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"It also solves the welfare and old age security paperwork problem. There are some other problems: like having a higher tax rate to pay for all this basic incom
by paulhauggis 11y ago
"It also solves the welfare and old age security paperwork problem. There are some other problems: like having a higher tax rate to pay for all this basic income, but ultimately I think it would unleash more minds on problems that matter instead of setting up family trusts for the wealthy."
A basic income is unsustainable. As more and more people become dependent on it, taxes will only increase over time and we will run out of tax dollars. In addition to this, there will be massive inflation.
"instead of setting up family trusts for the wealthy."
I see where this is going now: the wealthy need to be punished for earning more money than the rest of us. This has never really been a good strategy historically for creating a happy and free society.
The ironic part is that the more rules you impose on the public in terms of taxes and money, the less mobility the lower and middle classes actually have. The rich can just leave the country and still make a killing with new laws in place like what you propose. The middle and lower class don't have the luxury making it that much more difficult to start and run a company (which is really the only way to have true economic freedom).
- 3pt14159 11y agoPaul, I'm broadly libertarian. I don't want taxes to asymptotically approach 50%, I'd prefer if they were lower. But what we have now is taxes that asymptotically approach 50% unless you have clever tax planners, like I do. Furthermore the rich can leave the country, I'm personally of the opinion that taxes should be based on land and resource usage, but very few people share this view, so I talk about how to reform income taxes over switching tax systems. What I'm saying though would be much better than we have right now. Right now we have massive inequality in treatment for families that earn identical amounts. Furthermore, a basic income is not unsustainable. What we are doing now is unsustainable because robotics are going to replace people in low skilled areas of the economy, like trucking, taxi driving, and construction. The system of taxation we ultimately use will be able to tax the wealthy that leave the country if they derive economic benefit within the country they left. For example, sales taxes.
- jrs235 11y agoAre you a geolibertarian? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism
- 3pt14159 11y agoBroadly, yes. It's even on my twitter profile. https://twitter.com/zachaysan https://twitter.com/zachaysan I think that some people have a childish view of libertarianism, so I shy away from straight out calling myself a libertarian these days. I recognize the need for expediency in things like food labelling and even immigration and healthcare; but I don't view healthcare as an innate "right" I view it as something that is necessary to keep the economy efficient and something that almost everyone would want if something bad happened to them. I'm very against wars of aggression, but I'm not so libertarian as to deny the need for things like nuclear weapons or a realist influenced foreign policy (even if my international relations view is much more strongly influenced by liberalism). I don't think most libertarians are correct on the environment, since they aren't practical enough to admit that pollution is currently unavoidable, and strong treaties are needed to keep the oceans clean and full of biodiversity. I call myself a geolibertarian, but I clarify it because I don't want people thinking I want to tear everything down. I just want to tear down some things, like grants for the arts, corporate welfare, militarism, and complex bureaucracies.