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Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

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Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#61

Post by 542354234235 »

bsenftner wrote: post #54
542354234235 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To point 1, how does receiving, say, $1,000 a month remove hope and prevent bettering oneself? Anyone receiving UBI can still get a job to get additional money. Anyone already working is still receiving their salary. I would not stop trying to promote and make more money, let alone quit my job because I was receiving an extra grand a month. Just like suddenly not having to pay for healthcare and having that extra mon…

People receiving UBI will have any additional income they generate deducted from UBI. This is human nature. I do not personally feel that people receiving financial aid is parasitism, but I do understand that is what it will be called by it's opponents, and they have the power to frame public opinion far more than the proponents of UBI. I do not see the points advocating UBI realistically addressing how every day dir…

>People receiving UBI will have any additional income they generate deducted from UBI. This is human nature.

Putting “this is human nature” as the full stop explanation tells me nothing and convinces me of nothing. How is Alaska’s UBI deducted based on income? That just isn’t how UBI works and not what UBI is. Same with your statement that it will be for “only certain approved things” which is not UBI, but means tested assistance, which as I said, comes with huge monetary waste in paying people to define what is “approved”, developing mechanisms on how it will be tracked, on businesses to implement systems, and on people to monitor compliance.

UBI is basically a tax credit. If you are poor enough that you pay less taxes than the UBI, you get a tax rebate. If you pay more, you get the money in the form of less tax obligation. The US already spends $1.101 trillion on welfare programs, a significant portion of that is wasted in the massive bureaucracy needed to oversee means tested assistance. If it was a simple tax credit with no overhead, that would be over $4,000 per adult per year.

“those on UBI” shows that you are not talking about UBI, because UBI is universal. Elon Musk would get UBI and pay $12,000 less on his taxes, and the single mother working at McDonalds would also pay $12,000 less on her taxes, likely resulting in a tax rebate check. To reiterate, it is literally just a dividend paid for being a “shareholder” of the company that is the United Sates (or whatever other country).

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#62

Post by ninalanyon »

muth02446 wrote: post #45
dwighttk wrote: post #24

In Alaska you have UBI and it comes from the state selling oil… where does the money come from for pie-in the-sky U BI?

Aren't there other oil-rich nations that essentially have UBI and could serve as a data point.

Not any that are in other important ways comparable. Kuwait has it I think.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#63

Post by sn9 »

Mithriil wrote: post #53
mertbio wrote: post #10

If people are paying a significant portion of their salaries, one-third or even half, towards rent, does it truly make sense to implement UBI? In my opinion, the answer is no. Instead, we should focus on establishing a Universal Basic Land: https://mertbulan.com/2025/03/02/we-need-universal-basic-lan...

It seems to me that receiving a piece of land could be a liability. Some probably likes the freedom to choose where they live. Thus receiving money that one uses to pay rent is better than receiving by lottery a piece of land in the middle of nowhere. Some pieces of land live under municipal/regional rules that forces the user to take care of it in some way (build, prune trees, etc.) An option to choose UB land or UB…

Maybe funding CBI with a land value tax.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#64

Post by antisthenes »

veltas wrote: post #49
mandmandam wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is focused on how the rich are getting richer. This is inevitable in liberal societies. The goal should instead be to stop the poor getting poorer These things are fundamentally connected. When the wealthy have too much power, they squeeze the middle and the poor too hard. Unlike much else in life, the pool of money is a zero-sum game (though this is addressed in the paper, notably). When 3 Americans hold…

Focusing on 'wealth inequality' usually leads to policies that hurt the economy, and make us all poorer, and actually increase the inequality. It hurts poor people more than the rich when we make bad economic decisions, and this paper proposes just such a decision. What can we do that won't backfire? We need a strong economy to help poor people.

> Focusing on 'wealth inequality' usually leads to policies that hurt the economy

When was the last time focusing on 'wealth inequality' was done in earnest? Not any time recently, given the complete lack of anti-trust regulation and the gutting of most unions and pensions.

Can you describe some of these policies with historical sources, please?

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#65

Post by notepad0x90 »

mihaic wrote: post #18
notepad0x90 wrote: post #4

I really wish people would learn to keep emotion out of this topic. There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?". Not: "Does this feel like the best use of our tax dollars?". Show me how much UBI saves police departments, social welfare services, the health-care system,etc.. and how many new tax paying consumers it produces. Is it a reliable investment on people or is it a po…

I think it's even rational to not keep emotion completely out of something like this, since UBI is not meant to maximize economic output, it's meant to improve the quality of life for most people. In order to asses how that quality of life can be improved, it's necessary to treat humans as humans, and not as some automatons for which a specific KPI needs to be maximized. Any proper assessment of quality of life has t…

This take is too far removed from reality. There isn't even a good minimum wage for people who want to and can actually work. employment laws are too much against workers and for employers. there are endless social issues that require funding, why would UBI be a good idea given all that?

