8 ms·

As a huge believer in UBI, I think it should also be paired with public healthcare, public housing and ideally public food allowances. Basically all living need

As a huge believer in UBI, I think it should also be paired with public healthcare, public housing and ideally public food allowances. Basically all living needs covered. UBI without all of that does risk inflating the price of everything as the excess capital would just get sucked up into private companies and landlords. It's an idea who's time has come though, wealth inequality is so extreme as to be essentially unfixable without a revolution, we have excess food production and the majority of "work" being done isn't actually to the benefit of humanity or even productive. Think about how much time is wasted in middle management, working on ad tech, marketing...

xvedejas 6y ago
The real thing UBI must be paired with is a Land Value Tax. This helps prevent landlords from extracting the wealth, since their land-based monopoly won't give them profits; it gets recycled back into state programs (like UBI).
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Most places do have property taxes. Many of them are significant. Some of the UBI proposals are extremely expensive. It’s not as simple as extracting wealth from a tiny fraction of wealthy people. The only way to make UBI work will require increasing taxes all the way down to middle class tax brackets. A middle class person might receive $10,000 of UBI, but see their taxes go up $11,000. Meanwhile a broke college student would receive the $10K UBI with $0 tax increase (or maybe a decrease in taxes)
  - zanecodes 6y ago
    I believe they mean Land Value Tax [0] in the Geoism/Georgism [1] sense, not in the traditional property tax sense; the main difference being that a land value tax does not take into account improvements to the property (e.g. buildings, parks, or any other development). Personally, I would be in favor of UBI, even as someone who would see a net loss on it after taxes, since it would mean that if I ever lose my job (or choose to quit), I will still have the UBI to support myself with while I look for a new one, making it a less stressful event. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
    - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
      Modern property taxes are a superset of pure Land Value Tax schemes. In most jurisdictions, land and improvements are appraised separately and can be taxed at separate rates. Moving to a pure Georgism-style LVT would simply remove the taxation on the improvements. > Personally, I would be in favor of UBI, even as someone who would see a net loss on it after taxes, since it would mean that if I ever lose my job (or choose to quit), I will still have the UBI to support myself with while I look for a new one, making it a less stressful event. UBI isn't really targeted at someone like you. If you were laid off, you'd collect regular unemployment benefits. Many UBI proposals do away with unemployment benefits and replace them with UBI. If UBI was instituted at poverty level (about $1000/month) it would actually be less than the unemployment benefits in many locations. However, that increased tax rate would also reduce your personal savings rate, meaning you'd have a reduced opportunity to build a personal savings buffer. If you're an engineer making engineer wages, you're definitely not coming out ahead under a UBI scheme. You are the source of the UBI money, not the recipient. UBI isn't really meant to cover for things like people voluntarily quitting their jobs. It's meant to stop people from starving and going homeless in the event that they're unable to work. UBI is vastly more expensive than many people estimate. To simply pay poverty-level UBI to the 330 million people in the United States, we'd need to spend $4.2 Trillion annually. That's about equivalent to the entire 2020 federal budget. In other words, just to keep UBI at poverty levels, we'd have to double the federal taxation across the board. Paying 200% of poverty levels would require tripling taxation. We're not going to get there by simple Land Value Taxes.
  - xvedejas 6y ago
    LVT isn't sufficient to fund UBI, it's necessary to make sure UBI doesn't have additional distortionary effects. Property taxes are really not a good comparison for LVT, since they tax property improvements too much and the land itself too little. Calibration is important.
  - account42 6y ago
    > A middle class person might receive $10,000 of UBI, but see their taxes go up $11,000. Meanwhile a broke college student would receive the $10K UBI with $0 tax increase (or maybe a decrease in taxes) Is that a problem?
s3r3nity 6y ago
>... Think about how much time is wasted in middle management, working on ad tech, marketing... While I agree about the prevalence of “bullshit jobs” in general, who are you to decide what jobs are “productive?” I wouldn’t trust any central authority to determine that, but rather the decentralized mechanisms that already exist in private enterprise / markets to determine that.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  No central authority has to decide which job is bullshit. I don't think people like doing these bullshit jobs, they do them to survive. Give people UBI and they'll simply quit their telemarketing, soulless middle management, ad tech job... Some of those people will play video games all day, some will create new tech, some will create art... and as you say, no one is in a position to judge which of those are "productive". It's just important to free people from the need to enrich others just to survive.
