6 ms·

Good start, but it should expand to everyone without conditions. Imagine how easy it would be to start businesses, startups non-profit projects if you had UBI.

by nabla9 1y ago

Good start, but it should expand to everyone without conditions. Imagine how easy it would be to start businesses, startups non-profit projects if you had UBI. Bunch of guys come together and everyone knows $1,500 per month each "funding secured forever." Many people people dealing with burnout, mental or physical problems, could ease up and work part time.

poszlem 1y ago
This won’t happen until the immigration issue is resolved one way or another. The moment you introduce an unconditional $1,500 per citizen, the question of who qualifies as a citizen will become even more divisive than it already is. EDIT: I’d genuinely appreciate it if you could explain why you disagree, instead of just mindlessly downvoting as though I’d said something offensive or inappropriate.
- cheeseomlit 1y ago
  They downvote because it makes sense and they can't refute it
  - patrickmcnamara 1y ago
    How is the argument much different than any current arguments? You can already get significant benefits from the state as a citizen (in European countries, at least).
    - cheeseomlit 1y ago
      The difference is magnitude, the benefits that European countries provide has made them a very attractive destination for immigration, so it stands to reason that something like UBI would make them even more so. No matter which side of that debate you're on theres a point where the math breaks down and some difficult choices need to be made, either you provide these generous benefits to your citizens or you have a generous immigration policy, but both of them together may prove unsustainable
    - account42 1y ago
      Which is why unchecked immigration is already a problem. Increasing the benefits without dealing with unchecked immigration is going to make things worse.
- cujo 1y ago
  "citizen" is pretty well defined in every country i've ever been in.
  - poszlem 1y ago
    Maybe legally, but that's not what I am referring to.
hshdhdhehd 1y ago
1500 isn't much, I believe it is below UK minimum wage. That said the point of UBI is to supplement, get a part time easy going job and with UBI you can chill. Probably the solution for when AI takes over. So 2075.
- patrickmcnamara 1y ago
  Ireland isn't in the UK. Minimum wage for full time in Ireland is about 2281,50 €.
walthamstow 1y ago
Every problem in Anglo societies comes back to housing prices. Most of that 1500 will go to rent, then you're just using public money to pay asset owners. Housing benefit in the UK has these exact flaws.
- nabla9 1y ago
  If you think this is relevant, then solution is obvious: Increase taxes on small wages until people can't effort rent and rents will decrease. Hint: it's not relevant. Housing benefits must be spent on housing. People can use UBI any way they want. With UBI, people can more easily move from expensive cities if housing is not affordable, and then rents and prices must adjust. The pricing of housing is defined by supply and demand. Every urban economist agrees that the solution is to build more housing. Rent controls don't increase the number of housing units; only building more increases the housing supply. It does not have to be affordable housing; just build more housing units and all price points eventually get an affordable house. Japan is an island like the UK, but they built the infrastructure and enough housing. At the height of its asset price bubble around 1990, the value of real estate in Japan was higher than that of the entire United States. But they built enough to match the demand. Now their population is in decline, and there are empty houses at the edge of the cities.
  - CalRobert 1y ago
    One fun thing about Ireland is that building homes in the countryside is nearly illegal, unless you have "local needs" (aka your parents are from there). It's a de-facto xenophobic "Irish people only" building rule, and the EU has ruled it illegal, yet it remains, because the Irish planning system is a reasonable contender for the worst possible way to plan your cities and towns.
    - Supernaut 1y ago
      The planning system here certainly has lots of problematic aspects, but making it difficult to build one-off homes in the countryside isn't one of them. As a housing solution, it's hugely inefficient and worse, it spoils the landscape. When the practice went unchecked in earlier decades, it lead to what was dubbed "bungalow blight".
rbanffy 1y ago
Baby steps. This is a very polarizing issue - a lot of people will complain that the receivers do nothing useful for society. There's also the matter of funding it, but I agree with you. Making it universal and consolidating other programs into it would create some savings as well.
- worthless-trash 1y ago
  I feel like artists may have been a poor choice to the subjective value of the outcome of their work, who knows.. maybe they figured this was destined to fail.
  - rbanffy 1y ago
    Output value being impossible to measure can be an advantage if the goal is to later expand the program. I wonder what indicators will me monitored.
    - worthless-trash 1y ago
