http://www.globalresearch.ca/swiss-in-f ... al/5353952 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/swiss-in-forefront-with-basic-income-proposal/5353952)
If the Swiss can, the rest of Europe can too!
They don't have oil. They don't have some precious ressources elsewhere. That means if they can do it, everyone can do so!
I've been a proponent of Basic Income for many years, and I've always come across people who are so strongly against it.
As the Social Democrats in my country puts it:
"Getting money for not working is disgusting!!!"
(Mette Frederiksen, Minister of Labor).
I think the real reasons behind not wanting to establish Basic Income for everyone, is because you can't control the population any longer.
With religious fundamentalist stupidity out, and Basic Income in, we are truly free!
But people hate freedom!
I'm hugely in favor of trying this idea. It would solve so many problems with modern economies.
Quote from: "Plu"I'm hugely in favor of trying this idea. It would solve so many problems with modern economies.
At LAST we agree on something :)
I'm for it in the future when robots do most if not all the work, but if we did that now I think the economy would fall apart.
there's lots of crappy jobs that still need doing and robots aren't ready to take all our jobs yet.
Take cleaning the sewer for instance. ain't nobody gonna do that shit if they can just set on their ass and get free money. free hand outs to all and many jobs that need doing, like that, will go undone.
When robots happily do all that work for us, sure. but until then I don't see how it could work.
I do however think in the mean time we can fight for shorter work weeks and longer vacation times and spreading the work around, and requiring the elite to pay living wages. This way we have more people employed for shorter hours at higher pay, rather than now where its some people working two jobs for shit pay while others can't find any work, while the rich make obscene amounts of money.
QuoteTake cleaning the sewer for instance. ain't nobody gonna do that shit if they can just set on their ass and get free money.
I'm guessing wages would go up until we could find somebody who was willing to do it. We'd have to change a few jobs from "you must do this shit job for shit pay because otherwise you'll starve unemployed" to "please do this shit job, we'll reward you handsomely" but if the job needs to be done and the pay is good, you will find somebody who will do it.
(I mean fuck; if you give me $10,000 a month
I'll come round and clean your damn sewers. But I'm sure you can find people willing to do it for less.)
The only people who are really willing to sit on their ass and get free money... are the people who are already sitting on their ass collecting unemployment and government aid. So the only change for them is that now their neighbours who work their ass off suddenly have twice as much cash as before and while they continue to be as poor as they always were.
So it's a matter of principle is it? We KNOW we have billionaires (with a B) who can't possibly work 10 million times harder than anyone picking fruit or cleaning sewers so flip it and say why is anyone permitted to amass such fortunes and do nothing? If someone can be idle rich then certainly anyone can be idle poor, but still have a minimum standard society must support.
Quote from: "drunkenshoe"Quote from: "Plu"I'm hugely in favor of trying this idea. It would solve so many problems with modern economies.
How?
It would fix, among others:
- Costs of getting an education, students with huge loans, etc. Suddenly, anyone can learn without being crippled by debt.
- The whole problem that the difference between unemployment and a minimum wage jobs is a few bucks a week, which will be a huge incentive for getting people motivated to find work
- The massive bureaucracy and policing around who gets government aid and who doesn't (early tests showed that simply giving everyone money is much cheaper than only giving money to the needy, because you can cut huge numbers of government officials)
- The whole minimum-wage extortion job economy. You offer shit conditions and next to no pay? Nobody will take your job just to avoid starvation. You'll just have to offer something valuable in return now.
- The danger is starting a new and expertimental company. Now anyone can try anything, which will be a boost to innovative sciences and industries.
We have a lot of economic issues that revolve around the idea that people need upkeep to survive and that if you have a lot of wealth, you can grab people by the balls and extort them. Taking away that required upkeep instantly ends the powerhold that the wealthy have on the poor right now, because suddenly the poor don't
need the tablescraps they are offered. They can just say "no" to shitty jobs and shitty conditions.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"I think the real reasons behind not wanting to establish Basic Income for everyone, is because you can't control the population any longer.
With religious fundamentalist stupidity out, and Basic Income in, we are truly free!
But people hate freedom!
It would just mean those controlling the distribution of Basic Income would have control rather than the fundies. Not exactly my idea of freedom.
What kind of control would people have over Basic Income? It would be kinda obvious if someone got more or less than someone else. Pretty hard system to cheat. You can't lose basic income and the amount is the same for everyone.
The shitty jobs need to be available and quite often no jobs at even shitty pay are available. Ever been somewhere with 25% unemployment? Then the 'scarce resources' are allocated to protecting the haves from the have nots and then the resources become allocated to prisons where the shitty jobs become exponentially shittier.
All of the costs of supporting the unemployed and disabled and other groups in those other, larger countries are also proportionally higher. There aren't as many Swiss, but their GDP isn't as high as that of other countries either. In the end, all you need is for your country to be wealthy enough to support all of its inhabitants, which is definately the case for all of Europe and the US.
Also tests showed that giving the whole country a basic income actually costs a smaller portion of the GDP than supporting things like unemployment and disability aid and other such targeted forms of support, simply because of the huge cost involved in bureaucratic control to ensure the system isn't abused. Rather than spending billions on making sure that certain people don't get income; just spend half that giving everyone the same income, get rid off most government control on the subject of aid, and save a lot of money. (As well as relocating huge numbers of people from government oversight with a productivity of effectively zero back into the general workforce.)
