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A Guaranteed Income for Every American

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Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#351

Post by dragonwriter »

ryanlol wrote: post #339
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…

>If Basic Income is to work then it needs to be actually liveable and adjusted based upon the CoL in each area. What's the point of that? Moving isn't difficult.

Moving fast enough to significantly affect CoL can be extremely difficult if you're poor, less so if your not.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#352

Post by dragons »

anovikov wrote: post #350

This idea seems to be so cynical. So capitalists want to, flatten the distribution of social welfare: give more or less same money, but evenly to everyone. What will be achieved? Now it is received by the people who are deeply in need. You are not going to make much profit on them: people who are deeply in need are very frugal at spending their money, they are price-conscious by definition. Now everyone will get an e…

people who are deeply in need are very frugal at spending their money

This article gives some of the logic behind redistributing income this way: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/where...

The rich save more than the poor, and the more they have, they more they'll save. Money that's being saved isn't being spent, which means less business for everyone from the dry cleaner on the corner to the owner of a five-star hotel. In turn, that means less work for everybody and a lethargic economy.

To be sure, banks can invest the money that the wealthy save, which can stimulate the economy as well. Yet many observers... are worried that as a global society, we've accumulated too much in the way of savings already.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#353

Post by ryanlol »

dragonwriter wrote: post #351
ryanlol wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If Basic Income is to work then it needs to be actually liveable and adjusted based upon the CoL in each area. What's the point of that? Moving isn't difficult.

Moving fast enough to significantly affect CoL can be extremely difficult if you're poor, less so if your not.

Surely basic income should make moving much easier then?

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#354

Post by ryanlol »

tmptmp wrote: post #347
zeta0134 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>>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. That'd acceptable if at least the following conditions hold: a. First and foremost, the fraudster should be ashamed publicly and in a very visible manner on social media, television/radio and newspaper. e.g. The fraudster be made to wear clothes that are deemed filthy and be made…

>a

Why would anyone be ashamed about not paying taxes? That's hardly a shameful thing to do.

>b

That's just ridiculous.

>c

And how do you propose that'd be implemented?

>d

Why?

>e

So those suspected of tax fraud do not deserve legal representation?

What you're describing here sounds like something fit for DPRK, not a civilized country.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#355

Post by AnthonyMouse »

danbruc wrote: post #326
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 str…

> 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.

If there is literally no difference then what benefit is to be gained from the added complexity?

One of the big advantages of a universal basic income is that it gives you effective progressive taxation without a complicated system amoral people can game. If you have different tax rates then it creates opportunities for tax arbitrage and rich people can avoid paying the higher rates by doing things like paying a middle income salary to their otherwise zero-income college-attending children who pay a lower rate.

But flat tax + UBI is inherently progressive, so that's it. No phase outs + no tax brackets does exactly what everyone wanted anyway, but everyone universally pays the same rate and receives the same UBI so there is nothing to game. You get one choice, what the flat tax rate should be, which sets the amount of the UBI and determines how progressive the system is. It takes away all the knobs that politicians who don't know what they're doing (or corrupt politicians who know exactly what they're doing) can use to screw up the economy or shift more of the tax burden from the rich to the middle class.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#356

Post by AnthonyMouse »

djrogers wrote: post #254
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand this argument. The vast majority of people who would receive the UBI are not homeless . They live somewhere now. Why would the same number of people suddenly demand substantially more housing?

Have you ever counted the number of families that live in a single low-end housing unit? It's not uncommon for it to be 2 or 3 in more expensive areas. If those families each get $20k/yr in UBI, many of them would be looking to move out on their own.

The families who live two and three to a housing unit are the ones who qualify for as much existing welfare as the UBI would provide. It would be trading food stamps for cash but you have to expect most people are still going to buy food.

Replacing housing assistance with the equivalent cash might even reduce rents because then people can decide they would rather live in cheaper housing and use that money to go to college.

The whole thing with a UBI is that unless you make it more progressive than the existing system, all you're really doing is replacing vouchers with cash. If you do make it more progressive (i.e. provide more cash than you would have provided vouchers) then you get the same economic consequences as providing more vouchers (i.e. possible price inflation), but it's still more economically efficient than providing more vouchers, because then people can choose between college or better housing or better medical coverage etc., instead of having the government decide for you.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#357

Post by zenogais »

noonespecial wrote: post #236
zenogais wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the pros and cons of this economic gravitational force?

Well that's the question, isn't it. What are the (un)intended consequences of forced leveling of inequality? Especially automatic and predictable forced leveling. Right now, it seems that Mr. Rich eats as many burgers as he wants (which isn't many really) while all of the Mr. Poors who would be happy to eat them if they could afford them, and happy to make them if someone would buy them (and then could afford to eat…

I didn't really see any weighing of the proposition here, just motivated reasoning. Such a one-sided view is especially scary because, at least to me, the cons for this are pretty apparent and serious.

What's one big negative of funneling even more money into the government? Further centralizing power in the government, which definitely cools my own fever to implement UBI, and definitely warrants some careful consideration. Since trust in government seems to be at an all time low, this point probably deserves some addressing [1].

[1]: http://www.people-press.org/2015/11/23/1-trust-in-government...

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#358

Post by TACIXAT »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #214
TACIXAT wrote: post #206

Kind of a meta comment, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the basic income movement was (for the most part) started and promoted by an intelligence agency. After reading about the literary magazines and abstract art that the CIA funded I started thinking what a current program would look like. I think it would look like how basic income is developing.

Could you be more specific? What literary magazines and abstract art did the CIA fund? What about the way basic income is developing gives you the impression that it's a CIA program? Without detail this seems like an unsupported conspiracy theory. What would be their incentive in this instance?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism#Abstrac...

https://theawl.com/literary-magazines-for-socialists-funded-...

Totally speculation at this point. Just the way that the movement arose. There were a few articles covering it. Then a few communities created around it. Then more and more research done on it. Its emergence was interesting.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#359

Post by TACIXAT »

mac01021 wrote: post #215
TACIXAT wrote: post #206

Kind of a meta comment, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the basic income movement was (for the most part) started and promoted by an intelligence agency. After reading about the literary magazines and abstract art that the CIA funded I started thinking what a current program would look like. I think it would look like how basic income is developing.

> After reading about the literary magazines and abstract art that the CIA funded ... Any links?

Here is one on socialist literary magazines.

https://theawl.com/literary-magazines-for-socialists-funded-...

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#360

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ptaipale wrote: post #282
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is eliminating Medicare is essentially a prerequisite to meaningfully reducing healthcare costs. As long as there is a deep pocket to pay whatever outrageous prices people are charged, people will keep getting charged outrageous prices. Take away the money and the price would come down in a hurry.

Is it really Medicare, or medical insurance in general? What you would need to solve this is socialized medical care supervised by the government, who takes from those who can contribute and gives to those who are in need. It wouldn't have to be completely run by the government but would have to be supervised by it.

> Is it really Medicare, or medical insurance in general?

Medical insurance that works like Medicare obviously has the same problems. But imagine medical insurance where, instead of paying obscene premiums with a low deductible, you pay very low premiums with a deductible of several thousand dollars after which the insurance pays 80%. So if you get cancer you don't die of poverty but for pretty much anything else you're paying out of pocket, i.e. medical insurance, not a payment plan that hides true costs from everybody.

Now the thing that costs $10,000 in one place and $4,000 in the other place is a difference you care about, so you pay the $4,000 (and so does everybody else), causing total medical costs to fall. You also eliminate all the insurance paperwork in any year you don't blow the deductible, allowing doctors to lower their own costs significantly.

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