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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

#561

Post by gigawhat »

phaemon wrote: post #492
JonFish85 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no way you could get rid of all of the other programs. If someone is irresponsible with their money (and there will be at least some), I doubt anyone wants families starving in the streets, which is kind of the way a bunch of the current programs are set up (at least in the US).

Pay it weekly.

Payday loan shops.

Don't pretend you can legislate around that problem-- if payday loans against UBI were illegal, the black market (loan sharks) would fill in the gap.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#562

Post by stale2002 »

gumby wrote: post #377
jackreichert wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it fair to say they're being paid if they paid into the system paying them for their entire working lives? Can someone please explain why people call Social Security an entitlement? Am I missing something?

Yes. The SS system is clever, but it required a lot of sleight of hand to get it into place -- but that approach has kept it alive for 80 years so far. First, SS is universal rather than means tested in order to garner enough support to keep it in place. It's ridiculous that someone with millions in assets will receive a relatively small SS payment each month once they turn 70, but if the system had any decision maki…

The reason why "You paid for it" is a valid argument is that Social Security is explicitly advertised as a forced retirement system.

Imagine if you put money into your 401k, and then the government came along and decided that you didn't need that money so they just took it all away from you. Do you believe THAT would be OK?

Because if SS is a retirement system, that's effectively what the government would be doing.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#563

Post by Guvante »

robk wrote: post #235
blfr wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have been arguing against basic income for years now, and with some really good points[1], but I think you consistently miss the main attraction of the idea to the HN crowd. Many here believe that if people weren't forced to work for income, they would be doing things that are more valuable but also more difficult to monetize (at least initially but perhaps generally), like open source development. There is an un…

Why would anyone clean toilets when they could write/paint/sleep all day?

It depends on what it pays, remember even though your basic needs are met that doesn't mean you have zero aspirations.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#564

Post by habosa »

jrcii wrote: post #341

Abolish all welfare, phase out social security, and have the poor rely on private charities. If people don't want to donate to the charities that's their choice, it's their money. You're not entitled to money, food, a home, or a job -- you're entitled to nothing. You're entitled to starve in the gutter. If you want something more you have to earn it or have someone voluntarily agree to give it to you out of their own…

If you live in the United States, that's not the social contract we've agreed upon and you should leave if you feel that way. As a citizen of the US we have decided to collect taxes to provide certain services for the common good.

You are free to fend for yourself in many parts of the world. But not if you like that blue passport.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#565

Post by habosa »

uhtred wrote: post #274

Surely $833 a month ($10,000 a year) still wouldn't be even close to enough for someone who is unemployed to live? Wouldn't rent and bills use that up, without leaving anything for food, clothing etc? I love the idea of universal basic income, but I feel it would need to be double the amount proposed in this article to really change society for the better. Otherwise people will still need to resort to crime to extra…

While I also find it hard to believe, the Federal Poverty Line is $11,880 for individuals. If you make $12k a year you are not considered to be in poverty (if you live alone).

So yes, 10k a year would still leave people below the current poverty line. But over 45 million americans already live below the poverty line. So evidence suggest it actually is enough to survive by some standard and may be a good place to start since it's likely that people will be able to find some supplementary income through work.

In the long term the goal would be to significantly increase quality of living for all and hopefully change the horrifying numbers I just presented.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#566

Post by stale2002 »

PietdeVries wrote: post #344
karmacondon wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way I can see UBI working is if most people get no benefit. So someone making the average US income of $50,000/yr would get a check for $20k from the government and then see their taxes go up by ~$20k. Rich people would pay much more, effectively transferring their wealth to the poor. People who are solidly middle class wouldn't see much change, except having a new class of potential customers (the people th…

I fear it will only increase inflation to a level that the 10k people get is representing about the same in goods as the current level is they have. Free money is fake: it doesn't work in my opinion. It either increases the price level (hey - even the poor bum gets 10k a year, so he can afford a $10 bread, isn't it?) or it will stop people from over-achieving. My motivation to earn extra with a job only to see it go…

Well, buts it's NOT free money. The money is coming from rich people and being given to poor people.

