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Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

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Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#81

Post by dev_dull »

magduf wrote: post #71
privacypoller wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absolutely what it is at the core. The problem with it's application has been proven over and over again; the very wealthy have the means and motivation to avoid it while the burden falls on the same segment of the population over and over again.

The solution is simple: legislate so the very wealthy can't avoid it, while remaining in the country. It's really not that hard: if they have assets here and reside here, then you tax them, and seize them if necessary. The only reason this isn't done is because too many people vote for politicians who pass laws favorable to the very wealthy.

You don't think they've tried to "legislate" it so people can't avoid it? It involves guns and prisons.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#82

Post by magduf »

3pt14159 wrote: post #8

It might be politically unpopular, but maybe we should just raise taxes and index them for measures of inequality. The GDP per capita of most modern economies can easily handle a basic income sufficient for all but the most expensive cities.

People in expensive cities shouldn't get any more basic income money than people anywhere else; that'll just make more people want to move there. If the nationwide amount isn't enough, the answer is simple: move someplace cheaper. When you have a guaranteed basic income, this should now be possible. This will have two effects: 1) keeping the cost-of-living from continuing to spiral up so much in those cities, and 2) forcing employers in those cities to pay better, since their workforce can more easily move away to someplace very cheap.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#83

Post by kire2345 »

I am wondering often with UBI: if everybody gets a certain amount of money. Wouldn't prices just adapt and everything gets more expensive, and there would be the same divide as before? Similar to Scandinavia where prices are very high. What mechanism could prevent this from happening?

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#84

Post by macintux »

dota_fanatic wrote: post #62
vorpalhex wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I'm not entirely convinced that a truly universal system is the best. After all, a single parent has significant additional expenses - and should taxpayers be paying to give violent criminals a work-free existence? (Would you pay a living wage to someone who sexually assaulted your daughter?) In the US, this is especially a problem. The cost of living in Texas is low enough that my salary as an engineer g…

With money comes mobility, so people are free to move somewhere cheaper. Currently, those in the poverty cycle are trapped and chronically stressed, making it quite difficult to execute a plan that involves anything more than what's right in front them—moving out of city or out of state is out of the question. One of the biggest problems facing humanity is sustainability towards the planet. Unbounded population growt…

> With money comes mobility, so people are free to move somewhere cheaper.

I'm skeptical that most people who are currently trapped in poverty would receive enough UBI to make that practical.

Money doesn't stretch as far in a strange place with no network to fall back on, even if nominally the cost of living is lower.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#85

Post by delecti »

vorpalhex wrote: post #45
twblalock wrote: post #29

The big problem with UBI, aside from how to pay for it, is that it will not survive as either universal or basic once the voters get their hands on it and decide that, say, UBI benefits should be cut for felons, increased for single mothers, indexed to the cost of rent, etc. In other words, we have a bunch of different welfare standards for people in different situations because that is what succeeds politically, and…

To be fair, I'm not entirely convinced that a truly universal system is the best. After all, a single parent has significant additional expenses - and should taxpayers be paying to give violent criminals a work-free existence? (Would you pay a living wage to someone who sexually assaulted your daughter?) In the US, this is especially a problem. The cost of living in Texas is low enough that my salary as an engineer g…

> and should taxpayers be paying to give violent criminals a work-free existence

This is exactly the problem.

Recidivism is high because society doesn't give released prisoners any way to support themselves. Giving ex-cons a lifeline as soon as they get out would go a long way toward keeping them from ending up back in prison.

So yes. Taxpayers should give ex-cons (even violent ones) a way to support themselves without resorting to crime again. And we shouldn't release prisoners if they're still a danger, which means we should focus on rehabilitation instead of just punishment.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#86

Post by jaggederest »

epicureanideal wrote: post #76
jaggederest wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes that the GDP would not be positively impacted by redistributing the funds to those who will spend it. A revenue-neutral taxation and distribution system should be more or less free of bias and significant negative effects on the economy, and that's what such ... socialist luminaries ... as Friedman proposed in the form of negative income tax brackets.

