7 ms·

> The solution is simple. You simply give every adult citizen enough money every year to insure that they can afford food, shelter, and other basic needs. Give

by VMG 13y ago

> The solution is simple. You simply give every adult citizen enough money every year to insure that they can afford food, shelter, and other basic needs. Give it to everyone, rich or poor, same amount. BAM! You left out the part where the money comes from. Your idea is fine and dandy, but I doubt you are currently implementing it yourself by spending your own money. The idea depends on everybody being forced to pay. Distributing money indiscriminately devalues work and effort. I disagree with your premise that people who work for rewards are unmotivated. Those who think this is a good idea can go ahead and spread their wealth as they see fit, but I do have a problem with forcing others to do the same.

jiggy2011 13y ago
Those same arguments could be made against welfare to an extent. The advantage of this system is that it would be simpler and therefor cheaper to administer and possibly harder to game.
- VMG 13y ago
  The fundamental problem is separating the cheaters from those who really deserve help. In a system where the individual can decide where to put the money, everybody can decide who is deserving of help. If you mandate wealth redistribution, you need to create a complex ruleset that decides who is eligible. The rules are established by the ineffective and opaque processes of politics and government. The resulting system is more complex, more expensive and easier to game.
  - arrrg 13y ago
    With a basic income guarantee everyone would get money, and the same amount. There is no need to divine who needs it because everyone does. No matter the income.
    - VMG 13y ago
      True, my argument was against welfare, I misread your original comment. Basic income still has the problem that people get my money who do not deserve it in my opinion.
      - arrrg 13y ago
        What we are talking about are the basic necessities to a life in dignity. A roof over your head and enough to eat and clothe yourself, as well as enough to at least participate in society in some way (e.g. enough money to afford some sort of information gathering thingie, be it a newspaper subscription, TV or phone). The bare minimum. I happen to believe that no one has the right to deny that anyone. It’s a basic human right. Every human deserves a life in dignity and there is no way to lose that. (And, I know, implementing that world wide right now is practically impossible. That, just like, e.g. any sort of restrictions of freedom of movement, labor, capital and goods, is a travesty but for the near future I’m hopeless about anything changing in that regard. It’s sad and unacceptable.) Within that understanding of the world (and also the understanding that we won’t have work for everyone as time goes on) something like a guaranteed basic income seems at least like something worth trying out to me. (Many of the current welfare schemes seems broken to me, too focused on tight paranoid control and stigmatizing people.) But then again, I’m European. (Also, not the person you were originally responding to.)
  - run4yourlives 13y ago
    There is no redistribution. Everyone is entitled to the same benefit, just like they are entitled to fire protection. Over a certain amount of income earned however, the benefit becomes negligible.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > There is no redistribution. Everyone is entitled to the same benefit, just like they are entitled to fire protection. This type of thing (even when it involves fire protection) is redistribution. One set of people are taxed to pay for things, another set of people get the benefit -- even if it is the same set of people the distribution of the tax and the benefit aren't the same, and the difference is redistribution. Note that I am not saying this is undesirable, merely that it clearly is redistribution.
      - run4yourlives 13y ago
        >One set of people are taxed to pay for things, another set of people get the benefit Ah, no. ALL people pay for things. How that payment occurs is a product of a progressive tax system in most cases, but there is no requirement that such a system exists to run service. You wouldn't call a private security service employed by a gated community "wealth redistribution", would you? Although if they had an income driven progressive fee structure it would be.
