5 ms·

By printing money for BI you effectively redistribute from the top half to the bottom half. This would suck for most people here, including myself. However, I d

by lrem 9y ago

By printing money for BI you effectively redistribute from the top half to the bottom half. This would suck for most people here, including myself. However, I don't think that redistribution from the bottom 99% to the top 1%, as I believe quantitative easing turned out, is much better.

azernik 9y ago
Or, you just tax the top earners to pay for BI. Much more transparent.
- jimmywanger 9y ago
  How exactly do you propose to do that? One of Facebook's founders renounced US citizenship because of tax rates. Again, it's only the rich who can afford to find tax havens and expensive accountants. The middle class is stuck paying taxes.
  - dub4u 9y ago
    By renouncing citizenship he probably did the US a favor. http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2012/04/what-to-do-about-rich.html?m=1 http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2012/04/what-to-do-about-ri... Let them decide: give some of your wealth to finance BI or else renounce citizenship.
    - mantas 9y ago
      You'd have to ban them owning property or businesses in the country too. Otherwise they'd just stay but without citizenship or taxes.
      - azernik 9y ago
        When you renounce your citizenship, you don't get a green card - you become a foreigner, with no right to live and work in the country. Depending on your new citizenship, you may have the right to visit visa-free, but that's it.
      - mcny 9y ago
        > You'd have to ban them owning property or businesses in the country too. Otherwise they'd just stay but without citizenship or taxes. This is why we need the estate tax (Paris Hilton tax or death tax as opponents like to say) to stay and probably increase in rate. > For 2017, the estate and gift tax exemption is $5.49 million per individual, up from $5.45 million in 2016. That means an individual can leave $5.49 million to heirs and pay no federal estate or gift tax. This is plenty generous. We should tax any estate beyond that at a minimum of fifty percent and close all loopholes. I am not a big fan of income tax on businesses but I can see why we need it.
        mantas 9y ago
        > This is why we need the estate tax (Paris Hilton tax or death tax as opponents like to say) to stay and probably increase in rate. How is it relevant to giving up citizenship and owning property or company? There's no death involved. If their children are not citizen either, they are not hit by inheritance tax too. > I am not a big fan of income tax on businesses but I can see why we need it. VAT is sort of like income tax for businesses. Except it's not taxed on B2B transactions. Which makes sense. Otherwise everybody would bring in whole production chain in-house and we'd be left with huge conglomerates and no SMBs.
        mcny 9y ago
        > How is it relevant to giving up citizenship and owning property or company? There's no death involved. If their children are not citizen either, they are not hit by inheritance tax too. Doesn't sound right but I am not an accountant. If someone makes money in the US, they should have to pay income tax in the US regardless of citizenship or residency status, even if they have never entered the US. I consider anything less a loophole we need to fix. If the property is just sitting there not making money, they are welcome to keep paying property taxes and pay income tax if/when they sell it. I sincerely believe you have to pay income tax for any income in the US regardless of citizenship status or residency status. > Otherwise everybody would bring in whole production chain in-house and we'd be left with huge conglomerates and no SMBs. Don't we already have that?
  - azernik 9y ago
    That turns out to be a fairly rare and extreme step, taken either for ideological reasons (like Depardieu) or because they're actually foreigners who have minimal ties to the country otherwise (like Saverin, who you mentioned - he was born in Brazil, and was living in Singapore for years before renouncing his US citizenship). Generally people with that much money won't give up their homeland to save on their tax bill.
- DougN7 9y ago
  Unfortunately, the top earners are the ones with lobbyists, influence and power. They're very good and not getting themselves taxed. Everyone else could make it happen if they could focus and pay attention, but they're too easily influenced by sports, pop-stars, social media and fake news.
lr4444lr 9y ago
That's not what the OP is getting at. BI may work well given certain preconditions, and subpopulations. But what use is the money if resource supply and the productive capacity of the economy is limited?
- mcny 9y ago
  I suspect it is simply not true for most basic necessities. > That's not what the OP is getting at. BI may work well given certain preconditions, and subpopulations. But what use is the money if resource supply and the productive capacity of the economy is limited? I'd go further and say this is not true for most consumables within reasonable limits. Does this sound like a circular logic? I think my reasoning is flawed (I hope it is not) so pardon my thinking out loud. I mean if I define luxuries as superior goods[wiki] which we consume more of as we have more disposable income, then I imagine we might see prices increase on those things at some point but we don't mind because they are luxuries. But can we dismiss all superior goods as luxuries? If we can prove this connection, then I think we can put down this fear of inflation once and for all. Thoughts? [wiki] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_good Superior goods make up a larger proportion of consumption as income rises, and therefore are a type of normal goods in consumer theory. Such a good must possess two economic characteristics: it must be scarce, and, along with that, it must have a high price. The scarcity of the good can be natural or artificial; however, the general population (i.e., consumers) must recognize the good as distinguishably better. Possession of such a good usually signifies "superiority" in resources, and usually is accompanied by prestige.
  - DougN7 9y ago
    There might be enough milk and cereal to go around. I don't think there is enough housing, medical service and transportation (in the US). So those things will all go up in price. However, everyone should be able to afford those necessities so I'm not sure what the solution is. Limited resources is a very tough problem to solve.
    - opencl 9y ago

by lrem 9y ago

azernik 9y ago

Or, you just tax the top earners to pay for BI. Much more transparent.

