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It Is Time For Basic Income

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Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#601

Post by cwp »

fishy929 wrote: post #566
nkoren wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it would be cheaper to use a machine to build the bridge, give the money you save to the people, and then let them add value to society in some other way.

But the economy doesn't want them, or is unable to utilize them under present conditions. Eating what you have in front of you is still more filling than waiting (or letting someone wait) for that next, bigger meal. Of course, that also doesn't mean we shouldn't eliminate the incentives that contribute to inefficiencies being preferable. There are plenty of scenarios where people are employed to dig a proverbial hole…

He said "let them add value to society", not the economy. The two are not synonymous. If the economy is unable to make use of them under present conditions, then giving them a job is useless. Giving them a basic income lets them make non-economic contributions to society.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#602

Post by eli_gottlieb »

bcheung wrote: post #292
orthecreedence wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the type of attitude that hinders progress, and for no apparent reason. News flash: you're already rewarding people who sit around doing nothing with your tax dollars. GBI does the same, but at reduced overhead. Starting a business is hard. Starting a business while working full time is near impossible. It's not about laziness or incompetence. You just don't get the same business opportunities you do when wor…

I'm opposed to rewarding those who sit around and do nothing period, including the current system. Yes, starting a business is hard. So? All I'm hearing is excuses. I'm not saying do things that put you in indentured servitude. Debt is a tool that can be used to great effect but used unwisely it can make life harder. Unless it makes sense financially people are better not incurring college loans and educating themsel…

> I'm opposed to rewarding those who sit around and do nothing period, including the current system.

Excellent! Welcome to the Socialist Party! Time to put the lazy, nonworking ownership class up against the wall!

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#603

Post by jes5199 »

TaulantRamabaja wrote: post #589
jes5199 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

okay, I have a pitch for an MVP. It's an independent organization that functions as a voluntary tax collection. Everybody who believes in basic income signs up for it, and makes a monthly donation. At the end of each month, we divide the total pot of all donations by the number of users: if you need the money, you withdraw your portion. If you don't need it, you can leave it in, so that the next month's pot will be b…

incomethax already mentioned that this is essentially supplemental insurance. Basic Income is needed because while productivity increases the ownership of these productivity increases are centralizing in the hands of a few. Through system-effects these centralization are leading to further rent seeking than could have happened before. To give an example. It is game theoretically highly likely that there can only be o…

While I agree with you that rent-seekers have more concentrated wealth than us merely overpaid people, I don't know how to voluntarily separate those people from their money.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#604

Post by nkoren »

eanzenberg wrote: post #586
nkoren wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, your math is entirely wrong. Let's use the same numbers as you: 300M people, $20k each, only 50M people who actually "need" it. In the BI scenario, 250M people are paying for the cost of program (since the 50M who actually "need" it presumably can't pay). That's $6B / 250m = $24,000 per person. However, each of those people is also receiving $20,000 worth of BI. Therefore, the cost to them is $24,000 - $20,…

How do you decide the "50M who actually 'need' it" with vastly less overhead? There is a cost to run the IRS and determine (correctly) peoples income. Furthermore, a 4k tax on 250M of the U.S. could be crippling to a good chunk of them. If your true point is redistribution of wealth, our tax system already does that and can do it more. But that's a different discussion..

You don't decide. The point of Basic Income is that it's unconditional and universal. If somebody can prove they're a citizen, they get the BI, no need to determine their income.

As for a $4k tax being "crippling to a good chunk of them" -- no, you misunderstand the nature of BI. If we're paying $20k worth of BI in this scenario, then the mean income should be about $40k (since a good level for BI -- in basically any economy -- is about 50% of the mean). We could then support a flat $20k/person BI with a flat 50% earned-income tax. This means that the payments and receipts, per person would look like this:

  Income    Tax   +BI    Net    Effective tax rate
  $0       -$0    $20k   $20k   N/A
  $10k     -$5k   $20k   $15k   N/A
  $20k     -$10k  $20k   $10k   N/A
  $30k     -$15k  $20k   $5k    N/A
  $40k     -$20k  $20k   $0     N/A
  $50k     -$25k  $20k  -$5k    10%
  $60k     -$30k  $20k  -$10k   15%
  ...
  $100k    -$50k  $20k  -$30k   30%
  ...
  $1,000k  -$500k $20k  -$490k  49%
As you can see, people making the mean income or less would make nothing at all. People making moderately more than the mean income would pay a little bit, but no more than they currently pay to support benefits programs. The only people paying a lot would be the people who could afford it.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#605

Post by eli_gottlieb »

ahomescu1 wrote: post #149
rjtavares wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current mess is not only poorly implemented, it's based on false assumptions. We just need to stop pretending there's something wrong with people not being able to find a decent job, and stop punishing them.

You should also look at it from the other side: if I have a job that I work at 8-10 hours a day (and might not do if I didn't need the money), how am I "punishing" the other guy by not sharing the fruits of my labor with him for nothing in return? EDIT: To put it another way: if I'm a productive worker and have a job, I am "rewarded" by working for a boss (taking orders from him/her), and having to turn over 35-50% o…

> You should also look at it from the other side: if I have a job that I work at 8-10 hours a day (and might not do if I didn't need the money), how am I "punishing" the other guy by not sharing the fruits of my labor with him for nothing in return?