- beat 13y ago
  Yes, but I also figure that anyone smart enough to effectively game the welfare system is smart enough to do substantially better than what even gamed welfare can provide.
  - robeasthope 13y ago
    Trust me, in the UK at least, you really don't need much to game the welfare system. While the government is making gradual changes the requirements and checks for UK citizens to claim job seekers allowance week after week are laughable low compared to the rhetoric thrown around.
    - vacri 13y ago
      The other side of the coin is what do you do when there actually aren't jobs available in the region and there are too many people to effectively set up in self-employment? Making people jump through hoops and then frowning at their failings is fine when isolated to an individual, but at a demographic level it breaks down. I recently spend five months out of work and unable to find a job and received welfare. I saw others like me playing the system. I saw others like me struggling to satisfy the system and more, applying for everything and getting rejections similarly. The system doesn't differentiate between the two. To some degree it's the old 'where do you draw the line' - do you prefer to see the innocent suffer or the guilty go free?
run4yourlives 13y ago
>Distributing money indiscriminately devalues work and effort. This is a poor understanding of the concept. The idea behind a Basic Income Guarantee is that it is received equally by every citizen in the country. It's an idea linked to Negative Income Tax and other like proposals, and shares support of many with a more libertarian/economically conservative bent. In most areas of North America where Basic Income experiments have occurred, the overall workforce does decline, but in very specific ways: mainly with single mothers and teenagers. Mothers choosing to stay at home with their children, and teenagers graduating high school are more positive impacts on the society at large than the greater retention of wealth by the highly motivated. Wealth can only be created in societies, and therefore the overall health of a society should be of paramount concern to those interested in creating wealth. While I do not advocate for many socialist principles, a certain baseline ensures the society remains sustainable in the long term, thus allowing its members to grow wealth. Both too much (Communism, socialist Europe) and too little (Argentina, Venezuala, the US) will lead to inevitable social collapse and the reduction of wealth (or the ability to create more) for all. You do not live in a self created bubble.
- TallGuyShort 13y ago
  I apologise if a simple search should find this and I just such at searching, but I'm intrigued after your comment. There seems to be little information about the Manitoba experiment and what Alaska calls "Basic Income" doesn't seem consistent with what is being discussed. Where else in North America have people experimented with this?
  - run4yourlives 13y ago
    Check wikipedia for Negative Income Tax schemes, which are extremely similar and were experimented with in the US under Nixon in the 70's. This is also interesting: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-new-approach-to-aid-how-a-basic-income-program-saved-a-namibian-village-a-642310.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-new-approach-to-...
- VMG 13y ago
  So why should I want to subsidize single mothers? Why should I disincentivize teenagers from gaining their first work experience? I agree that there are some people who deserve financial support, but it should be up to the individual to decide who that is and how much they should receive.
bubbleRefuge 13y ago
You need to educate yourself on the monetary system. Taxes do not necessarily fund government at the local level. Non-convertable floating fx monetary regimes are self-funding. Its kind of like saying where does the score-keeper at the basketball game get points to put on the score board ? Can he run out ?
- VMG 13y ago
  Well great, if money is nothing more than game points, let's give everybody 10^10 points and call it a day!
  - bubbleRefuge 13y ago
    That kind of happened. AIG ? Inflation is the constraint, not solvency. We need to find the right number between 0 and 10^10 but we are not trying to do that and so we're becoming like Japan.