It initially seemed utopian to me as well, but every time you look up the researches and tests done on the subject, they seem to be greatly succesful, so apparently it can work. Even the test they did with giving homeless people an envelope with cash and the promise that they could do whatever they wanted with the money and nobody would check on them resulted in all those homeless people finally being able to get back on their feet, instead of them drinking it away (as so often happens when you give them money and then try to make sure they spend it wisely.)
Apparently people are inclined to make something of their life if you give them the choice and the knowledge that it's their own to make.
There's an old story that says if all the money was divided evenly the rich would still be rich and the poor would still be poor after awhile. Not sure how it would work out. :-| Solitary
I think that a minimum wage is fixing the wrong end of the problem.
Quote from: "Jason78"I think that a minimum wage is fixing the wrong end of the problem.
I think I agree with this, but there isn't much context to go on :P
QuoteThen why don't they do it?
QuoteThis is also highly a cultural issue.
I think you answered your own question. A combination of cultural issues, people not liking change, and rich and powerful people probably being aware that this will take power away from them. Change come from people in power, and they usually don't like sacrificing that power. (Possibly also some more complicated economical issues in the end; but you never hear those so I can't be sure... most of the arguments against it are just people using their own opinions and bias I think)
Still; the Swiss are going to try it, which in the end will be the best test possible. If an entire country can pull it off and succeed...
Quote from: "Plu"What kind of control would people have over Basic Income? It would be kinda obvious if someone got more or less than someone else. Pretty hard system to cheat. You can't lose basic income and the amount is the same for everyone.
If it was truly unconditional and you had a trustworthy government, I could see where you're coming from. Maybe your government is more responsible that the US government. But when someone has control of a significant portion of your livelihood, they have some control over you. Whether they exercise that control is a different matter. If your government is free of corruption and efficiently run, you would probably be fine.
As much as I dislike governmental redistribution of wealth, I have to admit that this idea has merit. It's certainly sounds better than the broken welfare programs that the US is currently propping up. I think it might be better if we replace all of them with unconditional basic income. Unfortunately, what I see happening is that even if everyone is provided with their piece of the pie, there will still be cries of inequality, and instead of basic income replacing all those fragmented programs, it will simply be added to them.
If you gave every adult in the US just 10k a year for their basic income (not enough) that would cost around 2.5 trillion dollars for taxpayers. If you give them the $2800.00 a month that the Swiss are talking about, that would be a little over 8 trillion a year (I think). The first one is a revenue challenge, but probably doable if you nix social security, medicare/medicaid and some defense spending, but the Swiss standard seems pretty impossible for the US. I'm just guessing here, but i would think the taxes you would need to support this would be obscene.
Then again, with technology pushing out jobs... I don't know.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"If the Swiss can, the rest of Europe can too!
They don't have oil. They don't have some precious ressources elsewhere. That means if they can do it, everyone can do so!
They do have lots of money laundering and tax evasion revenue though.
QuoteI've been a proponent of Basic Income for many years, and I've always come across people who are so strongly against it.
As HBA points out, we continue to automate our labor. As we progress in our automation of labor we will almost certainly arrive at a time where we will need to distribute wealth without expecting people who are capable of working to do work. Indeed, we will achieve so much automation that full employment will be nearly impossible without pointless make-work jobs. We're not there yet. Any discretionary ability not to work comes at the direct expense of those who do work, and that system will be unstable. Until we arrive at the point where automation is so omnipresent that we can pay people who are able to work but choose not to work, we should concentrate on programs to increase employment, support people who cannot work, and support workers who are involuntarily unemployed... Pretty much what every developed nation has been doing for decades now.
I'm not making a moral objection to being paid even if a person chooses not to work, and we are probably going to need to do that in our future. We're not there yet. I think a more workable solution in the near term is a negative income tax. Even the normally retrogressive USA has had a negative income tax since 1975.
QuoteIf you gave every adult in the US just 10k a year for their basic income (not enough) that would cost around 2.5 trillion dollars for taxpayers. If you give them the $2800.00 a month that the Swiss are talking about, that would be a little over 8 trillion a year (I think). The first one is a revenue challenge, but probably doable if you nix social security, medicare/medicaid and some defense spending, but the Swiss standard seems pretty impossible for the US. I'm just guessing here, but i would think the taxes you would need to support this would be obscene.
Remember that a huge chunk of that money would also be coming off of every other department of government; you can greatly lower the wages of all your employees once basic income exists.
(Also I think 2800 is too much for US norms; it needs to be at the "just enough to have a home and food on the table" level. If you go too far above that, it really does start to take away the motivation to work. Plus it will mess up your economy. So it would probably end closer to 1000 a month. Maybe even less, I don't know the US economy that well.)
I want to like this. Our current welfare bureacracy IS very inefficient. But...in the USA, there are about 240 million adults (over 18). $2,000 a month for each of them would be about 480 billion a month, or nearly six trillion dollars per year. That's about what our entire budget was in 2012. Over a third of our GDP. That's daunting. To pay for it we would have to increase our welfare spending by about 9 times, so we would need a federal budget about 2.5 times bigger, which means collecting another 5.6 trillion in revenue. However, most of that would go right back into our pockets, it can be done in such a way that the middle class pretty much breaks even...but it's a fantasy to think the average person would have thousands of dollars more a month to spend, which means it winds up being a disincentive to work, which means fewer people making enough money to pay for it all.
If we limited our spending to about 20% of our budget, which is about what we spend on entitlements now, that would be roughly $250.00 per adult per month. In the USA, that's grinding poverty. Worse than what we already have.