The question itself is incorrect. Low-paid workers or the unemployed are not parasites on highly-paid workers; the capitalist class is a parasite on all workers, no matter the salary, and through their control over government they continually engineer a level of unemployment that can suppress wages.

(If you don't believe me about the government, look up how inflation targeting works. Central banks are supposed to target both low unemployment and low inflation, but for the past several decades, the deliberate policy choice has been to consistently sacrifice wage growth (ie: exploit workers harder) in order to maintain both low inflation and economic growth at the same time.)

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#606

Post by herokusaki »

bcheung wrote: post #432
stcredzero wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So since this is HN... is there any way to get to an MVP without having a sovereign state to experiment with? Generally, any communal institution either develops rules and mechanisms to prevent freeloading, or has an authority who acts to prevent such. Almost all of them succumb to a "Tragedy of the Commons" dynamic in terms of some aspect of quality of life. That said, there are some institutions that are identified…

The Sea Steading Institute aims to lower the barrier of entry to creating your own sovereign nation. One of the core ideas is that if we have lots of small nations people can do these experiments and find out.

How close are they to a "demo version"?

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#607

Post by dragonwriter »

chimeracoder wrote: post #598
31reasons wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its like applying plaster to an uneven wall. The dents gets filled with plaster but the bumps stays at the same level! Its much better than giving tax breaks since you need income to begin with.

Two things: > Its much better than giving tax breaks since you need income to begin with. 1. There is a difference between refundable and non-refundable tax credits. A big misconception is that tax breaks only help those who already have income exceeding the size of the credit, which is not necessarily true. Second, > Its like applying plaster to an uneven wall. The dents gets filled with plaster but the bumps stays…

> A big misconception is that tax breaks only help those who already have income exceeding the size of the credit, which is not necessarily true.

Its actually always misleading, its just which way it is misleading varies.

For non-refundable credits, a credit only helps if your tax liability (not income) is greater than zero, and only provide full value if the tax liability is at least as big as the credit.

For a refundable credit, it gives full value all the time (well, independent of tax liability -- the eligibility criteria for the credit itself matter.)

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#608

Post by eli_gottlieb »

nirnira wrote: post #412
orthecreedence wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't give them money. Stopped. How would you go about doing this? Who gets money and who doesn't? Is a single mother raising 3 kids lazy? Is an artist who works night and day and gets pennies in return lazy? There's a lot of overhead in deciding this. A lot . > That fact that other people won't buy their work is not a problem of other people. It's their problem. So, my point that art is only worth it's value to th…

>Who gets money and who doesn't? Easy question. Nobody. Stop all government welfare and redistribution. Sever the dependence of unproductive citizens on the productive. Return to each citizen their natural right to freely distribute their resources. End all perverse incentives. And force each citizen to provide for themselves through the value they can offer to other freely-choosing citizens in consensual trade relat…

Why would we want to live in a dog-eat-dog survivalist dystopia straight out of an '80s cyberpunk novel?

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#609

Post by eli_gottlieb »

haldujai wrote: post #499
TheLegace wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you need to see what Dr. Danielle Martin[1] a Canadian doctor had to say when she testified to the U.S. Senate defending the Canadian system. The reference was to Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams’ controversial 2010 decision to undergo heart surgery at a Miami hospital. “It’s actually interesting,” replied Dr. Martin, “because in fact the people who are the pioneers of that particular surgery … are in Toro…

As a Canadian in the healthcare field perhaps I can chime in as well. When you talk about Canadian healthcare, it is a provincially run program (not federal) so let's talk about it at the provincial level. As I am an Ontario resident I'll be discussing this from an Ontario perspective, talking about all of the provinces and their differences would entail several posts. Ontaio is currently going to institute (or plans…

>The US has a system that rewards exceptionalism and excellence, the Canadian system generally rewards mediocrity (this is even evidence in other fields such as law and even academia).

That sounds like a Polandball-grade national stereotype, and I'd really prefer to hear some justification.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#610

Post by 31reasons »

chimeracoder wrote: post #598
31reasons wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its like applying plaster to an uneven wall. The dents gets filled with plaster but the bumps stays at the same level! Its much better than giving tax breaks since you need income to begin with.

Two things: > Its much better than giving tax breaks since you need income to begin with. 1. There is a difference between refundable and non-refundable tax credits. A big misconception is that tax breaks only help those who already have income exceeding the size of the credit, which is not necessarily true. Second, > Its like applying plaster to an uneven wall. The dents gets filled with plaster but the bumps stays…

>>In this analogy, where is the plaster coming from? It can't just come from nowhere[0].

Moore's Law, AI , other technological advances. Some bumps are producing way too much paster thats oozing out of the wall boundaries and into the emerging market wall of other countries.

Imagine a time in future when everyone is replaced by robots and no one is "employable" in a traditional sense. What would you do then? The economy is directly linked to the productivity of nations in producing goods and services , it has nothing to do with human effort directly.

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