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Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

reuters.com

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Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#641

Post by shimman »

pests wrote: post #217
Sl1mb0 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where we're at huh?

What is cheaper? A) The government building an entire logistical supply and warehousing chain across the country for groceries to support food welfare. Cold food, meat, spoilage & waste, a bunch of federal jobs. or B) The government gives citizens a bit of money, which they then spend at existing warehouses (with existing logistical supply chains) to buy food. Some existing warehouses will accumulate larger shares of…

The military is able to provide groceries nearly 20-50% cheaper than every private retailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQOXdtPBGXI

Seems like the it IS cheaper for the government to do it, odd how much better prices can be when you don't have to worry about making sure the fat cats stay fat.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#642

Post by tt24 »

komali2 wrote: post #498
tt24 wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large margins are not what define theft believe it or not

I'm not sure why taking away money you could spend on goods or put into savings is ok when your boss does it, but not ok when the government does it. At least the government builds you a road in return.

Because one is consensual and the other isn’t.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#643

Post by BryantD »

closewith wrote: post #484
BryantD wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true, but let's not lose track of relative costs. The income program provides €33,800,000 a year (2000 participants, €325 a week, 52 weeks in a year). Double that to account for cost of managing the program -- that seems too high to me, but I want to err on the side of caution for this analysis. Some percentage of that money flows right back into the economy, of course. Meanwhile, ignoring windfall corporate taxe…

The allocation this year is €18m and it goes live in Q4. On a steady-state basis we are likely in the €60–70m range annually. That's not a rounding error. This is an eight-figure recurring commitment. It represents the total lifetime income tax contribution of well over 100 ordinary Irish workers per year. That's not an abstract, it's decades of PAYE from real people. Public finance is about marginal allocation. Many…

Thanks for the more detailed analysis — you clearly have better visibility into specifics than I do as an outsider. I sincerely appreciate the follow up and I agree that the economics should be examined.

I still think there’s value to encouraging the arts that isn’t purely financial, but I don’t think there’s an easy way to answer yes to your last question.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#644

Post by [deleted] »

irishcoffee wrote: post #569
ecshafer wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to be an artist? I want to be an artist now. Is it people who go to certain universities with art degrees? Can any working class guy decide he wants to pursue art and get the basic income? Another question is would Daniel James work have been as good if he wasn't working in an ironworks? In the 1800s most of the great literature was written by normal guys writing on the side, they need that experience to mak…

You're saying the quiet part out loud. Clearly we just need to pay people to "make art" all day long on the backs of taxpayers who will most likely never see the "art" or derive any value from it. "Dad why are you working your hands off? Well... the government decided to pay people to "make art" instead of working. How come? Well... nope I have no fucking idea"

[deleted]

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#645

Post by geriC »

vintermann wrote: post #245
RupertSalt wrote: post #235

In the United States, the National Endowment for the Arts has issued more than 128,000 grants, totaling more than $5 billion, to fund the projects of American artists. These subsidies have not lacked controversy, and were eventually challenged at the Supreme Court level, during the Clinton administration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_the_Art... If you or your parents would like to sample a NSF…

"Universal basic income" for artists: so radical and socialist even the US had it already.

Good, thoughtful post. Excellent point re states taking over from the Church as patrons of the arts. Ironically Catholic commentators and conservatives in general are very critical of arts grants. It's most disingenous of the conservatives who support the business community to point out that these artists are "living off the taxpayers" when almost the entire business community is propped up by social welfare subsidies for their part-time staff.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#646

Post by jmye »

xienze wrote: post #475
jasonkester wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure I'm on record here on HN complaining about receiving covid relief checks that I don't need, and that I would much rather that money went to people who were actually struggling. Personally, I want people on the high end of earnings (such as myself) to be taxed more so that a basic income scheme like this can be available for anybody who wants it. Charge me an extra $300/month and give it to some random…

> Personally, I want people on the high end of earnings (such as myself) to be taxed more so that a basic income scheme like this can be available for anybody who wants it. Charge me an extra $300/month and give it to some random 24 year old so that he can smoke weed and play his guitar. He'll get more use out of it than I will. You know you CAN donate money to the government any time you want, right? Do you do that?…

> You know you CAN donate money to the government any time you want, right? Do you do that? Practice what you preach, don't hide behind "oh if only the government made me do it."

