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I'm going to work full-time on free software

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Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#61

Post by nostrebored »

gpm wrote: post #30
skrowl wrote: post #18

Here's my best argument for why UBI can't work in the USA. Let me know where i went wrong: My TV told me a "living wage" is at least $15 (but probably higher in liberal controlled areas like NYC / most CA cities / etc due to high cost of living & taxation), but we'll start with $15 to make it easy. $15/hr at 40hr/week = $31,200 per year. $31,200 * 328,300,000 population of USA = $10,242,960,000,000 Written out (for e…

I think you could get away with a UBI which is substantially less than that. $12,000/person/year seems like it should be easily sufficient - since I live on that much excepting tuition in downtown Toronto (not cheap), in CAD (so really a lot less), just fine. Keep in mind that when you are counting per person that means you are allocating that much for people not in the workforce like children too. A 4 person househo…

Except your suggestions here ignore that the surplus given by UBI will be amortized into rent and staples costs. It's all well and good until you get into the weeds and realize that a lot of price fixing or pseudo price fixing needs to happen before UBI becomes realistic. If the argument is getting rid of legislative and bureaucratic bloat, it's definitely not quite so easy or quite so effective, choose one.

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#62

Post by AsyncAwait »

tom_ wrote: post #55
_khhm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because of the 'unfettered capitalism' ideology of many in Washington, which is heavily skewed to the right I'm going to assume you're not in the USA. Washington DC is over 70% Democrat (which is our left wing party) https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/housing-complex/blo... Washington DC hasn't elected a Republican (our right wing party, about 6% of the population there) since the 1870s https://en.wikipedia.o…

It's probably a figure of speech, not to be taken literally. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy#Places_and_institutio...

Correct. That's how I meant it.

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#63

Post by _khhm »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #58
_khhm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because of the 'unfettered capitalism' ideology of many in Washington, which is heavily skewed to the right I'm going to assume you're not in the USA. Washington DC is over 70% Democrat (which is our left wing party) https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/housing-complex/blo... Washington DC hasn't elected a Republican (our right wing party, about 6% of the population there) since the 1870s https://en.wikipedia.o…

> I'm going to assume you're not in the USA. Am not, but follow the politics there closely. > Washington DC is over 70% Democrat Am not talking about the actual place "Washington DC", am talking about it as a seat of power, the seat of government. The politicians in the House and Senate and their leanings. > which is our left wing party The Democratic Party is nowhere near "left-wing" by what most of the developed wo…

AOC literally refers to herself as a socialist https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/01/democratic-sociali...

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#64

Post by mortehu »

skrowl wrote: post #23
robert_foss wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if moving is an option for you. But there are plenty of countries that offer free healthcare. Sweden, UK, Norway... the list goes on.

About that "free" healthcare in Sweden, etc... If you make $60,000 here in the USA, you can expect to pay about 22% in taxes ( https://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-brackets.aspx ) so ~$12,600. You move to Sweden and make that same $60K USD equivalent. Their tax rate is 61.85 percent ( https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/personal-income-tax-rate ) so ~$37,110. I bet you can stay here and buy some pretty great he…

US spends more tax dollars per capita on health care than Sweden, and most other OECD countries, so the extra tax expense goes to other things. Ignoring of course that your tax calculation is way off.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#66

Post by atom_arranger »

skrowl wrote: post #18

Here's my best argument for why UBI can't work in the USA. Let me know where i went wrong: My TV told me a "living wage" is at least $15 (but probably higher in liberal controlled areas like NYC / most CA cities / etc due to high cost of living & taxation), but we'll start with $15 to make it easy. $15/hr at 40hr/week = $31,200 per year. $31,200 * 328,300,000 population of USA = $10,242,960,000,000 Written out (for e…

We could print more money. The inflation will hit people who have a lot of money saved up more than it will hit the people getting UBI.

I'm not sure it's the right option, but it's something to consider. If you have someone below the poverty line and you tell them "I'll give you 30k, but due to inflation each dollar will only be able to buy half of what it can now." I think they'll take that deal.

