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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

#621

Post by Grishnakh »

prostoalex wrote: post #538
brightball wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it work you'd have to take whatever the amount is and extract it from all other government benefit programs. You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. Your social security, welfare, unemployment, disability, etc is reduced by $700 / month. Reducing all of those programs by the first $700 would effectively gut each of them enough to finally make some reforms without inducing panic in everyone…

> You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. Your social security, welfare, unemployment, disability, etc is reduced by $700 / month. What happens to Medicare under that scenario? Some medical procedures, particularly for old people, can exceed that. Current federal government revenues top out at $3 trillion. Dividing it by a rough population number of 300 million (and ignoring the fact that portion o…

Medicare and UBI would have to be separate programs, just like Social Security and Medicare are today. Poor old people living off of Social Security don't pay their medical bills out-of-pocket, they have Medicare to pay for them.

In a system with UBI, we'd really need to have universal healthcare ("Medicare for all"). Someone making only the basic income isn't going to have any money for sky-high Obamacare premiums, and would likely be on Medicaid. But that whole system is a complete mess, with a lot of people unable to afford Obamacare because their state didn't expand Medicaid enrollment. And now with one of the biggest insurance companies pulling out of the Obamacare exchanges, rates are going to skyrocket even more. There's only two solutions to this: 1) repeal Obamacare and change to a system where people who have no insurance are denied healthcare and are left outside the ER to die on the street, or 2) universal healthcare.

The way politics are going in this country, I predict we'll see #1 before we see #2.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#622

Post by alehander42 »

Aoyagi wrote: post #537
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.

Well since you just bulked Czechia, Poland and Germany into one group, I can understand how you fail to see it. Since you mentioned Germany, I'll use that. A Czech earns about a third of what a German earns. But everything costs more or less the same (except for housing, but the difference certainly isn't multiples). Gasoline costs the same (and much more than in US), vast majority of consumer goods costs the same, f…

Oh, I did it intentionally. I live in Bulgaria and the situation is similar. However my definition of 2nd world is just different, that's all.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#623

Post by brightball »

notahacker wrote: post #371
brightball wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it work you'd have to take whatever the amount is and extract it from all other government benefit programs. You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. Your social security, welfare, unemployment, disability, etc is reduced by $700 / month. Reducing all of those programs by the first $700 would effectively gut each of them enough to finally make some reforms without inducing panic in everyone…

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…

By bipartisan support, I mean that if you want to get a basic income to appeal to people on the right you can appeal to existing branding. FairTax is just a basic income with a smaller stipend. Brand it that way. When you co-brand it with the ability to gut a lot of existing federal programs so that they can be reformed without inducing panic that will also garner support.

Consumption tax paired with a BI would significantly raise the offset at which it starts to affect people.

Things that hurt the middle class much worse than a consumption tax are an income tax that is a percentage and continually increases in that percentage until the percentage caps at the point that most people would call "incredibly wealthy" (IMO).

The perk to something like a Fair Tax is that it's also an economic solution to illegal immigration. If you're in the country, you're paying taxes. If you're legal, you're getting the BI/stipend. If you're illegal you are basically paying to be here. It guts a big portion of the cost argument.

A FairTax + Basic Income hybrid solution could solve a vast majority of hotly debated issues in this country.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#624

Post by brightball »

throwanem wrote: post #391
brightball wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it work you'd have to take whatever the amount is and extract it from all other government benefit programs. You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. Your social security, welfare, unemployment, disability, etc is reduced by $700 / month. Reducing all of those programs by the first $700 would effectively gut each of them enough to finally make some reforms without inducing panic in everyone…

> You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. I thought the idea was that it be enough to live on.

Depending where you live 'enough to live on' will vary. I lived on about $700 / month pretty happily for 4 years in college. Doesn't need to be a desirable long term amount but it does need to solve the problem of the unemployment trade off, namely that if you're getting unemployment and you get a job you lose it. A BI needs to simply ensure that you have a base level and if you get some work, you make more money...period.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#626

Post by aninhumer »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #334
nkohari wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will always be work that some find unglamorous but has to be done. I doubt that garbage collectors see their job as a higher calling or a passion, and yet without solid waste collection society would literally collapse. Somehow, you're assigning lesser intrinsic value to lawn mowing than you are to (eg.) jobs in STEM. Society may have assigned a lesser monetary value to it, but that's a function of supply and d…

I bet you anything there are people who love collecting garbage. Driving huge trucks, being in tune with the scale of human life, seeing the guts of the city, routine... some people love that kind of thing. Where I'm from, there are people who go around picking up trash at the local park out of personal fulfillment in their spare time. They enjoy making the park beautiful. Where do you read me assigning more value to…

I think the mere fact that someone knows they don't need their job to survive can help them enjoy it a lot more.

