Finland Prepares Their First Tests Of A Universal Basic Income (futurism.com) 630
Finland is getting ready to launch their first pilot program with a Universal Basic Income -- one of several countries which are now testing the concept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Futurism.com:
Finland is about to launch an experiment in which a randomly selected group of 2,000-3,000 citizens already on unemployment benefits will begin to receive a monthly basic income of 560 euros (approximately $600). That basic income will replace their existing benefits. The amount is the same as the current guaranteed minimum level of Finnish social security support. The pilot study, running for two years in 2017-2018, aims to assess whether basic income can help reduce poverty, social exclusion, and bureaucracy, while increasing the employment rate.
In January a basic income program will also begin testing in the Netherlands, according to the article, which points out that Y Combinator has also launched a test program in Oakland, California. And there's now also calls for a Universal Basic Income in India, where one social worker argues it's "sound social policy," while pointing out that it's already being implemented in other countries. "In Brazil, it targets the poor and has been a way out of poverty; in Iran, it has substituted for subsidies and citizens receive about $500 a year..."
In January a basic income program will also begin testing in the Netherlands, according to the article, which points out that Y Combinator has also launched a test program in Oakland, California. And there's now also calls for a Universal Basic Income in India, where one social worker argues it's "sound social policy," while pointing out that it's already being implemented in other countries. "In Brazil, it targets the poor and has been a way out of poverty; in Iran, it has substituted for subsidies and citizens receive about $500 a year..."
Different from the Social Security benefits? (Score:3)
Re:Different from the Social Security benefits? (Score:4, Insightful)
As a guess, it's probably not means-tested. If they get a job, they keep getting the UBI money.
Re:Different from the Social Security benefits? (Score:5, Interesting)
The best feature of UBI is not making it conditional and then eliminating minimum wage. Maybe a person wants just an extra $2/hour over their UBI, they can do that, no problem.
However, with just a select group on UBI, having no minimum wage allows the UBI group to undercut the non-UBI group (who certainly won't be willing to work for $2/hour), so phasing this program in in an ethical way is non-trivial.
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now, there would also be a flip side to that, that people probably would never work at McDonalds or Walmart again
The wage would be subject to normal free market forces. Those employers will have to pay what folks are willing to work for... and any potential employees can be confident that walking away from a wage too low won't mean their livelihoods (or their dependents' livelihoods) are compromised.
McDonald's and Walmart will still pay; the net effect will be a wage drop, so if anything they'll be able to hire even more employees to take on jobs they might otherwise automate away.
Re:Different from the Social Security benefits? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Different from the Social Security benefits? (Score:5, Insightful)
The key is in the word "universal". These are just trials, but the idea is you to pay every man woman and child no matter their wealth or employment status. Considering very little of current welfare budgets actually reach the people who need it - ironically enough it's all wasted on a massive bureaucracy designed to keep people from accessing welfare - many economists believe it could reduce government expenditure while boosting the economy.
We are also looking at a world where automation replaces more and more jobs. If we don't come up with something soon angry mobs will run riot and capitalists are going to be swinging by their necks. Of course, instead of addressing inequality we could always start to militarise the police and reduce basic freedo... oh wait.
Re:Different from the Social Security benefits? (Score:5, Insightful)
angry mobs will run riot and capitalists are going to be swinging by their neck
As a supporter of UBI, I find it to be very compatible with free market ideals. While it provides a social relief program, it also removes the minimum wage regulation that screws up the free market forces in unskilled labor markets. I prefer that when society wants a program, it uses societal programs (government and taxation) to provide the program; forcing employers of unskilled workers to carry that burden is unfair and counterproductive.
Also... I would agree that crony capitalism is a bad thing, but please refrain from using such a broad brush. Free market capitalism, combined with social programs funded directly by the government and sensible regulations, is proven time and time again to bring about better societies.
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I dont think he's saying it isn't. The difference between a liberal and a socialist, is that liberals believe the free market can address social inequality as long as some safeguards and a few tweaks to the formula are added. Socialists argue that there are contradictions in the capitalist system that make this impossible. At least this is the traditional meanings of the terms, americans seem to use liberal and socialist intercha
Re:Different from the Social Security benefits? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not likely. Under either a flat or progressive tax structure, people who earned more before UBI will still be the ones earning more under UBI. Whether the net effect is lower or higher income for those people depends on the tax structure.
Re:Different from the Social Security benefits? (Score:5, Informative)
In case of Finland, social security benefit requires a bunch of paperwork done every few months in-person at the social security bureau or w/e. Those are run by municipalities/cities, not the state, and are pretty inconsistent and hard to deal with. The paperwork includes receipts of all of your bank accounts to see you aren't receiving money from anywhere else. It also gets revoked immediately if you start receiving money from elsewhere, and collected back retroactively if you make enough in a year (same applies to unemployment benefits).
