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This is a pretty interesting idea. I actually saw it discussed in the Norwegian popular financial magazine Your Money (Dine Penger) last year. In this instance,

by marvin 16y ago

This is a pretty interesting idea. I actually saw it discussed in the Norwegian popular financial magazine Your Money (Dine Penger) last year. In this instance, the relevant point was that Norway already has a sort of de facto basic income system. It's called "uførepensjon" (a rough translation would be "pension for those unfit to work"). It consists of approximately 23,000 pre-tax US dollars per year, and it's where you end up if you are sick, disabled or otherwise unable to acquire a decent job over a period of a few years; basically if you have received unemployment benefits for years and all attempts by the bureucratic system to get you back into the workforce have failed. Approximately 7% of all Norwegians currently receive these payments. The author of the article in question suggested a system of gradual negative taxation for very low wages, so if you earn less than 23000 USD per year at your current job, the missing part will be paid to you by the government. The line of reasoning is that most people will not be happy without more money than this, and hence will work normally. I'm not sure if even Norway is rich enough to support a system like this on a full scale, and taxation in the US is _definitely_ not harsh enough to do it, even with the amount adjusted to GDP per capita. But it would be nice if we someday ended up rich enough that extreme poverty could be eliminated in this way. None of the people covered by this system have to starve, and all health payments are also handled through the official system.

bugsy 16y ago
"taxation in the US is _definitely_ not harsh enough" It seems to me that the US spends 46.5% of all money spend world wide collectively by all nations on military spending. China, France, UK, Russia, and then next 10 biggest spending countries spend less than the US when they are all added together. In addition the US imprisons more of its population than any other country in the world, including totalitarian police states, and a much greater proportion than any modern western nation. In addition, the US spends a fortune on education and gets very poor outcomes. In addition, the US spends far more per capita on health care than any other country in the world and has far worse outcomes than most countries, with infant mortality now falling behind many third world nations, and the interesting reality that the life expectancy of an indigenous Lakota indian man living in South Dakota receiving free unlimited federal health care is now 44 years. This is lower than 187 out of 195 of the nations in the world and is only higher than nations which are afflicted with BOTH massive civil war AND endemic AIDS, Malaria and Cholera. Surely there is a way to pay for a basic living standard for the unskilled without raising taxes.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  ...the life expectancy of an indigenous Lakota indian man living in South Dakota receiving free unlimited federal health care is now 44 years. Maybe the conclusion we should draw is that medical spending and health outcomes are mostly uncorrelated to each other.
- Tamerlin 16y ago
  "It seems to me that the US spends 46.5% of all money spend world wide collectively by all nations on military spending." Which is probably the real reason that we're in such debt -- it should be blindingly obvious to the entire world that there's no longer any valid reason to dump such an astronomically large amount of money into armed forces that we clearly don't need. Unfortunately, the magnitude of that spending is probably related to the fact that a sizable chunk of it winds up in congressional (etc) pockets, and has nothing to do with the actual military itself. "In addition, the US spends a fortune on education and gets very poor outcomes." Which agrees with the author's assertion that high school graduates are less skilled now than their predecessors, a trend that I've been seeing as well. "In addition, the US spends far more per capita on health care than any other country in the world and has far worse outcomes than most countries," This is probably a combination of excessive organizational bloat and decreasing quality of the medical staff themselves. (The stories a close friend of mine told me about his medical school compatriots were nauseating... these people obviously didn't understand a single bit of the chemistry that they studied in college, and it became blindingly obvious that neither did most of the biochemistry professors at Johns Hopkins of all places.) We're heading into a downward spiral, since these are the people who will be taking over and running the show as well as "mentoring" the next generation of educational victims. It's a breakable spiral, but it won't happen unless a lot of people get a clue and recognize what's happening. Sadly most of them have been culturally conditioned to be automata, and avoid thinking for themselves, which is going to make this tailspin hard to break out of.
dmm 16y ago
> But it would be nice if we someday ended up rich enough that extreme poverty could be eliminated in this way Looking at the history of welfare in the US I think it's safe to say that giving people money is a pretty poor way to eliminate poverty.

by marvin 16y ago

bugsy 16y ago

"taxation in the US is _definitely_ not harsh enough" It seems to me that the US spends 46.5% of all money spend world wide collectively by all nations on military spending. China, France, UK, Russia, and then next 10 biggest spending countries spend less than the US when they are all added together. In addition the US imprisons more of its population than any other country in the world, including totalitarian police states, and a much greater proportion than any modern western nation. In addition, the US spends a fortune on education and gets very poor outcomes. In addition, the US spends far more per capita on health care than any other country in the world and has far worse outcomes than most countries, with infant mortality now falling behind many third world nations, and the interesting reality that the life expectancy of an indigenous Lakota indian man living in South Dakota receiving free unlimited federal health care is now 44 years. This is lower than 187 out of 195 of the nations in the world and is only higher than nations which are afflicted with BOTH massive civil war AND endemic AIDS, Malaria and Cholera. Surely there is a way to pay for a basic living standard for the unskilled without raising taxes.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
...the life expectancy of an indigenous Lakota indian man living in South Dakota receiving free unlimited federal health care is now 44 years. Maybe the conclusion we should draw is that medical spending and health outcomes are mostly uncorrelated to each other.
Tamerlin 16y ago
"It seems to me that the US spends 46.5% of all money spend world wide collectively by all nations on military spending." Which is probably the real reason that we're in such debt -- it should be blindingly obvious to the entire world that there's no longer any valid reason to dump such an astronomically large amount of money into armed forces that we clearly don't need. Unfortunately, the magnitude of that spending is probably related to the fact that a sizable chunk of it winds up in congressional (etc) pockets, and has nothing to do with the actual military itself. "In addition, the US spends a fortune on education and gets very poor outcomes." Which agrees with the author's assertion that high school graduates are less skilled now than their predecessors, a trend that I've been seeing as well. "In addition, the US spends far more per capita on health care than any other country in the world and has far worse outcomes than most countries," This is probably a combination of excessive organizational bloat and decreasing quality of the medical staff themselves. (The stories a close friend of mine told me about his medical school compatriots were nauseating... these people obviously didn't understand a single bit of the chemistry that they studied in college, and it became blindingly obvious that neither did most of the biochemistry professors at Johns Hopkins of all places.) We're heading into a downward spiral, since these are the people who will be taking over and running the show as well as "mentoring" the next generation of educational victims. It's a breakable spiral, but it won't happen unless a lot of people get a clue and recognize what's happening. Sadly most of them have been culturally conditioned to be automata, and avoid thinking for themselves, which is going to make this tailspin hard to break out of.

dmm 16y ago

> But it would be nice if we someday ended up rich enough that extreme poverty could be eliminated in this way Looking at the history of welfare in the US I think it's safe to say that giving people money is a pretty poor way to eliminate poverty.