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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee
by exit 16y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee
- known 16y agoPeople loathe it as Socialism.
- gmlk 16y agoIn the end it's this question: Either you think we should have to earn a worthy living and to be treated with respect. Or that we have the innate right to a worthy living and to be treated with respect. What is it going to be: The law of the jungle or a more civilized world? All civilization can be explained as "socialism": To be civil to each other, help the needy and not let the strongest take everything?
- known 16y agoI agree. Socialism is preventing race to the bottom. Capitalism is promoting race to the top. We need both to build and sustain a great nation.
- gmlk 16y agoI tend to see capitalism as "father" and socialism as "mother"? You need to earn your fathers respect, but mother gives her unconditional love. Every child needs a little bit of both to grow up happily? One can make do without either one, but life is just so much better with both parents.
- gmlk 16y agoWell, that would be a huge improvement.
- Retric 16y agoI am divided on this issue, on one hand it make it easier to live on the margin. On the other hand it removes the incentive to stay on unemployment vs. getting a job that pays the same amount. Aka. 500$ / week makes anything under 30k a pay cut after commuting expenses, and anything under 40k a minimal increase.
- gmlk 16y agoTo avoid that weird incentives gap the basic income should be unconditional, so without a means test. Regardless if they are unemployed or employed every citizen receives every week or month a mount of money. No questions asked. Any money you make from a job is just additional income. The expectation is that people will want to work. Naturally a unconditional basic income will change things: Some will seek employment, others will start a business, and then there are the open source programmers. etc. Another advantage is that one could eliminate minimum wage.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoI'd much prefer a basic job guarantee. Instead of just giving out free money, taken from the productive, the government is obligated to give a basic job to all comers. That job could take many forms - cleaning courthouses and prisons for the unskilled, DMV clerk for the skilled. But it is important that the job be unpleasant and low paid, so that people have an incentive to seek more useful jobs in the private sector. Basic jobs fulfills the same goals as basic income (no one is destitute) while reducing the disincentives to work that basic income creates.
- maxawaytoolong 16y agoIt's interesting that your other posts are so libertarian but here you're essentially proposing what the USSR promised its citizens. http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02.html http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02.h... (Article 40)
- yummyfajitas 16y agoI'm proposing a form of help which is fairly cheap (some of the work is stuff the govt would pay for anyway) and has good incentives [1]. For this reason, basic jobs would be a great substitute for unemployment, welfare, etc. Just because I generally want the government to do less doesn't mean that I don't want them to do things efficiently and with as few unwanted side effects as possible. The fact that the USSR did it doesn't make it bad policy - that's the reverse Mussolini fallacy. It would also not be a bad thing to make the trains run on time. [1] For comparison, unemployment insurance creates bad incentives. Rather than looking for work, the woman described in this article went on vacation while collecting unemployment. Replacing unemployment with a "basic jobs" program would prevent this.
- maxawaytoolong 16y agoAfter 20 years working as an office flunky for Boeing, I'd take a vacation, too...
- Retric 16y ago