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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

#571

Post by dragonwriter »

dazmax wrote: post #502
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 the rich would probably pay more even with getting their basic income. The point of giving it to everyone is to reduce the administrative cost of figuring out who qualifies, and to get rid of "welfare cliffs" that give poor people a disincentive to earn more for fear of losing assistance programs.

Essentially, it avoids duplicating income-based computations across tax system and multiple benefit programs, and concentrates then in the tax system (once you have a mature UBI that has displaced other benefit programs.)

In this sense, it can be seen as an application of the DRY principle.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#572

Post by kgwgk »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #417
alehander42 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am just amused by the "2nd world country" thing. I really fail to see how life in Central Europe is somehow of "lower quality"(e.g. Czech, Poland, Germany) compared to USA. I'd actually prefer living in Central Europe or especially Southern Europe over USA any day.

It's really Old World, New World and Other, which was labelled "The Third World". It's not supposed to be ordinal. Media is advertising supported ( mostly still ) and it's therefore targeted at the New World, which breeds this curious resentment. But if one of these Worlds is to be the Second, I'd think it would be the New World.

Actually the term "Third World" was used to refer to the non-aligned countries (as opposed to NATO on one side and the communist bloc on the other).

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#573

Post by WWKong »

habosa wrote: post #560
WWKong wrote: post #542

How does a universal basic income work from economics stand point? Let's say everyone gets $1000/mo. Currently the market knows that everyone has $10 and prices bread accordingly at $1.50. Tomorrow the market will know that everyone has $1010 and will price the bread at $100. Thus everything from food to utilities to rent gets adjusted to the new normal and the poor can't still afford the basics. Is this theory not c…

Take a step further. Let's say on day 1 of the basic income age all the bread merchants raise their price to $100. One smart bread merchant will probably say "Hey I used to sell this for $1.50, I can do better than $100" and prices it at $90. Now everyone buys bread from him. The other merchants feel the price pressure and the cycle continues, with the price settling down to something likely higher than $1.50 (to ref…

In other words, utilities and commodities will always hover around cost price due to market forces and hence the poor will be able to afford the basics. There might be other non essentials that might become more expensive to absorb the extra money in the market, but we would have mostly likely solved a bigger problem. Makes sense. I still worry about housing.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#574

Post by ori_b »

clarkmoody wrote: post #456
criley2 wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Wouldn't liberals support additional carbon taxes?

With the goal of eliminating carbon use (and through this, eliminating the carbon tax), yes. The key understanding is that destroying the environment is a significantly worse problem than a regressive tax.

And destroying the environment also has a highly regressive impact; The impact on livability is not uniform, and people that can afford to relocate will have a much better time of it.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#575

Post by dionidium »

xefer wrote: post #221
mcv wrote: post #130

Interesting how this article spins Basic Income as something of particular interest to conservatives while liberals would object to it. I suppose that can help sell the concept to highly partisan anti-liberals, but I know plenty of liberals and progressives who strongly support Basic Income. The idea that the people employed in the bureaucracy managing the current mess of programs losing their job is a silly concern.…

To paraphrase that XKCD comic, "14 benefit programs?! Ridiculous! We need to create one universal benefit program that covers everyone! Now you have 15 programs." I get the sense that liberals and conservatives have wildly different conceptions of what a Basic Income would mean in practice. Conservatives and libertarians may like the idea of giving a single no-strings-attached check every month to everyone and anyone…

The reason that the 15th program doesn't replace the earlier 14 is because each program is operated independently and according to the motives of its members (who don't buy into the plan to replace themselves).

A legislative mandate neatly solves that problem. The analogy doesn't hold.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#576

Post by Joeboy »

morgante wrote: post #431
Unklejoe wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite the accomplishment, and is by far not the norm. I am 25 and have only been financially independent since 23, and even I am the anomaly amongst my peers. I don't see what's wrong with my stereotype in this case. Most people under 25 are not financially independent, and it's mainly due to the society we live in, not the children themselves. When my Dad was growing up, people had full time jobs at 16 years…

Stop calling us "children." It's offense and rude. How very convenient that the cutoff of adulthood is your own age—if you're going to insult vast numbers of functional adults, at least insult yourself in the process. Silly child. First of all, you are in fact wrong. The majority of young adults do in fact live independently. [0] Second of all, if you think that adulthood isn't reached until 25, why would you be advo…

> [0] http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/07/29/more-snake people-living-with-family-despite-improved-job-market/

Um, has that url been through this?

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/millennials-to-sna...

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#577

Post by [deleted] »

Unklejoe wrote: post #447
morgante wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop calling us "children." It's offense and rude. How very convenient that the cutoff of adulthood is your own age—if you're going to insult vast numbers of functional adults, at least insult yourself in the process. Silly child. First of all, you are in fact wrong. The majority of young adults do in fact live independently. [0] Second of all, if you think that adulthood isn't reached until 25, why would you be advo…

The link you posted doesn't seem to work. [How very convenient that the cutoff of adulthood is your own age] I chose the number 25 because it is usually a few years after most people have graduated college and have entered the work force. The number 25 is used in many places as a "special" age. Insurance companies, rental car companies, hotel bookings, etc... [you're going to insult vast numbers of functional adults,…

[deleted]

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#578

Post by pyrrhotech »

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…

With a little planning and an abandonment of materialism, it is pretty easy to live on 10,000 a year in the US. Example: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-yea...

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#579

Post by habosa »

WWKong wrote: post #573
habosa wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a step further. Let's say on day 1 of the basic income age all the bread merchants raise their price to $100. One smart bread merchant will probably say "Hey I used to sell this for $1.50, I can do better than $100" and prices it at $90. Now everyone buys bread from him. The other merchants feel the price pressure and the cycle continues, with the price settling down to something likely higher than $1.50 (to ref…

In other words, utilities and commodities will always hover around cost price due to market forces and hence the poor will be able to afford the basics. There might be other non essentials that might become more expensive to absorb the extra money in the market, but we would have mostly likely solved a bigger problem. Makes sense. I still worry about housing.

Housing is interesting because it's one of the few things we buy that is priced mostly around our ability to pay for it rather than the value of what we are buying. That's why in SF it seems that housing prices rise in lock step with wages in the dominant industry (tech).

So while it's very likely that the cost of housing will increase in this situation, again I think people will still be better off overall. People will have increased purchasing power for non-housing goods and still pay the same percentage of their income for housing, even if that is now a percentage of a larger number.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#580

Post by ageek123 »

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…

European countries, which are quite to the left of the US, have much higher consumption taxes than the US. So I don't think it's fair to say it's "crazy to think liberals will EVER support" consumption taxes. They already do.
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