Source: Am Finnish
Better Programs (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Better Programs (Score:5, Insightful)
Each winter, we have several homeless freeze to death.
You may want to shut up.
Conflation and bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
The amount of homeless people is not an issue of just poverty, it's an issue of a lack of mental health programs. It is cheaper for the Government to dump people on the streets than own asylums. The US also has a huge amount of corruption so tended to get sued a lot when they ran asylums, because it was cheaper than inspections and accountability. You are conflating the amount of homeless to be similar to the rate of poverty I think, but it fails. Count the Homeless and people in Shelters in SF, then compare that to the institutionalized in some other city in Finland and you would have similar percentages.
TFA is reporting _BULLSHIT_, pure and simple crap. Replacing people's current unemployment with a check covered by a new name is NOT Basic Income. Giving EVERYONE a check every month is what Basic Income is. So the PILOT is a crock of shit meant to appease people who somehow think it's a good idea for the Government to hand out money they confiscate in taxes and print to appease a populace who lacks employment options. People will also say "See it works!" and demand more wealth confiscation and checks from the Government because "look"!
The dishonesty here is simple and open, and meets everything else about the claims promoting Basic Income. Sorry, but I have not seen any intellectual debate on the subject. I have read what I consider crap claiming the government should redistribute wealth in the US this way, but no sane economist agrees with this. Interestingly Milton Friedman is often cited as a source for BI, which neglects the majority of his arguments (that Welfare without immigration control will fail).
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Cheap and accessible? $80/month just for the cable is not cheap. That's a week's food for a family.
That level of discretionary spend isn't poverty.
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The one and only thing that can hope to work is to provide an income that not only covers all the basics but also leaves money left over to spend on things that are not basic needs. If we do not do this we will surely face a total economic collapse and a loss of our nation.
Nothing is gained if you tax people who would have spent it anyways, then you're just redistributing and not helping the economy. To improve the economy you need to coerce those who accumulate money or take it abroad (rich people and corporations mostly) to use it in the local economy. Both of those are pretty skilled at avoiding taxes though, so for the most part you hit the middle class resulting in their purchasing power going down by the same amount the poor's goes up. UBI's main claim is to reduce over
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Re:Better Programs (Score:5, Insightful)
True. Those trust fund brats really sweat.
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The problem is that income "earned" in the sense of receiving money from a corporate or governmental entity is not synonymous with "earned" in the sense that matters--value creation.
Think a CEO is doing 1000x the actual value creation of his engineers? Not in the least. He/she is "getting his hands" on income, not "earning" it in a sense that is of long-term value to the economy. He is being paid to do fuck-all, and doing that to an exponentially greater degree than the "takers" you undoubtedly have in m
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Re:Better Programs (Score:4, Interesting)
That's only an issue if you use hard cutoffs like everyone seems to nowadays because they hated math in high school and don't want anything with a formula. e.g. We'll give you $500/mo in assistance, but the moment you make more than $1000/mo working, that assistance disappears. That creates a negative income gradient. At $0 wages, you're getting $500/mo. At $1000/mo wages, you're getting $1500/mo. At $1001/mo wages, you drop back down to $1001/mo. This discourages getting a better job or working more hours. The assistance either needs to be universal (everyone receives the same amount), or graduated (using a formula!) so it's slowly phased out as you earn more so the income gradient always remains positive.
There's also the issue where assistance scales with certain things under the control of the recipient more than the expenses. e.g. If you have 2 kids and are on food stamps, adding a third kid raises your expenses only $y/mo, but the food stamps you receive increases more than $y/mo. Thus creating an incentive for poor folks who can't afford to raise more kids to have more kids as an easy way to receive more money. The assistance has to scale in a way which discourages adding expenses, not creating more expenses as a way to get more assistance.
Finally there's the problem where the market tries to correct for the existence of a basic income (money for doing no work) by devaluing the basic income while simultaneously increasing the value of wages (money for doing work). The net effect is inflation - the value of the currency decreases (prices increase) while wages rise to keep pace. The $500/mo basic income decreases in value year-over-year (how quickly depends on the amount of the basic income - the closer it is to the average wage, the faster it devalues), while purchasing power from wages remains steady because of the wage inflation.
