More Small Tests Are Happening For Universal Basic Incomes (yahoo.com) 285
DevNull127 writes: A video report from NBC News profiles "Springboard to Opportunities," an advocacy group for affordable housing residents that's now also testing $1,000-a-month payments (privately-funded) for 20 women in Mississsippi chosen at random. One senior-living aid making $10.31 an hour says the grants represent "a little freedom". She's using the money to pay down debt — and to visit the father in Pennsylvania who she hasn't seen in 20 years.
Meanwhile, CBS MoneyWatch checked in on one of the 14 people picked to receive $1,000 a month for an entire year in the "Freedom Dividend Pilot Program" of U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang. "Sure, there's going to be outliers that take advantage of any situation," says Chad Dzizek. "But most people are just trying to get by. Having extra money in hand would only help move that process along. And I don't see myself slacking off anymore. If anything, I'm going to be more aggressive in tackling my goals because it's that much more available."
That article adds that Yang, a former tech entrepreneur, "sees this as a way to reduce poverty and income inequality, especially as computers increasingly replace people in the workplace." Although the program has already run into at least one hitch.
Following the program's announcement in September, the former chairman of the Federal Elections Commission told CBS News that the program appears to violate "personal use" campaign finance laws since the funds come from Yang's campaign and not his own pocket. Others, however, have argued that the program could be classified as an advertisement for the campaign. The Yang campaign declined to comment.
Business Insider also has an update on the Basic Income plan of Michael Tubbs, the 28-year-old mayor of Stockton, California, where 125 people making less than $46,000 a year are now being given $500 a month. "In October, Stockton released the first set of data about how the program was faring. Most participants, initial results showed, were using their stipends to buy groceries and pay their bills.
"Tubbs told Business Insider that these preliminary findings gave him even more confidence that basic income would benefit his city -- and could even serve as a national solution to income inequality... Stockton's basic-income experiment is designed to last for 18 months, so there are still about eight to go. If the pilot is successful, Tubbs said, the city will consider expanding the program."
Meanwhile, CBS MoneyWatch checked in on one of the 14 people picked to receive $1,000 a month for an entire year in the "Freedom Dividend Pilot Program" of U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang. "Sure, there's going to be outliers that take advantage of any situation," says Chad Dzizek. "But most people are just trying to get by. Having extra money in hand would only help move that process along. And I don't see myself slacking off anymore. If anything, I'm going to be more aggressive in tackling my goals because it's that much more available."
That article adds that Yang, a former tech entrepreneur, "sees this as a way to reduce poverty and income inequality, especially as computers increasingly replace people in the workplace." Although the program has already run into at least one hitch.
Following the program's announcement in September, the former chairman of the Federal Elections Commission told CBS News that the program appears to violate "personal use" campaign finance laws since the funds come from Yang's campaign and not his own pocket. Others, however, have argued that the program could be classified as an advertisement for the campaign. The Yang campaign declined to comment.
Business Insider also has an update on the Basic Income plan of Michael Tubbs, the 28-year-old mayor of Stockton, California, where 125 people making less than $46,000 a year are now being given $500 a month. "In October, Stockton released the first set of data about how the program was faring. Most participants, initial results showed, were using their stipends to buy groceries and pay their bills.
"Tubbs told Business Insider that these preliminary findings gave him even more confidence that basic income would benefit his city -- and could even serve as a national solution to income inequality... Stockton's basic-income experiment is designed to last for 18 months, so there are still about eight to go. If the pilot is successful, Tubbs said, the city will consider expanding the program."
Isn't this like estimating the impact of... (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't this like estimating the impact of a highway system, by building a small walking trail?
A 20 person test? A 14-person test? Sounds like hunting for excuses find ways to talk about or slime the idea, rather than a real method of testing. Like the low-cost 'tests' the tobacco industries did to test if smoking was bad for you, testing how confident people felt in tasks after smoking various brands.
The idea of the plan is to replace lots of other social programs with potentially less overhead, offering a floor that you can't fall below, without means testing. To rich folks, it means nothing, to some, it means the ability to take risks if they need - to most, it means security to change if they need.
The bigger questions are more like - what does that mean, if every landlord decides to shift charges to basically eat that system for lunch? To me, that means you've got to regulate rents to some extent too, if you want to make it work - but that and a thousand other aspects don't get any kind of test without going large scale.