I'm glad the Swiss are trying this. I hope it goes well for them and that my reservations turn out to be a result of lack of vision. It sounds like the plan is just to print up the cash...that is, inflate their currency dramatically, which will reduce the buying power of the stipend significantly.
I think that at best, this may be a slight improvement over traditional welfare. At worst, an economy-wrecker.
OTH, the looming robot workforce is a real concern. What will we do when 30 or 40 percent of the population is unemployable because they can't compete with automation? We'll have to do some kind of basic income scheme sooner or later. Later might be much cheaper, though.
Quote from: "Jason78"I think that a minimum wage is fixing the wrong end of the problem.
I have heard proposals for a maximum wage that is 10x the minimum wage.
Quote from: "AllPurposeAtheist"The shitty jobs need to be available and quite often no jobs at even shitty pay are available. Ever been somewhere with 25% unemployment? Then the 'scarce resources' are allocated to protecting the haves from the have nots and then the resources become allocated to prisons where the shitty jobs become exponentially shittier.
The phrase "protecting the haves from the have nots" is an interesting one. Government resources are dedicated to protecting the government from the people. That shows who the real "haves and have nots" are, and it isn't based on income.
Quote from: "Plu"I'm guessing wages would go up until we could find somebody who was willing to do it. We'd have to change a few jobs from "you must do this shit job for shit pay because otherwise you'll starve unemployed" to "please do this shit job, we'll reward you handsomely" but if the job needs to be done and the pay is good, you will find somebody who will do it.
And where exactly would the money come from to cover required increased salaries? You would inevitably have to raise the price to the customer. In this case since we're talking about sewer services, you would presumably have to raise the sewage fees.
So if your government pays every citizen $1000/month but then has to raise fees and taxes by $1000/month in order to cover the now exorbitant labor costs, what have you actually accomplished?
QuoteSo if your government pays every citizen $1000/month but then has to raise fees and taxes by $1000/month in order to cover the now exorbitant labor costs, what have you actually accomplished?
In such an example, nothing. But then I don't think it is anywhere near realistic anyway.
Quote from: "Plu"QuoteSo if your government pays every citizen $1000/month but then has to raise fees and taxes by $1000/month in order to cover the now exorbitant labor costs, what have you actually accomplished?
In such an example, nothing. But then I don't think it is anywhere near realistic anyway.
True. The basic income of $1000/month will require fees of $2000/month.
That sounds interesting. I don't think even the US government would be that incompetent.
Also $2000 fees isn't neccesarily an issue, since most of the tax money should be coming in from companies and people making far more than basic income. Of course, if the country fails to properly tax companies and rich people... oh right. Well I guess it's not for the US just yet then :roll:
Sorry but this whole thing is NOT sound economic principles. There are two sides to consider: on the demand side, yes, people would have more money to buy goods and services, but you end up with a severe problem on the supply side. Firms would be forced to raise salaries way above whatever the basic income is ( whether $1000/mo or $2000/mo as has been suggested so far in this thread), and this would force all prices to shoot through the roof. In the end, there would be no winners, as people would have more money but they would have to buy goods at much higher prices, doing very little to decrease the poverty line.
QuoteFirms would be forced to raise salaries way above whatever the basic income is ( whether $1000/mo or $2000/mo as has been suggested so far in this thread),
Why? I'm not sure I understand why firms would have to raise salaries all that much. You'd expect many of them to actually go down as a result because people would need less money for a complete income. The only salaries that would go up are the jobs that are only done right now because companies are extorting workers into doing them.
Quote from: "Plu"QuoteFirms would be forced to raise salaries way above whatever the basic income is ( whether $1000/mo or $2000/mo as has been suggested so far in this thread),
Why? I'm not sure I understand why firms would have to raise salaries all that much. You'd expect many of them to actually go down as a result because people would need less money for a complete income. The only salaries that would go up are the jobs that are only done right now because companies are extorting workers into doing them.
Sorry but economics doesn't work that way. Firms have to compete against each other, and in this case, against the government giving basic incomes. To attract people, firms would have no choice but to offer higher salaries. And if they don't, lots of people will choose not to work, and then you end up like in the former Soviet Union, lots of money in your pocket with nothing to buy, as suppliers have no incentive to produce. You get long line-ups to buy milk, shoes, or anything you would need.
But you don't have to compete with basic incomes... people would get them whether they work or not. Any money a person makes from a job is simply in addition to the basic income. And the basic income would be at the "can survive but barely" level, so that people would still be looking for work so that they actually have money left over to do fun things with their time.
A firm that offers you a dollar per hour still means that at the end of the week, you get an extra $40. They don't have to compete with the government in any way. In fact you can even scrap minimum wage and let them go as long as they can get people to work for them.
Quote from: "Plu"But you don't have to compete with basic incomes... people would get them whether they work or not. Any money a person makes from a job is simply in addition to the basic income. And the basic income would be at the "can survive but barely" level, so that people would still be looking for work so that they actually have money left over to do fun things with their time.
A firm that offers you a dollar per hour still means that at the end of the week, you get an extra $40. They don't have to compete with the government in any way. In fact you can even scrap minimum wage and let them go as long as they can get people to work for them.
Are you ever clueless? You really think that if we would double everyone's salary, we would all be richer?!?? All that would do is shoot prices through the roof. It's an economic fact that if you increase the money supply, which you are doing in this case by giving more money to people with no increase in economic output, what it does is bring inflation up (hint: prices go up). At the end of the day, you are no longer richer, and you haven't solved the poverty problem.
