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Why don't these experiments get set up as a closed system, where all the participants are also paying taxes into the UBI program to sustain its costs? They can

Why don't these experiments get set up as a closed system, where all the participants are also paying taxes into the UBI program to sustain its costs? They can even go a step further and set up an experimental currency to model what happens when experimental federal government running the experimental program has an experimental budget deficit and sells experimental bonds to the experimental central bank to pay for it all. Why don't the experiments account for these factors?

mhh__ 6y ago
Because the people receiving this should it be implemented nationwide shouldn't be paying those taxes anyway?
- isoskeles 6y ago
  The "Universal" in UBI has a meaning, which intends that everyone is an unconditional recipient, including taxpayers. Edit: To add, I'm not sure why we think a real "experiment" wouldn't also include the actual payment into the program. Is there an explanation? All I can see is the intent of the "experiment" is to say, "UBI is good [no matter the cost]." This is unconvincing, to say anything is worth the effort regardless of the cost. But I don't want to set up a strawman. I'm curious if people have a good reason to say why the cost should not be accounted for, or if it somehow is, and I'm just not seeing it.
dmwallin 6y ago
How are you going to decide which corporations are you going to tax? How are you going to get citizens from the upper percentage of the tax bracket to just agree to join a voluntary experiment. It turns out that designing studies for national policies is REALLY hard due to the complexity of our modern society. Institutions exist across a large variety of scales and the smaller the study the more you have to account for external factors and abstract out things like funding sources, which are not directly connected to the effect of the money on the populace being studied. It's much easier to look separately at the effects of income, and compare that to separate studies on the effect of higher taxation, to see if the tradeoffs are worth it.
clavalle 6y ago
'Closed system' is not accurate. The Federal Reserve created over $3.38 Trillion in 2020. Since that goes to banks that can lend 10x their reserves, they effectively created over $33 Trillion last year. That's about enough to give every US citizen $100,000 for the year. More than enough for a UBI. Not that I think that's a good idea. But a closed system suggests its a zero sum game when it clearly is not.
- syshum 6y ago
  That is not really how that works...
mynameishere 6y ago
You're talking to people who think a typical homeless junkie is going to start volunteering or making art or babysitting if he gets a monthly stipend. Not a strawman--that's what they think. Just forget it.

mhh__ 6y ago

Because the people receiving this should it be implemented nationwide shouldn't be paying those taxes anyway?

isoskeles 6y ago
The "Universal" in UBI has a meaning, which intends that everyone is an unconditional recipient, including taxpayers. Edit: To add, I'm not sure why we think a real "experiment" wouldn't also include the actual payment into the program. Is there an explanation? All I can see is the intent of the "experiment" is to say, "UBI is good [no matter the cost]." This is unconvincing, to say anything is worth the effort regardless of the cost. But I don't want to set up a strawman. I'm curious if people have a good reason to say why the cost should not be accounted for, or if it somehow is, and I'm just not seeing it.

dmwallin 6y ago

How are you going to decide which corporations are you going to tax? How are you going to get citizens from the upper percentage of the tax bracket to just agree to join a voluntary experiment. It turns out that designing studies for national policies is REALLY hard due to the complexity of our modern society. Institutions exist across a large variety of scales and the smaller the study the more you have to account for external factors and abstract out things like funding sources, which are not directly connected to the effect of the money on the populace being studied. It's much easier to look separately at the effects of income, and compare that to separate studies on the effect of higher taxation, to see if the tradeoffs are worth it.

clavalle 6y ago

'Closed system' is not accurate. The Federal Reserve created over $3.38 Trillion in 2020. Since that goes to banks that can lend 10x their reserves, they effectively created over $33 Trillion last year. That's about enough to give every US citizen $100,000 for the year. More than enough for a UBI. Not that I think that's a good idea. But a closed system suggests its a zero sum game when it clearly is not.

syshum 6y ago
That is not really how that works...

mynameishere 6y ago

You're talking to people who think a typical homeless junkie is going to start volunteering or making art or babysitting if he gets a monthly stipend. Not a strawman--that's what they think. Just forget it.