Yeah, treat humans as humans. the disabled, the elderly, the mentally ill, those who can't care for themselves, they should get help first right? Some situations are not zero-sum, this however is a zero-sum situation where UBI is funded by tax payers who would rather see their money spent elsewhere.

Either it is a general solution that addresses many social issues or it is a welfare program. If it is welfare then it needs to reflect society's appetite on who should get assistance. I do think even when the scope is narrow, it is better than what we have today where you really have to fight tooth and nail and surrender your privacy and dignity to get things like food stamps. But wealth distribution itself needs a huge shake up as well as a dramatic increase in taxation before UBI can be practical at a national level.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#66

Post by ElevenLathe »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #4

I really wish people would learn to keep emotion out of this topic. There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?". Not: "Does this feel like the best use of our tax dollars?". Show me how much UBI saves police departments, social welfare services, the health-care system,etc.. and how many new tax paying consumers it produces. Is it a reliable investment on people or is it a po…

The emotional valence of a policy does actually matter, since you have to sell it to voters (or whoever is in charge in a society). Technocratic governance is not a stable way to run society, as the last 30 years have shown. Any political agenda with a hope of being enacted needs to stir the heart in order to have any hope competing against others. The fact that a policy is provably a good idea and would make everyone better off in a theoretical world where everyone went along with it, is not even necessary let alone sufficient for it to become a real policy.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#67

Post by creer »

jimnotgym wrote: post #2

I'm interested in this as a faster intervention than QE. $10 given to a low income family will likely be spent that week. $10 of QE will just sit on somebodies balance sheet. Understanding BI as a tool of monetary policy seems to remove the ideologically charged view we see when it is considered as part of the welfare state

> I'm interested in this as a faster intervention than QE.

But BI / UBI's usual argument is that because it would be long term and reliable, it would allow the recipients to make long term choices. Such as taking on an occupation they like rather than one that pays better.

If you make this an intervention medium, you loose this predictability.

The intervention style you discuss has been used during the Covid crisis: just mail checks to people based on last known year income. That's always available. It's not a question of basic income.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#68

Post by jdlshore »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #38
vintermann wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Show me how much UBI saves police departments, social welfare services, the health-care system, etc Sure, people can do that, but remember that it's impossible to measure wealth without distributional concerns. Whenever you ask "will this make us richer", there's an implied wealth distribution in the question, since what's valuable depends on who has money.

I'm asking more in the lines of "will this sort of and roughly make for its cost by savings elsewhere, resulting in minimal cost to tax payers?"

Generally speaking, it reduces the cost of welfare programs by replacing complex need-specific bureaucracies with a simple blanket payment. Food stamps go away, for example, assuming a large enough payment. Similar for low-income housing, government cheese, Medicaid, etc. (Again, depending on the payment.)

So the total cost to government is lower, but probably not enough that the costs of the program are covered. Beyond that, it’s a wealth redistribution program. Wealthy and/or high-income earners pay more tax so that low-income earners get a net benefit.

The argument in favor is that the wealthy paying more tax is a net positive to society, because $3000 is worth more to someone earning $20K/yr than it is to someone earning $500K per year.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#69

Post by bsenftner »

542354234235 wrote: post #61
bsenftner wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People receiving UBI will have any additional income they generate deducted from UBI. This is human nature. I do not personally feel that people receiving financial aid is parasitism, but I do understand that is what it will be called by it's opponents, and they have the power to frame public opinion far more than the proponents of UBI. I do not see the points advocating UBI realistically addressing how every day dir…

>People receiving UBI will have any additional income they generate deducted from UBI. This is human nature. Putting “this is human nature” as the full stop explanation tells me nothing and convinces me of nothing. How is Alaska’s UBI deducted based on income? That just isn’t how UBI works and not what UBI is. Same with your statement that it will be for “only certain approved things” which is not UBI, but means test…

The math does not work for UBI to exist at all, and all I see are wishful unrealistic thinking that might work in a more mature civilization we do not live within.

Re: Calibrated Basic Income by Derek Van Gorder [pdf]

#70

Post by 542354234235 »

bsenftner wrote: post #69
542354234235 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People receiving UBI will have any additional income they generate deducted from UBI. This is human nature. Putting “this is human nature” as the full stop explanation tells me nothing and convinces me of nothing. How is Alaska’s UBI deducted based on income? That just isn’t how UBI works and not what UBI is. Same with your statement that it will be for “only certain approved things” which is not UBI, but means test…

The math does not work for UBI to exist at all, and all I see are wishful unrealistic thinking that might work in a more mature civilization we do not live within.

All I see is you making sweeping claims no justification or any information, data, or anything at all to back it up. Saying "The math doesn't work" when we literally could convert current welfare to $4 grand a year for every American adult as UBI means you are just flat out wrong.
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