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A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

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Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#451

Post by Kenji »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #131
ww520 wrote: post #92

The Fed engineers a slow inflation every year via interest rate control and gives the benefit of the newly created money to banks, the loan borrowers, and asset holders as rates lower than keeping inflation at zero. Since the money supply increases anyway, might as well give the new money as basic income to ALL people. At least the money will be spent directly by the people for economic activities, instead of indirec…

The benefit is not given to the banks - the money is added through asset purchases on open market sales. The Fed owns more assets (usually Treasuries) and the bank has cash. If you want to get in on it, buy Treasuries. Next, the Fed avoid targeting zero inflation, because it's currently impossible to hit that number so exactly, and they desire to avoid deflationary spirals. The past 150 years has shown across hundred…

"The past 150 years has shown across hundreds of countries that the current solution is vastly better than the boom and bust cycles previous, and has also demonstrated the benefit of fiat over commodity (like gold)."

Uh, no. Quite the contrary. Since the abolition of the gold standard, our economies were prone to fluctuations like they haven't been in decades. Because then the (central) banks can meddle with the quantity of our money to their liking.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#452

Post by kdamken »

dilemma wrote: post #375
howeyc wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's about having enough to live in the USA. Not about having enough to live where you want at your special snowflake standard of living. Yes, you may only get enough to live awesome in "the middle of nowhere" or whatever. So what? If you want to live in San Fran, find a way to get the money to live there.

So under UBI, if someone in San Francisco, NYC, DC, Seattle, etc. loses their job, they should move to rural Wisconsin?

Yes. Honestly, if they're having trouble living there at their income level in the current system, they should be looking at moving to a cheaper area already.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#453

Post by Unklejoe »

slavik81 wrote: post #442
Unklejoe wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should actually lower the drinking age. It's currently 21 here. In fact, being 18 really gains you nothing here other than the ability to join the military and get into trouble with the law. My main point is that a few years should go by after a child enters into the adult world before they have access to a fund left for them. There's usually a short "reckless" period immediately after graduating high scho…

> I have two friends who inhereted $20,000+ sums of money from relatives when they were in their late teens, and both of them pissed it away in under a year. Looking back, both of them seem to regret it. Would they have learned that lesson without making that mistake? Are you even sure they really wouldn't do the same again? To quote Time, "About 70 percent of people who suddenly receive a windfall of cash will lose…

[Would they have learned that lesson without making that mistake? Are you even sure they really wouldn't do the same again?]

It's hard to say. However, I think one really learns the value of money after having been in the work force for a while. I think that experience may have had a positive impact on their decision making had this happened later on in their life.

[To quote Time, "About 70 percent of people who suddenly receive a windfall of cash will lose it within a few years, according to the National Endowment for Financial Education."]

I believe it. But I also believe that the likelyhood of making good financial choices increases with some time spent in the work force. In this case, they had been living a nice lifestyle under their parents when they received the money.

[Just to make the anecdotes match the statistics, I inherented roughly 30k. It remained in my education fund until I finished undergrad. At 22, I opened an investment account. It's been invested in the TSX60 for the past 6 years now.]

You are also on hackernews, a website which consists of generally well-educated people. I'm not trying to sound snotty here, but there's a good chance that you have better judgement than most people.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#454

Post by Kenji »

bontoJR wrote: post #4

> Switzerland will hold a June 5 referendum on whether to give every adult citizen 2,500 Swiss francs (about $2,600) a month. Yeah and, for sure, it won't pass... considering how conservative we are, plus the legal side of the proposal is not so clear in where the money will come from.

I read that they (the people who launched it) proposed to increase the VAT to 50%. 50% VAT! This is lunacy. The proponents of UBI in Switzerland are economic illiterates. I haven't heard of a single good way to fund this UBI which costs more than 3 times the current budget of the state.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#456

Post by clarkmoody »

criley2 wrote: post #444
notahacker wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you get bipartisan support for the FairTax? Redesigning the tax structure to favour millionaires ( massive net beneficiaries because their US consumption expenditure is usually a tiny fraction of their capital gains tax and/or income tax bills) over the middle classes (no matter how high the stipend is someone has to pay for the millionaires' tax cut) isn't exactly a popular proposal even on the right That…

Poster is crazy to think liberals will EVER support a hugely regressive tax scheme. Consumption taxes destroy the middle class by acting as vehicle to transport wealth from the middle to the ultrawealthy, which makes it surprising that people continue to suggest it. Now perhaps a consumption tax combined with a large capital gains tax and inheritance tax -- to keep taxes going in the oligarchs economy AND the regular…

What about the consumption taxes we have on the books? Gas tax? Hugely regressive. Wouldn't liberals support additional carbon taxes? Value-added tax? Wouldn't those continue to "destroy the middle class"?

