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It Is Time For Basic Income

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Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#731

Post by ThomPete »

dllthomas wrote: post #730
ThomPete wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was replying to this: "...This one is pretty straightforward. BI disincentivizes work because it stays with you if you stop working. On the common assumption that people are working for the money, not for the joy of showing up, this reduces the penalty for not working, which will cause a rise in... not working..." More specifically this sentence: "...On the common assumption that people are working for the money...…

I think you need to re-read what you wrote in response to that.

No you just need to understand what I am actually saying.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#732

Post by dllthomas »

stretchwithme wrote: post #729
dllthomas wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experiments have been done, and have shown good results. I've no objection to further experimentation, but at some point we should implement the policy that looks best. There is, mathematically speaking, clearly some non-empty set of optimal values for a Basic Income. How confident are you that $0 is in that set, even in the face of argument (from not just the modern left, but also Thomas Paine and Milton Friedman an…

Go for it then. Hope its worth your money.

Yeah, I think you're aware of why you're full of it, here...

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#734

Post by dllthomas »

ThomPete wrote: post #731
dllthomas wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you need to re-read what you wrote in response to that.

No you just need to understand what I am actually saying.

Then please clarify, because it still reads like you were arguing past the post entirely.

You said:

"With BI it always is beneficial to work."

As an aside, this is not quite true - if I value my time more than the wages offered, or if working has associated costs that exceed my wages, it might not be beneficial - but it is certainly the case that you don't wind up with less money because you worked because of BI.

However, more importantly, this doesn't disagree with thaumasiotes's comment and I don't see how it's relevant to the parent discussion.

"Even if you only work for a couple of months a year (for instance picking strawberries) you will make more money than not doing anything."

This is true, and a great advantage that BI has over conditional transfers or assistance. It's still not actually relevant to the parent's point. Absent BI, this is still the case, and the incentive will be higher.

"So if anything BI incentives people to work even if only for once in a while."

This seems entirely false, in terms of anything that was presented here. It is the case that people remain incentivized, but it is not the BI that 8provides* that incentive. The change due to introducing BI is that paid work is less incentivized, which is the same as saying "BI disincentivizes work."

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#735

Post by eanzenberg »

stcredzero wrote: post #728
eanzenberg wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition underlies capitalism. Why do you think scientists want to publish in the best journals like science and nature? There is a healthy amount of competition in science too. It's what drives people to get into the academy, or get awards like the Nobel. It's what creates great science, but it also creates politics in research. There's a number of parallels between capitalism and academic research.

So there has to be a requisite degree of suffering on the bottom-end to motivate the population to compete to better their station? Is that the society-scale version of "The beatings will continue until morale improves?" Well, on a more serious note, it would be, "The subtle resource starvation will continue until you become more valuable and productive." Would the "lower classes" in academia lacking health care resu…

The lines are set by supply and demand. It's the reason why I got paid doing a STEM graduate degree, while someone in the arts or history would not.

"The subtle resource starvation will continue until you become more valuable and productive."

Yes, and this is the reason society improves over time. Drastically so.

In other words, it is little value to me if you decide to pursue art history because there are enough art historians in supply. You would need to out-compete ones with greater experience than you to make a living. It doesn't help society to add +1 to that pool. On the other hand, it is quite valuable to pursue a STEM degree because the skills, research, and knowledge you attain are in demand.

The system, works. Society improves over time, and everyone is rewarded. Everyone is(should be) thankful.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#736

Post by eanzenberg »

nitrogen wrote: post #637
yummyfajitas wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going with your numbers, if a basic jobber costs $7.25/hour and they produce $0.30 worth of value, the Basic Job pays for it's own overhead. And of course, $1T I must commend you on actually thinking things through carefully and checking if, numerically, a policy is remotely plausible. It's so rare to see on threads like this.

You don't actually need all $6T, because most people will be paying taxes that equal or exceed what they receive from BI. You mentioned earlier that BI disincentivizes work. How so? It seems to me that it would not, because the basic income doesn't disappear the instant you start working even a little bit.

You will cause entrepreneurs and job-creaters to leave the country. The U.S. isn't in a bubble. Why would someone making 6 or more figures want to be taxed 60%+ for their work?

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#737

Post by iopq »

justinreeves wrote: post #241
iopq wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% on a public fund? So I should be paying for the elections of Republicans and Democrats even though they are private parties that may for no reason exclude me?

Or.... you could still run, but not as a Republican or a Democrat?

And lose, like everyone else who tried. When was the last time a president wasn't a Republican or a Democrat? That's right, when he was a Whig.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#738

Post by mitsuman »

paulhauggis wrote: post #243
maxsilver wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>someone needs a job I don't know that we necessarily need to have jobs. We could fund it by taxation of revenue and wages, rather than just wages. A company who fires all it's employees, and uses only robots, would see a huge surge in profit from reduced overhead. That profit could be taxed at something like 60%. The owner(s) of the business still see windfall from the cost savings of laying everyone off, and the ba…

so..redistribution of income? This isn't anything new. I find it interesting that so many people on a forum about technology and business would suggest punishing businesses for using technology to make their business so efficient. When the music and movie industry wanted more protection for their IP, many people here made comments about the horse and buggy/automobile and they just needed to "change with the times". W…

>so..redistribution of income? This isn't anything new. I find it interesting that so many people on a forum about technology and business would suggest punishing businesses for using technology to make their business so efficient.

You may find that this is because not all of us value technology solely for what increased productivity it can provide over our current, but that we create and use technology to work /for/ us so that we can spend more time doing what we would rather.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#739

Post by sitkack »

dllthomas wrote: post #704
sitkack wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to turn this into an animated chart. It looks like you are taking away someones first dollar earned?

"It looks like you are taking away someones first dollar earned?" I don't see where you're getting that. Presuming the numbers haven't changed since you commented, it looks to me like taking away half of every dollar earned.

I guess I don't understand what 'Net' is. Is it the cost of the government, so if I earn 20k on the open market, are given 20k and taxed 10k (I have 30k in my pocket, and the gov has spent 10k)?

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#740

Post by dllthomas »

sitkack wrote: post #739
dllthomas wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It looks like you are taking away someones first dollar earned?" I don't see where you're getting that. Presuming the numbers haven't changed since you commented, it looks to me like taking away half of every dollar earned.

I guess I don't understand what 'Net' is. Is it the cost of the government, so if I earn 20k on the open market, are given 20k and taxed 10k (I have 30k in my pocket, and the gov has spent 10k)?

Net here is the amount received by the individual in basic income, less the portion of their taxes going to pay for the basic income, assuming it is funded with a 50% flat tax. So yes, if you earn $20k, are given $20k, and are taxed (for the purposes of funding the BI) $10k, the net (direct) effect of the basic income program on your bottom line is $10k.
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