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Economic proof of concept: Right now in the United States, 95%+ of people get their basic necessities covered, one way or another. The additional goods produce
by scarmig 11y ago
Economic proof of concept:
Right now in the United States, 95%+ of people get their basic necessities covered, one way or another. The additional goods produced and services utilized will only require a "relatively" small reallocation of capital resources to their production.
The way I conceptualize UBI is partially an accounting trick, since a large portion of the revenues and outlays would be just changing money that people currently spend directly on goods and services to money that first gets taxed and then goes straight back to people who then spend it on the same goods and services. It's partially changing the incidence of social costs--hospitals that once had to eat the costs of the required treatment of poor people would then not be punished, and instead (depending on how the funding taxes are structured) the holders of income/wealth in society would eat those costs. Some of it is renaming existing programs and more efficiently administrating them (instead of food stamps with complicated bureaucracies, people just get a check). And for the few people actually starving or freezing to death because of lack of funds in the USA, yes, that's genuinely a new cost we'd have to bear, but that's a rarity and I don't feel too bad about new taxes if it's genuinely saving lives.
There are second order incentive effects in both directions that are certainly worthy of consideration, but a naive consideration of the facts on the ground suggests it's not at all impossible or even requiring any real magic, given the political will.
- harryh 11y agoFewer words, more math.
- scarmig 11y agoNumber of people in the USA: 3 * 10^8 GDP of USA: 1.5 * 10^13 Basic level of sustenance for a person in USA: 10^4 Number of people we can economically sustain: 1.5 * 10^9 3 * 10^8 < 1.5 * 10^9 QED, math proves the UBI is perfect!
- harryh 11y agoLOL. You made me chuckle a bit at least. Thanks for that.
- jasode 11y agoI think your QED is premature. You're using arithmetic to model your scenario. I contend it requires differential equations. For example, Mark Zuckerberg owns ~500 million shares of Facebook. If you only use arithmetic (multiplication) of share price, you get ~$40 billion. That's a theoretical number that journalists can calculate but it's not an accurate model of reality. If he was to really liquidate all those shares to 0%, his final sum would be much less than $40 billion. When he sells the first 10 million shares, the market will see that as a "signal" and react which sends the shares down in price. The final 10 million shares could be $1 each if the market was sufficiently spooked about his selloff. To model that requires a differential equation instead of arithmetic. So to apply that logic to your example: GDP of USA: 1.5 * 10^13 This assumes GDP stays the same if millions of people decide to quit working because they have basic income. If we think GDP will drop, we need to model that somehow. Basic level of sustenance for a person in USA: 10^4 This assumes that prices will not go up significantly as landlords, grocery stores, etc respond to everyone having basic income. How can there be extra money or "inflation" if we're just shuffling money around? Well, women with children qualify for welfare+foodstamps but single childless men typically don't qualify for anything. Perhaps they live with their moms or sibling. Also, prices will go up because there are less low-paid workers manning the stores. I don't claim to know all the complexities of side effects but to think prices won't change at all doesn't seem reasonable. Lastly, I do think the USA has enough "wealth" to provide some type of basic income. The question is what the USA can "afford" and that word can have several interpretations. The level of "afford" I'm thinking of is a scenario where the USA suffers zero productivity loss and the middle & upper class do not see a decline in the standard of living. I'm not convinced that the USA can provide a dignified level of basic income without affecting the goods & services the middle class' enjoy today (points back to claims of a constant GDP instead of a declining one.) Show some Diffy Qs, explain the assumptions behind each of the variables, and throw them into a Google spreadsheet.
- pdeuchler 11y agoThis is a stupid burden to put on people, nobody here knows the national budget well enough to make any sort of reasonable prediction about the actual numbers. Besides, you don't need mathematical notation to make a good argument.
- harryh 11y agoThe budget numbers are readily available and not at all hard to understand. And yes, you do in fact need to discus what something might cost when making a good argument that the expense is worth it. When choosing what sort of home to live in I'm certainly you inquired about the cost. Unless you still live with your mother? You don't live in your parent's basement do you?