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Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

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Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#371

Post by jxramos »

So what exactly is the genesis of this income that's to be doled out? Is it still wealth redistribution underneath where productive individuals make it possible for others to live off whatever largesse they create and without those individuals no one has anything to be circulated? Where does it all begin precisely?

Is UBI predicated on anything exactly? Can it be employed in Mexico or Cuba or Libya the same effect as it would in Japan or Australia?

Can everyone stop working or would there still be a requirement that some percentage of the population work or is there a premise that some fuzzy unquantified percentage of the population would always chose to work regardless of it being mandated or optional.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#372

Post by prawn »

john_moscow wrote: post #328

I like how the article pointed out the biggest economic problem I see in post-industrial society - instead of almost everyone being a small business owner, we have huge corporations reaping massive profits, and poor replaceable corporate drones barely making ends meet. That said, I completely disagree with the proposed solution of UBI and here's why. We humans have a rather nasty bug in our firmware: when we do not h…

I have been a small business owner my entire adult life. I can appreciate the small corner stores. But Walmart wins in one way on predictability - as a consumer, I know generally what will be stocked and when it will be open. They have the scale to justify processes and systems that can be useful (ordering in from other stores, as an example).

But from the other side, a small business owner can be chained to their desk or counter. I'd bet that many small business owners are miserable too. If they aren't at a scale to have staff, when do they get a holiday or break? If they hire someone trustworthy enough to run a store for weeks on end, they often have to pay more than they typically pay themselves.

Need some sort of solution in the middle.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#373

Post by fny »

This article is absurd. Capitalism 2.0 != Capitalism. Nominal GDP growth != real GDP growth. UBI != ending winner takes all.

UBI to all is pure, unadulterated inflation. More money is chasing, the same goods and the same winners will suck that money out of the system. If the money is given to everyone, there will not even be a redistributive effect.

Hell, you might even have fewer goods being produced since there could potentially be less incentive to work. Couple this with a boomer population that's exiting the workforce, and a nightmare could potentially unfold.

So yes be prepared for GDP to skyrocket... because of inflation.

Now if you want to pitch employment guarantee programs and better social services, that's worth a discussion. Otherwise, injecting pieces of paper into the system does nothing for real growth in the economy.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#374

Post by [deleted] »

TrinaryWorksToo wrote: post #40
bluedevil2k wrote: post #12

I can’t help but think that UBI would distort job markets. Let’s pick an example of a “sucky job” (and I say this as just an example, I realize these guys work hard and are vital). A garbage man. He get’s paid $42k a year because they have to find people who would be willing to do this sucky job and need to pay higher than minimum wage to do so. At some point of income, people would be willing to accept the suckiness…

Yeah, we don't need people to work. This will incentivize people to automate work where possible. The ideal world is everything is automated and EVERYONE benefits, vs what we have now: much is automated and the rich benefit while others have to work shit jobs or die.

[deleted]

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#375

Post by yalogin »

As long as people think that paying people will disincentivize them from working this is not going to happen. It's a great idea but I feel universal health care should be a first step. That will unlock majority of the gains argued about UBI. Healthcare is the biggest cost outside of housing for majority of the people and that is where the biggest ROI is IMO. Unfortunately in the US it will never happen. The healthcare insurance industry is the biggest one in the country and is worth trillions. They will never let it happen.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#376

Post by gdubs »

Aerroon wrote: post #166
alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

I don't see how this would really work. A carbon tax in an ideal situation is just a consumption tax. This means that it's the consumer that pays it. Rich people don't eat more food nor do they drive dozens of cars at once. If we want this carbon tax to offset our greenhouse emissions then that means it will necessarily disproportionately impact poor people. And then you want to turn around and pay that money back to…

Couple of things: the wealthy absolutely emit more carbon then everyone else. Second, from a macroeconomics point of view, it doesn’t really matter if you tax the supplier or the consumer — in theory, it balances out the same.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#377

Post by [deleted] »

dahfizz wrote: post #310
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... The answer is that it's much simpler to send everyone a check. The rich person will pay more in taxes than the amount of their check, so it doesn't matter. Indeed, the arguments that we should do otherwise are to the benefit of the rich, because the proposed cutoff invariably comes somewhere in the middle income r…

> The answer is that it's much simpler to send everyone a check. Seems even easier to increase the standard tax deduction we already have and are familiar with. Then you can increase tax rates to make sure those evil rich people don't see any benefit.

[deleted]

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#378

Post by ramshorns »

taneq wrote: post #300
christiansakai wrote: post #207

I know these are anecdotes but I already heard several cases from my circle of friends and families where they just chose not to work because of unemployment checks. Instead of practicing music or learning programming or doing something productive during their period of unemployment, they decided to watch Netflix and play games all day. Creating is hard work, studying is hard work. Just like having information and on…

Were these cases people who would otherwise have engaged in some creative endeavour (music, programming, art, tinkering, whatever)? Or were they otherwise engaged in menial repetitive jobs that should probably be automated anyway? If the latter, what's wrong with them watching Netflix? We don't need every human to work. Also if I gained a perpetual stipend that covered my basic needs, you bet I'd take a couple of mon…

Yup. This happened to me and after around three months I started working hard on some interesting things. A month and a half later I haven't made money from it yet but it's been better than the somewhat repetitive job I had before.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#379

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Aerroon wrote: post #166
alex_young wrote: post #114

A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…

I don't see how this would really work. A carbon tax in an ideal situation is just a consumption tax. This means that it's the consumer that pays it. Rich people don't eat more food nor do they drive dozens of cars at once. If we want this carbon tax to offset our greenhouse emissions then that means it will necessarily disproportionately impact poor people. And then you want to turn around and pay that money back to…

There are two big reasons you can't fund a full UBI exclusively with a carbon tax.

The first is that the size of the carbon tax would be problematic. If you wanted to fund a UBI from e.g. VAT, or income tax, you might need a rate of something like 20%. If you wanted to fund the same sized UBI from a carbon tax, the rate would have to be thousands of percent, because burning carbon is not that huge a proportion of all economic activity. And then that would be very disruptive, because rather than some kind of gradual phase out of carbon, everyone would abandon it immediately to avoid the incredibly high tax.

Which is the second problem. Even if you used a less oppressive rate so that people would phase out carbon over some number of years rather than some number of weeks, that's eventually what would happen, and then your tax base dries up. It inherently can't be a long-term funding source because its purpose is to make carbon go away.

It is, however, a brilliant way to distribute the proceeds of a carbon tax. The "UBI" would then be a smaller amount (or require additional funding from general taxes), but it would effectively moot the entire economic impact of the tax (everyone is, on average, getting all the money back) while still creating a good incentive to be the first to stop burning carbon.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#380

Post by goatlover »

zzzkkk wrote: post #21

> Even the most hardcore anti-capitalists have to give respect to how the combination of capitalism and technology has worked to lift most of the world out poverty and provided us with the security and comfort only kings enjoyed just a few century’s ago. no, we fucking don't.

Kings back then had to shit in a chamber pot, were driven around by horse back, were treated with blood letting and leaches, had to wait weeks or months for news and goods from distant lands to make their way, with no guarantee of accuracy or delivery. Scientific understanding was poor. They had no electricity, no refrigeration, no vaccines or penicillin or X-Rays. The list in which middle class modern people are better off goes on and on.
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