Quote from: "Plu"Why? I'm not sure I understand why firms would have to raise salaries all that much. You'd expect many of them to actually go down as a result because people would need less money for a complete income.
If a person makes $2000/month doing 40 hours/wk making widgets and then the government suddenly starts giving that person $2000/month whether they work or not, most of the widget workers are going to stay home and sit on their ass. True a few enterprising individuals will realize that they can keep working at the widget factory and end up with $4000/month, but most will just opt to stay home and watch the Flintstones. Therefore, the guy running the widget factory is going to have to offer higher salaries in order to get warm bodies in the door. Those higher salaries are going to translate into higher retail prices.
The whole idea of basic income is essentially a something for nothing scenario. And something for nothing is rarely sustainable for very long.
Right, so basically nobody has any idea what basic income is, how it works, that it has been tried and all tests point to that it does work, and the general argument is "you're ignorant" or "I don't think this could work because I have no clue what it is" or something like that?
These are all arguments of people who have no idea what basic income is supposed to be about.
A) If you make $2000 in a 40 hour factory job, basic income is going to be much less than $2000 a month.
B) All the research ever done on this subject points to people not going to "stay home and sit on their ass", most people don't like sitting around doing nothing.
C) You don't have to create more money, basic income is cheaper than the current social system in most countries because it cuts down immensely on bureaucracy.
All of these things have been scientifically tested, and I'm being countered by arguments along the lines of "I don't know the subject but it can't work for reasons I made up that aren't part of the subject" and "ur stupid"? Sheesh. Good going guys.
Quote from: "Plu"A) If you make $2000 in a 40 hour factory job, basic income is going to be much less than $2000 a month.
What? I thought you said people would get basic income whether they worked or not? Now there's a scale?
QuoteB) All the research ever done on this subject points to people not going to "stay home and sit on their ass", most people don't like sitting around doing nothing.
You underestimate my power.
QuoteC) You don't have to create more money, basic income is cheaper than the current social system in most countries because it cuts down immensely on bureaucracy.
You know how food stamps and WIC only work on certain items? Yeah, there's a reason for that.
QuoteAll of these things have been scientifically tested, and I'm being countered by arguments along the lines of "I don't know the subject but it can't work for reasons I made up that aren't part of the subject" and "ur stupid"? Sheesh. Good going guys.
Source, please.
QuoteWhat? I thought you said people would get basic income whether they worked or not? Now there's a scale?
The scale is based on how much you need to survive in the country. It should be quite a bit below minimum wage
unless minimum wage itself is already ridiculously low, in which case the entire economy is basically fucked up. The amount is the same for all people in the country, but if a minimum wage job earns $2000 probably basic income would be closer to $1200 or something.
QuoteYou underestimate my power.
I doubt anyone on this forum is such a lazy bum that they'd be complacent to sit in a really small run-down appartment, drinking cheap beer and watching a crappy old tv. If you're picturing being able to do more on minimum income, you're picturing you'll get more money than what it should be based on. It's a
bare minimum, no more.
QuoteYou know how food stamps and WIC only work on certain items? Yeah, there's a reason for that.
Yeah, and that reason is also why so much money is lost on bureaucracy around the whole welfare program. When you put people on basic income, you can just let them starve if that's what they feel like doing. It's really just their own fault, we shouldn't need to babysit grown people.
QuoteSource, please.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income)
The wiki page lists loads of studies on the subject, including some experiments done on the topic. I'm not sure what kind of thing you're looking for, but if you tell me I can see if I can find an article. Even googling for arguments against it generates next to nothing, though. The only argument against it on the wiki is "people will work less", with an observed reduction in hours of 5% in the experiment. Which is basically not much to worry about. And the only people who worked "substantially less" were single mothers and teenagers supporting a family, which seems like a good thing to me.
If you can find more arguments (and especially research or experiments) against it, I'd gladly listen. But they seem to be pretty rare compared to loads of research into why it would work.
Quote from: "Plu"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income)
The wiki page lists loads of studies on the subject, including some experiments done on the topic. I'm not sure what kind of thing you're looking for, but if you tell me I can see if I can find an article. Even googling for arguments against it generates next to nothing, though. The only argument against it on the wiki is "people will work less", with an observed reduction in hours of 5% in the experiment. Which is basically not much to worry about. And the only people who worked "substantially less" were single mothers and teenagers supporting a family, which seems like a good thing to me.
If you can find more arguments (and especially research or experiments) against it, I'd gladly listen. But they seem to be pretty rare compared to loads of research into why it would work.
You should read your own link. This is what it says. It was implemented in a remote town in Namibia, however,
QuoteThere is no public access to the project database. In a Namibian daily, the project representatives confirmed the lack of public access to their data and justified it.[23]
The design of the project and the conduct of the empirical studies have been criticized by some authors for intransparent procedure and inappropriate methods.[24]
In other places where it was also tried on a small scale, it was done on a small period of time, though there were some benefits, but no country really implemented full time, on a national scale. There are political parties in every countries which have adopted this idea in their platforms, but you cannot claim this has really worked well anywhere.
Did I mention that it was implemented on a national scale? If so, that was a mistake. The Swiss are working on it, but other than that it's just succesful researches and experiments. But still; succesful experiments show that there's something there. That it might very well work. And that it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand as is being done in this topic.
Quote from: "Plu"Did I mention that it was implemented on a national scale? If so, that was a mistake. The Swiss are working on it, but other than that it's just succesful researches and experiments. But still; succesful experiments show that there's something there. That it might very well work. And that it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand as is being done in this topic.