You know we can also advocate for higher taxes, given that it's astronomically more meaningful for everyone to give ten cents than for me to give a few dollars, right? Or did you think this was an insightful, valuable addition to the discussion that no one has ever suggested before? Is this the comment section of a local newspaper? Good god.

> there's loads of people who will take the government up on the offer.

Prove it. How many are loads? What, specifically, do you think UBI actually amounts to?

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#647

Post by BSDobelix »

lc9er wrote: post #595
1234letshaveatw wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now they're forced to serve up some of their awake time to artists

What fraction of that time goes to subsidizing the exponentially wealthier? We could just tax the hell out of the rich and and make better lives for the vast majority of us, while wealth hoarders still get to “win” at the game of life.

That's whataboutism.

>We could just tax the hell out of the rich

Then they leave your country...however if someone could make it international....

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#648

Post by dahart »

closewith wrote: post #608
dahart wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> does only the arts deserve this Baby steps. Everyone deserves it, but getting there in one step is politically impossible almost everywhere in the world. Nobody’s saying only the arts deserve subsidies. It’s just easier to justify. But if we want everyone to have basic income, we need to applaud whenever it happens, even if it’s a small subset, and argue they deserve it and that we should have more of it. Complaini…

> It’s just easier to justify. It definitely isn't. In fact this is so polarising that I wonder if it's an attempt to poison the concept of basic income for decades to come.

Why do you say that? Isn’t the fact that it got approved evidence that it was easier to justify subsidies for artists?

I don’t know what you mean at all, why is this “so polarizing”? A lot of the art world already runs on subsidies, and it’s well known that it’s more difficult to make a living as an artist than your examples of jobs that come with steady pay, even if it’s low. Solo artists don’t get any steady income at all, and many have to take other jobs in order to support their art work. The general public where I live (in the US) is absolutely more willing to fund the arts than to fund generally low paying steady-income jobs, especially steady-income jobs that are already funded via taxes like teachers and firefighters. This is why I claim it’s easier to justify subsidizing artists. What is the reason you claim it’s not easier to justify, and where is the evidence your claim is true?

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#649

Post by plastic-enjoyer »

dontwannahearit wrote: post #429
plastic-enjoyer wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a fairly common argument, but I have yet to see any evidence to support it. In Germany, we are having a similar discussion about the Bürgergeld, i.e. unemployment benefit, which is about people abusing the Bürgergeld to the detriment of taxpayers. However, there is no actual data that show that there are a significant number of people who abuse unemployment benefits in any systematic way. The money that the s…

In the UK since 2019–20, disability benefit spending has grown by 45% in real terms and incapacity benefit spending by 26%. https://ifs.org.uk/publications/health-related-benefit-claim... You can argue that nobody is systematically abusing the system but numbers go up. To those paying the taxes to support these benefits that sort of growth looks like abuse.

> You can argue that nobody is systematically abusing the system but numbers go up. > To those paying the taxes to support these benefits that sort of growth looks like abuse.

Yes, but for 'tax payers' everything looks like abuse until they benefit from the services for which they pay taxes. The favorite hobby of people whose identity is shaped by being a taxpayer is to complain about paying taxes.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#650

Post by nandomrumber »

jodrellblank wrote: post #635
nandomrumber wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like to imagine what they could have done had they been at leisure to work and perform all day. Probably nothing. The idle rich and trust fund kids aren’t exactly know for producing, well, anything of value, really. Getting paid to sit around all day and do fuck-all isn’t exactly character building.

Yes they are. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Independent_scientist... - " An independent scientist (formerly called a gentlemen scientist) is a scientist with a private income who can pursue scientific study independently as they wish without excessive external financial pressures. " Including: Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin (Evolution), Ben Franklin, Robert Boyle (Boyle's gas law), Oliver Heaviside (electrom…

I wouldn’t exactly call any of those people idle.

So you’re kind of refuting something I didn’t say.

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