32 ms·

>What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't hurt long t

>What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation. A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these questions. There is no proof that would actually appease you. There is no way you could measure the effect on inflation without having an entire currency on UBI. There is no way we could be sure about the macroeconomic effects of UBI without first implementing it.

rhino369 6y ago
If it is true that you cannot experimentally determine the impact, that's a pretty good reason to never try UBI.
- nemothekid 6y ago
  >If it is true that you cannot experimentally determine the impact, that's a pretty good reason to never try UBI. Ok, so we should never try anything related to macroeconomics? Let's also never change the tax rate ever again.
- throwaway57002 6y ago
  By that argument, and given the rigorousness of economics as a field, pretty much no policy should ever be implemented.
luckylion 6y ago
> There is no proof that would actually appease you. That's not a reason to not even try to offer anything though. You could start with a trial of these 120 persons (select from all classes of society), give them UBI and double their taxes to make it realistic, because the UBI has to be paid somehow. If plenty of them would have less money during this trial and still find UBI worth it, that would be a strong signal. Few people would agree to be part of that study though, and one might argue that those that would (i.e. by applying) won't be representative of society at large. Testing only the spending side of UBI is fun but useless, especially with that setting.
- JoshuaDavid 6y ago
  One possible trial that would interest me is a UBI, implemented on a county-wide basis somewhere. It might be possible to find a county containing a single city, somewhere near the center so people can't easily just move immediately outside the border of where the UBI applies, where a high enough fraction of the people in that town are in favor of a UBI to pass some resolution to create a county-wide income or property tax that funds a county-wide basic income. The issue with that is that I suspect higher-level governments (state, federal) would decide that a. An individual county imposing taxes that high is illegal b. UBI benefits must be paid out immediately to all residents of the city upon moving there (and now every poor person everywhere wants to move to your city). Still, maybe there's a clever way to try it out in a fairly self-contained system?
  - luckylion 6y ago
    That would certainly be a good start. People moving there because of UBI is expected in general, so it would also yield valuable results in that regard. There's the ethical issue of forcing people to be part of the experiment that really don't want to, even if you give them the option to move. I don't know whether there are upper limits on local taxes. One of Germany's local funding is business tax ("Gewerbesteuer"), which communities regulate by setting their multiplier, the lower limit is 200% (of the taxation base), with most between 350% and 450%. The highest I know of is 900%. Property tax also varies between 200% (minimum) and 1800% (according to Wikipedia), so there's some room as well. Combined with an initial donation, that may be possibl. If it's somewhere where people don't naturally move to (e.g. not a major population center), the moving-effect might be very welcome as well, repopulating the area.
- nemothekid 6y ago
  >You could start with a trial of these 120 persons (select from all classes of society), give them UBI and double their taxes to make it realistic, because the UBI has to be paid somehow. 1. I'd image the poster would have the same objections. It's not large enough, etc. 2. Why double their taxes at all? You could just give them less UBI. I don't see how this makes any sense. What's point of having UBI if you have less money than you started out with. You've just invented a useless tax, which we already have in spades.
oytis 6y ago
What about introducing UBI in Iceland? Only 364K population, and they have their own currency :)

rhino369 6y ago

If it is true that you cannot experimentally determine the impact, that's a pretty good reason to never try UBI.

nemothekid 6y ago
>If it is true that you cannot experimentally determine the impact, that's a pretty good reason to never try UBI. Ok, so we should never try anything related to macroeconomics? Let's also never change the tax rate ever again.
throwaway57002 6y ago
By that argument, and given the rigorousness of economics as a field, pretty much no policy should ever be implemented.

luckylion 6y ago

> There is no proof that would actually appease you. That's not a reason to not even try to offer anything though. You could start with a trial of these 120 persons (select from all classes of society), give them UBI and double their taxes to make it realistic, because the UBI has to be paid somehow. If plenty of them would have less money during this trial and still find UBI worth it, that would be a strong signal. Few people would agree to be part of that study though, and one might argue that those that would (i.e. by applying) won't be representative of society at large. Testing only the spending side of UBI is fun but useless, especially with that setting.

JoshuaDavid 6y ago
One possible trial that would interest me is a UBI, implemented on a county-wide basis somewhere. It might be possible to find a county containing a single city, somewhere near the center so people can't easily just move immediately outside the border of where the UBI applies, where a high enough fraction of the people in that town are in favor of a UBI to pass some resolution to create a county-wide income or property tax that funds a county-wide basic income. The issue with that is that I suspect higher-level governments (state, federal) would decide that a. An individual county imposing taxes that high is illegal b. UBI benefits must be paid out immediately to all residents of the city upon moving there (and now every poor person everywhere wants to move to your city). Still, maybe there's a clever way to try it out in a fairly self-contained system?
- luckylion 6y ago
  That would certainly be a good start. People moving there because of UBI is expected in general, so it would also yield valuable results in that regard. There's the ethical issue of forcing people to be part of the experiment that really don't want to, even if you give them the option to move. I don't know whether there are upper limits on local taxes. One of Germany's local funding is business tax ("Gewerbesteuer"), which communities regulate by setting their multiplier, the lower limit is 200% (of the taxation base), with most between 350% and 450%. The highest I know of is 900%. Property tax also varies between 200% (minimum) and 1800% (according to Wikipedia), so there's some room as well. Combined with an initial donation, that may be possibl. If it's somewhere where people don't naturally move to (e.g. not a major population center), the moving-effect might be very welcome as well, repopulating the area.
nemothekid 6y ago
>You could start with a trial of these 120 persons (select from all classes of society), give them UBI and double their taxes to make it realistic, because the UBI has to be paid somehow. 1. I'd image the poster would have the same objections. It's not large enough, etc. 2. Why double their taxes at all? You could just give them less UBI. I don't see how this makes any sense. What's point of having UBI if you have less money than you started out with. You've just invented a useless tax, which we already have in spades.

oytis 6y ago

What about introducing UBI in Iceland? Only 364K population, and they have their own currency :)