My understanding of economics leads me to believe it wouldn't work. The study of unemployment and how it's tied up to employment, and such things as consumer demand, investment, tax rates, exports and imports, show that the objective goal of reducing unemployment - a goal that it necessary to lower poverty level - is a difficult task. There are no easy solutions. You cannot implement successfully policies that would go against the law of Demand/Supply, or that business always try to maximize profits or ignoring the fluctuations in the business cycle with its periods of boom and bust. History shows that any economic/political system that ignored these brute facts met dysmal failure. And I can see some serious flaws in the concept of a basic income, some of which I have already mentioned.
I'm trying to understand the flaws you see, so let me know if I missed something.
You've mentioned these two concrete things that I see:
QuoteFirms would be forced to raise salaries way above whatever the basic income is ( whether $1000/mo or $2000/mo as has been suggested so far in this thread)
QuoteIt's an economic fact that if you increase the money supply, which you are doing in this case by giving more money to people with no increase in economic output, what it does is bring inflation up (hint: prices go up).
The first seems to assume that if people get enough money for a roof over their head and little more, suddenly they aren't willing to go back to work to bring their income up to their previous standard. This seems counter intuitive. If you get $1000 a month for free are you saying you would stop going to your $2000 a month job? To me, that sounds ridiculous. In fact, companies could actually lower wages and people would keep coming, because they would quickly realise that just a roof over your head and the barest of food isn't really a good life. And you could work for less, because every dollar you earn is basically luxury money, not a dollar you need to keep from starving.
The second seems to assume that you'd need to print more money in order to give all people money, but calculations show that by cutting down hugely on the bureaucracy currently needed to keep people from abusing government welfare would make this option comparable or even cheaper than the current welfare system (at least in more socialist countries; the US is probably a terrible example for this). Which means you aren't printing more money at all.
Neither of these seem a particularly large flaw unless you try to slap it on the current day US, which is still a terrible example. And I'm also not seeing how this would interfere with the supply/demand change all that much, since it's not generating new money from nothing
and we already have loads of people who already get welfare.
Basic income is little more than current welfare for the jobless + the existance of minimum wages for companies to ensure basic income for the workers. The only thing you are doing is cutting away
loads of red tape by no longer forcing companies to give people a living wage for the work they do, and no longer requiring people to prove they aren't already getting a living wage from some other place before you give them welfare.
Quote from: "Plu"The first seems to assume that if people get enough money for a roof over their head and little more, suddenly they aren't willing to go back to work to bring their income up to their previous standard. This seems counter intuitive.If you get $1000 a month for free are you saying you would stop going to your $2000 a month job? To me, that sounds ridiculous. In fact, companies could actually lower wages and people would keep coming, because they would quickly realise that just a roof over your head and the barest of food isn't really a good life. And you could work for less, because every dollar you earn is basically luxury money, not a dollar you need to keep from starving.
You can't base this on what you would do personally. You need to look at what everyone would do. For instance, if you would raise someone's salary by $100/mo, and you would ask, "what would you do with this extra money?" Some would spend all of it, some would spend a certain amount and save the rest, others would save all of it. In recent studies, the general average is that $30/mo would be spent, the rest would be saved. Under other economic conditions that number could change, but the point is that you personally would not necessarly follow this average trend.
The fact is that there are many if they could avoid working altogether, even if it means living in substandard living conditions, they will choose to do just that. If the government gives a basic income, firms would have to raise their salaries to coax a substantial number of people to get up everyday and earn much more than if they would stay at home. I'm not saying everyone would do that, but there would be a substantial percentage of the population who would.
QuoteThe second seems to assume that you'd need to print more money in order to give all people money, but calculations show that by cutting down hugely on the bureaucracy currently needed to keep people from abusing government welfare would make this option comparable or even cheaper than the current welfare system (at least in more socialist countries; the US is probably a terrible example for this). Which means you aren't printing more money at all.
First of all, if the government cuts down, it means an increase in the unemployment rate. So you would lay off working people, and with that money the government just saved, you would give more to those who already have a job or are already receiving government hand-outs. Not much of a solution.
Second of all, the case of increasing the money supply went hand in hand with doubling everyone's salary. This scenario which I gave you was to make you realize that more money doesn't solve the problem at hand: reducing poverty, which is the aim of a basic income. The main trust there in that scenario is that increasing the money supply without an increase in output accomplishes absolutely nothing as you would have more money but prices would go up in tandem.
QuoteNeither of these seem a particularly large flaw unless you try to slap it on the current day US, which is still a terrible example.
The main problem in the US, in regard with the OP, is that we have a growing inequality between the top 1% earners and the other 99%. But basic income will not solve this disparity. Though it could be a topic for another thread.
QuoteAnd I'm also not seeing how this would interfere with the supply/demand change all that much, since it's not generating new money from nothing and we already have loads of people who already get welfare.
You would be increasing the money supply since everyone would be getting a government handout, as opposed to the present situation, in which only a small number of people are getting some form of a government hand-out.
QuoteBasic income is little more than current welfare for the jobless + the existance of minimum wages for companies to ensure basic income for the workers. The only thing you are doing is cutting away loads of red tape by no longer forcing companies to give people a living wage for the work they do, and no longer requiring people to prove they aren't already getting a living wage from some other place before you give them welfare.
