5 ms·

If it means drastically reducing government-provided welfare programs and letting people "vote with their wallets", then I think minimum income can be a great s

If it means drastically reducing government-provided welfare programs and letting people "vote with their wallets", then I think minimum income can be a great solution to the social safety net issue. Certainly better than a minimum wage, which is really just good for us people working in robotics and AI... There's a questionable point they brought up though. > The ever growing gap between the wealthy and the poor in Canada will lead to social unrest, increased crime rates and violence. Research indicates that a guaranteed basic income can reduce this gap I agree that a "mincome" can lead to less social unrest, but not from reducing the income gap. The mechanism will more likely be economic sedation, whereby having some minimum amount to survive will remove the incentive of many to work, or work as hard as they might otherwise. But this will also mean less incentive to steal, so there's that. Here's the secret though. The top 1% will never stop working and competing and earning. Your gap will never shrink. The producers will just come up with more lucrative and efficient ways of earning money from the consumers. Like Paul Graham says, the only way to really reduce income inequality (not counting rent-seeking behavior, of which every reasonable person is opposed) is to stop the top. http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html

cperciva 10y ago
There's a questionable point they brought up though. Not just questionable, but outright false: The fraction of income received by the 1% of Canadians with the highest incomes has been dropping every year for the past decade. Unfortunately the Liberal party policy process doesn't include any mechanism for introducing evidence or debating facts; I'm hoping that this will be corrected (a new party constitution was approved over the weekend which will result in a new policy formulation process).
- zxcvvcxz 10y ago
  Interesting. Can you provide a source? Would definitely add another dimension to the mincome debate.
  - cperciva 10y ago
    A source for the fraction of income received by the top 1% dropping in Canada? Statistics Canada, CANSIM table 204-0001. There doesn't seem to be any way to link to an extract of data from their website, but I've taken a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/dWJJr6J.png http://i.imgur.com/dWJJr6J.png
- wux 10y ago
  Unfortunately, you're simply not correct. The fraction of income received by the top 1% of Canadians did not decrease from 2012 to 2013, nor did it decrease from 2010 to 2011. Source: Statistics Canada http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&retrLang=eng&id=2040001&&pattern=&stByVal=1&p1=1&p2=31&tabMode=dataTable&csid= http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&retrLang=eng&i...
  - cperciva 10y ago
    Rounding.
    - gruez 10y ago
      Elaborate?
      - cperciva 10y ago
        Those numbers are rounded to one decimal place. Given the trendline, it's far more likely that the actual numbers were 10.63, 10.58, 10.34, 10.26 rather than 10.6, 10.6, 10.3, 10.3.
jomamaxx 10y ago
"If it means drastically reducing government-provided welfare programs and letting people "vote with their wallets"" Sadly, this will not be the case. 'Government' is a cabal of politicians and unions who have the power to extract money from you with the threat of punishment or imprisonment, to distribute money among themselves while having very little real oversight. So long as they 'show up' for work they can claim they are 'doing something'. If you think for one second that this will improve efficiency, then I'm sorry, you have some time to live yet :). And FYI - even if 100% of them are 'well meaning' - the system will work this way. The government will not 'unemploy' 100K service workers. They will just find other things for them to do. Whether those other things are productive ... is not likely. Unions will require 'same pay, same skills, no relocation' etc. etc.. You can't tell a social worker in Ottawa to pick up a hammer and start building a bridge in Toronto. So - the 'theoretical gains' from getting rid of social services bureaucracy is nary moot. Second - is the social impact on 'non means tested' populations. In my hood in Montreal, everyone is 30 and still in school. They will stay in school as long as they can. And why would they not? They can afford to live. They have free time. People are 'kind of poor' here but they don't mind. Third - is the realistic budget impact. I suggest it's doubtful that the numbers add up. Lastly - it misses the core of the problem: at least 10% of people are extremely irresponsible. We have welfare in Canada and yet there is a homeless guy 200m from me. He spends his money on crack and lives outside. This is not entirely uncommon. Many people can barely take care of themselves. How about this: + Why can't we just streamline the processes we have? + Streamline the 'means testing'? + Get rid of the 'welfare trap' by allowing people to work? + Use money and concentrate to help those in need to live better? The problem is total inneficiency in the system. It's partly the nature of governance. The city of Toronto spends 30% of it's money allocated to poverty on staff for the program. IF they were a charity, they would be considered corrupt. The solution is much harder: everyone in private and public sector, and all members of the community have to act more responsibly, intelligently and rationally. Public entities have to be held to account with benchmarks, and hopefully, to some market driven benchmarks. "The ever growing gap between the wealthy and the poor in Canada will lead to social unrest, increased crime rates and violence" Also remember that violence and anti-social behaviour pushes people out of society and makes them poor. In fact - 'bad behaviour' is far more likely to make one poor than 'being poor' will drive one to crime. It's a 2 way street.