  - kwhitefoot 6y ago
    And some of them will be re-hired in the same fields but to do those jobs that are not bullshit because of course some middle management jobs, advertising, etc., are useful. It might also allow people to take jobs that are currently not done because they have low status or are simply regarded as uninteresting by employers. I can easily imagine someone being willing to be a street cleaner if they had enough leverage to ensure that it was not a grindingly horrible job.
  - s3r3nity 6y ago
    > It's just important to free people from the need to enrich others just to survive. Before I criticize, in full disclosure: I support UBI experiments. I have my concerns, but until we have data they’re just theory. That out of the way: I don’t think it’s wildly out of line to assume a social contract that you need to provide some value to society to get access to resources (food / shelter / etc.) created by others. If I’m making food from a farm, you can’t just get food from me by existing, you need to offer something of value: working on my farm (services,) or exchanging goods I want to use, like better equipment. Or you give me money so that I can access those other two things. And at the end of the day, we still need janitors, waste management, customer support callers, etc etc - jobs people hate, but must be done. And they will continue to be done regardless of UBI.
doganengin 6y ago
Good point indeed. Healthcare related expenses can derail one’s finances regardless of income level. How to finance both will be difficult for most countries but it is worth to experiment around the concept and fine tune over time.
ArkanExplorer 6y ago
What exactly then is the point of humanity? To sit around and consume bread and circuses? Isn't this immensely dysgenic, where the productive members of society labour all day to produce goods and services for the unproductive, who will use their ample spare time to reproduce and vote for an expansion of UBI? What need is there to even behave decently and civilly, when all of your needs and income are taken care of by the State? Why study or work hard as a child when your future (I will be a UBI recipient, as is my father, as was my father before him) is already established? If we wish to help the working classes of the West, then we need simply eliminate all unskilled immigration and refugee programs. Demand for workers will rise and pressure on infrastructure, Government services, agriculture and housing will decrease - boosting quality of life without UBI. The other major factor of poverty is of women having children out of wedlock. We should stop incentivizing single-motherhood, and offer universal access to family planning including further development of vasalgel.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tehwebguy 6y ago
  There are plenty of financial motivations to labor other than the threat of shame, lack of healthcare, homelessness & starvation. There are even plenty of non-financial motivations to labor!
- trashman100 6y ago
  Why not just stop all immigration and tighten and enforce anti corruption laws and close loop holes that allow the 1% and multinational corporations to cheat the system. Immigration is a big part of the growth economic Ponzi scheme. It's not sustainable and it has been horrible for the environment. It also keeps business running profitably. We have a growing homeless problem. We have racial ghettos. We have Indian reservation. We have an entire manufacturing belt that has been gutted. We have a growing problem of deaths of despair, including suicide and drug addiction. Instead of casually replacing these people with immigrants and allowing the wealthiest 1% to pay little to no taxes and allow companies like Apple and probably all the big tech companies to play offshore tax games, why not help America keep jobs here and increase the pay for those jobs? This whole growth economics and emotionally manipulating people into accepting immigrants "to do the jobs Americans don't want to do" is one of the most horrific lies I have become aware of. There is no job an American won't do at the right (fair) price. The economy will not crumble if business has no choice but to take less profits and pay better wages. Nothing will change until the incentive structure changes. I don't see anyone talking much about these things. I see monied interests pushing mass propaganda in order to ultimately keep wages low and keep income gains from increases in productivity going to the top. Not everyone should or can program. I would rather live in a world where my COL increases if that means that the people around me, city workers, grocery baggers, etc. are payed better. I'm not even sure my COL would increase. I think through above mentioned changes to incentive structures money can be redirected in a more egalitarian way with very little downside.

xvedejas 6y ago

The real thing UBI must be paired with is a Land Value Tax. This helps prevent landlords from extracting the wealth, since their land-based monopoly won't give them profits; it gets recycled back into state programs (like UBI).