Also I think a side effect of Basic Income will be greatly increased quality of jobs, because I'd imagine for a lot of jobs, making them less shitty is a lot more attractive for the cost than a higher wage.

For example, a lot of service jobs have polices of putting up with extremely obnoxious behaviour, because it marginally increases revenue at the expense of the employee's sanity, which is effectively free. But if you're not quite as desperate for a job, you're much more able to price that in, and choose to work for less at the restaurant next door, that lets you tell jerks to GTFO.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#627

Post by Spooky23 »

mcv wrote: post #487
Spooky23 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why should we keep paying people for unnecessary bullshit jobs? Because human services jobs employ thousands of people (a state like New York has 40k+ people in public sector social services and at least that many private sector) and control thousands of votes. Democrats will have a hard time supporting it, because those unionized workers will get them voted out. It's also very telling about what "basic income" real…

But why employ that many people to do something we don't need, when you could also employ them to do something more productive?

I'm arguing with the notion that basic income will magically solve all problems.

If you study the history of social welfare at all, you'll find that handing out cash was tried before and failed dismally for a variety of reasons.

Additionally, poor people often deeply resent cash handouts and the recipients of them. Housing aid, food stamps, etc are seen as a help vs a handout.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#628

Post by chadzawistowski »

mmanfrin wrote: post #551
brightball wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it work you'd have to take whatever the amount is and extract it from all other government benefit programs. You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. Your social security, welfare, unemployment, disability, etc is reduced by $700 / month. Reducing all of those programs by the first $700 would effectively gut each of them enough to finally make some reforms without inducing panic in everyone…

If you were to implement the Fair Tax, which includes a stipend for basic needs, you'd get bipartisan support as well Poe's Law is pinging.

I think the comment was earnest. Check out this article: http://www.vox.com/2015/4/2/8332115/rubio-lee-basic-income

  It's called the FairTax, and it would replace nearly all federal taxes with
  a 30 percent national sales tax. That on its own is a regressive idea —
  low-income people spend more of their incomes than the rich do, so would pay
  a greater share of their incomes in sales tax — so the FairTax would give
  each household a "prebate" equivalent to the sales tax they'd pay on
  poverty-level spending. For example, in 2013 the FairTax "consumption
  allowance" for a family of four (two parents, two kids) was $31,020. If you
  spent that much money in a FairTax world, $7,135 of it would go to federal
  sales taxes. So the FairTax provides a $7,135 annual rebate to families of
  four, distributed monthly.

  Make no mistake: this is a basic income. There is no work requirement. You
  get it regardless of whether you make any money. It is a straight-up basic
  income. FairTaxers object to this characterization, saying that because the
  prebate is meant to compensate for taxes you pay on necessities, it's "your
  money being returned to you." But if you live below the poverty level, you
  come out ahead from the rebate. It's just a cash transfer program.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#629

Post by Spooky23 »

wtbob wrote: post #269
Spooky23 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why should we keep paying people for unnecessary bullshit jobs? Because human services jobs employ thousands of people (a state like New York has 40k+ people in public sector social services and at least that many private sector) and control thousands of votes. Democrats will have a hard time supporting it, because those unionized workers will get them voted out. It's also very telling about what "basic income" real…

> Conservatives don't give a shit about social welfare, this is just another scheme to enrich their pals and undermine the social safety net. Huh?! That makes no sense: how is giving everyone a sufficient income to survive undermining the social safety net? How is increasing taxes on the wealthy enriching their pals?

It will allow property owners to pull in higher rents and ultimately reduce the availability of things needed to support children -- good food, healthcare, etc.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#630

Post by zyxley »

DominikR wrote: post #609
zyxley wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which isn't nice but this certainly isn't death! It took me literally five seconds of searching to find a study [1] that notes that homeless people in the UK have a death rate that starts at twice that of people with homes and increases up to six times that of people with homes with age. [1]: http://www.crisis.org.uk/data/files/publications/Homelessnes...

This isn't surprising considering the alcohol/drug abuse and crime among homeless people. The reason why their death rate is higher is their state of mind. It causes them to not take that crappy job that barely affords them a normal life and can potentially open up new perspectives for the future and instead choose to do nothing and hang out with the wrong people until it is too late and they end up on the street. I…

Are you really trying to claim that literally every homeless person is a drug-abusing criminal?
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