cperciva 10y ago

There's a questionable point they brought up though. Not just questionable, but outright false: The fraction of income received by the 1% of Canadians with the highest incomes has been dropping every year for the past decade. Unfortunately the Liberal party policy process doesn't include any mechanism for introducing evidence or debating facts; I'm hoping that this will be corrected (a new party constitution was approved over the weekend which will result in a new policy formulation process).

zxcvvcxz 10y ago
Interesting. Can you provide a source? Would definitely add another dimension to the mincome debate.
- cperciva 10y ago
  A source for the fraction of income received by the top 1% dropping in Canada? Statistics Canada, CANSIM table 204-0001. There doesn't seem to be any way to link to an extract of data from their website, but I've taken a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/dWJJr6J.png http://i.imgur.com/dWJJr6J.png
wux 10y ago
Unfortunately, you're simply not correct. The fraction of income received by the top 1% of Canadians did not decrease from 2012 to 2013, nor did it decrease from 2010 to 2011. Source: Statistics Canada http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&retrLang=eng&id=2040001&&pattern=&stByVal=1&p1=1&p2=31&tabMode=dataTable&csid= http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&retrLang=eng&i...
- cperciva 10y ago
  Rounding.
  - gruez 10y ago
    Elaborate?
    - cperciva 10y ago
      Those numbers are rounded to one decimal place. Given the trendline, it's far more likely that the actual numbers were 10.63, 10.58, 10.34, 10.26 rather than 10.6, 10.6, 10.3, 10.3.

jomamaxx 10y ago

"If it means drastically reducing government-provided welfare programs and letting people "vote with their wallets"" Sadly, this will not be the case. 'Government' is a cabal of politicians and unions who have the power to extract money from you with the threat of punishment or imprisonment, to distribute money among themselves while having very little real oversight. So long as they 'show up' for work they can claim they are 'doing something'. If you think for one second that this will improve efficiency, then I'm sorry, you have some time to live yet :). And FYI - even if 100% of them are 'well meaning' - the system will work this way. The government will not 'unemploy' 100K service workers. They will just find other things for them to do. Whether those other things are productive ... is not likely. Unions will require 'same pay, same skills, no relocation' etc. etc.. You can't tell a social worker in Ottawa to pick up a hammer and start building a bridge in Toronto. So - the 'theoretical gains' from getting rid of social services bureaucracy is nary moot. Second - is the social impact on 'non means tested' populations. In my hood in Montreal, everyone is 30 and still in school. They will stay in school as long as they can. And why would they not? They can afford to live. They have free time. People are 'kind of poor' here but they don't mind. Third - is the realistic budget impact. I suggest it's doubtful that the numbers add up. Lastly - it misses the core of the problem: at least 10% of people are extremely irresponsible. We have welfare in Canada and yet there is a homeless guy 200m from me. He spends his money on crack and lives outside. This is not entirely uncommon. Many people can barely take care of themselves. How about this: + Why can't we just streamline the processes we have? + Streamline the 'means testing'? + Get rid of the 'welfare trap' by allowing people to work? + Use money and concentrate to help those in need to live better? The problem is total inneficiency in the system. It's partly the nature of governance. The city of Toronto spends 30% of it's money allocated to poverty on staff for the program. IF they were a charity, they would be considered corrupt. The solution is much harder: everyone in private and public sector, and all members of the community have to act more responsibly, intelligently and rationally. Public entities have to be held to account with benchmarks, and hopefully, to some market driven benchmarks. "The ever growing gap between the wealthy and the poor in Canada will lead to social unrest, increased crime rates and violence" Also remember that violence and anti-social behaviour pushes people out of society and makes them poor. In fact - 'bad behaviour' is far more likely to make one poor than 'being poor' will drive one to crime. It's a 2 way street.