      Thats a great point, I'd go as far as to say that it may be possible to see the 'side affects' further than first imagined with the artist group. I look forward to the results.
thrance 1y ago
I really like the idea of UBI but the math just doesn't add up. Even where I live, France, our entire welfare expenditures (that is supposed to be quite high relative to our neighbors) wouldn't be nearly enough to give each citizen 1,000€/month, which would be barely enough to scrape by on the country side. And that would require sacrificing our socialized healthcare system, our public education, etc.
- voxgen 1y ago
  It requires tax increases, and the average earner's UBI will typically balance out the tax increase, meaning they don't directly profit. UBI isn't about giving everyone free money. It's about giving everyone a safety net, so that they can take bigger economic risks and aren't pushed into crime or bullshit work. The upper half of society will only see the indirect benefits, like having greater employment/investment choices due to more entrepreneurialism.
  - Flamingoat 1y ago
    > It requires tax increases, and the average earner's UBI will typically balance out the tax increase, meaning they don't directly profit. A good portion of my salary is already taken by Tax and the government wastes it. I've seen the waste first hand when contracting for both Local, Nation Government. I was so disgusted by this, I have made every effort to avoid working with them. I've also seen this waste happen in large charities and ossified corporations. The former also disgusting me as I know they would simply piss away a few thousand on complete BS, that took a whole village to collect and for it not to go towards the stated purpose of the charity. As a result I don't donate to any charities that aren't local. Every-time someone suggests a tax increase, I know for a fact they haven't seen the waste happen first hand. > UBI isn't about giving everyone free money. It's about giving everyone a safety net, so that they can take bigger economic risks and aren't pushed into crime or bullshit work. Giving everyone a safety net will require giving people money that is taken from others. To the people that benefit it is seen as "free" and will become "expected" and won't be treated as a safety net. Being a responsible adult is about reducing the amount of risk you are taking, not increasing it. So what you will be doing it teaching people to essentially gamble and people did similar during COVID. Some people took their cheques and put it into crypto, meme stocks or whatever. Some won big, most didn't. I've met people in my local area that have lost huge amounts of money on risky investments, everything from property developments, to bitcoin. Creating an incentive for risk taking without the consequences is actually reckless, a massive moral hazard and will simply create perverse incentives. > The upper half of society will only see the indirect benefits, like having greater employment/investment choices due to more entrepreneurialism. You will be taxing those people more and they will have less to invest. The reason why many people invest is because they have disposable income that they can afford to risk. By taxing people more (which you admit would have to happen), they will have less disposable income and will be inclined to invest less as a result.
celeritascelery 1y ago
7.2 million Irish multiplied by $18,000 a year is about $130 billion. In 2024 the government revenue was $148.3 billion. The government revenue would need to essentially double to make this program universal.
- CalRobert 1y ago
  The Republic of Ireland has a population of ~5.4 million people.
- nabla9 1y ago
  Money goes in circle, your counterargument should include multiple steps. The net effect will not be UBI on top of wages. For the economy as whole nothing is added. The money just flows different route that gives people more power.
- andrepd 1y ago
  Not quite. A huge chunk of those 148 billion are pensions and welfare benefits, which UBI replaces.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- patrickmcnamara 1y ago
  This is much closer than I was expecting somehow.
dfxm12 1y ago
Even easier in places with a sane social safety net, where there aren't work requirements on benefits. You can take some time to train on certain skills, if needed.
Mistletoe 1y ago
This reminds me of when I was a child and thought you could just write checks for infinite free money. The money has to come from somewhere.
- robocat 1y ago
  Hopefully someone who is about to go bankrupt in the US will write a 3 trillion dollar cheque/check to their government. ICE could ask nicely.
lingrush4 1y ago
> Many people people dealing with burnout, mental or physical problems, could ease up and work part time. This is precisely why UBI (also known as socialism) is unsustainable. Most people don't want to work. If you disincentivize them from working, many of them will stop. And then there will not be enough taxpayers to support the government handouts anymore.
4793273022729 1y ago
When can I expect your money transfer? I take Paypal or Bitcoin.
whatevaa 1y ago
Nah, we would stop working. Idealistic view of the world.
linhns 1y ago
It either should be for everyone or no one. 2000 slots is no different from another pilot.