If you try to correct for this by increasing the basic income each year, you just increase the rate of inflation. If you try to fix that by fixing prices, you break the economy since production costs are now no longer allowed to be reflected in prices. So the only way to get it to work is to either limit it to a subsection of the population (i.e. it's not universal), or to make it a small fraction of the average income (i.e. it can't be a living income). You might be able to get it to work by bypassing money entirely, and distributing the basic income directly as goods and services. i.e. No more EBT cards - you get your assistance not as a money-equivalent, but as food directly from the food bank. There will be some leakage as some people e.g. sell their weekly allotment of canned foods rather than consume it, but as long as that leakage is a small fraction of the total it shouldn't have a large effect on the general economy.
Re:Better Programs (Score:5, Interesting)
Wages increasing to keep up with inflation? That sounds like a nice change of pace, let's do it!
More seriously, there would likely be SOME inflation, but since the economy can't tell the difference between basic income money and wage money, it's not going to be the problem you expect. Just index the basic income to inflation and it'll find an equilibrium.
Re:Better Programs (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the best basic income schemes have a negative progressive income tax basis to them. You lose the basic income as your regular income increases and at some level of earned income you don't get any basic income.
This provides a work incentive, since even the lowest form of work produces income gains over basic.
I think low wage employers would end up really hating basic income because while they might not be forced to pay more, they would probably have to improve their working conditions and employee treatment. I think what discourages a lot of impoverished people from working isn't the nature of the work itself, it's the nature of the management combined with the low pay. Unrealistic labor goals, bad shifts, intrusive and arbitrary policies, and so on.
There's a bunch of blue collar jobs I'd do, even for less money, but I just couldn't tolerate the way blue collar employees get treated. High school was less confrontational and paternalistic.
I think there are serious obstacles to any kind of basic income scheme. For one, I think employers generally fear any world where unemployment isn't an existential threat for employees -- I think it radically reshapes the balance of power. Immigration is a real problem -- how do you contain a basic income system to the basic margins of your economy?
Two caveats (Score:5, Insightful)
There needs to be sufficient regulation to prevent free-marketeering from trying to milk the free money supply.
More generally, it is necessary that the universal basic income is sufficient not to force those on it into defacto poverty.
The two are related in the sense that, with an unregulated free market, if you pump money in but no more material resources, more money is chasing those same resources, pushing prices up.
In general, though, removing the anxiety about putting a roof over your head and food on the table should be considered a necessity if you want to get the best out of your workforce in a modern technologically driven world: the more you brain has to worry about the basics, the less brain there is left to think about productive things.
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More generally, it is necessary that the universal basic income is sufficient not to force those on it into defacto poverty.
The way national poverty is typically defined as those earning less than a percentage of the average (50 or 60%, usually) there will always be poverty. If you could have almost the same by not working as you could by working, what would you choose? It's supposed to be enough to cover the essentials so you won't freeze or starve but it's not going to be great. Since everyone else also gets UBI if you don't have any other income you'll be at the absolute bottom of the pool. That guy who works minimum wage at
Increase employment rate? WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)
Base income to increase employment rate? How is that supposed to happen?
Robots are replacing humans left right and center at an ever increasing rate. [youtube.com]
Base income is there to mitigate the effects of increased machine productivity and preventing a rare few from being the only ones reaping the benefits of increased productivity. That's what gouvernments should be seeking to do. But I guess shit will have to hit the fan before anything happens addressing that problem.
Somebody didn't get "basic income". I hope they'll learn before it's too late.
Re:Increase employment rate? WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Base income to increase employment rate? How is that supposed to happen?
(Caveats: I'm a Finn but my knowledge on this is based on hearsay, but in some cases from persons in the situation of being unemployed or on disability pension. But regardless of it maybe not being 100% accurate, this is how most people believe the situation works, and consequently act in accordance with those beliefs.)
Because the Finnish current setup is that either you're 100% unemployed and get unemployment benefits, or you're not. As soon as you accept a job, regardless of its duration and the wages it'll bring you, you're no longer unemployed and no longer eligible for benefits. This means that if you accept a job that brings you less than your unemployment benefits, after taxes (which are very high in Finland) get factored in, you're financially screwing yourself over.
There's lots of smalltime (and admittedly mostly menial) work that could be done in Finland, and we've got plenty of unemployed people that could do them, but most of them just won't bring in enough that you'd be better off by working than just collecting your unemployment benefits. Or in some cases the hourly rate might be decent enough, but the work is of a transitory and brief nature, or won't offer enough hours per month to be worthwhile. The "a few hours a week, during peak periods, if we really need you" jobs also don't combine well due to their "we'll call you and then you better be available" nature as you obviously can't be in more than one place, when needed, at once.
