5 ms·

If you want to provide truly livable UBI, it’d be even bigger than socialism. The working people would have to be taxed through the nose. And necessary professi

by mantas 1y ago

If you want to provide truly livable UBI, it’d be even bigger than socialism. The working people would have to be taxed through the nose. And necessary professions like trash car drivers should be paid a crapton.

eru 1y ago
What do you define to be 'truly livable'? Let's have a look at Scandinavia or Germany. They have reasonably generous welfare systems, but they are means tested. So for the sake of argument, declare them to be 'truly livable'. Especially by global standards. Now I claim, that you can get pretty much the same net payments (of means tested welfare - taxes) that these countries have today with a system of (UBI - taxes). Basically, at the moment both taxes and welfare are means tested; you could move to UBI by moving all the means testing from welfare to taxes. Because net payments would be pretty much the same, all incentives would stay pretty much the same as today. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax which is one way to implement something like a UBI. Of course, if you want to go much beyond what Germany and Scandinavia are already paying, you'd need even higher taxes or a stranger economy. Btw, per capita the US is one of the world leaders of social welfare spending. They spend more than France. (Mostly because while France spends a higher proportion of GDP, American GDP per capita is much higher.)
- valenterry 1y ago
  > Because net payments would be pretty much the same, all incentives would stay pretty much the same as today. Nope, in Germany you are required to work. If you can't find a job, you still have to try (and prove that), you need to stay at home / be available (and notify the state about your vacation or you might be punished by receiving less welfare) and of course you have to use up all money or wealth you have and state, in written, that you have no other sources of wealth. So UBI would absolutely change incentives here.
  - eru 1y ago
    Good point! Though in practice it's fairly easy to put in a token effort so your welfare won't be cut, but avoid actually getting hired. But you are very right that the token effort is still effort. > [...] and of course you have to use up all money or wealth you have and state, in written, that you have no other sources of wealth. That is similar to taxing that money and wealth. But you are right.
    - mantas 1y ago
      The sell-possessions-before-welfare is very very different from taxing. With taxes, even crazy high, you can still accumulate wealth. Taxes slow you down, but it’s still possible. With net-worth-ceiling to receive welfare, you’re forced you cannot accumulate wealth on welfare. And your previous wealth is gone before you get to earn welfare. Got a nice house and BMW and decided to slow it down and live on welfare? Or, more likely, work under table and collect welfare too? Good luck with that :)
      - eru 1y ago
        > With taxes, even crazy high, you can still accumulate wealth. Taxes slow you down, but it’s still possible. That's only true for income taxes, not for wealth taxes.
        mantas 1y ago
        Even wealth taxes don’t force you to sell. But welfare with wealth threshold does.
        eru 1y ago
        > Even wealth taxes don’t force you to sell. But welfare with wealth threshold does. How are you going to pay those wealth taxes? (Assuming you have no income.)
        1y ago
- mantas 1y ago
  And Scandinavian or German systems are in pretty bad shape. Both hard to finance (see Denmark raising pension age to 70) and lots of people getting thrown out of the system for minuscule reasons (German pensioners collecting deposit bottles to make ends meet is not unheard of). In euro style systems very few people receive welfare at a given time. Many people may receive it at some point in lifetime, but not at the same time. UBI would completely change the picture. On top of that, salaries for basic jobs would need to get much higher to incentivize people to work. Thus UBI would have to be much higher as current welfare. Unless you expect citizens to live on UBI but keep services cheap with cheap migrant labor.
  - Digit-Al 1y ago
    > On top of that, salaries for basic jobs would need to get much higher to incentivize people to work. Not true. The 'B' in UBI means 'Basic'. UBI wil pay your rent, utilities, and food, but not much else. Now, there are some people that are willing to just exist on only the bare minimum, but that's a significant minority. The vast majority of people want more. There will be plenty of people willing to do minimum wage jobs to top-up their UBI so they can afford extras like holidays, nicer phones, meals out, etc... The main difference would be that the security of UBI would give them more power to distch a job if they were being abused in some way, rather than being so desperate that even if their employer is abusing them they are forced to take it because they need the job to survive. I feel like too much discussion on UBI is poisoned by the idea that the vast majority of people are bone idle and are willing to just sit at home doing nothing and just existing with the bare minumum required to live. It's just not true
    - hibikir 1y ago
      It's not that the majority of people would prefer to be idle, but that right now we manage to make some really uncomfortable jobs pay very little. It's not that you'd not find people to, say, work concessions at the movie theater. It's that the pay for harvesting a whole lot of crops, or do roofing work, will not work out . It's the same reason few Americans do those jobs in the US already.
ryandrake 1y ago
Why would the working people necessarily need to be taxed? You could pay for UBI with taxes on investment, or wealth, or luxury taxes, or other things besides labor.
- mantas 1y ago
  Working people in general. Those who keep producing and not sit on their asses enjoying UBI. You can tax incomes, wealth, whatever. Either way it’d be taxing those who want more than UBI. And you’ll need to tax them a lot. There’s no way taxing super-rich-only would cover fair UBI. It’ll have to be much much wider. Unless 99% of jobs would become automatized.