If you want to test giving folks $1,000 a month, there's bunches of low-value annuities out there folks have gotten for lots of reasons. Those results aren't the important bits of how a system would work and society would adapt to deal with expenses, freedom and time.
Ryan Fenton
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Isn't this like estimating the impact of a highway system, by building a small walking trail?
Not entirely. It's more like estimating it by building a stretch of highway between two small towns. People affected are likely to behave much like they would if it were real, but it fails to factor in the impact on taxes for everyone else, so it isn't a complete picture.
The bigger questions are more like - what does that mean, if every landlord decides to shift charges to basically eat that system for lunch?
They'll have no customers. Any UBI implementations that might actually have a prayer of working is almost guaranteed to tax back the UBI for anyone making at or above the median income, which means although rent probably will go up becau
Re:Isn't this like estimating the impact of... (Score:4, Interesting)
The bigger questions are more like - what does that mean, if every landlord decides to shift charges to basically eat that system for lunch?
They'll have no customers. Any UBI implementations that might actually have a prayer of working is almost guaranteed to tax back the UBI for anyone making at or above the median income, which means although rent probably will go up because of people who couldn't afford to rent who now can, it won't go up by anywhere near as much as the actual UBI amount.
What will actually happen are landlords refusing to rent to UBI dependents - that’s what largely happened here in the UK when the government switched housing benefit from a benefit paid directly to landlords to a benefit paid to the claimant, who was then supposed to pay the landlord.
It was done so as to “empower” benefit claimants, give them some feeling of worth. What actually happened is private landlords saw a huge rise in people falling behind on rent payments and subsequently a lot more evictions (which are a costly and time consuming process). At the same time, sales of luxury goods went up...
So now, most private landlords don’t rent to benefits claimants. And the politician who promised to force private landlords to rent to benefit claimants just lost a general election by the worst amount for his party in nearly 100 years.
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Which unfortunately points out a fairly significant flaw in the concept of UBI, which is that there is a certain subset of people who are poor because they lack self-discipline a
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Once UBI is in place, it should be very easy to identify and divert the irresponsible. Anyone found being homeless can be automatically recorded by police for immediate diversion from UBI into a managed system where a social worker pays for rent (and maybe some other basic needs like food and heat) on their behalf (attempting to involve the individual in as much of the decision making as is practical, of course). Anyone who isn't homeless yet can be allowed to squander their money unless they volunteer for
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Are these fabled “they” who are overseeing all of this as you suggest going to pay that late rent or eviction costs to the landlords, or are the landlords going to be the ones to suffer the burden of risk renting to UBI dependents? If the latter, then expect UBI dependents to find it hard to find housing.
Re:Isn't this like estimating the impact of... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone found being homeless can be automatically recorded by police for immediate diversion from UBI into a managed system where a social worker pays for rent
We already have that system in Norway, rent itself is rarely the problem or at least not the only problem. It's also destruction of property, noise, stench, littering, theft, threats, drug dealing, drug use, prostitution and so on. Even with the relatively few landlords I know I've heard several horror stories of tenants that have left places stripped and trashed or forced them to go through an eviction process because they made life unbearable for the other tenants, the landlord or neighbors. If all they had to do was set up a rent deposit the same day the UBI came and they failed to do that it's probably not your only problem.
Re: Isn't this like estimating the impact of... (Score:2)
My uncle was lived on the street because he didn't want to be responsible. He also liked his habits. When he was poor that limited his fun money, within two weeks of qualifying for social security disability he had OD'd because he could suddenly afford his habits.
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I have no idea what the private rental market is like in the US, but in the UK it’s been sound enough so that benefits claimants have been essentially largely excluded from it very successfully for more than 20 years because of the issues in my previous post.
So no, landlords won’t have to compete for the money, if the rental market is strong enough.
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- Vacancy in the rental market is at an all time high despite a serious housing shortage. A lot of landlords appear to prefer the
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It's more like estimating it by building a stretch of highway between two small towns.
Actually, it is more like a contractor who happens to be the mayor's brother-in-law building a test road and then assuring everyone it was effective, and it is okay to give him the money for the full system.
The people running these tests are advocates pushing an agenda, not unbiased investigators seeking the truth.
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These small scale tests are completely pointless, because they overlook the fact that if you give everyone the same amount of money, you've simply caused inflation.
Give 10 people a million dollars and you've created 10 new millionaires. Give everyone a million dollars, and you've collapsed your currency. Don't know why some people fail to grasp this concept if you make the numbers smaller.