Deciding to try to do something yourself (for instance, make small handmade souvenirs for tourists) means you become an "employer" (self-employing employer) in the eyes of the State, or at least an entrepreneur. Either way, you're no longer considered unemployed. There are other forms of support you can apply for and eventually get, I suppose, but in the meantime you're out of unemployment benefits, regardless of if you make enough to make a living or not.
Bureaucracy Hell also makes sure that once you've taken a job, even if it's just for a week or two, you need to start over the unemployment registration process from scratch once the job ends. The process isn't effortless for the person applying for the benefits, and in any case takes several weeks (or months?) before you see any money.
So yes, that's one of the benefits that we're hoping for: That people that currently have a financial incentive for not working, actually start working; even if the additional benefits that it'll bring aren't that significant, at least they won't be financially punished for working. It will also in some cases allow them to re-integrate into society as opposed to sitting alone at home wallowing in their own situation, and prevent them from becoming more and more unemployable due to being unemployed for longer and longer periods, while the world moves on around them.
Re:Increase employment rate? WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's your explanation. In my world, basic income is a means of fairly distributing the fruits of our planet amongst its rightful shareholders, the people. While basic income comes in handy as a solution for unemployment resulting from increased automation, simply providing it because we cannot come up with a better solution would be stupid, unfair an unsustainable. We should not do that.
I'd rather turn it around: as the productivity increases, the value of our planet increases and we can expect its rightful shareholders to receive more money. That's exactly the reason basic income is starting to become economically feasible in the first place. However, in order for it to work properly in the long run, it should to a large extent be funded from taxes that directly relate to the use of the planet itself, for example through Land Value Taxes, taxes on the profit of mining and fossil fuel production and taxes on the use of the atmosphere (by dumping crap in it). This approach is fair and sustainable and could actually lead us to the unlimited leisure time utopia we were promised, if needed supported by a bit of helicopter money.
not gonna happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Two things people also need to keep in mind when talking about what "Finland" does. First, the US is already spending considerably more per capita than any other country on social welfare (as well as education and healthcare). So, the problem is that the programs we have don't yield results commensurate to what we spend. Second, the way European countries finance their social welfare states is through massively higher tax rates on the middle class, often nearly twice as high as in the US.
So, a basic income to replace the current welfare and social safety net, and giving individuals to spend their government welfare as they see fit, would be great. But that's just not in the cards. Do you seriously think that a Congress that doesn't believe individuals are qualified to make decisions about mortgages, payday loans, health insurance coverage, or which school to attend is going to give welfare recipients a couple of thousand dollars per month and tell them to spend it as they see fit? And do you seriously believe that the millions of people who currently work on delivering and supervising welfare-related benefits are going to just quietly give up their jobs?
Re:not gonna happen (Score:4, Insightful)
And you left off one point about the "Massively higher taxes" - the people are happier there than here.
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Take it from someone with first hand experience: they are not.
Re:not gonna happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Take it from someone with first hand experience: they are not.
So let me get you straight. Because you've lived in Europe we should accept that you speak for all Europeans (even the other Europeans who have a different opinion to you) and that they are all not happy because you said so? That's some fucking great powers of intellect going on there, yet for some strange reason the independent data [happyplanetindex.org] disagrees with you
Re:not gonna happen (Score:4, Informative)
Are you speaking in the royal "we"?
And I didn't just "live" there, I grew up in Europe and spent half my life there. I'm sharing my observation as an emigrant from Europe.
The HPI concocts a measure out of a poll about happiness, life expectancy, inequality of outcomes and ecological footprint and then calls that "happiness". The index is weighted to give progressively higher scores to nations with lower ecological footprints. Citing such an obviously politically motivated measure that has little to do with happiness as an objective measure of "happiness" means that you're either a gullible fool or are trying to manipulate people.
You can't really measure happiness by asking people whether they are happy; the responses are highly culturally dependent. You can measure happiness indirectly through whether people are optimistic about their personal future, and where they choose to migrate to and from. On such measures, Americans generally score better than Europeans.
Re:not gonna happen (Score:4)
And I didn't just "live" there, I grew up in Europe and spent half my life there. I'm sharing my observation as an emigrant from Europe.
That's nice. But you do realise there are 700 million odd other people also from Europe who might have a different opinion than you? Do you see the flaw in your thinking there? We get that you're an old grump, but maybe that's just you.
The HPI concocts a measure out of a poll about happiness, life expectancy, inequality of outcomes and ecological footprint and then calls that "happiness". The index is weighted to give progressively...
So instead we should just take your word for it? That's your counter argument?