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Most places do have property taxes. Many of them are significant. Some of the UBI proposals are extremely expensive. It’s not as simple as extracting wealth from a tiny fraction of wealthy people. The only way to make UBI work will require increasing taxes all the way down to middle class tax brackets. A middle class person might receive $10,000 of UBI, but see their taxes go up $11,000. Meanwhile a broke college student would receive the $10K UBI with $0 tax increase (or maybe a decrease in taxes)
- zanecodes 6y ago
  I believe they mean Land Value Tax [0] in the Geoism/Georgism [1] sense, not in the traditional property tax sense; the main difference being that a land value tax does not take into account improvements to the property (e.g. buildings, parks, or any other development). Personally, I would be in favor of UBI, even as someone who would see a net loss on it after taxes, since it would mean that if I ever lose my job (or choose to quit), I will still have the UBI to support myself with while I look for a new one, making it a less stressful event. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    Modern property taxes are a superset of pure Land Value Tax schemes. In most jurisdictions, land and improvements are appraised separately and can be taxed at separate rates. Moving to a pure Georgism-style LVT would simply remove the taxation on the improvements. > Personally, I would be in favor of UBI, even as someone who would see a net loss on it after taxes, since it would mean that if I ever lose my job (or choose to quit), I will still have the UBI to support myself with while I look for a new one, making it a less stressful event. UBI isn't really targeted at someone like you. If you were laid off, you'd collect regular unemployment benefits. Many UBI proposals do away with unemployment benefits and replace them with UBI. If UBI was instituted at poverty level (about $1000/month) it would actually be less than the unemployment benefits in many locations. However, that increased tax rate would also reduce your personal savings rate, meaning you'd have a reduced opportunity to build a personal savings buffer. If you're an engineer making engineer wages, you're definitely not coming out ahead under a UBI scheme. You are the source of the UBI money, not the recipient. UBI isn't really meant to cover for things like people voluntarily quitting their jobs. It's meant to stop people from starving and going homeless in the event that they're unable to work. UBI is vastly more expensive than many people estimate. To simply pay poverty-level UBI to the 330 million people in the United States, we'd need to spend $4.2 Trillion annually. That's about equivalent to the entire 2020 federal budget. In other words, just to keep UBI at poverty levels, we'd have to double the federal taxation across the board. Paying 200% of poverty levels would require tripling taxation. We're not going to get there by simple Land Value Taxes.
- xvedejas 6y ago
  LVT isn't sufficient to fund UBI, it's necessary to make sure UBI doesn't have additional distortionary effects. Property taxes are really not a good comparison for LVT, since they tax property improvements too much and the land itself too little. Calibration is important.
- account42 6y ago
  > A middle class person might receive $10,000 of UBI, but see their taxes go up $11,000. Meanwhile a broke college student would receive the $10K UBI with $0 tax increase (or maybe a decrease in taxes) Is that a problem?

s3r3nity 6y ago

>... Think about how much time is wasted in middle management, working on ad tech, marketing... While I agree about the prevalence of “bullshit jobs” in general, who are you to decide what jobs are “productive?” I wouldn’t trust any central authority to determine that, but rather the decentralized mechanisms that already exist in private enterprise / markets to determine that.

