Why the world should adopt a basic income

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by LafayetteBis, Jul 10, 2018.

  1. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You didn't read Smeeding's work then? Gosh, there was me thinking that you'd actually learn. Sorry!
     
  2. james M

    james M Banned

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    there is no poverty in USA. Poor get free education,healthcare, food, housing, military, infrastructure, police, fire, and recently they were looking into a new program to help the poor care for their pets!
     
  3. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Last edited: Feb 10, 2019
  4. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    You make good points.

    But the private sector - or a least that part of it devoted to purely profit-driven junk consumerism, encouraged by crap advertising - must bear some of the blame.

    Imagine the uproar if schools actually educated children about the dangers of junk food and junk consumerism. A large part of the alcohol, beverage, confectionary, tobacco and processed food industries would be closed down.
     
  5. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Similar to MMT (google it - there are countless articles on MMT these days): ie a basic work guarantee, at above poverty level wages.

    Only possible if the public sector, funded via MMT principles (NOT via taxation) adopts the role of 'employer of last resort', when the private sector fails to employ everyone at above poverty-level wages - which is always the case!.
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2019
  6. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Kinda silly.

    We must realize that certain government services are vital to how well we live, and many of us don't mind paying taxes!

    But that does not mean AT ALL that we accept the Income Disparity that we must live with in the US, due to the fact that After-tax Upper-Income taxation is unacceptably low! See here:
    [​IMG]

    Until we, as a people, admit that the disparity in Net Income (after tax) is unacceptable, then nothing will change in the US. Meaning this:
    [​IMG]

    Yes!
    The Top 0.1% of Americans garner as much of the total Household Wealth in the country as the bottom 90% ... !

    My Point:

    *Perhaps you do not care to think that heightened tax-revenues (upon super-rich incomes) can do a LOT towards affording a much lower-cost National Health Care system and free Post-secondary Tuition for all-our-kids (thus bettering their lives).
    *But I do .... !
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2019
  7. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I beg to differ.

    The state-system of secondary-schooling went into the pits AS A RESULT OF THE GREAT RECESSION when taxation plummeted.

    Get your history facts right ... !
     
  8. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Despite the "kinda silly" comment, I'm with you on this issue of equitable taxation of the super rich.

    But with your rejection of MMT, this is your only weapon - to raise sufficient funds - in your arsenal.
    So you will need to show (to the general public) the quantum of funds that can be raised by increased taxation on the super wealthy, including the effect of different tax rates on different levels of income, and the number of people affected.

    As you know, special interest groups - including the so called 'aspirationals' - cry blue murder on any hint of raising taxes. (And Trump has just gone in the opposite direction).
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2019
  9. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Blah, blah, blah.

    I needn't show anything of the kind. Piketty and Co (at the UofCal) have already done the hard work:[​IMG]
    If you cannot understand the import of the above graphic, then you should not be in a Economics Debate Forum ...
     
  10. james M

    james M Banned

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    sure it does, another typical libcommie Nazi regime that failed!! It fits perfectly despite liberals who once fully supported it now scrambling away pretending it was never their ideal!!
     
  11. jcarlilesiu

    jcarlilesiu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Lol.

    So again was great until 2007?

    How old are you. Just curious.
     
  12. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    1.You didn't read the article.
    2. You are not engaging in debate.
    3. You are sounding like a trained parrot.

    Here is a paragraph from the article to whet your appetite..

    Venezuela has a problem that the US does not have and will never have: it owes massive debts in a currency it cannot print itself, namely US dollars. When oil (its principal resource) was booming, Venezuela was able to meet its repayment schedule. But when oil plummeted, the government was reduced to printing Venezuelan Bolivars and selling them for US dollars on international currency exchanges. As speculators drove up the price of dollars, more and more printing was required by the government, massively deflating the national currency.
     
  13. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    I understand it, but the Conservative World View rejects it (this forum should be giving you some awareness of that by now).

    Certainly an economics forum should be debating this (from Ellen Brown's article linked in post # 828 above

    Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is getting significant media attention these days, after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview that it should “be a larger part of our conversation” when it comes to funding the Green New Deal. According to MMT, the government can spend what it needs without worrying about deficits. MMT expert and Bernie Sanders advisor Prof. Stephanie Kelton says the government actually creates money when it spends. The real limit on spending is not an artificially imposed debt ceiling but a lack of labor and materials to do the work, leading to generalized price inflation. Only when that real ceiling is hit does the money need to be taxed back, and then not to fund government spending but to shrink the money supply in an economy that has run out of resources to put the extra money to work.
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2019
  14. Thought Criminal

    Thought Criminal Well-Known Member Donor

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    I'm having real trouble understanding how tax policy affects money supply.

    I get that taxes are a hindrance to personal spending and thus are anti-inflationary, but I don't see that the actual supply of dollars is reduced.
     
  15. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Prof Steve Keen noted (in his address to the 1st European MMT conference recently held in Berlin) the significance of Bernard King's statement that money is created 'ex nihilo' when private banks write loans for (hopefully) credit worthy customers.

    MMT says the public sector ought also to be able to create money in the same manner as the private banking system (subject to conditions outlined in my previous post); so to answer your question, I suppose "taxing the money back" means the opposite of creating money 'ex nihilo' ie it is simply 'cancelled' into non-existence (until such time that spare labour/resources become available again) .
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2019
  16. Thought Criminal

    Thought Criminal Well-Known Member Donor

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    That is what I'm not getting.

    How does taxation cause money to disappear? I can see that there would be less available for lending, thus less would be created, but I don't see how an actual decline in supply is realized. Those existing dollars would just be held by government, or disbursed in some fashion. I'm not getting how they would just disappear.
     
  17. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Wait, I thought under MMT you could just print money and everything would be fine?
     
  18. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    You thought incorrectly. Do your research.
     
  19. james M

    james M Banned

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    Picketty was totally discredited because his numbers to define the poor didn't include the income we give them so they are not poor. Also, there was the silly assumption that its a zero sum game: the rich get rich at the expense of the poor.
     
  20. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    "People are earning and spending money without ever touching it. In fact, economists estimate that only 8 percent of the world's currency exists as physical cash. The rest exists only on a computer hard drive, in electronic bank accounts around the world."

    MMT: Money supply can be managed by government, in order to maximise - in both the public and private sectors -
    sustainable development of available resources, including labour, enabling permanent elimination of involuntary underemployment.
     
  21. james M

    james M Banned

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    yes their problem is socialism.The govt owned the oil industry and took total control of the rest of the economy and did with it what the Soviets East Germans, Red Chinese and Cubans did, they ruined it while capitalism would have made it thrive!!
     
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  22. james M

    james M Banned

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    the beauty of capitalism is that it prevents massive debts!!! if a fool goes into debt and loses his money its one him and learns the lesson.
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2019
  23. james M

    james M Banned

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    obviously far better to be managed by the free market so there is some sense to it rather than by govt which will use it to buy votes.
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2019
  24. james M

    james M Banned

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    private created money has to be paid back, you want govt to create money for welfare programs and then have welfare recipients pay it back??
     
  25. james M

    james M Banned

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    it doesn't. monetary policy is not fiscal policy. Better world is a liberal so he doesn't know that.
     

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