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Re:not gonna happen (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it doesn't. How many links and explanations do you need?
http://taxfoundation.org/artic... [taxfoundation.org]
The tax burden on average workers in the Czech Republic is 42.6%, in the US, it's 31.5%. Sales tax in the Czech Republic is around 20%, in the US it is somewhere between 0% and 10%. Your claims don't even make sense for the Czech Republic, let alone for a regular European welfare state.
Yes, you live in a luxury enclave. California as a whole, however, ranks near the bottom of school performance among US states. And all Californians pay the same tax rates that you do.
I used to be living in a place "lacking electricity and runing water". There are multi-million dollar rural American homes have generators, wells, and septic systems. What you don't seem to understand is that people in the US choose rural living, for the high quality of life it provides. You project your Bohemian prejudices and preferences onto how other people live.
Finland Test (Score:3)
Similar to today (Score:4, Interesting)
The US already accepts different tax brackets, this is just another tax bracket at the low end, one where you get negative tax rather than zero tax as the lowest rate. The only other difference is that the IRS sends the "refund" check in 12 installments rather than one.
Only the poor or the mega rich would fall entirely into that bracket
I like the idea of a basic income... but (Score:3)
I like the idea of a basic income, but I don't know how it can be made to work without the government controlling a lot of other things. If you give everyone $600 extra I would bet that things like rental costs, utilities, etc. would just expand to take the extra money. We have seen how this works with the extra income with women entering the workforce. As soon as you have limited resources or monopolies the prices will increase as everyone will be able to spend more.
Unless you want to introduce rent controls, fair prices for utilities, etc. costs will just go up
Re:Won't work in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, we all know that neighbor who's sister's daughter's friend knows that One Poor Person who blows all their cash buying a $600 cellphone every other week. They're all like "well I could pay for rent; or I could get a rose gold iPhone to replace my regular gold iPhone. I sure wanna get evicted." That definitely happens, like, all the time.
Re:Won't work in America (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a potluck roommate at my university who was of meager means. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to stay in school, but then a $10,000 federal loan came in for him to cover his schooling expenses.
Guess what he did, even before the money had hit his account?
Shopping spree. Bought a gaming console with a number of games, movies, new clothes, went out to a load of restaurants...you get the picture.
By no means am I suggesting he's the brush with which we can paint the entire low income population, but it is safe to say that some people will be foolish with those funds and we'll be faced with the question of how to deal with them then.
Re:Won't work in America (Score:4, Insightful)
To give you flip side on this, if you have been denying yourself for years it becomes very hard to work up enough enough willpower to abstain when you get a windfall. I have this problem but to a lesser degree (I would have bought myself a pizza, and the stupid overpriced dessert). Perhaps having a feeling of security regularly would make it so it wouldn't go to his head? Also a basic income is very different from what I am assuming is a lump sum of money?
This. (Score:5, Interesting)
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The other thing you'll see with the poor is they're used to everything going to shit. It's tough to plan ahead and stick to the plan when you've spent your entire life having shit fall apart around you. When things are going well you don't expect it to last, so you live for the moment.
When you're poor you can only afford low-quality goods that break all of the time and if you're on welfare you need to be sure to use it all before the end of each month. That is why they and especially their kids get into this habit of acting as if money is a perishable good that needs to be spent ASAP.
Re:This. (Score:4, Insightful)
When you're poor you can only afford low-quality goods that break all of the time and if you're on welfare you need to be sure to use it all before the end of each month. That is why they and especially their kids get into this habit of acting as if money is a perishable good that needs to be spent ASAP.
That is a really good point, actually. Living in England, perhaps it is more visible, if you know where to look. There are rich people - seriously rich people - who maybe buy a pair of hideously expensive shoes, or a coat that looks very plain, but is very expensive, and then they never buy another for years, because the quality is really good, so in the end they spend less money on clothes and shoes than those who have to buy cheap rubbish that they can use for a few months at best.
I think the basic income could potentially be a very good idea. There will of course be some that just spend it all stupidly - but they already do this. The advantage of doing it this way is that you can probably make some significant savings on administration. In most of the current welfare systems, there is a big, heavy bureaucracy that means test and try to make sure that nobody cheats - it doesn't work, basically, and it makes everything very expensive and so slow, that it actually punishes the large majority that the system should really help. It might also help those people with their self-esteem, if they didn't have to go through onerous and meaningless chores and instead were free to go out and improve their situation with a bit of extra income or education.
