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This basic income crowdfunding campaign reached its goal in less than 48 hours

funding.basicincome2013.eu

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Re: This basic income crowdfunding campaign reached its goal in less than 48 hours

#61

Post by kfk »

JanezStupar wrote: post #29
kfk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And let's not forget how racist we (Europe) become when it comes to immigration from these poor countries. I have a proposal, let's open the gates of Europe to everybody that doesn't have a criminal record.

I admire your idealism. However you forget that poor countries have high levels of corruption which makes any kinds of records they keep dubious at best. Poor countries will have to commit on working out their issues on their own. We must help them, but there is no way we can do it for them. On a positive note, global trends show that poverty is constantly decreasing and that equality is rising. Slowly but steadily.

How can you let them grow if in Europe we strongly protect things like agriculture or we make things artificially expensive with copyrights and the like. I mean, what can these people do?

Re: This basic income crowdfunding campaign reached its goal in less than 48 hours

#62

Post by transfire »

sz4kerto wrote: post #4

"Unconditional basic income is a new form of total social security for all citizens. It’s an unconditional monthly sum, paid out to by the government to every citizen - rich or poor, old or young, employed or unemployed." Well, they should have written "Unconditional basic income is a new form of total social security for all citizens. It’s an unconditional monthly sum, taken from taxpayers and paid out to every citi…

The point isn't about money being "taken from taxpayers". They are already doing that regardless!

The point is would you rather have that money fed through an expensive, heavily bureaucratic and often corrupt means-tested welfare system, or would you rather just have it all distributed to everyone equally with nearly zero overhead and no means left for abuse or misuse.

I think the answer is obvious.

Re: This basic income crowdfunding campaign reached its goal in less than 48 hours

#63

Post by AnthonyMouse »

sz4kerto wrote: post #16
jaibot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Combined with some progressive taxation this works out to be massively more efficient and helpful than most other forms of welfare. Replace foodstamps/subsidized housing/unemployment-insurance/myriad-of-other-safety-net-programs with a basic guaranteed income and everyone is better off. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income .

I might agree. However, most people will want basic income as an extra, not as a replacement. I would bet a significant amount on that (i.e. basic income being popular only until poor people figure out what are they going to lose). The masses don't like taking care of themselves. Not even if they get 'free' money for that.

Any proposed government program that causes the net wealth of any distinct group of people to increase or decrease is going to be supported or opposed by various people for self-interested reasons. But the point is not to to wage war over who steals money from someone else and gives it to themselves by way of government bureaucracy, the point is to do something that results in a net benefit to society, for example by reducing the disincentive to work created by the discontinuation of government benefits when one finds gainful employment. The net result of that is to reduce unemployment and underemployment, which increases the tax base and allows a given level of government services to be provided at a lower tax rate (or an increased level of government services to be provided at the same tax rate, depending on your policy preferences).

Re: This basic income crowdfunding campaign reached its goal in less than 48 hours

#64

Post by JackFr »

JanezStupar wrote: post #29
kfk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And let's not forget how racist we (Europe) become when it comes to immigration from these poor countries. I have a proposal, let's open the gates of Europe to everybody that doesn't have a criminal record.

I admire your idealism. However you forget that poor countries have high levels of corruption which makes any kinds of records they keep dubious at best. Poor countries will have to commit on working out their issues on their own. We must help them, but there is no way we can do it for them. On a positive note, global trends show that poverty is constantly decreasing and that equality is rising. Slowly but steadily.

If equality is the goal, this proposal looks like a good way to make Europe poorer FTW.

Re: This basic income crowdfunding campaign reached its goal in less than 48 hours

#65

Post by JackFr »

JanezStupar wrote: post #55
JackFr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially because we can afford it. You mean you can afford it. How do you know if I can afford it? By necessity, to implement this, you've got to take money from people and give it to other people. Your assumption is that by rights any one in the category of those losing money, is making so much that they lack any moral claim to it.

We already do that. Throughout Europe we take 40-50% of personal income + taxing corporations to fund common good programs. I will argue that we needn't take any more than we take currently. Expecting that taxes would drop because of BI is ludicrous. However less of our money may be wasted and more of the needy may be served. You don't need to trust my word. Run some numbers[1]. [1]: https://googledrive.com/host/0B68…

Fair point. Still not sure it's such a great idea though...