by nabla9 1y ago

poszlem 1y ago

This won’t happen until the immigration issue is resolved one way or another. The moment you introduce an unconditional $1,500 per citizen, the question of who qualifies as a citizen will become even more divisive than it already is. EDIT: I’d genuinely appreciate it if you could explain why you disagree, instead of just mindlessly downvoting as though I’d said something offensive or inappropriate.

cheeseomlit 1y ago
They downvote because it makes sense and they can't refute it
- patrickmcnamara 1y ago
  How is the argument much different than any current arguments? You can already get significant benefits from the state as a citizen (in European countries, at least).
  - cheeseomlit 1y ago
    The difference is magnitude, the benefits that European countries provide has made them a very attractive destination for immigration, so it stands to reason that something like UBI would make them even more so. No matter which side of that debate you're on theres a point where the math breaks down and some difficult choices need to be made, either you provide these generous benefits to your citizens or you have a generous immigration policy, but both of them together may prove unsustainable
  - account42 1y ago
    Which is why unchecked immigration is already a problem. Increasing the benefits without dealing with unchecked immigration is going to make things worse.
cujo 1y ago
"citizen" is pretty well defined in every country i've ever been in.
- poszlem 1y ago
  Maybe legally, but that's not what I am referring to.

hshdhdhehd 1y ago

1500 isn't much, I believe it is below UK minimum wage. That said the point of UBI is to supplement, get a part time easy going job and with UBI you can chill. Probably the solution for when AI takes over. So 2075.

patrickmcnamara 1y ago
Ireland isn't in the UK. Minimum wage for full time in Ireland is about 2281,50 €.

walthamstow 1y ago

Every problem in Anglo societies comes back to housing prices. Most of that 1500 will go to rent, then you're just using public money to pay asset owners. Housing benefit in the UK has these exact flaws.

nabla9 1y ago
If you think this is relevant, then solution is obvious: Increase taxes on small wages until people can't effort rent and rents will decrease. Hint: it's not relevant. Housing benefits must be spent on housing. People can use UBI any way they want. With UBI, people can more easily move from expensive cities if housing is not affordable, and then rents and prices must adjust. The pricing of housing is defined by supply and demand. Every urban economist agrees that the solution is to build more housing. Rent controls don't increase the number of housing units; only building more increases the housing supply. It does not have to be affordable housing; just build more housing units and all price points eventually get an affordable house. Japan is an island like the UK, but they built the infrastructure and enough housing. At the height of its asset price bubble around 1990, the value of real estate in Japan was higher than that of the entire United States. But they built enough to match the demand. Now their population is in decline, and there are empty houses at the edge of the cities.
- CalRobert 1y ago
  One fun thing about Ireland is that building homes in the countryside is nearly illegal, unless you have "local needs" (aka your parents are from there). It's a de-facto xenophobic "Irish people only" building rule, and the EU has ruled it illegal, yet it remains, because the Irish planning system is a reasonable contender for the worst possible way to plan your cities and towns.
  - Supernaut 1y ago
    The planning system here certainly has lots of problematic aspects, but making it difficult to build one-off homes in the countryside isn't one of them. As a housing solution, it's hugely inefficient and worse, it spoils the landscape. When the practice went unchecked in earlier decades, it lead to what was dubbed "bungalow blight".

rbanffy 1y ago

Baby steps. This is a very polarizing issue - a lot of people will complain that the receivers do nothing useful for society. There's also the matter of funding it, but I agree with you. Making it universal and consolidating other programs into it would create some savings as well.

worthless-trash 1y ago
I feel like artists may have been a poor choice to the subjective value of the outcome of their work, who knows.. maybe they figured this was destined to fail.
- rbanffy 1y ago
  Output value being impossible to measure can be an advantage if the goal is to later expand the program. I wonder what indicators will me monitored.
  - worthless-trash 1y ago
    Thats a great point, I'd go as far as to say that it may be possible to see the 'side affects' further than first imagined with the artist group. I look forward to the results.