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#67

Post by krunaldo »

e-dard wrote: post #51
skrowl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About that "free" healthcare in Sweden, etc... If you make $60,000 here in the USA, you can expect to pay about 22% in taxes ( https://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-brackets.aspx ) so ~$12,600. You move to Sweden and make that same $60K USD equivalent. Their tax rate is 61.85 percent ( https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/personal-income-tax-rate ) so ~$37,110. I bet you can stay here and buy some pretty great he…

I don't live in Sweden so I can't claim to be an expert (I like in the UK), but I find it highly unlikely that your claim of a 61% tax rate in Sweden is correct. It's likely the highest tax rate possible (in the UK that's 45%). If you look at a tax calculator you will see that for a Swedish salary equivalent to $60K, the effective tax rate is actually ~27%. $60K USD == ~540K SEK, which is 45K SEK a month. Plugging 45…

Well, first you have to calculate that the company pays 31.42% of your total salary in payroll taxes. This is illegal to print or show in any way or form to the employee from the employer.

Then on most goods there is a 25% tax, additional taxes other categories of goods such as gas, cars, alcohol and so forth.

So if the company pays you 60k SEK, you'll see ~45k on your payroll slip. The 61% percentage is the average total tax burden on a individual from all of these taxes.

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#68

Post by 52-6F-62 »

skrowl wrote: post #23
robert_foss wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if moving is an option for you. But there are plenty of countries that offer free healthcare. Sweden, UK, Norway... the list goes on.

About that "free" healthcare in Sweden, etc... If you make $60,000 here in the USA, you can expect to pay about 22% in taxes ( https://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-brackets.aspx ) so ~$12,600. You move to Sweden and make that same $60K USD equivalent. Their tax rate is 61.85 percent ( https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/personal-income-tax-rate ) so ~$37,110. I bet you can stay here and buy some pretty great he…

You're also not accounting for the chance that someone would end up more dramatically ill than just the odd flu or a broken bone.

[Anecdote from the Canadian socialized healthcare system]

For instance, when my brother was 11 he was diagnosed with an advanced brain tumour the size of an average naval orange. He was admitted to one of the country's leading children's hospitals (McMaster in Hamilton) one day and was in surgery the next. He spent a week in recovery, half of that week in a private room, then shared with two others. He received follow up appointments there for the following year or two. They were able to remove the entire tumour in one session, with no remaining traces, and without the [temporary or permanent] paralysis they supposed could occur (they gave it a 50% chance he would lose all feeling and motor ability on his left side). He was in hospital, and they accomplished this all in inside of 36 hours.

The cost out-of-pocket to my family was the gas to drive there, and the parking in Hamilton over a couple of days.

Oh yeah, and we bought the doctors a Tim Hortons coffee and donuts...

edited to add: The mentioned visits included a large number of MRI and CAT scans, among other tests.

I'd like you to compare that situation with a like American anecdote: https://www.thebillfold.com/2015/06/the-cost-of-things-a-bra...

Nobody lives in a vacuum, my friend. Wouldn't that be nice if we could account for all cases as you have?

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#69

Post by RussianCow »

thfuran wrote: post #35
skrowl wrote: post #18

Here's my best argument for why UBI can't work in the USA. Let me know where i went wrong: My TV told me a "living wage" is at least $15 (but probably higher in liberal controlled areas like NYC / most CA cities / etc due to high cost of living & taxation), but we'll start with $15 to make it easy. $15/hr at 40hr/week = $31,200 per year. $31,200 * 328,300,000 population of USA = $10,242,960,000,000 Written out (for e…

But people aren't paid to do nothing under UBI. They don't lose the pay if they do things. Most people probably won't do nothing because that's boring. And Counting money is a bit harder than that. When I tip waitstaff, that income for them was my income before that and my employer's income before that and hospitals' income before that and, just maybe, that same waiter's income before that. But if instead it was medi…

> Most people probably won't do nothing because that's boring.

I think you underestimate the amount of people that are content with not doing anything.

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