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garcetti is on his way out to be the US ambassador to india and he's trying to use a grand gesture of literally giving away money to paper over how utterly he's

garcetti is on his way out to be the US ambassador to india and he's trying to use a grand gesture of literally giving away money to paper over how utterly he's failed as mayor, particularly on the twin problems of homelessness and housing construction here. and to top it all off, he's doing it with ubi, a program to lock in structural disparities that inhibit social mobility under the guise of being egalitarian. i don't know whether to laugh at his impotence or cry at the mess he's leaving behind.

tyrust 5y ago
> $24 million guaranteed income program to give 2,000 poor families $1,000 per month This is really missing the "U" in "UBI". That aside, how does UBI (combined with a progressive tax system) "lock in structural disparities"?
- b9a2cab5 5y ago
  Not the OP, but in general when there is high socioeconomic mobility in society, high taxes disproportionately impact high earners who are not yet wealthy. If you're already wealthy you can draw a subsistence income from investments and be taxed at a low rate, while paying 0 rent since you own property. If you're not wealthy, you need to make enough to pay (high) rents and also build up your wealth, which means you get doubly screwed by high tax rates. Presumably UBI would be funded by increases in taxes, so this logic would apply. We can argue about whether the US has high socioeconomic mobility but the majority of millionaires in the US are self-made [1]. It is perhaps questionable whether 20th wealth percentile poor can make it to the 99th percentile, but I think it's much easier for a 60th percentile person in the US to make it to the 99th percentile compared to Europe. [1]: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120719005724/en/Fidelity%C2%AE-Survey-Finds-86-Percent-of-Millionaires-Are-Self-Made https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120719005724/en/Fid...
  - tyrust 5y ago
    Your criticism is about the tax system, not UBI. If you want to change the tax system to target those issues, that sounds like a good idea. It's sorta orthogonal to the conversation about where those taxes go, though.
    - b9a2cab5 5y ago
      Like I said, UBI would be funded by large tax increases, so instituting UBI would directly fuel those inequalities.
      - tyrust 5y ago
        By your logic, any tax increase will fuel inequalities. This is a reasonable line of thinking (although I do not know its validity), but serves nothing more than to derail a conversation about tax-funded benefits.
        b9a2cab5 5y ago
        The conversation is whether UBI will fuel existing inequalities or remove them. I argue it will exacerbate inequalities because of the taxes needed to pay for it. How is this any more derailing than the OP's comment about Garcetti?
yann2 5y ago
The healthy thing to do is focus on simple problems that the chimp troupe has a track record of solving. Everything else is just noise. For anything too complex, it doesnt matter who gets propped up or what they say, do or think, the chimp troupe is going to blunder and then blame, hide, defend, spin their attempts. The trap is believing complex problems, above everyones pay grade, just requires pointing at it and finding the right chimp. That is not how the universe handles complexity and neither should we. Focus on the simple stuff. Complexity is for the clueless and the crazy.

tyrust 5y ago

> $24 million guaranteed income program to give 2,000 poor families $1,000 per month This is really missing the "U" in "UBI". That aside, how does UBI (combined with a progressive tax system) "lock in structural disparities"?

b9a2cab5 5y ago
Not the OP, but in general when there is high socioeconomic mobility in society, high taxes disproportionately impact high earners who are not yet wealthy. If you're already wealthy you can draw a subsistence income from investments and be taxed at a low rate, while paying 0 rent since you own property. If you're not wealthy, you need to make enough to pay (high) rents and also build up your wealth, which means you get doubly screwed by high tax rates. Presumably UBI would be funded by increases in taxes, so this logic would apply. We can argue about whether the US has high socioeconomic mobility but the majority of millionaires in the US are self-made [1]. It is perhaps questionable whether 20th wealth percentile poor can make it to the 99th percentile, but I think it's much easier for a 60th percentile person in the US to make it to the 99th percentile compared to Europe. [1]: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120719005724/en/Fidelity%C2%AE-Survey-Finds-86-Percent-of-Millionaires-Are-Self-Made https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120719005724/en/Fid...
- tyrust 5y ago
  Your criticism is about the tax system, not UBI. If you want to change the tax system to target those issues, that sounds like a good idea. It's sorta orthogonal to the conversation about where those taxes go, though.
  - b9a2cab5 5y ago
    Like I said, UBI would be funded by large tax increases, so instituting UBI would directly fuel those inequalities.
    - tyrust 5y ago
      By your logic, any tax increase will fuel inequalities. This is a reasonable line of thinking (although I do not know its validity), but serves nothing more than to derail a conversation about tax-funded benefits.
      - b9a2cab5 5y ago
        The conversation is whether UBI will fuel existing inequalities or remove them. I argue it will exacerbate inequalities because of the taxes needed to pay for it. How is this any more derailing than the OP's comment about Garcetti?

yann2 5y ago

The healthy thing to do is focus on simple problems that the chimp troupe has a track record of solving. Everything else is just noise. For anything too complex, it doesnt matter who gets propped up or what they say, do or think, the chimp troupe is going to blunder and then blame, hide, defend, spin their attempts. The trap is believing complex problems, above everyones pay grade, just requires pointing at it and finding the right chimp. That is not how the universe handles complexity and neither should we. Focus on the simple stuff. Complexity is for the clueless and the crazy.