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Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

businessinsider.com

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Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#41

Post by leto_ii »

chrisseaton wrote: post #34
leto_ii wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, I think, that the very concept of a pension will become meaningless by the time millennials retire. Why would you pay more into something that you don't expect will give anything in return? Not to mention that for a lot of people paying more is not an option since they simply wouldn't be able to afford it.

I'm not very confident in my state pension as they can take that away any time they want, but my private pension is just a pot of money invested for me with tax benefits. Not sure what better you can do than that? Buy gold and store it under your bed?

What would that pot of money look like if you had to retire in 2020?

Do you trust the pension fund people to make the right decisions?

What happens if the pension fund collapses because it's run by crooks and morons?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't invest in that, but treat it like what it is - a relatively risky investment, not like what it's marketed as, namely a sure thing.

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#42

Post by HideousKojima »

dangus wrote: post #37
HideousKojima wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me a proposal for the US (since I'm most familiar with tax rates, existing benefits, etc. there) and I'll show you how the math doesn't add up. Edit: As far as the three wealthiest in the US owning that much, it still amounts to very little per capita if redistributed to the entire population. You could give every individual in the US a one-time payment of about $3,000, after which there'd be no more money to ta…

Where do you get $3,000 a month from? I’m sure if you set the dollar value high enough the math doesn’t work out.

>Where do you get $3,000 a month from?

The combined wealth of the entire 1% is ~$25 trillion. Population of the US ~330 million. Equally distributed and paid out over 24 months comes out to ~3,156. If you only give it to adults (~255 million) the numbers aren't much better.

$3,000 a month is barely enough to get by in several major cities. It'd be fine out in the countryside, but in San Francisco, NYC, and several other major cities it would be barely enough to get a studio apartment and barely enough food to eat.

If it's not universal then it's a misnomer. And it's just another welfare/entitlement program then.

>It’s also amazing that the top 1% can just find everyone in the United States for two whole years. Doesn’t that just prove my point that inequality is a huge problem?

No, not particularly? Why does that matter, other than the usual arguments about wealth in the hands of the poor leading to more marginal consumption and therefore possibly leading to more economic growth?

>Preventing tax haven flee is easy. The US already does this, charging income tax to high income expats. If those expats don’t pay they have big issues if they ever set foot in the country again.

And if you tax them at 100%, or whatever obscenely high rate you're proposing, they won't ever set foot in the country again, and won't have any desire to do so. And they can avoid worries about extradition etc. by simply renouncing their US citizenship before their tax burden becomes too great, something that already happens even with our current tax rates

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#43

Post by HideousKojima »

_nalply wrote: post #35
HideousKojima wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We're about to test whether they are. If we somehow manage to print all this money and nothing bad happens, then why not? Fortunately, other states already have tried this, and shown that it causes immense economic harm. Specifically, we have the examples of Venezuela (53,798,500% inflation since 2016), Zimbabwe (peaked at 79,600,000,000% per month ), and Weimar Germany ( merely 29,500% per month at its peak). So yo…

Counterpoint: Quantitative easing. Instead of giving money to banks give them to the people.

Quantitative Easing is the fed buying bonds, bonds that must be repaid. It's not free money, it's loans.

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#44

Post by jacknews »

HideousKojima wrote: post #15

Every single UBI proposal I've seen has failed to work even with back of the envelope math, even when using generous assumptions and estimates. They end up either 1) Gutting existing entitlements by a huge amount (and current receipients of those entitlements get far less under UBI than they did before) 2) Raise taxes by an obscene amount that destroys most if not all of the benefit of a UBI for the middle class and…

sure much too expensive, no can do

yet 6 $trillion from thin air to bail out big business, no problemo, signed by lunchtime.

Though I don't agree with UBI. It makes people dependent on government, who can fiddle figures to pay less, as with state pensions.

What's really needed is UBE - universal basic equity. Every citizen gets a stake (not 100%) in all of business, and shares in profits and dividends, derived from the economy they work to maintain and expand.

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#45

Post by [deleted] »

HideousKojima wrote: post #42
dangus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get $3,000 a month from? I’m sure if you set the dollar value high enough the math doesn’t work out.

>Where do you get $3,000 a month from? The combined wealth of the entire 1% is ~$25 trillion. Population of the US ~330 million. Equally distributed and paid out over 24 months comes out to ~3,156. If you only give it to adults (~255 million) the numbers aren't much better. $3,000 a month is barely enough to get by in several major cities. It'd be fine out in the countryside, but in San Francisco, NYC, and several ot…

[deleted]

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#46

Post by HideousKojima »

jacknews wrote: post #44
HideousKojima wrote: post #15

Every single UBI proposal I've seen has failed to work even with back of the envelope math, even when using generous assumptions and estimates. They end up either 1) Gutting existing entitlements by a huge amount (and current receipients of those entitlements get far less under UBI than they did before) 2) Raise taxes by an obscene amount that destroys most if not all of the benefit of a UBI for the middle class and…

sure much too expensive, no can do yet 6 $trillion from thin air to bail out big business, no problemo, signed by lunchtime. Though I don't agree with UBI. It makes people dependent on government, who can fiddle figures to pay less, as with state pensions. What's really needed is UBE - universal basic equity. Every citizen gets a stake (not 100%) in all of business, and shares in profits and dividends, derived from t…

$6 trillion in debt, to be paid for by future taxpayers you mean. I'm just as against the current bailout effort as I am against UBI. A one-time $6 trillion payout is still orders of magnitude cheaper than what it would take to fund a decent UBI though.

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#47

Post by petermcneeley »

HideousKojima wrote: post #39
petermcneeley wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I accept your challenge. Canada top %1 does ~500k a year absolute min. Take all that and give it to the bottom 50% of the population. Thats 10k per person per year. The issue is not the math. The issue is the ideology of redistribution. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-top-1-per-cent-saw-fa...

>Thats 10k per person per year. So if we tax the top 1% at 100% , we can give the bottom 50% enough to not even make rent in Toronto or Vancouver ? See item 3 on my list. Also only giving the benefit to the bottom 50% is not universal basic income.

The poor dont tend to pay the the rents of downtown Toronto. There is a number of reasons for this including government housing, roommates, living at home or with a partner. The actual total income at the %1 is certainly higher but may only be ~30-50% more (officially)

As for not benefiting the upper 50% I think you might be arguing against some position that doesnt exist. UBI would not benefit everyone directly. In fact if your on the upper end of the spectrum it would dramatically hurt you.

I would simply guess that it is the ideology of redistribution that you oppose, which is fine. But the math of this kind of redistribution works out. (The economics of it is a much more interesting question)

Re: Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income

#48

Post by _nalply »

HideousKojima wrote: post #43
_nalply wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: Quantitative easing. Instead of giving money to banks give them to the people.

Quantitative Easing is the fed buying bonds, bonds that must be repaid. It's not free money, it's loans.

Right. I am somewhat clueless but this feels like the FED helping banks not people?
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