I would like to do the same thing Drew. Thank you for making an example. Cheers!
Thanks! I hope more people can follow this path, too.
I'm going to work full-time on free software
41–50 of 292 posts
Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software
#42Congratulations! It is a great devotion of you, I would like to support too!
Thank you!
Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software
#43Wishing you all the best! Looking forward to sr.ht being a success :)
Thank you!
Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software
#44I wish America had universal health care. If i do this, I can afford to pay for rent and food in a low cost of living area but not health insurance. Anyone know of a nonprofit that pays for health insurance for ppl working on OSS?
I'm not sure it's easy to find anyone willing to fund you to work on anything... But,
Mozilla is a non-profit, while I worked there I worked exclusively on free software. And the health insurance fantastic.
Much of what you work on a GitLab, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Redhat, etc. is also open source, depending on what team you join.
Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not aware of a system that just blanket gives each person ~$30k a year. In Ontario (before the new government killed it before the study could be completed), the system was going to include a progressive taxation system— essentially, the more you earn, the less you receive in UBI payments, until you are actively paying into the system. The system would have also included the end of our current welfare and disabil…
Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang is proposing $1000 (regardless of what you earn) for every American over 18. https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/ Almost all of the Democrat 2020 field (that we know of so far) have come out with some kind of handouts-in-exchange-for-votes platform for their campaign https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/democrats-eye... It's still early, but I'd expect to see the…
That doesn't line up with your former figures or reasoning. It's not a good example.
Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software
#46Here's my best argument for why UBI can't work in the USA. Let me know where i went wrong: My TV told me a "living wage" is at least $15 (but probably higher in liberal controlled areas like NYC / most CA cities / etc due to high cost of living & taxation), but we'll start with $15 to make it easy. $15/hr at 40hr/week = $31,200 per year. $31,200 * 328,300,000 population of USA = $10,242,960,000,000 Written out (for e…
I think you could get away with a UBI which is substantially less than that. $12,000/person/year seems like it should be easily sufficient - since I live on that much excepting tuition in downtown Toronto (not cheap), in CAD (so really a lot less), just fine. Keep in mind that when you are counting per person that means you are allocating that much for people not in the workforce like children too. A 4 person househo…
> because then you can't get rid of the rest of the social services.
Some you can get rid of, others you shouldn't. Even if you have UBI, some medical procedure might cost an individual more than they are getting in 10 years. So a proper healthcare system is still important.
Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software
#47It's inspiring to see people work full-time on free software. I remember the shock when I found out Conversations.im creator is also working "9-5 days in Open Source." [0] Good luck Drew! [0]: https://twitter.com/iNPUTmice
Thank you!
Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
UBI has not been implemented on a large scale anywhere yet, so I give you that, but the USA is hostile even to the most basic social programs, like single payer, because of the 'unfettered capitalism' ideology of many in Washington, which is heavily skewed to the right and does not represent the opinion of the population as a whole, (single payer has majority backing). Tell me where am wrong on this, because you can'…
UBI not tried yet... Alaska? Social Security? Pensions? The idle rich?
The Alaska Permanent Fund is the only one of those that even hits both of the U and I points of UBI (the rest are just I); it doesn't even target the B, though.
Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software
#49Here's my best argument for why UBI can't work in the USA. Let me know where i went wrong: My TV told me a "living wage" is at least $15 (but probably higher in liberal controlled areas like NYC / most CA cities / etc due to high cost of living & taxation), but we'll start with $15 to make it easy. $15/hr at 40hr/week = $31,200 per year. $31,200 * 328,300,000 population of USA = $10,242,960,000,000 Written out (for e…
That's the total population of the entire US, not the population of people who would be eligible for the full wage. There are a number of demographic groups who would not be eligible for various reasons, eg children (~74M as of 2010 census). That reduction alone is $3 Trillion.
Beyond that, it looks like wages being roughly half of the GDP matches our current setup fairly well: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=2Xa
Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know if moving is an option for you. But there are plenty of countries that offer free healthcare. Sweden, UK, Norway... the list goes on.
About that "free" healthcare in Sweden, etc... If you make $60,000 here in the USA, you can expect to pay about 22% in taxes ( https://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-brackets.aspx ) so ~$12,600. You move to Sweden and make that same $60K USD equivalent. Their tax rate is 61.85 percent ( https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/personal-income-tax-rate ) so ~$37,110. I bet you can stay here and buy some pretty great he…
I'd just like to point out that your figures don't add up. First of all, you're not taking into account that Sweden has a progressive tax rate, like the US. The figure you quoted in your second link is for the highest marginal tax rate.
If you were to be consistent, you could use the figure for America's marginal tax rate listed in your second article, which is 37%. So apples to apples comparison would be that the US pays $22,000 in taxes at the highest marginal rate on 60k.
Keep in mind that the US also has state income tax, which can be upwards of an additional 15%.
Anyway, these figures are all kinds of wrong. You need to account for the progressive tax rate for each country, the state taxes you might be subject to, and the tax benefits / write offs that are available to you for your tax bracket.