91–100 of 413 posts
[1]: Okay maybe not a very rich king but but you'd definitely be doing more than fine.
Another limited duration trial (two years). What's the point? It's not going to measure the real effect. People will know it is going to run out and behave differently than if it was permanent.
The time limit may, to an unrealistic degree, encourage the subjects to look for solutions for the long term. Then again the question of whether UBI encourages laziness seems to be out of scope already, since this targets only people who are already unemployed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People working X hours a week are guaranteed to be spending those X hours producing something useful to society, or at least to their employer. People not working are not. Sure, some people who are not employed may be raising children or volunteering or doing something else beneficial to society,and encouraging them to work instead would be society's loss. But if we trust in the market economy, those people don't exi…
They don't even have to be raising children or volunteering to benefit society. As long as they spend the money that's given to them, the market benefits.
Scenario 0) I do nothing, get nothing.
Scenario 1) The government gives me $1000 and I buy $1000 dollars worth of goods and services, so now the economy is better by the net gain of $1000 worth of transactions - i.e. the mutual benefits of trade.
Scenario 2) I have a job, do my job and my employer pays me $1000 dollars. Then I spend that on $1000 worth of goods and services. Now the economy gets the benefits of $1000 worth of trade plus everything that I did for my employer, which is in excess of $1000 according to his calculation.
You compared Scenario 1 to Scenario 0 and said that Scenario 1 is a win, but the context was 1 versus 2, where it's a negative. In scenario 2, the employer could be the government paying me to improve the roads, for example, instead of the government handing me the money they would have paid me. In which case the difference is the improved roads.
In related news, experts expect sales in Lotto tickets, malt liquor, and Taco Bell combo meals to explode in Finland.
And Finland doesn't have Taco Bells.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People working X hours a week are guaranteed to be spending those X hours producing something useful to society, or at least to their employer. People not working are not. Sure, some people who are not employed may be raising children or volunteering or doing something else beneficial to society,and encouraging them to work instead would be society's loss. But if we trust in the market economy, those people don't exi…
They don't even have to be raising children or volunteering to benefit society. As long as they spend the money that's given to them, the market benefits.
So the benefit of giving that money must provide a gain greater than the deadweight cost. That gain could be non-monetary (a mom raising her kids for example) -- but just the 'spending' doesn't benefit the economy because spending $500 actually cost much more than $500.
If you just pay everyone X amount of money every month for whatever, it just means that in order to produce something you'll need to pay someone a lot more than that X amount in order to work and produce it and also it means that that item is gonna increase massively in cost in order to pay the items production itself.
I am highly against that idea.
You want to solve issues? Give free food/water and shelter for survival, thats all a human needs. It doesn't need to be a food from a chef or Evian water or a house with even an internet connection. All it needs is just to provide some safety that that person is not going to die of starvation or weather. Other than that if you want to have a better have and lifestyle well you have to work for it.
Jobless people generally cannot earn additional income while collecting unemployment benefits or they risk losing that assistance. Worst. Idea. Ever. I know -- it's a common feature of income support systems, including here in the US. I don't know whether UBI is going to prove workable or not. But even if it doesn't, if we could just redesign the systems we do have so they never give recipients a disincentive to work…
I'm interested in hearing why it's a bad thing to disincentivize working more. Is it so bad for someone to not be working should they have enough money to live on? (I'm not sure if the benefits in this specific case are enough to live on, but I guess I'm thinking about the general principle.)
Since I was looking for an advancement in my career (I left the company on good terms and my former boss ended up being one of my references) and not desperately looking for anything that pays, I ended up doing a lot of volunteer work while focused on increasing my skill set a bit and looking for the right opportunity. But I could have just as easily spent that time sitting on my ass.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would it be possible to do a modified system where they instead of losing the universal income unemployment benefits. There could be a system where the benefits are lowered in proportion to the income earned from jobs, that allows for those who are able to and want to work but are only able to find low paying jobs to have benefits that do not discourage them from doing work.
> There could be a system where the benefits are lowered in proportion to the income earned from jobs The thing you are referring to is called taxes. The more money you make the more taxes you pay and there comes a point that you're paying more in taxes than the amount of the basic income. Phase outs are a pure scam. Their purpose is to conceal imposing higher marginal rates on low and middle income people so that hi…
Jobless people generally cannot earn additional income while collecting unemployment benefits or they risk losing that assistance. Worst. Idea. Ever. I know -- it's a common feature of income support systems, including here in the US. I don't know whether UBI is going to prove workable or not. But even if it doesn't, if we could just redesign the systems we do have so they never give recipients a disincentive to work…
As long as it's within the law, on paper. If you're taking undocumented work then you're also taking a risk where you might lose your benefits if found out.
I think maybe there is a larger chance for undocumented work in countries like the US. I have an impression that there is a more prevalent culture of cash-in-hand jobs due to the sheer size of the country.
So maybe you react more to the quote than I would because I've always had documented work, whether it was 25%, 50% or 80% it was always documented and known to the government what I was doing so I could always apply for the necessary benefits I was eligible for.