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"monthly payments ... to the nation’s poorest families ... the largest test yet of an idea called universal basic income" You keep using that word, I do not th

"monthly payments ... to the nation’s poorest families ... the largest test yet of an idea called universal basic income" You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
chooseaname 6y ago
"test" It's just a test.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  Yeah... though not a test of UBI, but rather yet another means-tested welfare program.
  - nostrebored 6y ago
    To make this more clear, the negative repercussions of UBI really center on the 'U' a lot of the time. What happens when everyone has more money for essentials?
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > What happens when everyone has more money for essentials? Everyone doesn't have more money with UBI unless it is funded by printing money. If it's funded by taxes, or borrowing, or a combination, there is equal money being extracted as being injected.
      - undersuit 6y ago
        The proponents still fear inflation. And some goods may become inflated if everyone starts consistently receiving UBI payments. I'd see media increasing in price since those that are currently buying it are not necessarily destitute for food. There'd be plenty of payments towards debt... which I'm not an economist so I can't say what exactly that liquidity in the credit markets would do. You'd see an uptick in food purchases as EBT, food pantries, etc. decrease in capacity and food is purchased directly from stores without limitation on purchased items. Plenty of consumer crap would be consumed too. Magic cards, Funko Pop figurines, Alco-pops and Big Macs. What I don't see happening is the cost of housing skyrocketing. That assumes we have a limited supply, we do not we have a excess. We could house every person in the US today... well tomorrow with realistic travel times.
        dragonwriter 6y ago
        > And some goods may become inflated if everyone starts consistently receiving UBI payment Sure, any redistribution of income increases prices of things demanded more by the recipients than the sources of the redistribution. This doesn't, ever, fully offset the effects of redistribution, it just means the effects of any redistribution will be somewhat smaller (both on the recipients and the sources) than they would be expected to be based on a naive projection from pre-redistribution prices.
        microcolonel 6y ago
        > Plenty of consumer crap would be consumed too. Magic cards, Funko Pop figurines, Alco-pops and Big Macs. Yup, guess which demographics are most likely to own a luxury vehicle in America...
tgb 6y ago
My understanding is that most proposals for UBI would be funded by raising taxes making it a net-positive income increase only for the "poorest" families (the bottom X% of tax payers, for some X). So the only difference here seems to be a lower-than-desired X, which would be a reasonable test.
- eru 6y ago
  Yes. Not just most proposals, but all: Unless you get foreigners to pay for your UBI programme, it's always going to be funded by raising taxes, shifting existence welfare around, or something equivalent. But a big part of some people's understanding of UBI is that you want to move all means testing into the tax system, and out of the welfare system. The tax people already keep track of how much money everyone makes. So we don't need to duplicate that bureaucracy.
  - Ghjklov 6y ago
    Heh, people were not very into Trump building a wall and "making Mexico pay for it" but let's see what they say about installing UBI and making the rest of the world pay for it.
  - tgb 6y ago
    I added "most" specifically because one of the other threads in the comments here is about not funding it through taxes (instead, through printing money).
    - eru 6y ago
      Well, that's just taxing people through inflation.
- NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
  I think from a government fiscal perspective it's the same, but it's probably not from the viewpoint of the individual participants. i.e. I have a well-paid job but stop working halfway through the year. On a full-year tax basis, I'm not in the bottom X% of tax payers based on my earnings to date. Do I get a UBI check or not for the rest of the year? Since virtually all tax matters are based on averaging income over some long time period (usually a year), it's not a good mechanism to deal with changes in income, and those changes in income (planned or not) are precisely the things which UBI is supposed to help with.

"monthly payments ... to the nation’s poorest families ... the largest test yet of an idea called universal basic income" You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

chooseaname 6y ago

"test" It's just a test.

microcolonel 6y ago
Yeah... though not a test of UBI, but rather yet another means-tested welfare program.
- nostrebored 6y ago
  To make this more clear, the negative repercussions of UBI really center on the 'U' a lot of the time. What happens when everyone has more money for essentials?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > What happens when everyone has more money for essentials? Everyone doesn't have more money with UBI unless it is funded by printing money. If it's funded by taxes, or borrowing, or a combination, there is equal money being extracted as being injected.
    - undersuit 6y ago
      The proponents still fear inflation. And some goods may become inflated if everyone starts consistently receiving UBI payments. I'd see media increasing in price since those that are currently buying it are not necessarily destitute for food. There'd be plenty of payments towards debt... which I'm not an economist so I can't say what exactly that liquidity in the credit markets would do. You'd see an uptick in food purchases as EBT, food pantries, etc. decrease in capacity and food is purchased directly from stores without limitation on purchased items. Plenty of consumer crap would be consumed too. Magic cards, Funko Pop figurines, Alco-pops and Big Macs. What I don't see happening is the cost of housing skyrocketing. That assumes we have a limited supply, we do not we have a excess. We could house every person in the US today... well tomorrow with realistic travel times.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > And some goods may become inflated if everyone starts consistently receiving UBI payment Sure, any redistribution of income increases prices of things demanded more by the recipients than the sources of the redistribution. This doesn't, ever, fully offset the effects of redistribution, it just means the effects of any redistribution will be somewhat smaller (both on the recipients and the sources) than they would be expected to be based on a naive projection from pre-redistribution prices.
      - microcolonel 6y ago
        > Plenty of consumer crap would be consumed too. Magic cards, Funko Pop figurines, Alco-pops and Big Macs. Yup, guess which demographics are most likely to own a luxury vehicle in America...

tgb 6y ago

My understanding is that most proposals for UBI would be funded by raising taxes making it a net-positive income increase only for the "poorest" families (the bottom X% of tax payers, for some X). So the only difference here seems to be a lower-than-desired X, which would be a reasonable test.

eru 6y ago
Yes. Not just most proposals, but all: Unless you get foreigners to pay for your UBI programme, it's always going to be funded by raising taxes, shifting existence welfare around, or something equivalent. But a big part of some people's understanding of UBI is that you want to move all means testing into the tax system, and out of the welfare system. The tax people already keep track of how much money everyone makes. So we don't need to duplicate that bureaucracy.
- Ghjklov 6y ago
  Heh, people were not very into Trump building a wall and "making Mexico pay for it" but let's see what they say about installing UBI and making the rest of the world pay for it.
- tgb 6y ago
  I added "most" specifically because one of the other threads in the comments here is about not funding it through taxes (instead, through printing money).
  - eru 6y ago
    Well, that's just taxing people through inflation.
NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
I think from a government fiscal perspective it's the same, but it's probably not from the viewpoint of the individual participants. i.e. I have a well-paid job but stop working halfway through the year. On a full-year tax basis, I'm not in the bottom X% of tax payers based on my earnings to date. Do I get a UBI check or not for the rest of the year? Since virtually all tax matters are based on averaging income over some long time period (usually a year), it's not a good mechanism to deal with changes in income, and those changes in income (planned or not) are precisely the things which UBI is supposed to help with.