The 'amount' of money in the system stays the same and therefore inflation stays the same.

Also, at least recently everyone has been talking about how inflation is too LOW not too high.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#567

Post by dragonwriter »

Unklejoe wrote: post #307
pluma wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany at least, public retirement funds are "pay-as-you-go", i.e. you don't pay in to save up money for yourself, you pay in to finance the current payouts to other people who previously paid into the system (and so on). Of course nobody treats it that way -- you'll hear a lot of "my pension" talk especially from people close to retirement and those who are unaware of how low their pensions will be a the current…

Social security works basically the same way in the USA. Once a system like that is in place, it's very hard to stop the pipeline. I honestly don't see the purpose of that type of system either. Why create this pipeline of money anyway? Why not just take the contributions that everyone makes and put them into individual retirement accounts? Assuming the system is stable (which it's probably not), it seems there would…

SS provides a minimum guaranted pension, in large part as a safeguard against the failure of private pensions and retirement investments (adopted after a major financial collapse took out a lot of people's retirement investments); redirecting it into risk-exposed private retirement investments would rather miss the point.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#568

Post by throwaway420 »

caseysoftware wrote: post #300
gjm11 wrote: post #99

This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn't have poverty traps, etc. And then, towards the end where it starts looking at numbers, it starts saying things like > But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 tril…

> Yes, you can reduce the amount paid out by making it not a universal basic income scheme any more. But that rather misses the point. You are entirely correct.. but I think you're missing the point. Think of that first description as the marketing pitch to the general public. By saying it is universal and "free" to administer, it gets people behind it who don't think through the consequences.. which is a large chunk…

> But a "no-strings-attached" basic income would force politicians to give up the one thing they desire more than anything: power.

I tend to think the exact opposite is true: a universal basic income is conceivably one of the most massive power grabs imaginable.

If this comes to pass in America, you're going to have a large chunk of the population COMPLETELY dependent on the government's teat. And ultimately, a population that's dependent on the government for their means of survival (even if its spun as "no strings attached") is indirectly under total political control.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#569

Post by dragonwriter »

dllthomas wrote: post #506
vlunkr wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain to me how a true basic income would be expected to work? If you're not excluding anyone, where does this massive amount of money come from? I suppose it has to be taxed out of the wealthy? So they still receive the income but pay it back in taxes? This is an honest inquiry. Yes you can save money by cutting these programs, but that argument doesn't add up for me yet because you still have to pay E…

Yes, you tax it back. Typically proposals include a flat tax (or flat tax increase) to pay for it. In that case, you net extra money from the system if you make more than the mean, and you net pay into the system if you make more than the mean, but there are no hard cliffs and your next dollar earned still means more money in your pocket at any point.

Most proposals I've seen include progressive tax, and usually an increase in progressivity. Also, some proposals are simply no change to funding, with the UBI directly using the funds of other benefit programs that it replaces.

A flat tax (or even just a decrease in progressivity) directly works against the purpose of adopting a UBI.

EDIT: Changed "all" to "most"; I've definitely seen right-wing proponents advocating varieties of UBI + Flat Tax schemes and UBI + National Sales Tax schemes, which are not funded by progressive taxes; also added the note about no-new-funding programs.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#570

Post by dimino »

All of this is basically moot, because while the average person's entitlements might stay the same or increase due to a basic income to cover the things entitlements currently cover (we won't need to hand out food stamps if we have a basic income, for example), every other person's entitlements they rely on will get cut as a result, and those people (and there are at least tens of millions of them) will raise unholy hell about it.

There's the 10% for each entitlement that need the full entitlement, and there are dozens of entitlements, hundreds, so 10% of hundreds of programs will just be too many people to allow a basic blanket income to cover their entitlements.

All that said, my favorite version of this is the "negative income tax". We have something kind of like it already, but the EITC would have to be expanded significantly before it was actually something like a negative income tax, and that means cuts to other programs.

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