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The bigger questions are more like - what does that mean, if every landlord decides to shift charges to basically eat that system for lunch? To me, that means you've got to regulate rents to some extent too
You can't squeeze people for money they don't have, if you're raising rent beyond what people on UBI can afford then the first effect would be displacement to cheaper housing. Even if every person has money doesn't mean every unit will get rented, it's not until there's a shortage of landlords willing to rent out at those prices you have a problem. Then you'd see if new landlords would come into the market because it's profitable. If neither it true then it's probably actually not enough money to be worth p
I wonder (Score:2)
How many people would see a letter in their mail "Hi, you have randomly selected to receive $1000 per month" and toss it in the trash along with the rest of the Pre approved credit card offers etc.
Inevitability. (Score:5, Informative)
Governments providing the most basic needs of people has been an inevitable outcome. It's not a question of if but merely when and how. Automation is reducing the cost of providing for everyone's necessities while the avarice of the ultra-rich is once again causing unrest. I don't claim it will happen anytime soon (i.e. this century), only that it will happen eventually.
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If you rely on the government to take care of you, the government has all power over you. If you step out of line in the slightest way, they can revoke their support. We should be raising and training people to be self sufficient and be giving them the knowledge they need to grow up and take care of themselves and a family. Raising a generation of kids that require the government to take care of their basic needs is an incredibly scary thing.
Re:Inevitability. (Score:4, Insightful)
You write as if that couldn't happen already. Do you really think it's so hard for them to freeze all your electronic assets and leave you with no recourse because you don't use cash for everything?
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You need court orders to take something away from someone. The threshold is much more lenient for whether you give to someone or not. Imagine a social credit score, like China has. Uh oh, you haven't said enough good things about the government this month. Looks like you're only going to get half of your allotment of government support. You said bad things about the president? No money at all for you. If you want to be in this program, you have to install government approved spyware on your computer
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When you suck from the government's teet, you have to live by their rules, and those rules can change at any time.
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Everyone black already has to live by the government's rules. At any time the police can march into their home, shoot them dead and then go home and have dinner. You don't even have to break the rules. Unless being black is against the unwritten rules.
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How exactly do you propose to achieve this self-sufficiency? It's hardly practical for everyone to own their own plot of land and farm it in the modern era. That's why we have the concept of employment - few people can realistically be self-sufficient, but by trading their time for money and that money for goods, they have a means to acquire the things they need. It works to an extend, but it's still creating dependencies, and it's a way of life that may be threatened by changing technological and economic
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The government has atomic weapons with a president who has the will to use them against his fellow countrymen. The government already has all the power. Your still stuck in the 18th century where owning a gun actually helped protect you from the government.
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> Governments providing the most basic needs of people has been an inevitable outcome.
Just as the communist revolution as the workers become educated to the ideals of Communism is inevitable. I'm afraid that we've seen enthusiasm for "inevitable outcomes" lead to tremendous social disasters before, so please, excuse our skepticism about this attempt to redistribute wealth equitably among those who do not or cannot compete successfully for that wealth. It may e a reasonable approach in an increasingly lar
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Governments providing the most basic needs of people has been an inevitable outcome. It's not a question of if but merely when and how. Automation is reducing the cost of providing for everyone's necessities while the avarice of the ultra-rich is once again causing unrest. I don't claim it will happen anytime soon (i.e. this century), only that it will happen eventually.
Institutionalized "charity" from a theoretically bottomless pit: how do we prevent "Idiocracy" from ensuing from this? That is, assuming we do not want our civilization to descend into "Idiocracy."
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You are proving your point but not in the way you think you are. Obsession with Trump's Twitter feed is "Idiocracy." Do you not know that US DOJ Inspector General Horowitz's report release last week confirmed that the FBI made multiple errors and falsified evidence to obtain FISA warrants against Carter Page? Of course, when multiple errors all tend to benefit the FBI's case against Trump and associates, it looks more like bias than "Idiocracy."
Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FB [justice.gov]
Let's leave out the universal in UBI. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Means testing isn't going to be the only problem. There's an emotional element to consider as well: A lot of people are already angry knowing that part of their tax money is going to 'undeserving' people, and UBI would make it a lot worse. Politicians will win elections easily by promising to restrict the UBI so it doesn't go to whichever group of society is the pariah of the year. Can you imagine a platform of "No more spending YOUR money on sex offenders" not winning an election?