It's not exactly the same. For one, the present situation is not an automatic hand-out, basic income is. Secondly, you don't want to send the message that getting on welfare is a carreer choice, which would with basic income. Thirdly, we should do everything possible to get people off of welfare by giving them the tools to retrain and acquire marketable skills, basic income is a disincentive.
QuoteThe fact is that there are many if they could avoid working altogether, even if it means living in substandard living conditions, they will choose to do just that.
What is this fact based on, then? If it can't be based on you and me, I'm assuming you have a study that shows it? Because experiments show that people don't like sitting around doing nothing, mostly.
QuoteFirst of all, if the government cuts down, it means an increase in the unemployment rate. So you would lay off working people, and with that money the government just saved, you would give more to those who already have a job or are already receiving government hand-outs. Not much of a solution.
Second of all, the case of increasing the money supply went hand in hand with doubling everyone's salary. This scenario which I gave you was to make you realize that more money doesn't solve the problem at hand: reducing poverty, which is the aim of a basic income. The main trust there in that scenario is that increasing the money supply without an increase in output accomplishes absolutely nothing as you would have more money but prices would go up in tandem.
Yes. Although you would save more in cutting down on buildings that are no longer needed to be maintained than in salaries. Also, I am expecting companies to change their salaries pretty quickly in order to fix the discrepancy. Wages would start going down quite substantially for a while. With companies no longer being required to pay the basic income and thus required to pay minimum wage, salaries will quickly stabilise around what the market really thinks they should be.
QuoteYou would be increasing the money supply since everyone would be getting a government handout, as opposed to the present situation, in which only a small number of people are getting some form of a government hand-out.
There is no extra money. It's just going to different things now. Instead of to government officials, it's now going to regular people. Instead of government offices, it's now going to startup companies that people start with their basic income. No new money comes into circulation; it's just reassigned.
QuoteIt's not exactly the same. For one, the present situation is not an automatic hand-out, basic income is. Secondly, you don't want to send the message that getting on welfare is a carreer choice, which would you with basic income. Thirdly, we should do everything possible to get people off of welfare by giving them the tools to retrain and acquire marketable skills, basic income is a disincentive.
Being on welfare is a shitty carreer choice, and introducing basic income doesn't change that. In fact, it makes it less likely because you'll probably be getting less in welfare with basic income since all of the extra programs and things you normally gain to get welfare money disappear. But the number of people in any situation that
enjoy being on welfare is really low. Most people are just trapped there. In part because getting a job is really hard because a job is expensive, in part because the government is looking them on the fingers and not allowing them to spend it in a way where they can back on their feet (see: only food from foodstamps, not schoolbooks. really?)
And lastly; giving people the money to survive while they teach themselves new skill
is giving them the tools to retrain and acquire marketable skills. It's a far cheaper option than all sorts of complicated systems where we look down on them, force them, and otherwise set them up for demotivation and ultimate failure. Again; one of the results of experiments was people using the money
to go back to school on their own.
Economics is all about the margins. If you give people a subsidy that's 10% of what they already make, very few will stop working to live on that 10%. However, as the percentage of the subsidy goes up, the percentage of people who will stop working to live just on that goes up too.
There's a phrase that goes 'you can have as much poverty as you're willing to pay for' that describes the phenomenon of beneficiary rolls increasing as benefits increase, that is, the higher the benefits, the more people who enroll into the system. and unemployement or some level of underemployment is required to qualify to be on the rolls. In other words, when benefits rise, some people quit their jobs to go on benefits rather than work. And again, this happens on the margins. Someone who has pressing demands on their time at home who can make almost as much on benefits has a strong short-term incentive to go on benefits, although in the long run they might be better off continuing to gain work experience and potentially be promoted or move to a better job. If benefits are more than you can make at your current job, more people will find that attractive.
I'm not saying we can't have a basic income, but there seem to be limits on how high it can be without causing significant economic damage. In my own case, I wouldn't pass up early retirement if I had a base income of $20,000 I could count on (that wasn't over-inflated). A LOT of people would retire at 55 and 20 years with that to boost their retirement with. Which means employers would have to replace them, probably with internal promotions for the most part, and bringing in more people at entry-level positions. Since most companies would be in the same boat, it's likely that demand would exceed supply, so companies would be competing for people to fill those positions.
But I don't like to bet against the Swiss. Maybe they can pull it off.
Quote from: "Plu"QuoteThe fact is that there are many if they could avoid working altogether, even if it means living in substandard living conditions, they will choose to do just that.
What is this fact based on, then? If it can't be based on you and me, I'm assuming you have a study that shows it? Because experiments show that people don't like sitting around doing nothing, mostly.
Hummm, if people were that honest, we wouldn't need a police force, courts, judges, lawyers and prisons. Sorry, but get real. The vast majority of people would stay home if they had a guaranteed basic income instead of getting up everyday, travel through thick traffic and pollution, put up with a shitty boss, etc. It's a fact of life you seemed to having been shielded from.
QuoteAlso, I am expecting companies to change their salaries pretty quickly in order to fix the discrepancy. Wages would start going down quite substantially for a while. With companies no longer being required to pay the basic income and thus required to pay minimum wage, salaries will quickly stabilise around what the market really thinks they should be.
As I foresaw, you are clueless on the law of Supply/Demand. Firms will only lower their salary if there is a greater number of people that want to work than there are vacant jobs. In the case of a guaranteed basic income, there would be fewer workers for the vacant jobs, and therefore firms would have no choice but to increase their salaries to attract more people to fill those vacant jobs.