What about the tax of inflation that serves to redistribute wealth from savers to debtors? (middle class -> government)

Also interesting how you know better than others how they should arrange their financial lives. Would like to hear your thoughts on the "productive ways" the "oligarchs" could better deploy their capital.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#457

Post by jonwachob91 »

jackreichert wrote: post #253
astral303 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's language war. Entitlement spending is a great way to negatively frame social security.

Well, now I understand why all those pesky employees of mine feel so entitled to getting their paychecks. It must be because they're millennials or something...

I'm not certain... My first job as a programmer my boss use to bust my balls and joke that I must not care about getting paid because I often let my checks pile up before asking for them... (and I wasn't exactly flush with cash from another source...)

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#458

Post by Kenji »

VeejayRampay wrote: post #19
sambe wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem like enough for Switzerland - what do you think? Based on my experience this would be on the very low side. The previous vote on minimum wage was quoted as working out at around 4000CHF/month. Granted, most basic income proposals are on the low side - this just seems even lower than normal.

It seems low. I think this is what cashiers at Lidl or Leader Price actually make in Switzerland. Or rather, it's the urban legend in France that this how much a cashier in Lidl/Leader Price makes in Switzerland. Though this might be part of the whole "Everything is better in Switzerland" psyche prevalent in France (streets are paved in sheets of gold, etc).

4000 Francs is a de-facto minimum wage in Switzerland. Even the most basic jobs will earn you that much, usually. It's rare that you earn significantly less than that.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#459

Post by maxerickson »

chongli wrote: post #446
dilemma wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When they do, it'll cause rent to drop in San Fran, NYC, DC and Seattle. No it won't, no more than today. >With basic income you no longer have to live where the jobs are and can move around freely. Poor people are already "free" to not live in places they can't afford, and instead live in places with poor access to education and healthcare and jobs, and as such have reduced life expectancy. Your plan to use UBI to…

I live in Canada so I always take health care for granted in these sorts of discussions. Knowing this, it should come as no shock to you that I also support universal health care. What may be less obvious is that I also support universal education and in Canada we also generally have that, at least as far as K-12 goes. If I were a parent, my children would have access to the same quality of public education in a smal…

If I were a parent, my children would have access to the same quality of public education in a small rural town as they would in a rich area of Toronto.

Is this true in reality or just in principle? An area with more students can naturally better afford to offer programs that are of limited interest, because they will still have lots of students that are interested. An area with less students probably can't spend money on things that are only of interest to 1 or 2 students.

It's not true in either sense in the US, localized funding for schools is presented as the more fair solution.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#460

Post by notahacker »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #400
notahacker wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, as I acknowledged in my above post , if you're comfortable with a situation where everybody living in social housing in London is forced to relocate to a different part of the country and severely disabled people are substantially poorer in pure cash terms than before, then you can replace all those programmes with a flat subsidy of £550 per month (or slightly less than the average London room rental in a share…

The disability part is definitely an important issue I had not considered before. As for the housing cost I worked out the amount based on food and a room for one person in London. It's doable at £550. You won't be incredibly comfortable but you will have enough food and decent shelter at no cost to you. If you have a partner (so two UBI's to work with) finding a 1 bedroom apartment within that budget is also doable…

Zoopla's average London room rental is £552 per month. That's without adding bills, council tax, food etc. I'm well aware better value for money options exist (I have one) but you can't use that as a basis for assuming the average turfed-out social housing tenant is going to find them. Needless to say, the housing and other expenditure figures generally used in "Living Wage" calculations are much higher than that.

Of course, there's an argument that subsidising people that clearly couldn't afford to live in the area they grew up in isn't a particularly good use of funds (compared with subsidising gap years, early retirements and stay at home partners?) but I can't see the left buying it. Or anyone on the right being keen to find the extra gross £140bn pa you still need to find even once you've reduced disability and housing spend to zero.

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