8 ms·

You are missing the point: everyone gets basic income, regardless of income. So people with nothing have enough to eat and live and people with jobs don't feel

You are missing the point: everyone gets basic income, regardless of income. So people with nothing have enough to eat and live and people with jobs don't feel like they are being freeloaded - they are getting the same amount of money on top of their salary. People, justifiably, ask how we could possibly pay for all this, but the current US welfare system costs a comparable amount. Moreover, the US financial system is currently set up to allow money inflows to be controlled and to benefit the central banks. A much more sensible and effective method for controlling the velocity of the economy would be to put place monetary inflows into everyone's individual bank accounts, but obviously the people in control aren't going to give up the gravy.

semigeek 10y ago
Honest question; what numbers are you using to say it's a comparable amount? My quick search shows total 2016 expenditures of ~$3.9 Trillion. If you assume welfare is everything non-interest & defense related, that's about $3 Trillion; there's other non-welfare lumped in that number, but let's just use it anyway. That's $9,250 per person.
- zanny 10y ago
  Almost every discussion about basic income comes to talking about it as a monetary black hole where you pour trillions in and your society has no reasonable expectation of return, much like military spending. That is not at all how it works. A basic income within reason would almost always be an economic growth mechanism by transferring money from investment class to consumption class. The market for the guaranteed needs of an adopting nations population would be an incredibly large, incredibly stable business center for competition and innovation, and it would increase market participation by eliminating the barrier to entry that is currently made by gated welfare. Of course we need long run, wide spread, UBI experiments. If all you are talking about is "what if" any reasonable scientist would balk at the conversation. But if you take historic evidence - that giving the poor money makes them, by overwhelming margins, and on average, spend it on their needs in predictable, immediate ways, you would be getting similar economic motivator returns on UBI taxes as you would on some forms of infrastructure. And by comparison, infrastructure projects also considered a net positive policy because the money made by businesses using your infrastructure vastly eclipses the costs of building and maintaining it. UBI works the same way, by creating stable demand for the necessities of life, and providing the means for a similar force multiplier in people wanting to contribute optimally to the economy by their own judgment than by the will of money in the hands of others for those individuals profit. Because sometimes, making a major stakeholder in a company richer does not mean the greatest source of economic growth for the society as a whole compared to the entrepreneurial potential of every citizen presently bound to that model.
  - PKop 10y ago
    What about price inflation amongst these necessities resulting from immediate increase in money supply within poor population? I can't understand how this wouldn't be an issue... Would housing prices not rise accordingly, for example?
    - flukus 10y ago
      Competition. Most necessities of life have a lot of competition in the market.
    - nylsaar 10y ago
      Yes. If a modest amount of 9k would work, then giving everyone a million each would work as well. The Keynesian economist in Washington and Tokyo have already filled up the bathtub to no avail. This is the difference between money and currency.
      - hx87 10y ago
        You're thinking of monetary expansion, which in modern economies often doesn't work because the banks get the money first and do nothing but park it.
    - zanny 10y ago