Tell me (Score:4, Insightful)
If you do this on a large scale where does the money come from? Flat out, whose pocket does this come out of?
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If you do this on a large scale where does the money come from?
Alaska pays for it by selling oil. Another option is to tax everyone 30%, then divide it among everyone equally.
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So 30% on top of the other 30% I currently pay?
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And the greed comes out. "I have mine so why should I give a shit if poor people die and starve. They're just too lazy. They deserve to die."
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I don't see a problem with GP's argument (Score:3)
And as I pointed out elsewhere on this thread, unless you're willing to be far, far more brutal than Stalin and Mao ever were then it's cheaper to take care of the lower class. The only question is what ratio of brutality to cost will you tolerate.
Right now 500,000 go into medical bankruptcy every year and 35,000 die of treatable illness (down from
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You just print the money. It is then a tax on wealth, in effect...
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Here in Finland, we already have a heavy system of unemployment benefits, student financial aid and so on. Basic income is intended to replace these, in turn _saving_ the money that was spent on bureaucracy. On the other hand, working people will also get their basic income, but tax rates will be increased so that typical middle-class people will see no change in their net income.
Given such numbers, the only opposition to BI is mostly ideological, i.e. you shouldn't give people free money. But Finland (N
Re: Tell me (Score:2)
That only works if you are willing to just let the people who don't manage their UBI wisely die in the streets. Otherwise you will still need all of the other assistance bureaucracies and will just be burning money on both.
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Generally a very heavy but progressive taxation scheme. If it's run as envisioned (big if), it'll be heavily taxing the upper income brackets to support the poor. After all, someone who is earning a million dollars a year isn't going to be driven into poverty if they lose half of it, but a thousand people being paid five hundred dollars a month might very well be able to keep out of poverty with the money.
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but they're not so much hoarding as they are investing their money into... owning businesses and such. That money is "in the economy" in the sense that a company has it to... do something. Investing in Apple doesn't really do much though.
Governments and financial types would prefer everyone invest all their money into businesses. that makes more money. Taking money out for... another yacht is wasteful. But to financial types, so is.... taking care of people who will never contribute to society. But a lot o
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> to financial types, so is.... taking care of people who will never contribute to society [is wasteful]
How much of a sad sack do you have to be to not care about your fellow human being? Good god am I glad I don't live in your country. Mine is bad enough. At least we have a minimum standard of care above what Americans do.
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Re:Tell me (Score:5, Interesting)
And only bigger imbeciles don't understand that the economy runs on the velocity of money, and that the ultra-rich actually struggle to spend their money, because it's accumulating too fast. Bill Gates makes something like $24,000 per minute. He could pay UBI for a million people a year without touching his existing billions, just on the investment income alone.
If you gave the poorest million people in the US that money, they'd spend it. Every last penny of it. They'd spend it on food, housing, cars, haircuts, cell phones and a million other things. And all of the people providing those things would make a little extra money, which they, in turn, would spend on other things. That's economic activity. Owning small amounts of thousands of companies is too, but in a much, much more limited way.
These tests are temporary (Score:5, Informative)
One big problem i see with all of these tests is that they are temporary. The people receiving the money know they're only going to be getting it for a year and, therefore, these tests don't reflect how people would live and act if they knew they would be receiving this money for a lifetime. However, there is already at least one such project in existence (and probably a lot more that I don't know about) - the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. This program has been providing income for Alaskan residents since 1982. However, it is much less than in this test (~$300-$2000 per year) and Alaskan residents are already receiving it so you can't go back and study how people's lives change when they first started receiving it.
Now, aside from how the studies are conducted, the two biggest issues I have with UBI (universal basic income):
- currently unemployment in the US is very low, so it is unclear if this "great job loss due to computers replacing people in the workplace" will ever materialize. People have been wringing their hands about this very issue for at least a hundred years. Is this time different? Maybe, maybe not... I'll believe it when i see it.
- it is extremely expensive. Let's say you give 200 million people n the US each $20,000 per year. You're talking about $4 trillion dollars of goods and services that someone has to generate to fund this program...
For the foreseeable future, in my opinion, UBI just seems the me to be a retelling of the utopian dream...
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Nobody in their right minds would give that much money to almost two-thirds of the U.S. population. A more plausible number would be the bottom 10% or 15%, i.e. 33 to 49 million people. Let's call it an even 50 million to make the math easy. Now you're at only a trillion dollars. And you'd eli
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No, they would give money to everyone. And adjust the tax rates accordingly.