by VMG 13y ago

jiggy2011 13y ago

Those same arguments could be made against welfare to an extent. The advantage of this system is that it would be simpler and therefor cheaper to administer and possibly harder to game.

VMG 13y ago
The fundamental problem is separating the cheaters from those who really deserve help. In a system where the individual can decide where to put the money, everybody can decide who is deserving of help. If you mandate wealth redistribution, you need to create a complex ruleset that decides who is eligible. The rules are established by the ineffective and opaque processes of politics and government. The resulting system is more complex, more expensive and easier to game.
- arrrg 13y ago
  With a basic income guarantee everyone would get money, and the same amount. There is no need to divine who needs it because everyone does. No matter the income.
  - VMG 13y ago
    True, my argument was against welfare, I misread your original comment. Basic income still has the problem that people get my money who do not deserve it in my opinion.
    - arrrg 13y ago
      What we are talking about are the basic necessities to a life in dignity. A roof over your head and enough to eat and clothe yourself, as well as enough to at least participate in society in some way (e.g. enough money to afford some sort of information gathering thingie, be it a newspaper subscription, TV or phone). The bare minimum. I happen to believe that no one has the right to deny that anyone. It’s a basic human right. Every human deserves a life in dignity and there is no way to lose that. (And, I know, implementing that world wide right now is practically impossible. That, just like, e.g. any sort of restrictions of freedom of movement, labor, capital and goods, is a travesty but for the near future I’m hopeless about anything changing in that regard. It’s sad and unacceptable.) Within that understanding of the world (and also the understanding that we won’t have work for everyone as time goes on) something like a guaranteed basic income seems at least like something worth trying out to me. (Many of the current welfare schemes seems broken to me, too focused on tight paranoid control and stigmatizing people.) But then again, I’m European. (Also, not the person you were originally responding to.)
- run4yourlives 13y ago
  There is no redistribution. Everyone is entitled to the same benefit, just like they are entitled to fire protection. Over a certain amount of income earned however, the benefit becomes negligible.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > There is no redistribution. Everyone is entitled to the same benefit, just like they are entitled to fire protection. This type of thing (even when it involves fire protection) is redistribution. One set of people are taxed to pay for things, another set of people get the benefit -- even if it is the same set of people the distribution of the tax and the benefit aren't the same, and the difference is redistribution. Note that I am not saying this is undesirable, merely that it clearly is redistribution.
    - run4yourlives 13y ago
      >One set of people are taxed to pay for things, another set of people get the benefit Ah, no. ALL people pay for things. How that payment occurs is a product of a progressive tax system in most cases, but there is no requirement that such a system exists to run service. You wouldn't call a private security service employed by a gated community "wealth redistribution", would you? Although if they had an income driven progressive fee structure it would be.
beat 13y ago
Yes, but I also figure that anyone smart enough to effectively game the welfare system is smart enough to do substantially better than what even gamed welfare can provide.
- robeasthope 13y ago
  Trust me, in the UK at least, you really don't need much to game the welfare system. While the government is making gradual changes the requirements and checks for UK citizens to claim job seekers allowance week after week are laughable low compared to the rhetoric thrown around.
  - vacri 13y ago
    The other side of the coin is what do you do when there actually aren't jobs available in the region and there are too many people to effectively set up in self-employment? Making people jump through hoops and then frowning at their failings is fine when isolated to an individual, but at a demographic level it breaks down. I recently spend five months out of work and unable to find a job and received welfare. I saw others like me playing the system. I saw others like me struggling to satisfy the system and more, applying for everything and getting rejections similarly. The system doesn't differentiate between the two. To some degree it's the old 'where do you draw the line' - do you prefer to see the innocent suffer or the guilty go free?

run4yourlives 13y ago

>Distributing money indiscriminately devalues work and effort. This is a poor understanding of the concept. The idea behind a Basic Income Guarantee is that it is received equally by every citizen in the country. It's an idea linked to Negative Income Tax and other like proposals, and shares support of many with a more libertarian/economically conservative bent. In most areas of North America where Basic Income experiments have occurred, the overall workforce does decline, but in very specific ways: mainly with single mothers and teenagers. Mothers choosing to stay at home with their children, and teenagers graduating high school are more positive impacts on the society at large than the greater retention of wealth by the highly motivated. Wealth can only be created in societies, and therefore the overall health of a society should be of paramount concern to those interested in creating wealth. While I do not advocate for many socialist principles, a certain baseline ensures the society remains sustainable in the long term, thus allowing its members to grow wealth. Both too much (Communism, socialist Europe) and too little (Argentina, Venezuala, the US) will lead to inevitable social collapse and the reduction of wealth (or the ability to create more) for all. You do not live in a self created bubble.

TallGuyShort 13y ago
I apologise if a simple search should find this and I just such at searching, but I'm intrigued after your comment. There seems to be little information about the Manitoba experiment and what Alaska calls "Basic Income" doesn't seem consistent with what is being discussed. Where else in North America have people experimented with this?
- run4yourlives 13y ago
  Check wikipedia for Negative Income Tax schemes, which are extremely similar and were experimented with in the US under Nixon in the 70's. This is also interesting: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-new-approach-to-aid-how-a-basic-income-program-saved-a-namibian-village-a-642310.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-new-approach-to-...
VMG 13y ago
So why should I want to subsidize single mothers? Why should I disincentivize teenagers from gaining their first work experience? I agree that there are some people who deserve financial support, but it should be up to the individual to decide who that is and how much they should receive.

bubbleRefuge 13y ago

You need to educate yourself on the monetary system. Taxes do not necessarily fund government at the local level. Non-convertable floating fx monetary regimes are self-funding. Its kind of like saying where does the score-keeper at the basketball game get points to put on the score board ? Can he run out ?

VMG 13y ago
Well great, if money is nothing more than game points, let's give everybody 10^10 points and call it a day!
- bubbleRefuge 13y ago
  That kind of happened. AIG ? Inflation is the constraint, not solvency. We need to find the right number between 0 and 10^10 but we are not trying to do that and so we're becoming like Japan.