      Housing prices today are going out of control because the supply of what people want housing for - jobs - is diminishing. As the job market shrinks and more and more people are dropped out of the economy due to automation, there is more and more demand to live where jobs are, which drives housing prices out of control in many places like NY or SF but almost every major metro area experiences it. It is confounded by the growing wealth inequality, where the rich find it a valuable asset to buy up these valuable residential buildings that are in demand as a store of value, further diminishing the supply and further exacerbating the problem. Under a UBI, the market for residential is restored to what it was decades ago when the towns now abandoned in the post-industrial US were populated. There are many times more houses than homeless in the US, but because those homes are located nowhere near a stable income nobody can live in them. The same applies to food and electricity. We are not at any supply side bounding here, and a UBI makes these makes so incredibly stable and predictable it lets the margins of businesses operating in them get as close to break even as possible because of the certainty metrics now associated with them.
PKop 10y ago
Can you explain to me, because I've never understood fully, how if we give everyone some lump sum amount (which I agree is the desirable vs. means testing etc.), how it won't result in inflation of prices whereby it will be the equivalent of dropping money out of a helicopter, everyone gets equal cut.... prices rise correspondingly, and real purchasing power does not change at all?
- keebEz 10y ago
  More demand does not always result in higher prices. Price depends on the elasticity of supply for all of the different goods as well. Some might increase, while others wouldn't.
  - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    Probably the most significant cost for most people is housing and that does seem to have an in-elastic supply. My guess is this is where the money will go. We have seen an element of this in the UK where housing benefit largely ended up in the laps of landlords.
    - aianus 10y ago
      If you don't need a job, you don't have to live in the city with everyone else. There's plenty of cheap empty land you could live on.
      - jdavis703 10y ago
        There are other reasons to live in a city besides a job. I imagine that as we move toward a "jobless" future cultural and scientific output will increase, and you'll still want to be around the people who are doing the "cool stuff."
        aianus 10y ago
        You'll want to, but you won't be able to afford it. In a future with UBI the city will be for employed people only.
grahamburger 10y ago
So we take what we're currently spending and spread it out to everyone instead of just people who need it? Doesn't that mean that the people who need it the most will just get less than they're getting now? In other words, are people who are relying on current US welfare systems often using more than (say) 10k/year in total benefits, and giving them 10k in cash instead would actually reduce their total compensation? And if not, then how can the cost of our current welfare systems be comparable to UBI?
- aninhumer 10y ago
  You'd adjust the tax system to compensate for most of that. The idea is that it reduces administration costs, eliminates poverty traps, and reduces the stigma of unemployment.
  - michaelt 10y ago
    Reducing administration costs and adjusting the tax system isn't going to help a disabled veteran who needs more than $10,000 to afford a wheelchair-adapted vehicle, or a quadriplegic who needs more than $10,000 to pay for a carer to visit them at work to help them use the toilet twice a day. I'm no expert in politics, but I think if their benefits were cut they would probably protest, and the protesters would look very sympathetic. And if we say "OK, we'll have some extra funding for legitimate expenses for the legitimately disabled" you're not going to be able to do away with administration costs.
    - aninhumer 10y ago
      I don't disagree. I'm not as cavalier about replacing all social support with basic income, and disability should probably remain separate. You won't completely eliminate administration costs, but not having to administer unemployment and pensions will help a lot. (And personally I see the other benefits as more important to society.)
    - WalterSear 10y ago
      This is a strawman. Basic income isn't some libertarian pipe dream of replacing the government with an ATM. Obviously there are many services that can't be replaced or eliminated.