QuoteQuoteYou would be increasing the money supply since everyone would be getting a government handout, as opposed to the present situation, in which only a small number of people are getting some form of a government hand-out.
There is no extra money. It's just going to different things now. Instead of to government officials, it's now going to regular people. Instead of government offices, it's now going to startup companies that people start with their basic income. No new money comes into circulation; it's just reassigned.
That would be true only if the amount paid out to civil servants + buildings exactly matches all the money given to everyone through the basic income. Studies show otherwise. In the US, the civil servant make up slightly less than 10%, not all would be cut off as some of them work in departments not related to social welfare. But in the case of basic income, 100% of the working population would get it. If you would try to match these two numbers ( amount saved = basic income), the basic income would be about enough for each one to buy a hamburger at McDonald. Not worth the effort to stamp out poverty.
QuoteHummm, if people were that honest, we wouldn't need a police force, courts, judges, lawyers and prisons. Sorry, but get real. The vast majority of people would stay home if they had a guaranteed basic income instead of getting up everyday, travel through thick traffic and pollution, put up with a shitty boss, etc. It's a fact of life you seemed to having been shielded from.
So basically "because I say so", just after you told me I can't use myself as an example. Cute. But not very convincing.
QuoteAs I foresaw, you are clueless on the law of Supply/Demand. Firms will only lower their salary if there is a greater number of people that want to work than there are vacant jobs. In the case of a guaranteed basic income, there would be fewer workers for the vacant jobs, and therefore firms would have no choice but to increase their salaries to attract more people to fill those vacant jobs.
Ah, more of the personal attacks. Even cuter. There
are more people willing to work than there are vacant jobs; that's why we have an unemployment rate. There won't be fewer workers for the vacant jobs; all the
real slobs and carreer welfare people are
already on welfare. And all the people currently working for minimum wage
aren't being paid a market-operated salary, they're paying a government enforced salary and those
will go down because there
are a lot of people willing to take those jobs; it's just that companies don't consider them worth it if they need to pay minimum wage for an extra pair of hands.
Take a walk through the getto. See how many people would be willing to help you for a few hundred dollars a month, just to have some extra income. Ask around how many people
like living at that wealth level and how many wouldn't mind working to get out of it.
QuoteStudies show otherwise.
Which studies? Except the US (why do you keep bringing it up? I already told you it's a terrible fit for this idea because it's a completely fucked up country) in most countries it is quite affordable.
It seems you're running off of personal opinions much more than actual study or knowledge of what basic income would do. All the while blaming me of doing so.
Quote from: "Plu"QuoteHummm, if people were that honest, we wouldn't need a police force, courts, judges, lawyers and prisons. Sorry, but get real. The vast majority of people would stay home if they had a guaranteed basic income instead of getting up everyday, travel through thick traffic and pollution, put up with a shitty boss, etc. It's a fact of life you seemed to having been shielded from.
So basically "because I say so", just after you told me I can't use myself as an example. Cute. But not very convincing.
Which part of "if people were that honest, we wouldn't need a police force, courts, judges, lawyers and prisons" don't you understand?
QuoteAs I foresaw, you are clueless on the law of Supply/Demand. Firms will only lower their salary if there is a greater number of people that want to work than there are vacant jobs. In the case of a guaranteed basic income, there would be fewer workers for the vacant jobs, and therefore firms would have no choice but to increase their salaries to attract more people to fill those vacant jobs.
QuoteAh, more of the personal attacks. Even cuter.
It's a fact that you are clueless about the law of Supply/Demand. If you take it as an insult, that's your problem.
QuoteThere are more people willing to work than there are vacant jobs; that's why we have an unemployment rate.
We are not talking about that situation. That's a different problem, requiring another thread. We are talking about changing the present system that has welfare programs to another system with basic income. Regardless of the present unemployment rate, making that change from welfare to basic income would not solve any problems, and perhaps make it worse as you are opening the door to people who will take the basic income and make do with that. The objective is to get people off the welfare roll, not encouraging them to stay there.
QuoteTake a walk through the getto. See how many people would be willing to help you for a few hundred dollars a month, just to have some extra income. Ask around how many people like living at that wealth level and how many wouldn't mind working to get out of it.
Maybe YOU should take that walk. You'll be surprised that some are not willing to make the effort to try to get a job, or get retrain even when there are such programs available to them.
QuoteWhich studies? Except the US (why do you keep bringing it up? I already told you it's a terrible fit for this idea because it's a completely fucked up country) in most countries it is quite affordable.
That doesn't answer the issue: "if the amount saved = basic income, the basic income would be about enough for each one to buy a hamburger at McDonald. Not worth the effort to stamp out poverty." I take you have no answers.
QuoteIt seems you're running off of personal opinions much more than actual study or knowledge of what basic income would do. All the while blaming me of doing so.
Whatever rocks your boat. :P
It seems you haven't changed one bit since the last time I called you an elitist asshole :rolleyes:
Quote from: "Plu"It seems you haven't changed one bit since the last time I called you an elitist asshole :rolleyes:
Thanks for the compliment... :twisted:
Quote from: "Mister Agenda"But I don't like to bet against the Swiss. Maybe they can pull it off.
Yeah but the Swiss economy relies heavily on their banking system, which is designed for those who are hiding their money for tax purposes. And it is also a safe bank haven for illegal drug traffickers and for all those involved in criminal/illegal/murky activities to hide their money. Not the kind of country I would want to emulate.