solosoyokaze 6y ago
No central authority has to decide which job is bullshit. I don't think people like doing these bullshit jobs, they do them to survive. Give people UBI and they'll simply quit their telemarketing, soulless middle management, ad tech job... Some of those people will play video games all day, some will create new tech, some will create art... and as you say, no one is in a position to judge which of those are "productive". It's just important to free people from the need to enrich others just to survive.
- kwhitefoot 6y ago
  And some of them will be re-hired in the same fields but to do those jobs that are not bullshit because of course some middle management jobs, advertising, etc., are useful. It might also allow people to take jobs that are currently not done because they have low status or are simply regarded as uninteresting by employers. I can easily imagine someone being willing to be a street cleaner if they had enough leverage to ensure that it was not a grindingly horrible job.
- s3r3nity 6y ago
  > It's just important to free people from the need to enrich others just to survive. Before I criticize, in full disclosure: I support UBI experiments. I have my concerns, but until we have data they’re just theory. That out of the way: I don’t think it’s wildly out of line to assume a social contract that you need to provide some value to society to get access to resources (food / shelter / etc.) created by others. If I’m making food from a farm, you can’t just get food from me by existing, you need to offer something of value: working on my farm (services,) or exchanging goods I want to use, like better equipment. Or you give me money so that I can access those other two things. And at the end of the day, we still need janitors, waste management, customer support callers, etc etc - jobs people hate, but must be done. And they will continue to be done regardless of UBI.

doganengin 6y ago

Good point indeed. Healthcare related expenses can derail one’s finances regardless of income level. How to finance both will be difficult for most countries but it is worth to experiment around the concept and fine tune over time.

ArkanExplorer 6y ago

What exactly then is the point of humanity? To sit around and consume bread and circuses? Isn't this immensely dysgenic, where the productive members of society labour all day to produce goods and services for the unproductive, who will use their ample spare time to reproduce and vote for an expansion of UBI? What need is there to even behave decently and civilly, when all of your needs and income are taken care of by the State? Why study or work hard as a child when your future (I will be a UBI recipient, as is my father, as was my father before him) is already established? If we wish to help the working classes of the West, then we need simply eliminate all unskilled immigration and refugee programs. Demand for workers will rise and pressure on infrastructure, Government services, agriculture and housing will decrease - boosting quality of life without UBI. The other major factor of poverty is of women having children out of wedlock. We should stop incentivizing single-motherhood, and offer universal access to family planning including further development of vasalgel.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tehwebguy 6y ago
There are plenty of financial motivations to labor other than the threat of shame, lack of healthcare, homelessness & starvation. There are even plenty of non-financial motivations to labor!
trashman100 6y ago
Why not just stop all immigration and tighten and enforce anti corruption laws and close loop holes that allow the 1% and multinational corporations to cheat the system. Immigration is a big part of the growth economic Ponzi scheme. It's not sustainable and it has been horrible for the environment. It also keeps business running profitably. We have a growing homeless problem. We have racial ghettos. We have Indian reservation. We have an entire manufacturing belt that has been gutted. We have a growing problem of deaths of despair, including suicide and drug addiction. Instead of casually replacing these people with immigrants and allowing the wealthiest 1% to pay little to no taxes and allow companies like Apple and probably all the big tech companies to play offshore tax games, why not help America keep jobs here and increase the pay for those jobs? This whole growth economics and emotionally manipulating people into accepting immigrants "to do the jobs Americans don't want to do" is one of the most horrific lies I have become aware of. There is no job an American won't do at the right (fair) price. The economy will not crumble if business has no choice but to take less profits and pay better wages. Nothing will change until the incentive structure changes. I don't see anyone talking much about these things. I see monied interests pushing mass propaganda in order to ultimately keep wages low and keep income gains from increases in productivity going to the top. Not everyone should or can program. I would rather live in a world where my COL increases if that means that the people around me, city workers, grocery baggers, etc. are payed better. I'm not even sure my COL would increase. I think through above mentioned changes to incentive structures money can be redirected in a more egalitarian way with very little downside.