For example, everyone gets $15k per year from the government, and pays a 40% tax on all their income. If your income is zero, you get $15k from the government. If your income is $37.5k, you break even (15k taxes vs 15k UBI). If your income is $100k, you pay the government a net of $25k (40k taxes minus 15k UBI). If you're super rich, your effective tax rate approaches 40% (the 15k you get is insignificant).
So the effective tax rates
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Nobody in their right minds would give that much money to almost two-thirds of the U.S. population. A more plausible number would be the bottom 10% or 15%, i.e. 33 to 49 million people.
I don’t think you understand the core concept of a UBI.
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- it is extremely expensive. Let's say you give 200 million people n the US each $20,000 per year. You're talking about $4 trillion dollars of goods and services that someone has to generate to fund this program...
UBI is meant to replace other transfers and social programs, so you have to subtract that. That's about a trillion dollars right there, probably more if you count in indirect transfers (housing support, etc.) from other federal budget positions. And probably a LOT more if you count in state budgets.
Second, the vast majority of UBI would go to low and middle income households, simply because they are the majority by numbers. They are proven to spend almost every $ that comes in, so that UBI dollars are turne
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UBI is the modern day communism and it will fail for the same reasons - nobody wants to work and everybody wants to consume everything.
You're missing the "B" in UBI. It stands for Basic. High school students almost always have a roof over their heads and free food from the 'rents, but you see a lot of them working to earn money for things that they want, like cars, cell phones, dinner and a movie with their significant others, etc. Yet you're expecting me to believe that adults, when their most basic, fundamental human needs are met, will be so lazy that they won't bother to work for the things that they want? Sorry, but I just don't b
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> High school students almost always have a roof over their heads
For some of us, it's because we worked for it. I worked to keep our family's mortgage paid and food on the table since my teens. My skills are in demand enough that I can share more generously with them now,a nd cover my own expenses without them. But we shared housing and food and medical costs for much of my childhood.
Not universal (Score:2)
it Is not universal if only some people are getting it. Not a valid test.
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The acquisition of wealth (Score:2)
None of these are a test of a UBI (Score:3)
Get a job (Score:2)
Get all the income you want.
Bunch of lazy entitled socialists.
These are not "universal basic income" (Score:2)
A true "universal basic income" as I understand it means everyone gets given an amount of money that is enough to live off but not enough to live comfortably off (i.e. low enough that few, if any will actually not want work on top of it). Then you set a minumum wage such that when combined with the UBI payment, people have a fairly decent income to live off (creating an incentive for everyone to seek work)
All these schemes out there are nothing like a "universal basic income".
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Actually with UBI you don't need minimum wage. Employers could get away with paying people something far below the current minimum wage. Let's say something really silly like $9 an hour and if someone is willing to work an extra 6 hours a week (or even 40 hours a week) to supplement their UBI then that's a win/win. If someone isn't willing to work for such a low amount of money, then the employer has to increase the amount they're offering.
Inheritance tax + Basic income (Score:2)
History shows (Score:2)
When a person is dependent on welfare and/or food stamps, is able to be fired from their jobs for frivolous claims, and can not afford to take a vacation in a structured
pointless (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3)
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Capitalism, even with its flaws, is the only real-world solution to this problem that seems to work within the flaws and limits of human existence. If we eliminate crony-capitalism and rent-seeking - it's a pretty equitable system. You get what you earn, and what you earn is yours to keep.
Every capitalistic society in the world has taxes so no, everything you earn is not your to keep.
"UBI, Socialism, Communism all suffer from the same problem - someone or a group of someones have to decide who gets what. We're all equal - but some of us are more equal than others...."
The "U" in UBI stands for "Universal" by the way. We also live in a Democracy so in essence it would be the people deciding via elected representatives.
"UBI is doomed to fail for one inherent economic principle - the cost curve of supply and demand. When everyone has $1000 a month more this has the same effect as devaluing the currency. It's exactly the same as printing money. Inflation and market mechanisms will simply make EVERYTHING $1000 more expensive."