GDP isn't the best measure though of the actual health of the economy. In the current situation maybe doing what you're suggesting would work, somewhat... but I could imagine situations where it wouldn't. For example, Elon Musk is rich. If we just redistribute all his money to "people who still spend it" (the poor), we get a bunch of people buying slightly better cars instead of getting significantly better rocket te…

Completely agree. I think my back of the envelope calculations were that paying for a reasonable UBI in the US would require a new flat income tax in the 12% range, a wealth tax in the 2% per annum range, or a land value tax in the 8% range. I don't think that any of those would be too huge a disincentive for Mr. Musk - most of his ventures seem to yield either -100% or +30% per annum.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#87

Post by aaron-lebo »

pacbard wrote: post #79
aaron-lebo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is unfortunately pretty lazy research used to push an agenda. Related to that, the main claim: the 40% reduction in crime (no link, why?) is in Namibia. Is there anything about Namibia which makes it different from a developed economy like the US? I know it comes off as pedantic to complain about such stuff, but there's gotta be higher standards for evidence, otherwise you don't really trust your own argume…

The reference chain for the Namibia experiment is an Huffington post article[1] and a report by Bignam[2]. It looks like "Otjivero-Omitara was selected for its manageable size, accessibility, and poverty situation" (p.19). Ask yourself, could any of those characteristics impact the reduction in crime regardless of UBI? Also, I wasn't able to find a control (or comparison) group for those results. The time series that…

Thanks, I did come across the Huffington Post link but the title itself wasn't obviously about Namibia so I missed it.

I appreciate you breaking this down. I've published nothing but I've worked with those who have and I've seen just how difficult this kind of research truly is. There's so many confounding factors, but they try and usually do a good job.

It frustrates me when these very complex issue are intentionally distorted. Reality and policy don't give a damn about anyone's beliefs, so it's important that we understand the holes in studies like this.

Thanks again.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#88

Post by rcxdude »

dota_fanatic wrote: post #62
vorpalhex wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I'm not entirely convinced that a truly universal system is the best. After all, a single parent has significant additional expenses - and should taxpayers be paying to give violent criminals a work-free existence? (Would you pay a living wage to someone who sexually assaulted your daughter?) In the US, this is especially a problem. The cost of living in Texas is low enough that my salary as an engineer g…

With money comes mobility, so people are free to move somewhere cheaper. Currently, those in the poverty cycle are trapped and chronically stressed, making it quite difficult to execute a plan that involves anything more than what's right in front them—moving out of city or out of state is out of the question. One of the biggest problems facing humanity is sustainability towards the planet. Unbounded population growt…

> With money comes mobility, so people are free to move somewhere cheaper

I think generally people are not very willing to move regardless of cost. It takes (on average) quite a large economic gradient to move people out of a location they are comfortable in. Social ties to a location can be very strong indeed.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#89

Post by trothamel »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #48
trothamel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming we're talking about the UK here, that would require £517,000,000,000 - or about 70% of current tax revenues.

That number is fairly meaningless though, since a majority[1] of people will be receive more money from BI than they'll lose in the increased taxes. Only the very rich will see significant real increases. 1: the average income is significantly higher than the median income.

Well, I think it's quite meaningful - it's the amount of money the government would have to raise to pay for this, compared to what they raise now. I bring it up because the revenue side seems like the harder half of the basic income equation, and the one that's more neglected.

It looks like the highest marginal tax rate in the UK is 45%. You could raise that higher, of course - but it's not clear how much, and if doing so would actually raise revenues - where the UK is on the Laffer curve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

(Clearly, if you raised it to 100%, it would lower revenue - you can't tax the rich if you don't have rich people anymore. And if you're at 45%, how much higher can you go?)

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#90

Post by xienze »

magduf wrote: post #71
privacypoller wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absolutely what it is at the core. The problem with it's application has been proven over and over again; the very wealthy have the means and motivation to avoid it while the burden falls on the same segment of the population over and over again.

The solution is simple: legislate so the very wealthy can't avoid it, while remaining in the country. It's really not that hard: if they have assets here and reside here, then you tax them, and seize them if necessary. The only reason this isn't done is because too many people vote for politicians who pass laws favorable to the very wealthy.

> The solution is simple: legislate so the very wealthy can't avoid it, while remaining in the country.

... then they'll leave the country. I don't think you've thought this through.

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