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Every single UBI proposal I've seen has failed to work even with back of the envelope math, even when using generous assumptions and estimates. They end up eith

Every single UBI proposal I've seen has failed to work even with back of the envelope math, even when using generous assumptions and estimates. They end up either 1) Gutting existing entitlements by a huge amount (and current receipients of those entitlements get far less under UBI than they did before) 2) Raise taxes by an obscene amount that destroys most if not all of the benefit of a UBI for the middle class and most of the lower class (and that's before you get into potential economic effects) 3) Provides such a paltry amount that it fails to support the basic needs of the average person/family 4) Depend on massive amounts of money printing and/or debt well in excess of most nations' current debts, or 5) Some combination of the above. People vastly overestimate how much money the wealthy have even if we taxed them at 100% and somehow prevented them and their wealth from fleeing to some tax haven somewhere.

dangus 7y ago
Which proposals don’t work? What math are you speaking of? Do you have any data to back up your claim? I only mean to push back on this because your comment seems to be dismissive of the entire concept while seeming to closely align with the interests of the kinds of people who don’t want it (the wealthy). I find the idea of just not bothering to tax wealth because they’ll just find a tax haven elsewhere to be defeatist nonsense. It’s not hard to craft legislation that forces the wealthy to pay. If we are overestimating how much wealth the wealthy possess, how is it that three people own more wealth than over half of the entire United States? https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/gates-bezos-buffett-have-more-wealth-than-half-the-us-combined.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/gates-bezos-buffett-have-mor... Excess wealth needs to be taxed because being excessively wealthy is bad for society as a whole, just like we tax alcohol and cigarettes.
- HideousKojima 7y ago
  Show me a proposal for the US (since I'm most familiar with tax rates, existing benefits, etc. there) and I'll show you how the math doesn't add up. Edit: As far as the three wealthiest in the US owning that much, it still amounts to very little per capita if redistributed to the entire population. You could give every individual in the US a one-time payment of about $3,000, after which there'd be no more money to take from them. The top 1% only have about $25 trillion in combined wealth, which would be enough to fund a UBI of ~$3,000 a month for two years, after which you'd run out of money. And that's pretending that a massive looting of the holdings of the nation's wealthiest wouldn't have any significant economic side effects (and that they wouldn't all just flee to tax havens). And that's ignoring that a good chunk of that wealth is not held in liquid assets.
  - dangus 7y ago
    Where do you get $3,000 a month from? I’m sure if you set the dollar value high enough the math doesn’t work out.
    - HideousKojima 7y ago
      >Where do you get $3,000 a month from? The combined wealth of the entire 1% is ~$25 trillion. Population of the US ~330 million. Equally distributed and paid out over 24 months comes out to ~3,156. If you only give it to adults (~255 million) the numbers aren't much better. $3,000 a month is barely enough to get by in several major cities. It'd be fine out in the countryside, but in San Francisco, NYC, and several other major cities it would be barely enough to get a studio apartment and barely enough food to eat. If it's not universal then it's a misnomer. And it's just another welfare/entitlement program then. >It’s also amazing that the top 1% can just find everyone in the United States for two whole years. Doesn’t that just prove my point that inequality is a huge problem? No, not particularly? Why does that matter, other than the usual arguments about wealth in the hands of the poor leading to more marginal consumption and therefore possibly leading to more economic growth? >Preventing tax haven flee is easy. The US already does this, charging income tax to high income expats. If those expats don’t pay they have big issues if they ever set foot in the country again. And if you tax them at 100%, or whatever obscenely high rate you're proposing, they won't ever set foot in the country again, and won't have any desire to do so. And they can avoid worries about extradition etc. by simply renouncing their US citizenship before their tax burden becomes too great, something that already happens even with our current tax rates
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
xutopia 7y ago
I hear the same argument made about "free healthcare is too expensive" but it doesn't stop the vast majority of countries doing it. You get amazing benefits from a government handling healthcare and I think you would get many of those with UBI. UBI could work.
- HideousKojima 7y ago
  Link me the UBI proposal you find most compelling and I'll explain why the math doesn't work. Preferably a proposal for the US since I'm most familiar with existing benefits and entitlements in the US
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
petermcneeley 7y ago
I accept your challenge. Canada top %1 does ~500k a year absolute min. Take all that and give it to the bottom 50% of the population. Thats 10k per person per year. The issue is not the math. The issue is the ideology of redistribution. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-top-1-per-cent-saw-fastest-income-acceleration-overall-decrease-in-taxes-1.4609196 https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-top-1-per-cent-saw-fa...
- HideousKojima 7y ago
  >Thats 10k per person per year. So if we tax the top 1% at 100%, we can give the bottom 50% enough to not even make rent in Toronto or Vancouver? See item 3 on my list. Also only giving the benefit to the bottom 50% is not universal basic income.
  - petermcneeley 7y ago
    The poor dont tend to pay the the rents of downtown Toronto. There is a number of reasons for this including government housing, roommates, living at home or with a partner. The actual total income at the %1 is certainly higher but may only be ~30-50% more (officially) As for not benefiting the upper 50% I think you might be arguing against some position that doesnt exist. UBI would not benefit everyone directly. In fact if your on the upper end of the spectrum it would dramatically hurt you. I would simply guess that it is the ideology of redistribution that you oppose, which is fine. But the math of this kind of redistribution works out. (The economics of it is a much more interesting question)
jacknews 7y ago
sure much too expensive, no can do yet 6 $trillion from thin air to bail out big business, no problemo, signed by lunchtime. Though I don't agree with UBI. It makes people dependent on government, who can fiddle figures to pay less, as with state pensions. What's really needed is UBE - universal basic equity. Every citizen gets a stake (not 100%) in all of business, and shares in profits and dividends, derived from the economy they work to maintain and expand.
- HideousKojima 7y ago
  $6 trillion in debt, to be paid for by future taxpayers you mean. I'm just as against the current bailout effort as I am against UBI. A one-time $6 trillion payout is still orders of magnitude cheaper than what it would take to fund a decent UBI though.