You really need to take an economics class. While inflation is a worry when the money supply is increased there have been quite a few economic booms around the world (which significantly increased money supply) where inflation stayed modest. By your thinking, a c
UBJ (Score:3)
There is a MUCH larger real-world example! (Score:3)
Military reserve retirements don't kick in until after 60, and they happen to start around $1000/month. (For those who don't know the details, if you server under 20 years active duty, but then serve long enough in the reserves to bring the total over 20, you will have earned a reserve retirement. In my case, with 6 years active and 15 reserve, mine started at almost exactly $1000/month. What a coincidence...)
While I've made decent money as an engineer for the past 30+ years, I've been slaving and saving for the past decade to make up the 35% of my 401K that evaporated in 2009. When my US Navy Reserve retirement started, it pretty much solved that problem.
And did far more. I've always planned to work until I became unemployable (I *love* my work), and I always assumed it would be as an engineer. But this extra income makes another path possible: I've always wanted to become a high school STEM teacher, to try to help make new engineers instead of being an old engineer. But there was no way I could afford the 50% pay cut.
Now I can. Teacher openings for Fall 2020 will be posted in the Spring, and I'm scrambling to get all my prerequisites finished by then.
That's one example of the kind of life-change $1000/month can enable: Helping get career professionals into the classroom.
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Agreed, it would be much cheaper to end the theft of resources from the poor and redistribution to the middle class [strongtowns.org]!
Re:Rome did this too (Score:4, Funny)
If the super-rich are allowed to rob the middle class, and the middle class are allowed to rob the poor, then the poor should be allowed to rob the super-rich!
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I think everyone would love a properly paying job. But your country is failing to produce that for many people and so here we are with people exploring alternatives.
If you have a free way to produce jobs for everyone do so. I'm sure it will make you super rich.
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I think everyone would love a properly paying job.
It depends. A properly paid job might require sacrifice, study, moving and I know for certain that some people would rather have the State create a livelihood for them without effort on their side.
But your country is failing to produce that for many people and so here we are with people exploring alternatives.
My country does have a UBI-like scheme and both are failing, let's leave my country aside. If a country in general is failing to produce enough jobs to sustain itself, then it needs to bre fixed; perhaps with investments in formation and infrastructure. UBI won't help, if anything it will make things worse, becaus
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You forgot:
4. The fiscal conservatives who expect it to become a giant money pit.
Which it very well could if it isn't done correctly.
Re:UBI old school socialism (Score:5, Insightful)
Which it very well could if it isn't done correctly.
Indeed. It is very easy to get it wrong.
Most UBI proposals provide a certain amount of income per household. So an obvious way to maximize income is for Dad to move out and get his own place so he is a separate household. If we try to stop that by saying he is still married and part of the same family, then the marriage rate goes down and the divorce rate goes up.
If instead of giving money by household, we give it by headcount, then there is a big incentive to have more kids. $1000 or even $500 per month for a poor family can mean baby-making is profitable. So fewer people working and more children born into the country's most dysfunctional families.
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I haven't seen a household-based UBI proposal. All I've seen is a set amount for each adult (regardless of living situation) plus another smaller amount for each kid. It can make having more kids desirable, but that's a pre-existing problem with current welfare systems, and especially the foster care system (which pays significantly more and doesn't require going through a pregnancy). Currently only the poorest families (plus foster families) financially benefit from having more children, the difference wit
Re: UBI old school socialism (Score:2)
Re: UBI old school socialism (Score:4, Insightful)
- This much money does not exist. Most governments are already deep in the red.
- Put this much money into circulation, and prices will rise, meaning that UBI will have to rise, meaning prices will rise...
- UBI cannot replace other programs. Some people are bad with money, and will lose/spend/blow their UBI payments. Unless you want to let them starve, you will still have welfare programs to feed and house them.
All patently false. You either don't understand how UBI is designed to work and the current scale of our government spending, or you're lying.
All UBI schemes that I've ever seen discussed rely on getting the UBI back in taxes for at least half of the population, if not 2/3. So you're not effectively subsidizing the entire population, only part of it. There is no "putting money into circulation" with UBI. Nobody is printing money. At best it's a short-term loan for most people, between when they get their UBI check and when that money gets taxed out of their paycheck.
Some cost estimates for the US are as low as $500 billion per year, assuming UBI payroll taxes start at $24k/year and go up at something like $1 for every additional $2-$4 earned.
