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A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

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Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#391

Post by yanilkr »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #371
yanilkr wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think I can get the check in America and go and spend it outside America?

Are you just looking for a reason to argue? It sure sounds like it. What difference does it make whether the recipient can spend it outside America or not? Does that invalidate enraged_camel's point whatsoever? No, it doesn't. In case you really care, though, yes, you can. You probably have to convert the currency somewhere along the way, and you may have to pay for a wire transfer, but yes, you can (just like with a…

You should try reading an economics textbook.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#392

Post by lisivka »

gozur88 wrote: post #234
lisivka wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why we should care about these super low productivity jobs anyway?

Because there are people who depend on them. For spending money, if nothing else.

They should depend on something more productive, so they will be able to sustain.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#393

Post by twoodfin »

pharrington wrote: post #303
zxcvvcxz wrote: post #266

> Besides, Sweden has one of the rich world's biggest gaps between native and immigrant employment rates. Youth joblessness is 70 percent higher among the foreign-born than among Swedes. Lowering the minimum wage could draw more of the new, mainly Middle Eastern population, into the workforce and reduce social and ethnic tension. A minimum wage is simply not moral. It prevents me and you from entering into an employm…

Companies, empirically, keep operating costs as low as possible. There is a reason people literally fought and died to obtain a minimum wage.

Lots of Parisians fought and died for price controls on bread. It didn't mean it was economically sound or ultimately beneficial to the poor.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#394

Post by vertex-four »

firethief wrote: post #387
vertex-four wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A sweatshop paying pennies an hour for extremely unskilled labor could be a fair wage for that work. Sure - in which case said sweatshop probably shouldn't exist. Sorry, but if you need to pay people less than they can live on to stay in business, and it's "not profitable" to replace them with robots, you can damn well go out of business and be replaced with a company that will automate it, allowing humans to do th…

I'm not sure you saw the post that I was replying to. I'm disagreeing with that post's argument that the function of minimum wage is to ensure people are paid what the work they do is worth to their employer. Such an argument would condone sweatshops, which I thought would be understood to be a bad thing but I guess something like Poe's Law applies.

I didn't read it as that. "An employment agreement where one side excessively benefits" includes one where the employer gets to stay in business and make a healthy profit, but the employee can't survive on their pay.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#395

Post by slfnflctd »

ewzimm wrote: post #148
yanilkr wrote: post #95

A Basic Income from Govt comes at a huge price of loss of individual liberty. If someone gives you free stuff, they will expect controls like where you are allowed to spend your money and time. This model of taking from the productive sources and rewarding everyone else will have to break at a certain point. how come you get rewarded for enjoying the gossip column and I spend extra effort doing something else which i…

I hope you can see how other people see it very differently. First, basic income can be implemented different ways, including a base that everyone gets regardless of income, fair in the same way that everyone gets equal access to the roads regardless of income. Anyone can get to where they're going, but how enjoyable that trip will be depends on what kind of car you can afford. There are still huge advantages to bein…

> it begins to look to a lot of people like the more damage you do to society, the more money you make

This is mostly why I abandoned all hope of 'big' entrepreneurship. You cannot compete if you have a conscience. Someone who knows a few more schemes or a few more influential people will destroy you.

I am 100% certain I can add value in the right situations. However, if the market makes those situations untenable via barriers to entry, misleading marketing, backroom deals and whatever other means, what options am I left with? Ugly ones.

Basic income at least allows for the possibility of people contributing to society without involving the almighty dollar. It may or may not work, but whoever doesn't think that possibility is worth exploring needs to give me a hell of a good reason. The cost of food and shelter for your average human is not gonna break the damn bank.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#396

Post by gozur88 »

lisivka wrote: post #392
gozur88 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are people who depend on them. For spending money, if nothing else.

They should depend on something more productive, so they will be able to sustain.

So in the mean time, let them eat cake?

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#397

Post by protomyth »

rspeer wrote: post #389
protomyth wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a on the fence as your argument mirrors my own, but I can see the fear of basically voting yourself a raise with pandering politicians. I think the line of thinking is inspired by professional voting blocks which is a more as likely scenario.

Why is "voting yourself a raise" something that needs to be prevented when poor people do it, but not when rich people do it?

Cronyism and mob rule are two sides on the same coin that needs to be prevented.

If 51% can take all the money in a budget from others, everything collapses.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#398

Post by sokoloff »

alttab wrote: post #358
sokoloff wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably paid a higher purchase price, because even if you couldn't take the mortgage interest deduction (for whatever reason, maybe you paid all cash), you are still competing against other buyers, most of whom could take the deduction. That deduction saves them money, meaning they're willing to pay a higher price than they would if they couldn't take a mortgage interest deduction. That those other buyers are wi…

Your argument is suggesting that there are enough people in the market using their tax deductions as a strategy for paying their mortgages. I'd argue that if you are that close to not being able to afford your mortgage, you won't make it past underwriting. Even if you did, the volume wouldn't be such that it demands significantly higher sale prices. And even if it did - it would pale in comparison to China-fueled cas…

You read that wrong I think. It says that limiting itemized deductions to a marginal rate of 28% (an Obama proposal that was DoA) would cause housing prices to fall by 0.3%.

Reading two sentences further from that same article you linked: "completely eliminating the mortgage interest and property tax deduction—a drastic change that probably would only happen if accompanied by a new tax preference for housing—would cause housing prices to fall by an average of 11.8 percent in the 23 cities studied. Estimated price declines would range from 10.3 percent in Seattle to 13.8 percent in Milwaukee."

I'm not using the tax deduction as a "strategy for paying my mortgage". I did figure the savings from the tax deduction in modeling my budget, the effective cost of housing, all of which influenced my bid(s).

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#399

Post by marrington »

alttab wrote: post #167
msellout wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mortgage interest deduction also inflates home prices, benefitting home sellers and harming everyone else. A home buyer might think they're benefitting, but in fact the seller simply increased price until the deduction was of net zero benefit for the buyer.

What are you talking about? Mortgage interest deduction determines how much money a private person pays in taxes to the federal government each year, relative to their income minus deductions. It does not directly impact home sale price.

The National Association of Realtors argues that removing the mortgage interest deduction would reduce home values by 15%. There are likely other less biased studies as well but that was the first that I found during a quick search. More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_mortgage_interest_deducti...

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#400

Post by dinkumthinkum »

QuotedForTruth wrote: post #136
kough wrote: post #29

> No one wants to hire them at a high minimum wage, especially when locals are readily available The main drawback to a minimum wage is that it artificially increases the cost of labor, to the point where it's no longer worth it to an employer to hire a low-output employee. I think we'd all agree that increasing employment is a good goal, but an increased minimum wage actually hinders progress on that front. As the m…

The counter argument is that human labor has an actual cost. That is the cost to keep a human alive and in some level of comfort. Government benefits of many different types have "artificially" lowered this cost. Where employees refuse to pay enough for a human to live on, the government picks up the slack. Raising the minimum wage may be "artificial," but its not the first control placed on some otherwise natural la…

You are very right. Wal-mart and companies like that are deriving significant labor cost subsidies from tax payors.
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