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Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

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Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#381

Post by Ferret7446 »

jacksnipe wrote: post #43
MattGrommes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it some shock-horror thing that people worked less? Exactly. If I have to have 3 jobs, then with this money I "only" work 2 jobs, I'm working less but almost certainly have a better quality of life.

Yeah and what’s more you’re contributing more to society, whether or not you can measure it in money. You have some spare time and energy to help your family, your neighbors, the person you see once a week. I want to live in a society where people have time to actually live.

Devil's advocate: why do you get to have what you want?

For almost all of human history, you had to work to survive. Working is living. And yet you want to not work? So all of the resources you will need, who is going to provide them? I'm sorry, but I'd rather I not work and you work to provide the resources I need.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#382

Post by mordae »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #345
Kamq wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers don't line up for that. The sum total of the wealth of all the billionaires in the US in 2021 was ~$4.1 Trillion [0]. That's about the same as the government budget in a normal year pre-pandemic, or about 2/3 of the government budget post-pandemic. Assuming a $1000/month and a population of ~350 million, you're looking at $4.2 Trillion per year. You could almost fund it for the first year by taxing all of…

Where does all that money go after the first year? It sounds like it vanishes?

The stocks would actually crash if converted to money. The net effect wouldn't be more cash to spend, but a stake in the economy. You would probably have to invent some more democratic formats of corporate governance.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#383

Post by ssl-3 »

superfrank wrote: post #143
aeturnum wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone who's yearly income is in the 5th percentile is still earning in the 5th percentile. Isn't this an intended feature of UBI? The idea of UBI is that some level of material support should be guaranteed. It's about bringing "up" the floor, not really re-arranging relative equal and unequal positions. Plenty of people dislike that about it, but it's an intended feature. That said, this is basically inflationary…

> Isn't this an intended feature of UBI? The idea of UBI is that some level of material support should be guaranteed. It's about bringing "up" the floor, not really re-arranging relative equal and unequal positions. Plenty of people dislike that about it, but it's an intended feature. Absolutely, but I guess I don't see how just giving everyone money brings that floor up. Maybe I'm looking at this naively, but I don'…

>Maybe I'm looking at this naively, but I don't see what's preventing things from just costing more after UBI. If the government gives everyone $1000/mo so landlords raise rent by $1000/mo then the floor is unchanged.

Natural competition is supposed to keep that in check: Supply and demand dictates that in a free market (which UBI does not implicitly change), a landlord with a vacancy will try to offer a better deal than their peers who also have vacancies, with the direct incentive of getting units filled.

The idea is that some money (a rented unit provides more income than a vacant unit does) is better than no money, which incentivizes landlords to get units filled and making money instead of not making money -- in large part by competing on price. That's how supply and demand works.

In a free market, landlords can't really say in unison "Hey, I heard everyone has an extra $1k every month! So guess what: Your rent just went up by $1k! Suckers!"

I mean sure, some might say that -- or at least try to do that.

But the way it is supposed to work is that one of their peers goes "Yeah? Well, rent with me! I only raised rent by $700!" and another goes "Hey, I've got lots of vacancies! My rent only went up by $400!" and this rinses and repeats until the ultimate lowball of "Rents are up? Not here! Save $50 compared to last year!"

That's not to say that the concept is without flaws: Collusion can happen[0], and collusion fucks up pricing in an otherwise-free market.

But this kind of collusion is already criminalized, and criminals will both exist and collude with or without UBI.

[0]: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/12/justice-department-...

(In an ideal reality free of criminal acts, rents must increase a bit if for no other reason than a properly-profitable landlord's expenses must also increase a bit: UBI isn't free to fund, and the haves must fund it more than the have-nots do. That's unavoidable. But it also can't be an increase of precisely $1k/month or whatever a UBI might hypothetically be: That's hyperbolic nonsense even with criminal landlords colluding to victimize tenants.

Fortunately for the concept of UBI in this context, landlords are kind of small potatoes here in a sea of others who also need to extract their pound of flesh to pay for it. This kind of broad-scale wealth redistribution can be good, I think, but it does not happen for free.)

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#384

Post by t0bia_s »

sjm wrote: post #211
t0bia_s wrote: post #83

UBI is another tool for make citizen obedient to state. Once implemented, like debts, there will be strong voting mass for system that they could benefit from - with price of less independency.

That is ultimately a better outcome than we currently have, where the exact same thing happens, except it's only large corporations benefitting. Politicians _should_ be buying votes from the working class and tangibly improving their lives in the process.

Socialism never worked and killed millions in poverty. Centrally planed economics is crippling free market.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gosplan

Also free money are perfect for make fiat currency more worthless and increase inflation even more.

