Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive • Hacker News Board

Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive

#81

Post by mason240 » Sun, May 24, 2015, 2:19 PM UTC

highCs wrote: post #32

A generous basic income funded by very high taxes would be self-defeating, as it would reintroduce the sort of distortions that many of its advocates hope to banish from the welfare system. Loafers could live comfortably without lifting a finger. Basically, if there is not enough jobs for everyone - the raison d'etre of the basic income - then at some point, some aren't going to do anything: that's the point. In othe…

I really see UBI as the mechanism that allow capitalism to transition in to the post-work work.

Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive

#82

Post by code_reuse » Sun, May 24, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

I think what we need is "basic commodities" in terms of foodstuffs that a person could live off of, for example: a 40lb bag of rice, lentils, 3 different kinds of beans, corn meal, canned tomatoes, canned fruit, and a jar full of multi-vitamins. Absolutely no proof of income status should be required only a quick verification that that A. You are a human being, and B. you're not abusing the system by taking more than you could actually consume during a given time period.

This ensures that nobody ever needs to go hungry, it puts money in people's pockets because now they don't have to spend as much of their income on food, and it accomplishes this all without prying into the private details of anyone's life.

The goal in my opinion should not be to "give everyone an income" but rather to give everyone a safety net on top of which they can attempt to build a life for themselves. It trains people to be used to sharing and giving the things that we need to sustain ourselves, which is healthy and nurtures a cooperative spirit among men.

Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive

#83

Post by ChrisLomont » Sun, May 24, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

treelovinhippie wrote: post #24

Best solution I've come across is a small This guy is giving the method a shot: http://www.basicincome.co/

Many countries have tried it, and it usually ends like this [1] implementation by the Swedes from 1984-1991. Then they cancelled it after witnessing the devastation to their economic sector.

"During the first week of the tax, the volume of bond trading fell by 85%, even though the tax rate on five-year bonds was only 0.003%. The volume of futures trading fell by 98% and the options trading market disappeared. 60% of the trading volume of the eleven most actively traded Swedish share classes moved to the UK after the announcement in 1986 that the tax rate would double. 30% of all Swedish equity trading moved offshore. By 1990, more than 50% of all Swedish trading had moved to London. Foreign investors reacted to the tax by moving their trading offshore while domestic investors reacted by reducing the number of their equity trades.

As a result, revenues from these taxes were disappointing. For example, revenues from the tax on fixed-income securities were initially expected to amount to 1,500 million Swedish kronor per year. They did not amount to more than 80 million Swedish kronor in any year and the average was closer to 50 million. In addition, as taxable trading volumes fell, so did revenues from capital gains taxes, entirely offsetting revenues from the equity transactions tax that had grown to 4,000 million Swedish kronor by 1988."

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_t...

Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive

#84

Post by megaman821 » Sun, May 24, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

akhatri_aus wrote: post #20

I don't see how this is affordable. With the Swiss amount of $2700 per month ($32,400 p.a) it's $32bn for 1m people per annum (8m people in Switzerland). This is 45% of the annual federal budget last year ($70b) & doesn't even cover 13% of the population. What about everything else that needs government expenditure: roads, defense, education & research, regulatory oversight, police?

Is basic income taxable or not? If it is taxable, the federal budget can be expanded. If not, tax rates would need to change. If a person makes $100,000, what should their net taxes be? They will recieve $34,400 in basic income, if they paid 45% tax, it would only be a net of $10,600 in taxes.

Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive

#85

Post by rjsw » Sun, May 24, 2015, 2:39 PM UTC

netfire wrote: post #76

rjsw wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just start with a small Basic Income to test out the system.

Also a good option. Personally, I think I would favor providing something like food through a system like food stamps first. It provides less risk of the money being wasted on addictions (drugs, gambling and other bad financial decisions) and better ensures the money is used to help someone (especially in the case of children, where they are not spending the money, but their parents are).