Re:Won't work in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody says that it never happens. But it does not happen enough for lost money to outweigh the amount of money you need to spend on checking that it does not happen. Your anecdotes do not help and you are suggesting that what you said in your anecdotal evidence is a problem, no matter how much you try to deny it. You are using exactly the same arguments every opponent of UBI is using: "Even one fraudster would be too much, we must not let those people steal, that would be the end of the world!" UBI might have drawbacks, but not what you are suggesting. We give them the money. If they don't buy food, they will be hungry. Next month their primary need will be food, not shopping. So they will go eat. If they keep getting the money, eventually they will learn to balance their spending on their needs.
Another point is that once you have a bunch of guys getting money on a regular basis, there is opportunity for someone to help them out, as the unreliability of those guys and the uncertainty of them being able to get the income is lifted. Maybe all they want to do is sit around and play console games. Fine, if 4 of them get together, they might have enough money to get an apartment, big TV, xbox and play games all day. I don't mind. Good for them. At least I don't have to work with some stupid unmotivated punk at my workplace that will just slow me down. And at least they are not in the streets stealing. It is a win win win. In few years some of them maybe get bored and learn some useful skill, do something productive. Who knows. It is a small price to pay for the other benefits.
For example in US mothers often go back to work as early as 2 weeks after giving birth. Can you imagine that? I cannot. How much better would those kids do in life if they could stay home with them on basic income for a year or two? Can you imagine how much smarter those kids will be in 20 years? How many problems that can lift in just one generation? What about the fathers? Not finding a job is no longer a reason to join gang, sell drugs, go to jail. So maybe you got almost no money and live on basic income, but you got now two people raising that kid.
What about veterans? What about disabled people? What about mentally sick? There will always be some punk like you arguing with that one kid that bought xbox. FFS. I've had enough of you guys.
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Re:Won't work in America (Score:4, Informative)
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You need a mobile with data plan to be in job search now.
You don't need a data plan. Voice and text are enough. You can get that with a $25 pre-paid phone from Walmart, or $5 if you buy it used. If you need to browse the web, go to the library. It is free. Or you can buy a reasonable used laptop at Goodwill for $25, and use the free Wifi at McDonalds.
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Don't need a place to live either. You can just sponge yourself down in the McDonalds bathroom too.
Life is so cheap. Too bad the cost of living isn't.
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Don't need a place to live either. You can just sponge yourself down in the McDonalds bathroom too.
Life is so cheap. Too bad the cost of living isn't.
I lived in a car for a year to see if I could do it. My work had a gym and shower/toilet so my only outgoings were fuel (not much since I slept in the car park) and food (also not much since I was trying out the meagre existence)
Yeah it wasn't great but was better than what most people living 150 years ago had. And you obviously need a car to start with and a job with 24hr access to a bathroom, but if you lower your expectations, the cost of living can be quite reasonable.
I could actually do this longer
Re:Won't work in America (Score:5, Insightful)
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He's of the opinion that the poor are just as irresponsible with their spending as everyone else, and after giving them the handout they will still be without the essentials. The rich person, hopefully also spent his money on too much car and too much house in a suburb far away from the poor, and will only eat at a locally owned 5 star vegan gluten free place with wifi.
Re:Won't work in America (Score:4, Insightful)
The poor being irresponsible with their spending is critical for our economy.
The most valuable thing you can sell is manpower. Why? Because it's 100% fiat revenue. For revenue from agriculture products, you need arable land. For revenue from production, you need raw material. For services, all you need is people. And if there is one resource we have no shortage of, it's that.
Services, though, are a fickle thing to sell, because it's the first thing people cut back on when times get tough. If money's tight, do you get a haircut or do you get groceries? Do you get your dripping faucet fixed or do you buy fuel for your car so you can go to work?
So the poor having money to spend means the economy is running. They don't save, they spend. They consume. Consumption means selling, and selling means revenue. And that fuels our economy.
Our current economic problem is exactly that the poor don't have any money left to spend.
Re:Won't work in America (Score:5, Informative)
These people have no money yet they walk around with expensive cellphones..
That is not a problem limited to "the poor". 47% of Americans cannot come up with $400 [politifact.com] to meet an unexpected expense.
I know many people like that. Some of my well paid co-workers will tell me they have to "wait until payday" for a purchase or even to go out to lunch. My sister, who makes $80k and owns a house, occasionally needs to borrow money from me for some minor expense, like fixing a flat tire on her car, because she has already spent her paycheck. She has zero savings, and no financial cushion whatsoever, yet she just got back from a Mediterranean cruise.
I couldn't live like that. The stress would drive me nuts. When I was 18, and got my first paycheck, I invested half of it in an index fund, and my savings have increased monotonically since then, even through college (I worked part time and had a military scholarship).
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Posting ANON because I just moded you up.