thrance 1y ago

I really like the idea of UBI but the math just doesn't add up. Even where I live, France, our entire welfare expenditures (that is supposed to be quite high relative to our neighbors) wouldn't be nearly enough to give each citizen 1,000€/month, which would be barely enough to scrape by on the country side. And that would require sacrificing our socialized healthcare system, our public education, etc.

voxgen 1y ago
It requires tax increases, and the average earner's UBI will typically balance out the tax increase, meaning they don't directly profit. UBI isn't about giving everyone free money. It's about giving everyone a safety net, so that they can take bigger economic risks and aren't pushed into crime or bullshit work. The upper half of society will only see the indirect benefits, like having greater employment/investment choices due to more entrepreneurialism.
- Flamingoat 1y ago
  > It requires tax increases, and the average earner's UBI will typically balance out the tax increase, meaning they don't directly profit. A good portion of my salary is already taken by Tax and the government wastes it. I've seen the waste first hand when contracting for both Local, Nation Government. I was so disgusted by this, I have made every effort to avoid working with them. I've also seen this waste happen in large charities and ossified corporations. The former also disgusting me as I know they would simply piss away a few thousand on complete BS, that took a whole village to collect and for it not to go towards the stated purpose of the charity. As a result I don't donate to any charities that aren't local. Every-time someone suggests a tax increase, I know for a fact they haven't seen the waste happen first hand. > UBI isn't about giving everyone free money. It's about giving everyone a safety net, so that they can take bigger economic risks and aren't pushed into crime or bullshit work. Giving everyone a safety net will require giving people money that is taken from others. To the people that benefit it is seen as "free" and will become "expected" and won't be treated as a safety net. Being a responsible adult is about reducing the amount of risk you are taking, not increasing it. So what you will be doing it teaching people to essentially gamble and people did similar during COVID. Some people took their cheques and put it into crypto, meme stocks or whatever. Some won big, most didn't. I've met people in my local area that have lost huge amounts of money on risky investments, everything from property developments, to bitcoin. Creating an incentive for risk taking without the consequences is actually reckless, a massive moral hazard and will simply create perverse incentives. > The upper half of society will only see the indirect benefits, like having greater employment/investment choices due to more entrepreneurialism. You will be taxing those people more and they will have less to invest. The reason why many people invest is because they have disposable income that they can afford to risk. By taxing people more (which you admit would have to happen), they will have less disposable income and will be inclined to invest less as a result.

celeritascelery 1y ago

7.2 million Irish multiplied by $18,000 a year is about $130 billion. In 2024 the government revenue was $148.3 billion. The government revenue would need to essentially double to make this program universal.

CalRobert 1y ago
The Republic of Ireland has a population of ~5.4 million people.
nabla9 1y ago
Money goes in circle, your counterargument should include multiple steps. The net effect will not be UBI on top of wages. For the economy as whole nothing is added. The money just flows different route that gives people more power.
andrepd 1y ago
Not quite. A huge chunk of those 148 billion are pensions and welfare benefits, which UBI replaces.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
patrickmcnamara 1y ago
This is much closer than I was expecting somehow.

dfxm12 1y ago

Even easier in places with a sane social safety net, where there aren't work requirements on benefits. You can take some time to train on certain skills, if needed.

Mistletoe 1y ago

This reminds me of when I was a child and thought you could just write checks for infinite free money. The money has to come from somewhere.

robocat 1y ago
Hopefully someone who is about to go bankrupt in the US will write a 3 trillion dollar cheque/check to their government. ICE could ask nicely.

lingrush4 1y ago

> Many people people dealing with burnout, mental or physical problems, could ease up and work part time. This is precisely why UBI (also known as socialism) is unsustainable. Most people don't want to work. If you disincentivize them from working, many of them will stop. And then there will not be enough taxpayers to support the government handouts anymore.

4793273022729 1y ago

When can I expect your money transfer? I take Paypal or Bitcoin.

whatevaa 1y ago

Nah, we would stop working. Idealistic view of the world.

linhns 1y ago

It either should be for everyone or no one. 2000 slots is no different from another pilot.