raise the wages, not complain that people are finally able to reject your wage slavery.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#329

Post by lorepieri »

XorNot wrote: post #13
GordonS wrote: post #9

I'm going to assume it won't be "for life", but will instead be for some fixed period, such as 1 or 2 years. Scotland has been proposing doing a similar experiment too. But I'm not sure what these very small scale experiments are meant to tell us, especially since several such experiments have already been done. I can't help but be cynical and think this is governments offering platitudes to those in favour of UBI, r…

This has always been my problem. If we're going to test UBI, then we really need to run a test over a reasonable time-frame (20 years) or so and commit into it. So we move some people off the existing schemes we have, onto UBI and let that study run. I suspect the ideal candidate group would be older, poorer people (say, in there 40s) who we would otherwise expect to coast onto a pension later. It timeframes it nicel…

Perhaps we could guarantee life-income, so potentially 40-60 years of UBI. This would be expensive and slow, but it would provide the real UBI experience. Restricting this to a small group of people (100-1000) could make it viable financially.

My belief is that we will forced much earlier to start real UBI program, thanks to the push of automation. I forecast real nation-wide UBI being implemented in a country before 2045. I would bet on a Nord European country.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#330

Post by lorepieri »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #75
sokoloff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have significant sympathy for that base’s point of view. It’s one thing to say that we must provide a social safety net for the most vulnerable, whether temporarily or permanently so. It’s quite another to say “work should be optional and the basics of life should be provided for all [via the work of others]”. I think you’ll find a few people who object to my 2nd paragraph, but extending the argument to the 3rd is…

> “work should be optional and the basics of life should be provided for all [via the work of others]” The answers to this are: provocative: work is already optional for holders of large capital - if it works for them, why not the rest of us? humanitarian: everyone deserves decency (and we have enough to go around) utopian: we are/will be rich in everything we need, so we do not need to work for basics - we will only…

Nice overview, I'm an utopian. :) I'm trying to speedup the transition to a post scarcity society, currently building a company to automate food prep.
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