Quote from: "Plu"The scale is based on how much you need to survive in the country. It should be quite a bit below minimum wage unless minimum wage itself is already ridiculously low, in which case the entire economy is basically fucked up. The amount is the same for all people in the country, but if a minimum wage job earns $2000 probably basic income would be closer to $1200 or something.
I don't even understand what you're trying to say. Do you mean that someone making more money will receive less in basic income, or are you saying basic income would be different from country to country? If it's the former, then you could make an argument for the funding of basic income, but you would also have to overcome the fact that at a certain level, people wouldn't be gaining anything by working harder (the same issue welfare recipients deal with today). If it's the latter, then I don't even understand why you would bring it up. I mean, yeah, duh, different countries would need different basic incomes. I don't think anyone is arguing against that.
QuoteI doubt anyone on this forum is such a lazy bum that they'd be complacent to sit in a really small run-down appartment, drinking cheap beer and watching a crappy old tv. If you're picturing being able to do more on minimum income, you're picturing you'll get more money than what it should be based on. It's a bare minimum, no more.
You underestimate my power.
QuoteYeah, and that reason is also why so much money is lost on bureaucracy around the whole welfare program. When you put people on basic income, you can just let them starve if that's what they feel like doing. It's really just their own fault, we shouldn't need to babysit grown people.
I work in a grocery store. If I had a dollar for every pissed off customer trying to buy non-essentials with their welfare money, I wouldn't need to work in a grocery store anymore.
Quotehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
Few of those real world tests involved enough money to meet basic needs, meaning that people were actually still forced to work for a living. The claim that the Namibian findings contradict the idea of basic income receivers becoming lazy and dependent is not valid, because there was not enough money involved to become dependent on. The quality of life scale involved is so drastically different than what exists in first world countries that the data isn't even relevant. Even the experiments in first world countries are on too small a scale to reliably test for larger economic effects. They do, however, make me consider that small, isolated implementations in extremely impoverished areas followed by a slow weaning period would do some good.
QuoteI don't even understand what you're trying to say. Do you mean that someone making more money will receive less in basic income, or are you saying basic income would be different from country to country? If it's the former, then you could make an argument for the funding of basic income, but you would also have to overcome the fact that at a certain level, people wouldn't be gaining anything by working harder (the same issue welfare recipients deal with today). If it's the latter, then I don't even understand why you would bring it up. I mean, yeah, duh, different countries would need different basic incomes. I don't think anyone is arguing against that.
Basic income is indeed country dependant; so option 2. The reason I'm bringing it up is because some people seem to assume that you can live comfortably off of just your basic income due to some of the numbers posted (as examples) in this thread. You should not be able to live comfortably off of your basic income. You should be able to live barely. (Thing is this is probably comparable to US minimum wage, which might be skewing things by a lot)
QuoteYou underestimate my power.
So if you ever get basic income; go and sit on your ass all day long and do nothing. Either you'll get bored quickly, or else who really cares? Overall the country should still be cheaper off than if you're leeching welfare instead and someone else will do your job and have twice your income while you sit and waste away in your living room.
You are probably underestimating your own power as well, though. I find it hard to believe that you have nothing in your life that you're willing to put effort into. And if you are, that's really, really sad and I feel sorry for you.
QuoteEven the experiments in first world countries are on too small a scale to reliably test for larger economic effects. They do, however, make me consider that small, isolated implementations in extremely impoverished areas followed by a slow weaning period would do some good.
I do agree that we need
way more tests with the whole concept. Preliminary tests show good results, but we need to see what happens in a major country. But we shouldn't let the idea die because common sense disagrees with it, nor because some people claim that they and the rest of the world are lazy bums when the evidence seems to suggest otherwise.
Quote from: "Jason_Harvestdancer"Quote from: "AllPurposeAtheist"The shitty jobs need to be available and quite often no jobs at even shitty pay are available. Ever been somewhere with 25% unemployment? Then the 'scarce resources' are allocated to protecting the haves from the have nots and then the resources become allocated to prisons where the shitty jobs become exponentially shittier.
The phrase "protecting the haves from the have nots" is an interesting one. Government resources are dedicated to protecting the government from the people. That shows who the real "haves and have nots" are, and it isn't based on income.
I always did wonder why the poor always relied on "the government" to carry out their revolutions instead of using their obvious, essentially insuperable advantage of having superior numbers. Not only do you have to trust that the government has your best interests at heart, you also have to trust that it is actually CAPABLE of delivering on your promises.
you first. LOL
Quote from: "josephpalazzo"The objective is to get people off the welfare roll, not encouraging them to stay there.
YOU claim that to be the objective. I have another objective: Quality of life for more people, as fewer people would have to develop severe mental illnesses from the stressors at work.
By making work optional, you increase people's quality of life.
I just hate when it gets stated that there is only one objective that is to get people off public support.
QuoteBy making work optional, you increase people's quality of life.
Not really, the work does not yet do itself. If too many people make work optional, quality of life will go down for everyone.
(Fortunately I think that more than enough people will still do work under this system so it shouldn't be much of a problem.)
I think this article might make it easier for the non-Americans to understand where the Americans in this thread are coming from. (//http://web.archive.org/web/20120122024920/www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-part-2-american-identity-and-threats-tomorrow)
Quote from: "Plu"QuoteBy making work optional, you increase people's quality of life.
Not really, the work does not yet do itself. If too many people make work optional, quality of life will go down for everyone.
(Fortunately I think that more than enough people will still do work under this system so it shouldn't be much of a problem.)
Exactly. That's why I believe it is no problem making it optional.