by mantas 1y ago

eru 1y ago

What do you define to be 'truly livable'? Let's have a look at Scandinavia or Germany. They have reasonably generous welfare systems, but they are means tested. So for the sake of argument, declare them to be 'truly livable'. Especially by global standards. Now I claim, that you can get pretty much the same net payments (of means tested welfare - taxes) that these countries have today with a system of (UBI - taxes). Basically, at the moment both taxes and welfare are means tested; you could move to UBI by moving all the means testing from welfare to taxes. Because net payments would be pretty much the same, all incentives would stay pretty much the same as today. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax which is one way to implement something like a UBI. Of course, if you want to go much beyond what Germany and Scandinavia are already paying, you'd need even higher taxes or a stranger economy. Btw, per capita the US is one of the world leaders of social welfare spending. They spend more than France. (Mostly because while France spends a higher proportion of GDP, American GDP per capita is much higher.)

valenterry 1y ago
> Because net payments would be pretty much the same, all incentives would stay pretty much the same as today. Nope, in Germany you are required to work. If you can't find a job, you still have to try (and prove that), you need to stay at home / be available (and notify the state about your vacation or you might be punished by receiving less welfare) and of course you have to use up all money or wealth you have and state, in written, that you have no other sources of wealth. So UBI would absolutely change incentives here.
- eru 1y ago
  Good point! Though in practice it's fairly easy to put in a token effort so your welfare won't be cut, but avoid actually getting hired. But you are very right that the token effort is still effort. > [...] and of course you have to use up all money or wealth you have and state, in written, that you have no other sources of wealth. That is similar to taxing that money and wealth. But you are right.
  - mantas 1y ago
    The sell-possessions-before-welfare is very very different from taxing. With taxes, even crazy high, you can still accumulate wealth. Taxes slow you down, but it’s still possible. With net-worth-ceiling to receive welfare, you’re forced you cannot accumulate wealth on welfare. And your previous wealth is gone before you get to earn welfare. Got a nice house and BMW and decided to slow it down and live on welfare? Or, more likely, work under table and collect welfare too? Good luck with that :)
    - eru 1y ago
      > With taxes, even crazy high, you can still accumulate wealth. Taxes slow you down, but it’s still possible. That's only true for income taxes, not for wealth taxes.
      - mantas 1y ago
        Even wealth taxes don’t force you to sell. But welfare with wealth threshold does.
        eru 1y ago
        > Even wealth taxes don’t force you to sell. But welfare with wealth threshold does. How are you going to pay those wealth taxes? (Assuming you have no income.)
        1y ago
mantas 1y ago
And Scandinavian or German systems are in pretty bad shape. Both hard to finance (see Denmark raising pension age to 70) and lots of people getting thrown out of the system for minuscule reasons (German pensioners collecting deposit bottles to make ends meet is not unheard of). In euro style systems very few people receive welfare at a given time. Many people may receive it at some point in lifetime, but not at the same time. UBI would completely change the picture. On top of that, salaries for basic jobs would need to get much higher to incentivize people to work. Thus UBI would have to be much higher as current welfare. Unless you expect citizens to live on UBI but keep services cheap with cheap migrant labor.
- Digit-Al 1y ago
  > On top of that, salaries for basic jobs would need to get much higher to incentivize people to work. Not true. The 'B' in UBI means 'Basic'. UBI wil pay your rent, utilities, and food, but not much else. Now, there are some people that are willing to just exist on only the bare minimum, but that's a significant minority. The vast majority of people want more. There will be plenty of people willing to do minimum wage jobs to top-up their UBI so they can afford extras like holidays, nicer phones, meals out, etc... The main difference would be that the security of UBI would give them more power to distch a job if they were being abused in some way, rather than being so desperate that even if their employer is abusing them they are forced to take it because they need the job to survive. I feel like too much discussion on UBI is poisoned by the idea that the vast majority of people are bone idle and are willing to just sit at home doing nothing and just existing with the bare minumum required to live. It's just not true
  - hibikir 1y ago
    It's not that the majority of people would prefer to be idle, but that right now we manage to make some really uncomfortable jobs pay very little. It's not that you'd not find people to, say, work concessions at the movie theater. It's that the pay for harvesting a whole lot of crops, or do roofing work, will not work out . It's the same reason few Americans do those jobs in the US already.

ryandrake 1y ago

Why would the working people necessarily need to be taxed? You could pay for UBI with taxes on investment, or wealth, or luxury taxes, or other things besides labor.

mantas 1y ago
Working people in general. Those who keep producing and not sit on their asses enjoying UBI. You can tax incomes, wealth, whatever. Either way it’d be taxing those who want more than UBI. And you’ll need to tax them a lot. There’s no way taxing super-rich-only would cover fair UBI. It’ll have to be much much wider. Unless 99% of jobs would become automatized.