In most studies where poor people are given money with no strings attached, they largely spend it on shit they need to make their life better. You note the failure of our existing welfare systems, but the problem with them are the strings. I grew up out in the country, and there were plenty of poor people with giant gardens out back and chickens in the coop. During the summer they really didn't need much in the way of food stamps, but they got them anyway. Those don't fix a roof or a car. They don't pay the electric bill or get little Johnny glasses. At best they can stock up on canned goods for the winter, but that's not a really good use of their money.
UBI would allow such families the flexibility to spend money on what's needed at the moment. When you're very poor, that's incredibly helpful in preventing your life from getting even worse. You can choose to pay the electricity bill and go to the food bank, if needed. You can fix the car so you can get to work, which food stamps don't help with.
And if someone wants to blow their UBI and starve, that's on them. They can try again next month. Their friends and family can help them set up systems to better use the funds, because they know exactly what's coming and when. That's the beauty of UBI. Fail to fill out your forms for EBT? You're cut off until you go in and work through the process again, which can take months.
How do I get my cousin out of my house when I have no idea when he'll get money or how much? If I know he's getting $1000 on the 1st of the month, I can help him find a $500 room to sublet, and help him set up auto-pay with the leasing agency. If he doesn't find more money he'll have to choose between eating and an internet connection, but again, that's on him to figure out. If he goes 1 month without internet, the next month he can decide that's what he wants to pay for.
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It'll become a giant money pit if it is done correctly too. The nature of the idea is always going to be a giant money pit. The question is really over if the tremendous cost can be justified by the social benefits, and what would be the consequences of alternative means of addressing the changing, likely declining employment market?
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Putting *everyone* on the public dole is somehow granting them human rights?
UBI is *just another trap* set for poor people to put them into eternal servitude and dependence on handouts.
"Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in
Re: UBI old school socialism (Score:2)
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Nothing about Donald Trump and their ilk is productive for society. Rich people hoarding wealth and stealing from those less wealthy is not beneficial to society. Although it does help you win a presidency.
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No, you're basically being taxed enough to gives YOURSELF (plus some others) that money back...
So you get the "privilege" of paying for lazy people to not work and coast by on the minimum.
FUCK THAT NOISE.
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Centuries of experience have taught us that increased supply of money leads to natural inflation. Good and services are a finite resource. If more people have money, the demand of these good and services rises which results in an increase in price. In the end nothing changes except the income level that’s considered poverty.
Fixed that for you.
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Centuries of experience have taught us that increased supply of money leads to natural inflation. Good and services are a finite resource. If more people have money, the demand of these good and services rises which results in an increase in price. In the end nothing changes except the income level that’s considered poverty.
Fixed that for you.
Hahahahah. No. Not even close. In fact, literally everything you said there is wrong.
First, goods and services are not finite. Goods and services are made by someone, and as the price goes up, the number of people willing to make those goods and perform those services also goes up (assuming the cost goes up for non-inflationary reasons, that is). Ostensibly, raw materials are finite, but really, what that means is that the cost of obtaining raw materials will go up eventually as we run low, because the
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Once you reach a point where you have whatever you need, the tendency to consume tapers off. This is why the ultra-wealthy spend a much lower percentage of their income on goods and services than the poor. Therefore, raising the income of a poor person by $20,000 per year will result in $20,000 more spending on goods and services, but raising the income of making a million dollars per year by $20,000 will result in a approximately zero additional purchases of goods and services, within some small margin of error. What it will do, of course, is allow wealthy people to buy nicer, more expensive versions of things.
Statistically that's true - you can obviously only wear one set of clothes or sleep in one bed at the time. But if you're rich that bed is much more likely to be in a mansion or your summer house which does consume significantly more resources. When they arrive at a climate conference in their private jet you know they consumed a thousand times the average, even if they're a million times richer. Maybe they'll buy themselves a Tesla or only buy organic fair trade cafe lattes to make some kind of pretense of
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UBI, while potentially a terrible idea, isn't predicated on the notion of printing extra money. It's about making sure people don't starve to death from being rendered useless by advances in technology (among other things).
Consider a worker who is replaced by a robot. The former employer of said worker automates either a). to reduce costs or b). increase production without increasing costs. I'm leaning more towards a). as the motivator given the current business climate, but I digress. In any case, the
Re: Basic income == Give me money for no reason (Score:4, Insightful)
UBI, sounds like early retirement. If we had UBI and universal healthcare I would quit working. I've paid of my debts so I don't need much income, but I need some and I need healthcare. So I'm a productive member of society right now. But, I'd love to just quit working and tinker with things that interest me. How many other people would do the same thing?