dangus 7y ago

Which proposals don’t work? What math are you speaking of? Do you have any data to back up your claim? I only mean to push back on this because your comment seems to be dismissive of the entire concept while seeming to closely align with the interests of the kinds of people who don’t want it (the wealthy). I find the idea of just not bothering to tax wealth because they’ll just find a tax haven elsewhere to be defeatist nonsense. It’s not hard to craft legislation that forces the wealthy to pay. If we are overestimating how much wealth the wealthy possess, how is it that three people own more wealth than over half of the entire United States? https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/gates-bezos-buffett-have-more-wealth-than-half-the-us-combined.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/gates-bezos-buffett-have-mor... Excess wealth needs to be taxed because being excessively wealthy is bad for society as a whole, just like we tax alcohol and cigarettes.

HideousKojima 7y ago
Show me a proposal for the US (since I'm most familiar with tax rates, existing benefits, etc. there) and I'll show you how the math doesn't add up. Edit: As far as the three wealthiest in the US owning that much, it still amounts to very little per capita if redistributed to the entire population. You could give every individual in the US a one-time payment of about $3,000, after which there'd be no more money to take from them. The top 1% only have about $25 trillion in combined wealth, which would be enough to fund a UBI of ~$3,000 a month for two years, after which you'd run out of money. And that's pretending that a massive looting of the holdings of the nation's wealthiest wouldn't have any significant economic side effects (and that they wouldn't all just flee to tax havens). And that's ignoring that a good chunk of that wealth is not held in liquid assets.
- dangus 7y ago
  Where do you get $3,000 a month from? I’m sure if you set the dollar value high enough the math doesn’t work out.
  - HideousKojima 7y ago
    >Where do you get $3,000 a month from? The combined wealth of the entire 1% is ~$25 trillion. Population of the US ~330 million. Equally distributed and paid out over 24 months comes out to ~3,156. If you only give it to adults (~255 million) the numbers aren't much better. $3,000 a month is barely enough to get by in several major cities. It'd be fine out in the countryside, but in San Francisco, NYC, and several other major cities it would be barely enough to get a studio apartment and barely enough food to eat. If it's not universal then it's a misnomer. And it's just another welfare/entitlement program then. >It’s also amazing that the top 1% can just find everyone in the United States for two whole years. Doesn’t that just prove my point that inequality is a huge problem? No, not particularly? Why does that matter, other than the usual arguments about wealth in the hands of the poor leading to more marginal consumption and therefore possibly leading to more economic growth? >Preventing tax haven flee is easy. The US already does this, charging income tax to high income expats. If those expats don’t pay they have big issues if they ever set foot in the country again. And if you tax them at 100%, or whatever obscenely high rate you're proposing, they won't ever set foot in the country again, and won't have any desire to do so. And they can avoid worries about extradition etc. by simply renouncing their US citizenship before their tax burden becomes too great, something that already happens even with our current tax rates
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

xutopia 7y ago

I hear the same argument made about "free healthcare is too expensive" but it doesn't stop the vast majority of countries doing it. You get amazing benefits from a government handling healthcare and I think you would get many of those with UBI. UBI could work.

HideousKojima 7y ago
Link me the UBI proposal you find most compelling and I'll explain why the math doesn't work. Preferably a proposal for the US since I'm most familiar with existing benefits and entitlements in the US
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

petermcneeley 7y ago

I accept your challenge. Canada top %1 does ~500k a year absolute min. Take all that and give it to the bottom 50% of the population. Thats 10k per person per year. The issue is not the math. The issue is the ideology of redistribution. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-top-1-per-cent-saw-fastest-income-acceleration-overall-decrease-in-taxes-1.4609196 https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-top-1-per-cent-saw-fa...

HideousKojima 7y ago
>Thats 10k per person per year. So if we tax the top 1% at 100%, we can give the bottom 50% enough to not even make rent in Toronto or Vancouver? See item 3 on my list. Also only giving the benefit to the bottom 50% is not universal basic income.
- petermcneeley 7y ago
  The poor dont tend to pay the the rents of downtown Toronto. There is a number of reasons for this including government housing, roommates, living at home or with a partner. The actual total income at the %1 is certainly higher but may only be ~30-50% more (officially) As for not benefiting the upper 50% I think you might be arguing against some position that doesnt exist. UBI would not benefit everyone directly. In fact if your on the upper end of the spectrum it would dramatically hurt you. I would simply guess that it is the ideology of redistribution that you oppose, which is fine. But the math of this kind of redistribution works out. (The economics of it is a much more interesting question)

jacknews 7y ago

sure much too expensive, no can do yet 6 $trillion from thin air to bail out big business, no problemo, signed by lunchtime. Though I don't agree with UBI. It makes people dependent on government, who can fiddle figures to pay less, as with state pensions. What's really needed is UBE - universal basic equity. Every citizen gets a stake (not 100%) in all of business, and shares in profits and dividends, derived from the economy they work to maintain and expand.

HideousKojima 7y ago
$6 trillion in debt, to be paid for by future taxpayers you mean. I'm just as against the current bailout effort as I am against UBI. A one-time $6 trillion payout is still orders of magnitude cheaper than what it would take to fund a decent UBI though.