I know someone making $250,000 who is over extended and living paycheck to paycheck. It is not just the poor.
Im like you, I have saved and stashed away money for many years. Hell If I had to I could come up with enough to pay off my house in a week just from savings, stocks, bonds, investments, and other cash I have available.
To everyone just starting out, this is how you get ahead! You live within your means and as soon as you can, you save and invest as much as you
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I agree with the message, but I find I'm less happy than those people day to day, I stare in the face of 10 years of future debt, possible economic collapses and unexpected eventualities every day, it's depressing. At the end of the day no matter how good my performance review was, I know the company will drop me like a bad habit should it become necessary, and they will run the company such that it becomes necessary if anything at all goes wrong.
Of course, I'm significantly more happy on the days when they
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Ah and that's the issue isn't it? We life in a world that rewards people who are constantly spending and buying.
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These people have no money yet they walk around with expensive cellphones..
That is not a problem limited to "the poor". 47% of Americans cannot come up with $400 [politifact.com] to meet an unexpected expense.
I know many people like that. Some of my well paid co-workers will tell me they have to "wait until payday" for a purchase or even to go out to lunch. My sister, who makes $80k and owns a house, occasionally needs to borrow money from me for some minor expense, like fixing a flat tire on her car, because she has already spent her paycheck. She has zero savings, and no financial cushion whatsoever, yet she just got back from a Mediterranean cruise.
I couldn't live like that. The stress would drive me nuts. When I was 18, and got my first paycheck, I invested half of it in an index fund, and my savings have increased monotonically since then, even through college (I worked part time and had a military scholarship).
The idiots you went to high school with didn't suddenly get smart. People are quite dumb, on average.
Re:Won't work in America (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Won't work in America (Score:5, Insightful)
And what they need does include entertainment, social connection and interaction, and VARIETY of foods. This may not be required to produce the physical meat of the body but it is a requirement for proper mental function.
Re:Won't work in America (Score:4, Insightful)
I raised two children without netflix, sat tv or cable. It can be done. We used to play games like monopoly and uno and go on trips to the library to borrow books. I have no problem feeding people, even people who wont work. There is no reason for people in the US to go hungry but as to all the other bullshit I say they can work for it. Free cell phones? Fuck that, we're damn near 20 trillion in debt with no real effort to do anything to even slow it down. Sooner or later it'll stop and when it does people will find out what poverty really is.
Re:The Poor are Poor for a reason... (Score:4, Informative)
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And if you want to save money on welfare bureaucracy just require less paperwork and investigation. And if there is a lack of jobs then just give people jobs, not free money. At least then taxpayers get something back. People have no right to vote to steal other peoples money for nothing.
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I'm not sure what a basic income has to do with welfare or even taxes since doing it properly it should come out of the fed tap as an alternative to fueling needed inflation by giving funds to banks. The entire global economic system depends on giving out free money, I fail to see the benefits of giving it to those who have the most right out of the gate v
Re:Won't work in America (Score:4, Insightful)
To give money, you have to take it in the first place. And when you take it, the opportunity cost means that that money cant be used to pay someone to produce something as well as consume. Instead you are taking money, taking a cut to support the bureaucracy that administers the money and basically you are paying somebody to not do anything at all. You are subsidizing non productivity and unemployment. When you tax something, you get less of it. When you subsidize something you get more of it. It's pretty simple.
Re:Won't work in America (Score:5, Interesting)
They already allow the banks at the top of the chain to just wish money into existence so they can make even more money demanding interest on it. Why not wish the money in at the bottom of the pile where it will actually fuel the economy that keeps the country running rather than the non-productive swapping of game tokens?
Re: Won't work in America (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you kidding? Wall street is flying high on wish money. It's the rest of us (who aren't allowed to wish money into existence) that can't make ends meet.
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Every you say is false. Any business run so close to maximum leverage that the funds required for quarterly taxes are the difference in project decision is about to declare bankruptcy.
vs
Yeah, especially now that in fact Apple is leaving Ireland it was a bad gamble violating Irish EU treaties, Irish public welfare, and all Irish interests.
Seems to me you're trying to deflect from your premise that successful companies don't make decisions based on taxes.
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Have you ever heard of the CCCs and the WPA? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A lot of the bridges nearby me are old WPA works.
I think it would be a good idea for the gov't to be a employer of last resort. (!!Other than the military!!) Although they would probably have to fight with the current employer of last resort McDonalds.
