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Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

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Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#531

Post by selfmodruntime »

azemetre wrote: post #503
WheatMillington wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't met enough deadbeats in your life. Trust me, there's a virtually limitless number of them, and they very much do not want to work.

You need to provide hard numbers because welfare fraud is typically less than single digits. Going by “vibes” is pretty useless, especially since the government has been the largest force in reducing poverty in western nations.

The problem with this is that there's little way to get any realistic data here. Of course the number of people polled that say they're a deadbeat will be low.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#532

Post by ziggyzecat »

ziggyzecat wrote: post #423
namibj wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under that concept, well, if actually taking the social security (Grundsicherung) in Germany as a given, even assuming low CoL situations (it's worse in higher-CoL situations), the effective average tax rate past like about 160 EUR/month of income will rise to a peak at around 1500 EUR/month income and then continuously decrease to the super wealthy limit tax just under 50%. At least you technically never have less m…

> severe bureaucracy been there, done that. it's not severe, it's not even 2 hours per month and maybe waiting for 2 or three letters from xyz. 2 hours of non-engaging bureaucratic work for 1300 € per month. Thats 650 €/h ...

oh, and I'm aware that it might be engaging for some, but they either fall into the category that better learns to organize and administer themselves now rather than later or into the category that will always need a social worker, who will the find the bureaucracy easy as well and the organization is paid by his employer

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#533

Post by dmoy »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #471
mordae wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Stocks are converted to money with every trade. Every buy has a matching sell. That's something that happens trillions of times a day and stocks aren't crashing because of it. I'm not sure I'm following.

I think the hypothetical here is if you tried to fund UBI via a billionaire-wealth-tax, it would involve liquidating basically all stock they hold. If you sell that much stock, the price will go down. (It's the opposite side of the coin compared to why you can't do a hostile takeover at market cap by just buying stock - the price goes way up as you buy up all available shares).

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#534

Post by s1artibartfast »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #509
s1artibartfast wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you know that Gross National Income has nothing to do with average individual income? If you are taking that as your baseline, you have already nationalized every industry and productive asset in the country.

Income taxes wouldn't need to-- nevermind. Okay. Please stop nitpicking and either defend your claim about "100% socialization of income" or admit you were wrong. Sorry for saying irrelevant words, I will try to minimize them. A flat tax increase of 20% of income minus 12k would be far from ideal, but anyone making less than 60k would have less taxes, anyone making 60k-120k would have a 0-10% of income increase, and…

At the end of the day, I have fun I don't think you are 60k number is right, or your 12K number is sufficient to cover all of the cost of living a comfortable life. This is fundamental to the difference. I think the desired level of Ubi is on par if not higher than the average American Income. This leads to the 100% redistribution claim. It is very simple.

If we assume the average income is 60k, urinalysis is still wrong. A 20% flat tax for Ubi would then provide a 12K benefit. This would not be a net positive for incomes between 60 and 120k. The break-even point would be an income of 60k, progressing to a 10% net loss at 120k. 20% of 120 is negative 24,000, and 12 would be returned via Ubi.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#535

Post by Aperocky »

wordpad25 wrote: post #520
Aperocky wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as as close to a basic income as you can currently imagine. More like as far as I can imagine. Basic Income has to be provided to everyone , not just the ones who don't have a job. That's the whole point. It's not that the amount must be sufficient to live off of, that can be worked out later, but it has to start with everyone on board and that's what makes it "Basic".

isn't that just inflation with extra steps?

The point is everyone would have contributed evenly to this inflation if you look at it from that angle.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#536

Post by throwaway22032 »

gwd wrote: post #452
throwaway22032 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever interacted with a free rider? You know, those guys who always dodge their round at the pub, they never pay you back that fiver, they always need somewhere to crash? Hell, have you ever dated someone like that, or known a friend that has? One person goes to work, cooks, maintains the home, the other just spends their time on highfalutin' ideas like their photography project? UBI to me sounds like a way o…

You can see that they exist already, without UBI. So the question is, what effect will UBI have on freeloading if introduced? Will they contribute even less than they do now? Will there be more of them? Or will they stop free-loading off companies and individuals? If UBI means everyone at the place you work is actually motivated, and you never have to watch your friend support a free-loader again, I think we're proba…

You're forgetting about the bit in which you've literally given the person thousands of dollars.