jimmywanger 9y ago
How exactly do you propose to do that? One of Facebook's founders renounced US citizenship because of tax rates. Again, it's only the rich who can afford to find tax havens and expensive accountants. The middle class is stuck paying taxes.
- dub4u 9y ago
  By renouncing citizenship he probably did the US a favor. http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2012/04/what-to-do-about-rich.html?m=1 http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2012/04/what-to-do-about-ri... Let them decide: give some of your wealth to finance BI or else renounce citizenship.
  - mantas 9y ago
    You'd have to ban them owning property or businesses in the country too. Otherwise they'd just stay but without citizenship or taxes.
    - azernik 9y ago
      When you renounce your citizenship, you don't get a green card - you become a foreigner, with no right to live and work in the country. Depending on your new citizenship, you may have the right to visit visa-free, but that's it.
    - mcny 9y ago
      > You'd have to ban them owning property or businesses in the country too. Otherwise they'd just stay but without citizenship or taxes. This is why we need the estate tax (Paris Hilton tax or death tax as opponents like to say) to stay and probably increase in rate. > For 2017, the estate and gift tax exemption is $5.49 million per individual, up from $5.45 million in 2016. That means an individual can leave $5.49 million to heirs and pay no federal estate or gift tax. This is plenty generous. We should tax any estate beyond that at a minimum of fifty percent and close all loopholes. I am not a big fan of income tax on businesses but I can see why we need it.
      - mantas 9y ago
        > This is why we need the estate tax (Paris Hilton tax or death tax as opponents like to say) to stay and probably increase in rate. How is it relevant to giving up citizenship and owning property or company? There's no death involved. If their children are not citizen either, they are not hit by inheritance tax too. > I am not a big fan of income tax on businesses but I can see why we need it. VAT is sort of like income tax for businesses. Except it's not taxed on B2B transactions. Which makes sense. Otherwise everybody would bring in whole production chain in-house and we'd be left with huge conglomerates and no SMBs.
        mcny 9y ago
        > How is it relevant to giving up citizenship and owning property or company? There's no death involved. If their children are not citizen either, they are not hit by inheritance tax too. Doesn't sound right but I am not an accountant. If someone makes money in the US, they should have to pay income tax in the US regardless of citizenship or residency status, even if they have never entered the US. I consider anything less a loophole we need to fix. If the property is just sitting there not making money, they are welcome to keep paying property taxes and pay income tax if/when they sell it. I sincerely believe you have to pay income tax for any income in the US regardless of citizenship status or residency status. > Otherwise everybody would bring in whole production chain in-house and we'd be left with huge conglomerates and no SMBs. Don't we already have that?
- azernik 9y ago
  That turns out to be a fairly rare and extreme step, taken either for ideological reasons (like Depardieu) or because they're actually foreigners who have minimal ties to the country otherwise (like Saverin, who you mentioned - he was born in Brazil, and was living in Singapore for years before renouncing his US citizenship). Generally people with that much money won't give up their homeland to save on their tax bill.
DougN7 9y ago
Unfortunately, the top earners are the ones with lobbyists, influence and power. They're very good and not getting themselves taxed. Everyone else could make it happen if they could focus and pay attention, but they're too easily influenced by sports, pop-stars, social media and fake news.

lr4444lr 9y ago

That's not what the OP is getting at. BI may work well given certain preconditions, and subpopulations. But what use is the money if resource supply and the productive capacity of the economy is limited?

mcny 9y ago
I suspect it is simply not true for most basic necessities. > That's not what the OP is getting at. BI may work well given certain preconditions, and subpopulations. But what use is the money if resource supply and the productive capacity of the economy is limited? I'd go further and say this is not true for most consumables within reasonable limits. Does this sound like a circular logic? I think my reasoning is flawed (I hope it is not) so pardon my thinking out loud. I mean if I define luxuries as superior goods[wiki] which we consume more of as we have more disposable income, then I imagine we might see prices increase on those things at some point but we don't mind because they are luxuries. But can we dismiss all superior goods as luxuries? If we can prove this connection, then I think we can put down this fear of inflation once and for all. Thoughts? [wiki] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_good Superior goods make up a larger proportion of consumption as income rises, and therefore are a type of normal goods in consumer theory. Such a good must possess two economic characteristics: it must be scarce, and, along with that, it must have a high price. The scarcity of the good can be natural or artificial; however, the general population (i.e., consumers) must recognize the good as distinguishably better. Possession of such a good usually signifies "superiority" in resources, and usually is accompanied by prestige.
- DougN7 9y ago
  There might be enough milk and cereal to go around. I don't think there is enough housing, medical service and transportation (in the US). So those things will all go up in price. However, everyone should be able to afford those necessities so I'm not sure what the solution is. Limited resources is a very tough problem to solve.
  - opencl 9y ago