If you want fight against corporate greedeing, stop buying and using their products. Stop work for them.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#385

Post by jajko »

bko wrote: post #46
ilaksh wrote: post #22

$1000 is not enough to quit their jobs or get a nice apartment. They could move slightly closer to work if they have to commute. It's not enough for a real tuition or to support them to study instead of work. I don't think we've ever had a universal basic income test. We have always missed the universal and basic part. It's below basic and not at all universal. I suspect that you need to get international cooperation…

Why is the goal to get people to quit their jobs and get a nice apartment? Isn't it supposed to be a minimum base level of support? Why do we keep moving the goal posts? And if everyone quits their job and lives in a nice apartment, where is this money going to come from? The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work. Start working, you lose your transfer payments. A lot of people are stuck in thi…

I love the "nice" part of apartment requirement, like some UN Geneva charter of basic human rights declaration. Especially when everybody should have it, like you can clone "nice apartments" ad infinitum so everybody has >150m2, beautiful terrace with view on lake or mountains, and of course while being in or very close to city center. I wonder what other basic "nice" stuff is a must have, we can go on for a long time.

The pipe dreams some people have... I mean its fine, you do you, nobody else in this world actually cares. But thats not how you actually achieve anything in life, in any system out there, rather exact opposite.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#386

Post by MohawkChiri »

mey wrote: post #30
ilaksh wrote: post #22

$1000 is not enough to quit their jobs or get a nice apartment. They could move slightly closer to work if they have to commute. It's not enough for a real tuition or to support them to study instead of work. I don't think we've ever had a universal basic income test. We have always missed the universal and basic part. It's below basic and not at all universal. I suspect that you need to get international cooperation…

Imagine if we gave everyone $20/mo. No strings, tax free, not qualifed by income. That obviously isn't enough to live on, let alone buy food. But imagine the infrastructure that would be universally in place to allow us to scale it up as a society. We could find the balance. Maybe it's $1000, maybe it's $5000. Maybe another global pandemic happens and we need to dump an infusion into people's lives for a time. Just h…

let's make it 200 credits/mo, sounds cooler

also the credits expire each month for extra fun

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#387

Post by jampekka »

drekipus wrote: post #309
briHass wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep going until you're taxing everyone that makes over $80K/year or so, and you pretty much have it being balanced. I never understood the UBI argument. 30 seconds of napkin math would show you how insane the proposal is, even at the rate of $1000/month. If you want to increase welfare for those below the median income, fine, let's have that discussion. Don't play games with the word 'universal'

Generally the people who want UBI "as promised, no compromises" also don't see why we can't just print money to make the shortfall

> why we can't just print money to make the shortfall

Printing money to make the shortfall is how US public sector budgeting has worked for decades.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#388

Post by sensanaty »

DemocracyFTW2 wrote: post #134
bko wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the goal to get people to quit their jobs and get a nice apartment? Isn't it supposed to be a minimum base level of support? Why do we keep moving the goal posts? And if everyone quits their job and lives in a nice apartment, where is this money going to come from? The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work. Start working, you lose your transfer payments. A lot of people are stuck in thi…

> The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work No. The reason you say that is because you're young and you believe what you've heard. You will soon cease to be the former and then presumably, likely, stop to do the latter. People want to work, they want to be useful. And yes, if I support you but threaten to stop supporting you as soon as you get to work for money—suddenly working for money looks…

The only reason I work is because I have to. I hate nothing more than the daily bullshit meetings and sprint reviews and all that other useless life-sucking crap. And I have it good, most people don't have the privilege of complaining from an AC'd home office while they tap away at a keyboard.

No, most people work because that's the only way they get food on the table and survive, not because of some hilariously out of touch notion of menial work being fulfilling

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#389

Post by pineaux »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #318
Majromax wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I'm a big fan of the "for every $2 you make, you get $1 less from UBI/Welfare" concept. This seems a very easy way to wean people off of welfare. That money is already tracked by the IRS (unless you're getting paid under the table). That's a more gradual phase-out, but it still is an effective marginal tax rate of 50%+ – a level that wealthy earners would complain about to no end. In light of this study…

> a negative effective phase-out rate: "for every $1 you make up to $X, you get $0.25 more from UBI/Welfare." The main problem with this is that the tax system is set up to prevent you from under-reporting your income. Over-reporting it is essentially trivial, e.g. two people who are in the relevant income range exchange favors (do each others' laundry etc.), or claim to have, and then actually report the transaction…

Doesn't a flat tax rate lower the income that a state has?

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#390

Post by melagonster »

ilaksh wrote: post #22

$1000 is not enough to quit their jobs or get a nice apartment. They could move slightly closer to work if they have to commute. It's not enough for a real tuition or to support them to study instead of work. I don't think we've ever had a universal basic income test. We have always missed the universal and basic part. It's below basic and not at all universal. I suspect that you need to get international cooperation…

Yes, maybe offering free education to everyone is easier than real UBI...
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