They use that free money to get you to do things for them.

It's hidden behind bureaucracy but it's the same thing. Worse, even, because you don't have a choice.

It's like the nonsense solutions the left propose for tackling crime. "If we give people X, they won't have to steal X". I mean, sure, because they have already gotten it from me for free...

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#537

Post by throwaway22032 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #513
s1artibartfast wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real GDP per capita has gone from 41k to 67k, so going back to 1994 could actually be done with a 3 day work week. Most people wouldn't want to because they would have to cut 40% of their spending across the board. there are a lot of people today that can already have the option to work less for less money but dont choose to do it.

Okay. Well "they would decline" is pretty far from fighting tooth and nail.

No, they have declined. Already, and continue to do so.

People like to have more stuff, bigger houses, better cars, air conditioning, whatever.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#538

Post by gopher_space »

constantcrying wrote: post #484
nkmnz wrote: post #460

The problem with this kind of test is that the people still live in a society where cheap labor is available to the companies around them that provide them with all the goods and services that they like to purchase with those $1000 (or whatever free amount they've gotten). Germany shifted to a system that is as close to a basic income as you can currently imagine. There are some strings attached, but considerably les…

>Germany shifted to a system that is as close to a basic income as you can currently imagine. It is free money for everyone. Everyone obviously excluding the people who work full-time and who are paying taxes so that "everyone" can live of Bürgergeld. >but especially for those relying on government money... Yes, those are the real victims here. Who else could be victimized by working full time, so that other people d…

> Maybe the real victims are the people who have to work full time and are suffering from the increased cost of living?

If this was a genuine concern there wouldn't be so many people skimming off the top of every nation on the planet. We're surrounded by parasites and you're picking on people running calorie deficits for some reason.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#539

Post by which »

t0bia_s wrote: post #384
sjm wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Political machines did deliver tangible benefits to their constituents through what could be described as vote buying. In Daley's Chicago, if you there was a pothole on your street or your cousin who was new to the country needed a job, you could go to your alderman who would solve the problem for you. In return you were supposed to vote for the party and get everyone you knew to vote for the party.

This worked as long as the machine was unquestioned and there were contractors willing to play ball to finance the whole thing. Now as a series of court decisions limiting the spoils system and incompetent successors have weakened the system, the mayor's approval rating is half of what it once was and overall confidence in the city is much lower. And the city's finances are about as bad as they can get today. So I wouldn't call it socialism and I wouldn't even say that it's worse than the alternatives.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#540

Post by kelseyfrog »

dmoy wrote: post #533
kelseyfrog wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stocks are converted to money with every trade. Every buy has a matching sell. That's something that happens trillions of times a day and stocks aren't crashing because of it. I'm not sure I'm following.

I think the hypothetical here is if you tried to fund UBI via a billionaire-wealth-tax, it would involve liquidating basically all stock they hold. If you sell that much stock, the price will go down. (It's the opposite side of the coin compared to why you can't do a hostile takeover at market cap by just buying stock - the price goes way up as you buy up all available shares).

There's several second and nth-order effects that seem crucial to our understanding.

Every seller has a buyer. Who would be buying these liquidated stocks?

What would the estimated new equilibrium be? What would be the effects of this equilibrium compared to the current state? Can we estimate the pros and cons?

Conversely, holding the belief that stock prices are crucial to our betterment, wouldn't that imply that we would be better off if stock prices were higher due to more wealthy people owning stock and fewer non-wealthy people owning stocks? At face value that doesn't sound right, so I must be getting something wrong.

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