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One way to mitigate the effects of a UBI is to couple it with service. The U.S. is producing a bumper crop of the Blue Haired. Employing people who do get a UBI by having them help the elderly cope might alleviate the lure of spending formerly useful time watching TV, playing video games, or tweeting into the EchoVerse. Of course they'd have to be monitored to be sure they weren't abusing the elderly, using teams instead of individual workers might help. And to pay for it, the U.S. can tax the industries wh
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I actually don't see a problem with this. Would it make you any more likely to volunteer? Do work in your community, pickup trash when you go outside? Make art? Take care of your family, particularly as they age?
All of these things have value, but a lot of it either doesn't get done or it gets done as unpaid work, as a fraction of your available time, and so probably to a lower quality level.
Not doing "work" doesn’t make you a not-productive member of society, it might just mean you're doing something
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That's a non-sequitur. It is neither true that all poor people are thieves and murderers, nor that all thieves and murderers are poor, and you can't plausibly come to such a conclusion by any reasonable interpretation of what I said.
But being poor does make you statistically a lot more likely to commit crime, both out of desperation and because of a lack of education — according to one study [childinthecity.org], as much as 13x more likely to commit violent crime against others, and as much as 7x more likely to harm you
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Poverty causes crime. It really is that simple.
No, it is not that simple. There is plenty of evidence for reverse causation: That crime causes poverty.
Rising poverty often will trail rising crime rather than preceding it.
Falling crime rates often lead to gentrification, rather than being caused by it.
Poor areas with high crime rates are much more likely to stay poor than poor areas with lower crime rates.
Prove me wrong.
No, it doesn't work that way. If you are advocating for spending trillions on a UBI scheme, the burden of proof is firmly on you convince us it will
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I think it can behave more like a feedback loop. After all, crime can influence the number of jobs available in a given area. But true reverse causation makes no sense whatsoever. Clearly people don't lack money at an individual level because they are criminals; the criminals are the ones who end up with money. Rather, criminals disproportionately harm the poor, which is an entirely different conclusi
Re: Basic income == Give me money for no reason (Score:2)
Poor people do not own houses that sell in your definition of gentrification. What happens is that landlords sell the houses to others and homeowners might move into the area forcing poor tenants out of an area and elsewhere.
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Another classic one from Shanghai Bill folks!
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That's a big part of it, though probably not all of it. There are lots of theories on why people do and don't commit crimes. To me, it seems likely that some people commit crimes because they think it's the only way to survive, some commit crimes because they didn't have anyone to teach them right from wrong, and some commit crimes because they don't have anything left to lose.
That last one actually is a bigger influence than many realize. Having wealth is actually a direct deterrent to people committin
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The massive expansion of the welfare state in America was accompanied by a dramatic rise in violent crime.
Nope. The correlation is just not there. Let's look at murders per capita: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] - the peaks are in 1932 and in 1980. At that time of the first peak, Roosevelt was creating tons of new "alphabet soup" agencies for basically nation-wide emergency welfare.
The second wave of crime peaked at 1980-s, plateaued and then started falling at the end of 80-s. Welfare reforms happened 10 years later.
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You heard it here first folks. People commit crimes because of their race. I wonder which race Shanghai Bill thinks are GENETICALLY more prone to violence.
Based on Shanghai Bill's posting history, it's going to be dark skinned people.
Let us all join together as we thank Shanghai Bill for another racist diatribe and ask him to kindly go fuck himself.
Fuck you Racist Bill. Fuck you.
Re: Basic income == Give me money for no reason (Score:2)
"that's why we need to expand means-tested social safety net programs. There's no good reason to give $1,000 month to everyone whether they need it or not and then take the majority of it it back from them in taxes"
You mention the good reason: you can get rid of all the bureaucracy and expense of means testing.
Special recognition... (Score:2)
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So sayeth the sage! Rank opinion from the oracle!
Personally I think implementing UBI now is premature but eventually what we call AI will start making massive inroads into the white collar workplace, the traditional salvation of blue collar jobs replaced by automation. Meanwhile blue collar jobs will continue their trend of being replaced by AI. Sure, we'll always need handymen for the vastly foreseeable future because of their adaptability but how many people can realistically be employed in such a trade?
S
psychology vs sociology (Score:2)
It's certainly a test case for the psychology of being on the dole. If people waste it all, it's not a good sign. but of course, we've already had those tests.
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