semigeek 10y ago

Honest question; what numbers are you using to say it's a comparable amount? My quick search shows total 2016 expenditures of ~$3.9 Trillion. If you assume welfare is everything non-interest & defense related, that's about $3 Trillion; there's other non-welfare lumped in that number, but let's just use it anyway. That's $9,250 per person.

zanny 10y ago
Almost every discussion about basic income comes to talking about it as a monetary black hole where you pour trillions in and your society has no reasonable expectation of return, much like military spending. That is not at all how it works. A basic income within reason would almost always be an economic growth mechanism by transferring money from investment class to consumption class. The market for the guaranteed needs of an adopting nations population would be an incredibly large, incredibly stable business center for competition and innovation, and it would increase market participation by eliminating the barrier to entry that is currently made by gated welfare. Of course we need long run, wide spread, UBI experiments. If all you are talking about is "what if" any reasonable scientist would balk at the conversation. But if you take historic evidence - that giving the poor money makes them, by overwhelming margins, and on average, spend it on their needs in predictable, immediate ways, you would be getting similar economic motivator returns on UBI taxes as you would on some forms of infrastructure. And by comparison, infrastructure projects also considered a net positive policy because the money made by businesses using your infrastructure vastly eclipses the costs of building and maintaining it. UBI works the same way, by creating stable demand for the necessities of life, and providing the means for a similar force multiplier in people wanting to contribute optimally to the economy by their own judgment than by the will of money in the hands of others for those individuals profit. Because sometimes, making a major stakeholder in a company richer does not mean the greatest source of economic growth for the society as a whole compared to the entrepreneurial potential of every citizen presently bound to that model.
- PKop 10y ago
  What about price inflation amongst these necessities resulting from immediate increase in money supply within poor population? I can't understand how this wouldn't be an issue... Would housing prices not rise accordingly, for example?
  - flukus 10y ago
    Competition. Most necessities of life have a lot of competition in the market.
  - nylsaar 10y ago
    Yes. If a modest amount of 9k would work, then giving everyone a million each would work as well. The Keynesian economist in Washington and Tokyo have already filled up the bathtub to no avail. This is the difference between money and currency.
    - hx87 10y ago
      You're thinking of monetary expansion, which in modern economies often doesn't work because the banks get the money first and do nothing but park it.
  - zanny 10y ago
    Housing prices today are going out of control because the supply of what people want housing for - jobs - is diminishing. As the job market shrinks and more and more people are dropped out of the economy due to automation, there is more and more demand to live where jobs are, which drives housing prices out of control in many places like NY or SF but almost every major metro area experiences it. It is confounded by the growing wealth inequality, where the rich find it a valuable asset to buy up these valuable residential buildings that are in demand as a store of value, further diminishing the supply and further exacerbating the problem. Under a UBI, the market for residential is restored to what it was decades ago when the towns now abandoned in the post-industrial US were populated. There are many times more houses than homeless in the US, but because those homes are located nowhere near a stable income nobody can live in them. The same applies to food and electricity. We are not at any supply side bounding here, and a UBI makes these makes so incredibly stable and predictable it lets the margins of businesses operating in them get as close to break even as possible because of the certainty metrics now associated with them.

PKop 10y ago

Can you explain to me, because I've never understood fully, how if we give everyone some lump sum amount (which I agree is the desirable vs. means testing etc.), how it won't result in inflation of prices whereby it will be the equivalent of dropping money out of a helicopter, everyone gets equal cut.... prices rise correspondingly, and real purchasing power does not change at all?

keebEz 10y ago
More demand does not always result in higher prices. Price depends on the elasticity of supply for all of the different goods as well. Some might increase, while others wouldn't.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  Probably the most significant cost for most people is housing and that does seem to have an in-elastic supply. My guess is this is where the money will go. We have seen an element of this in the UK where housing benefit largely ended up in the laps of landlords.
  - aianus 10y ago
    If you don't need a job, you don't have to live in the city with everyone else. There's plenty of cheap empty land you could live on.
    - jdavis703 10y ago
      There are other reasons to live in a city besides a job. I imagine that as we move toward a "jobless" future cultural and scientific output will increase, and you'll still want to be around the people who are doing the "cool stuff."
      - aianus 10y ago
        You'll want to, but you won't be able to afford it. In a future with UBI the city will be for employed people only.

grahamburger 10y ago

So we take what we're currently spending and spread it out to everyone instead of just people who need it? Doesn't that mean that the people who need it the most will just get less than they're getting now? In other words, are people who are relying on current US welfare systems often using more than (say) 10k/year in total benefits, and giving them 10k in cash instead would actually reduce their total compensation? And if not, then how can the cost of our current welfare systems be comparable to UBI?

aninhumer 10y ago
You'd adjust the tax system to compensate for most of that. The idea is that it reduces administration costs, eliminates poverty traps, and reduces the stigma of unemployment.
- michaelt 10y ago
  Reducing administration costs and adjusting the tax system isn't going to help a disabled veteran who needs more than $10,000 to afford a wheelchair-adapted vehicle, or a quadriplegic who needs more than $10,000 to pay for a carer to visit them at work to help them use the toilet twice a day. I'm no expert in politics, but I think if their benefits were cut they would probably protest, and the protesters would look very sympathetic. And if we say "OK, we'll have some extra funding for legitimate expenses for the legitimately disabled" you're not going to be able to do away with administration costs.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    I don't disagree. I'm not as cavalier about replacing all social support with basic income, and disability should probably remain separate. You won't completely eliminate administration costs, but not having to administer unemployment and pensions will help a lot. (And personally I see the other benefits as more important to society.)
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    This is a strawman. Basic income isn't some libertarian pipe dream of replacing the government with an ATM. Obviously there are many services that can't be replaced or eliminated.