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A Guaranteed Income for Every American

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Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#381

Post by dragonwriter »

mapt wrote: post #380
zenogais wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For one, theories of economy were created in order to better serve the people's needs and wants using scarce resources - if they can be demonstrated (as in western Europe) to represent very large increases in the hedonic calculus, they are objectively superior. For two, a liberal democracy's functioning is premised on a degree of middle class participation: a large group of people with sufficient assets that they hav…

> if they can be demonstrated (as in western Europe) to represent very large increases in the hedonic calculus, they are objectively superior.

The only way this could be true is the extraordinarily unlikely case where every individual provably had better experienced utility in one system than another, otherwise, the fact that there is no one objectively correct method of aggregating utilities across individuals to get a single measure of societal good means that there is no objectively correct ordering.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#382

Post by anovikov »

dragons wrote: post #352
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 own…

What i totally don't get from this chart, how can housing expenses be so high? It means about 1/3 if all spending spent on housing, which is about 4-5 trillion a year. Where all that money goes? Construction for example, employs less than 3% of U.S. workforce. Banking (profits from mortgages) make a significant part, but it's easy to calculate that don't get a terribly big chunk.

Also aren't many families living in paid out homes and don't spend anything on housing at all? 19.9% of all units in the USA are owner-occupied without a mortgage, and 12.4% are vacant. Meaning 22.71% of families are neither renting nor paying a mortgage (homeless aside). Which would imply that those who are spending anything on their housing, spend about 46%, if the average for all household is about 35% as the chart on your link suggests. Nearly half. Which is simply hard to believe. Was that the case, housing would have been the cornerstone of U.S. economy.

Total outstanding mortgage debt is 13.7 trillion, which is less than 1x total household income in the USA. So spending 35% of income on housing, all debt could be paid in 3 years even interest included. Because about 60% of people own their homes vs rent, even not counting that they pay typically more then renters, it could mean paying out all mortgages in 5 years, which certainly isn't the case.

Other way around, total value of all U.S. homes is 27.5 trillion, about 12.4% are unoccupied (if you are paying a mortgage on a second home you don't occupy, this isn't a housing expense, this is an investment). which leaves 24.1 trillion for occupied homes. If housing is 35% of all income of Americans, it means 5 years worth of all 'housing' expenses will pay for all homes in America - including those already paid out. And less than 4 years if you exclude those paid out.

Something is wrong here. I think these estimates are about 3x wrong.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/23/heres-the-a...

this chart suggests average share of income Americans pay in mortgage are ca. 14% of their income. renters probably pay less, but even if not, 22.7% pay nothing because they own their homes outright. Which leaves 10-11% of income spent on housing, not 35%. Even less if you remember that interest on mortgage is tax-deductible, so definitely under 10%.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#383

Post by ryanlol »

tmptmp wrote: post #374
ryanlol wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

>>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. I am not for turning USA into a brutal and unjust communist country (e.g. DPRK). All I am saying is the current laws are such that the financial fraudsters generally get only a slap on the wrist and they are let free. This is going to cause social unrest (e.…

>All I am saying is the current laws are such that the financial fraudsters generally get only a slap on the wrist and they are let free.

Do you have any statistics to support this? Do you, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, believe that custodial sentences lower crime and recidivism rates?

>Read this news [1] to know how the dirty-rich are gaming the system [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11843477

AFAIK the vast majority of people "exposed" in the panama papers are not violating any laws. Perhaps the real solution is for governments to consider more competitive tax codes?

>and what's wrong with shaming them in public?

Nothing, it's just not something most people would be particularly ashamed of.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#384

Post by tmptmp »

ryanlol wrote: post #383
tmptmp wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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. I am not for turning USA into a brutal and unjust communist country (e.g. DPRK). All I am saying is the current laws are such that the financial fraudsters generally get only a slap on the wrist and they are let free. This is going to cause social unrest (e.…

>All I am saying is the current laws are such that the financial fraudsters generally get only a slap on the wrist and they are let free. Do you have any statistics to support this? Do you, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, believe that custodial sentences lower crime and recidivism rates? >Read this news [1] to know how the dirty-rich are gaming the system [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=118434…

>>Do you have any statistics to support this?

I guess, you have forgotten the Volkswagen fraud, the Goldman Sachs fraud and the Lehman brother, and so on.

In case of the Volkswagen criminal offense plus fraud, the CEO was awarded hundreds of millions of USD as a reward instead of any punishment. In this case, a punishment like the one mentioned above should be handed over to all guilty including the CEO, the top management and the large shareholders too. They should be publicly ashamed and then stripped of all their money and be allowed to work only menial labour.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#385

Post by trbvm2 »

gizmo wrote: post #129
trbvm2 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm merely trying to discourage the ambiguous "they" labeling. I think the author is, indeed, a bit to on about the "you should help yourself" mentality. Some people can't or won't even if money is offered and many civilized people want to see those types cared for as well. Even so, he's basically on your side in the sense that whatever UBI ends up being proposed for law, he would probably vote for it. Personally, I…

40,000 * 300 million = 12 trillion. US GDP is 17 trillion. The UBI wouldn't pay for the army, police, healthcare, infrastructure and so on. So the remaining 5 trillion can pay for that as well as for local government. So we're talking about a scenario where every citizen has the same income, regardless of contribution to society. It's an interesting idea, and if we can all work together as a society under these circu…

In my opinion, UBI is basically communism as a positive side-effect of kick ass capitalism. I tend to think of it in the Star Trek variety. Not so much radical as a natural result of being really good at personal productivity.

It's not a bad thing to say, "we have gotten so good at being productive that we've made work essentially optional".

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#386

Post by rayalez »

papapra wrote: post #309
rayalez wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the previous discussion a commenter pretty much explained why this wouldn't work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11807840 Also I think I can accept that a certain amount of taxes is a necessary evil. But let's treat it as such, and avoid taking more than absolutely necessary. In my opinion UBI is a step way too far in the wrong direction.

Why it is necessary evil ? You don't live alone in this world and I bet you profited enormously from the country, community that you live in.

Because taxes are mandatory, they are taken from people by force.

I am absolutely happy to give back to the community, when it's a voluntary decision, a choice I am free to make.

Yes, I did benefit from living in a society, but I never signed up to owing them something for the rest of my life.

It's beautiful when people are making a decision to contribute to society and help others, it's very different when they are coerced into it.

Re: A Guaranteed Income for Every American

#387

Post by galdosdi »

greedo wrote: post #155
galdosdi wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a solved problem (at least, it's solved about as well as you could expect we could do). Social Security has the notion of a REPY or "Representative Payee" for recipients deemed unable to spend their own money, a trustee who manages it on their behalf. It's similar to (but not the same as) the concept of a legal guardian. All in all, the Social Security Administration has a huge amount of experience with all t…

And if you retain the SSA, one of the biggest arguments for UBI (dismantling wasteful government agencies) gets defenestrated.

Actually, SSA is very efficient.

SSA spends just a fraction of a percentage point of the benefits it distributes on administrative costs (ie, the existence and operation of SSA itself). But even the vast majority of that is for the means-tested SSI Title 16 program, not the simpler Title 2 SS programs. Since a UBI is much simpler than either of those, SSA could easily save even more -- there would certainly be plenty of consolidation and maybe downsizing possible after passage of UBI. But there's no reason to throw away the common infrastructure for payments that already exists.

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