Re: This basic income crowdfunding campaign reached its goal in less than 48 hours

#66

Post by jiggy2011 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #56
jiggy2011 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that not everybody's costs are the same. A disabled person may have much higher living costs due to needing additional care and special equipment to help them, they also have less chance of gaining employment in order to increase that income. Also consider costs of living/housing etc. For example an unemployed programmer might be better off staying somewhere like SF where costs are higher because they…

>The problem is that not everybody's costs are the same. A disabled person may have much higher living costs due to needing additional care and special equipment to help them, they also have less chance of gaining employment in order to increase that income. This would seem to be the case regardless of the type of government assistance provided. Suppose we provide enough that a disabled person can live a dignified, i…

The point is more than a disabled person will require a higher subsidy to attain the same standard of living. The differences can be enormous.

A non-disabled person can walk or cycle around the city to pick-up groceries whereas a disabled person might need a specially modified vehicle or may require the services of another person. Subsidizing everyone to the same amount as required by the most disabled of people would be unsustainable.

I guess by the second point I mean the short term unemployed more than the "poor" per se. Consider a person who has just graduated from a university in SF and wants to remain there while they look for a job in SV. If they can't afford this , they might have to move to a poor area with less opportunity.

Optimistically it might produce more opportunities elsewhere if there is an influx of educated people, but pessimistically it might mean that those who are independently wealthy are the only ones who can take the risk of living in SF.

Re: This basic income crowdfunding campaign reached its goal in less than 48 hours

#67

Post by JanezStupar »

JackFr wrote: post #65
JanezStupar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already do that. Throughout Europe we take 40-50% of personal income + taxing corporations to fund common good programs. I will argue that we needn't take any more than we take currently. Expecting that taxes would drop because of BI is ludicrous. However less of our money may be wasted and more of the needy may be served. You don't need to trust my word. Run some numbers[1]. [1]: https://googledrive.com/host/0B68…

Fair point. Still not sure it's such a great idea though...

I am not sure either. However I think that it is absolutely necessary to test it out in practice.

Re: This basic income crowdfunding campaign reached its goal in less than 48 hours

#68

Post by JackFr »

transfire wrote: post #53
jrkatz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To construct a trivial example, say we give every citizen $2000 a month in post-tax basic income. Of course, most citizens have jobs and other sources of income. To make math easier, assume this government has a flat income tax of 20% If you earn $0, you are pay $0 in tax and get $2000 in basic income. If you earn $9000, you pay $1800 in taxes and get $2000 in basic income, netting you $200. Basic income washes at $1…

FYI, for the States at least, $2000/mo is too high. It always strikes me... I don't think people who make good money often understand just how poor most people really are. The lower 50% of U.S. tax payers only average around $15,000/yr. If I were to guess, approx. 50% of the poverty level would make a good peg. I also think parent should get additional allowances for no more than two children. That said, the system h…

Parents should get no allowance for any children, and children should get the same benefit as everyone else.

Re: This basic income crowdfunding campaign reached its goal in less than 48 hours

#69

Post by AnthonyMouse »

weddpros wrote: post #59
sz4kerto wrote: post #4

"Unconditional basic income is a new form of total social security for all citizens. It’s an unconditional monthly sum, paid out to by the government to every citizen - rich or poor, old or young, employed or unemployed." Well, they should have written "Unconditional basic income is a new form of total social security for all citizens. It’s an unconditional monthly sum, taken from taxpayers and paid out to every citi…

There's a logic problem with Basic Income. They want people to think either: 1- it will help me earn more (because I make less than the BI) 2- it won't change anything for me (because I already make more than the BI) But obviously, these two assertions can't be true at the same time. Instead they should think either : 1- it won't change a thing 2- it won't change a thing (so why do it?) OR 1- it will help me earn mor…

Basic income doesn't inherently require taxes to increase, especially if you measure it as taxes paid less government benefits received. You're thinking of things in class warfare terms -- someone else gets more money from the government therefore I get less or pay more. Any program that works on that principle is just redistribution of wealth, or naked corruption.

The benefit of a basic income is that it changes incentives. In the existing system you lose government benefits if you take a job, so if the only job you can get pays low wages you have a significantly reduced incentive to seek employment. Higher unemployment means lower tax revenues, lower economic growth, etc. Fighting that is why a basic income is superior to means tested government assistance.

Re: This basic income crowdfunding campaign reached its goal in less than 48 hours

#70

Post by AnthonyMouse »

achy wrote: post #54

The problem I envision with a basic income model is that it could have an inflationary effect - shifting the baseline. The only way this doesn't happen is if our basic income economies exploit non basic income economies - and even this wouldn't prevent housing, energy, and (non artificially) scarce items from inflation.

Why do you expect inflation? Inflation only occurs if the source of the money comes from creating currency. If it comes from taxation then you're not increasing aggregate demand at all, you're just eliminating the large disincentive to seeking employment created by the discontinuation of government benefits if you succeed.
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