But part of the theory behind Basic Income is that people will change their behaviour when given more Agency, restricting what they can spend it on doesn't let us test this.

Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive

#86

Post by csandreasen » Sun, May 24, 2015, 2:51 PM UTC

transfire wrote: post #13

The article also doesn't seem to take into account that we already spend of hundreds of billions of dollars every year of welfare programs that could be saved. The article just piles BI on as an additional expense. I also think most BI supporters tend to shoot too high. The equivalent income of just a 16hr per week job at min wag would do wonders for the economy without putting a great deal of pressure on people not…

The US spends $454B on welfare programs[1], but has a population of 321M. If you scrapped the existing welfare program in favor of BI, you'd be able to give everyone only $117 per month. You can make adjustments for things like children not requiring as much, but we're still nowhere near a livable wage.

[1] http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2015USbn_1...

Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive

#87

Post by digi_owl » Sun, May 24, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #10

raldi wrote: post #3

This analysis doesn't seem to account for the savings and increased efficiency from all the policy changes basic income would enable. For example, water and parking spaces could be priced at their actual cost, rather than being subsidized. This would make the water market function properly and allocate it efficiently, and remove a bunch of car-related externalities. Need public housing? Not if you set a high enough b…

'Need public housing? Not if you set a high enough basic income level.' If everyone's income were increased, might not prices for things like housing go up as well, so some people could still be priced out?

Bingo. The problem with housing is that demand outstrip supply by a insane magnitude.

The only real way to fix housing is to flood the market with fixed price dwellings.

Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive

#88

Post by ThomPete » Sun, May 24, 2015, 3:00 PM UTC

akhatri_aus wrote: post #70

ThomPete wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you don't need all the people you are paying to control all sorts of things in a conditional system. So you would basically get rid of a lot of expenses that are currently being used to control the system.

I don't see how you could get rid of spending on roads, police, foreign relations, defense, regulatory oversight? It's a jump to assume crime would disappear with basic income and police would no longer be needed. Also expenditures where economies of scale can be achieved are better off as government expenditures as an individual would get nowhere near the cost effectiveness (healthcare, education) or the incentive t…

Thats not what we are talking about. We are talking about the system to control that people are in fact getting what they are supposed to and not cheating.

Thats many many times bigger than you would think. Also no one is talking about not spending on road and the current system doesn't really do that either IMO.

Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive

#89

Post by powertower » Sun, May 24, 2015, 3:00 PM UTC

gremlinsinc wrote: post #12

Here's some of my ideas: 1. CEO pay cap @ 20x(or some other similarly reasonable #) of the median salary of the employees. Median salary is 30k ? So I can only earn 600k ? Screw that, I'm going to get everyone closer to 75k, that'll put me at 1.5 mill, that's way better - and everyone profits. 2. Flat but fluid Nationwide Sales Tax (would mean anyone visiting, or staying illegally has to pay taxes -- way better than…

If you took all the money paid to all Walmart employees above the manager position, every last cent, and redistributed it back to the workers, you'd increase their pay by less than $100.

You are assuming that companies are all in a high margin low competition markets, and a bunch of other stuff that is simply not true.

Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive

#90

Post by ThomPete » Sun, May 24, 2015, 3:03 PM UTC

ChrisLomont wrote: post #75

smackay wrote: post #11

The article points out that making basic income available to those contributing to society (working, looking for work or volunteering). That's incredibly short-sighted for several reasons: 1) the idle are best being, well, idle - out of the way while everybody else gets on with making the world a better place. Sure they will reap the benefits but their number is likely to no higher than the currently idle. Indeed the…

>their number is likely to no higher than the currently idle Why do you think giving some people free money that do not get it now would not result in some of them becoming idle? There is evidence as payments increase the idle increase. For example, I think the OECD has data showing there are more people on disability by a wide margin across countries, and this correlates with the benefits the various countries offer…

Some of them do become idle thats the whole point because some of them ARE idle. We are not talking about living like a king. We are talking about basic income i.e. getting by.