Re: Won't work in America (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with the current system is that if you decide to start working they take away your benefits so people give up and they just take the benefits and don't work. I don't think we would have as many problems if we had guaranteed basic income versus all the social programs that we have now. With guaranteed basic income people will be allowed to look into different career paths and look into having a job on top of receiving the benefits and nobody could complain because everyone would be receiving the same amount of money. If they spend it then they're out and there is no other social programs that they can fall back on. The problem right now is that if you spend all your welfare you still have food stamps and lots of other charity organizations that will give you food and get the housing and pay electric bill which is why people don't manage their money properly.
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Re:Won't work in America (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Won't work in America (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Only possible with unreasonable tax rates (Score:5, Insightful)
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What country do you live in? A place where government is a force "against the wealthy and powerful"? Sounds wonderful. Never happened in all of history, but wonderful.
The government represents the interests of the powerful by definition. That's just what "powerful" means.
Now, you can choose between systems where the wealthy become powerful (like capitalism), systems where the powerful become wealthy (like socialism), or systems where those with military might become both wealthy and powerful (like feuda
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The simplest way to start addressing wealth concentration (not income concentration) is to change to only tax wealth, never income. Make the tax rate proportional not to total amount of wealth, but wealth percentile. Those two things would immediately start addressing wealth inequality, something you rightly assert that income equality won't (can't?) accomplish.
But nobody is willing to tax wealth other than property taxes (and the general public wants to reduce those, too!), which don't really apply to en
Re:Only possible with unreasonable tax rates (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Only possible with unreasonable tax rates (Score:5, Insightful)
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f we reduce government spending and reduce the tax rates (which government employees hate), then we would also be making an impact on poverty, as well as empowering the people.
How does that work exactly? Because we have had a lot of tax cuts over the last two decades (mostly under Bush) and the poverty rate has only increased.
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Perhaps you would like to go and tell the people in Oakland, CA that they are not in the USA. Or was that part too far down the summary for your reading skills?
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Re:Only possible with unreasonable tax rates (Score:4, Insightful)
If we reduce government spending and reduce the tax rates (which government employees hate), then we would also be making an impact on poverty, as well as empowering the people.
Because people without money or jobs are struggling to pay their taxes?
Or are you some sort of nutjob who thinks the only reason these people are poor and/or can't find work is that rich people, by paying taxes, are prevented from giving charitably and/or creating jobs for them?
It simply doesn't work like that. There is no correlation between countries with lower taxes and a decrease in poverty.
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Well, we could also spend more and tax less (as we likely will), or spend less and tax more (as if we intended to pay off our debt). But under all the various tax schemes in the past 100 years, federal revenue has never sustained itself about 20% of GDP. It's currently just under 18% of GDP, so we could maybe squeak out 10% more revenue if we really wanted to, but that's not a difference in kind.
Here's the thing though, in the context of Social Security:
* Social Security is just barely enough to live on i
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I do see this.
What you don't see is that a universal basic income will be balanced against reductions in means-tested benefits and increases in taxation.
There will be an income level at which an ordinary taxpayer, with 2 children will balance out the UBI income against increased taxes.
There are other benefits: homeless people incur huge medical bills. In part because the only medical services available to them are those that are the most expensive to provide (emergency rooms). A UBI may reduce these huge b
Re:Only possible with unreasonable tax rates (Score:4, Insightful)
If we're going to move towards a basic income and universal health care, we have to be pragmatic about it. A basic income based off of the current government spending on social programs is certainly possible, but it's going to be a subsistence income and it likely means moving or finding a roommate (or several) if you want to subsist in the more expensive parts of the country. Health care costs in general could be brought to manageable levels if the population as a whole were healthier. The dysfunctional system in place is only partially to blame.
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EU countries can cover everyone with universal healthcare on 9% of the budget. So the 27% of federal budget just for medicare is overpaying by a huge margin.
You can get everyone on basic income and universal healthcare for less than 50% of the budget. Less than what you today pay in SS and medicare. The reason is that you can do it all automatically, no people are needed to administer the programs when everyone is covered. You would pay it to everyone, including people who work. For the ones who work it wou
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Yep, gotta get a jump on the excuses now so it won't be so embarrassing when it works and you continue demanding that the poor deserve it for not getting a small $1,000,000 from their dads.
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Really? That's the best you can come up with?
Re:2 years (Score:4, Insightful)
Not as well as it could since they don't implement the basic income.
Even so, it doesn't work half bad even with the right doing it's best to monkey wrench it.
Re:2 years (Score:4, Funny)
What didn't work about Obamacare? Millions of people who didn't have coverage previously have it, and we have millions of assholes pissed off about just that. It's a win/win.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/17... [cnbc.com]
It's easy to cover millions of people with massive additional government spending. That's not sustainable.
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Yes they did. [mises.org]
Do not want.