4 ms·

If you give people a universal basic income, you need to both increase taxes a lot and completely restrict immigration - a basic income in the US is incredibly

If you give people a universal basic income, you need to both increase taxes a lot and completely restrict immigration - a basic income in the US is incredibly luxurious for people who live in sub-saharan Africa. Or else the universal basic income is going to be too low in first world countries to make a difference.

egypturnash 9y ago
Or you just start taxing corporations and rich people again. Some stupidly huge percentage of dollars are just sitting in their coffers doing nothing.
- jimmywanger 9y ago
  Corporations and rich people have ways (completely legal) to get around taxes. If the tax burden becomes too onerous, they'll just move residences and/or stop doing business in your country. You can see this in one of the founders of Facebook - he renounced his US citizenship, because of the onerous tax burdens. (https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/a-facebook-founder-renounces-his-u-s-citizenship/?hpw https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/a-facebook-founder...) It's foolish to just say "we should tax rich people and rich corporations more." You're incentivizing them to not play the game, and wealthy people generally have more abilities to evade taxes than people in the lower upper class or middle class, which is who the burden will inevitably fall upon.
  - egypturnash 9y ago
    We just have to start guillotining them again, I guess. You need a good revolution once every generation or three to keep capital scared.
    - jimmywanger 9y ago
      Did you not see my previous comment about capital flight? This is not the middle ages anymore, where peoples' riches are tied up in real estate and machinery. Immovable capital. Capital is fluid these days. If you start guillotining people for absolutely nothing except being rich (which is what you're insinuating) they'll just leave and take all the capital and productive capacity with them. See Venezuela.
fnl 9y ago
I am fully aware that UBI is an utopia that would require at the very least a Zeitgeist well evolved beyond our species' current, most common world views. But a similar "time-inverse" utopia is trying to stop technological progress with laws.

egypturnash 9y ago

Or you just start taxing corporations and rich people again. Some stupidly huge percentage of dollars are just sitting in their coffers doing nothing.

jimmywanger 9y ago
Corporations and rich people have ways (completely legal) to get around taxes. If the tax burden becomes too onerous, they'll just move residences and/or stop doing business in your country. You can see this in one of the founders of Facebook - he renounced his US citizenship, because of the onerous tax burdens. (https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/a-facebook-founder-renounces-his-u-s-citizenship/?hpw https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/a-facebook-founder...) It's foolish to just say "we should tax rich people and rich corporations more." You're incentivizing them to not play the game, and wealthy people generally have more abilities to evade taxes than people in the lower upper class or middle class, which is who the burden will inevitably fall upon.
- egypturnash 9y ago
  We just have to start guillotining them again, I guess. You need a good revolution once every generation or three to keep capital scared.
  - jimmywanger 9y ago
    Did you not see my previous comment about capital flight? This is not the middle ages anymore, where peoples' riches are tied up in real estate and machinery. Immovable capital. Capital is fluid these days. If you start guillotining people for absolutely nothing except being rich (which is what you're insinuating) they'll just leave and take all the capital and productive capacity with them. See Venezuela.

fnl 9y ago

I am fully aware that UBI is an utopia that would require at the very least a Zeitgeist well evolved beyond our species' current, most common world views. But a similar "time-inverse" utopia is trying to stop technological progress with laws.