Why the world should adopt a basic income

Hurbus aside.................

As in crime drove your neighborhood into poverty.

Well that has best occurred where there is the most economic liberty and freedom and least government intrusion.

Middle-Class Income Hits All-Time High, Poverty Rate Falls
During President Donald Trump’s first year in office, the median household income — a measure of the economic health of middle-class families — rose to its highest point ever.

The poverty rate also moved in the right direction, falling during 2017, according to data released Tuesday.

According to the Census Bureau, the median income — that point in the middle of all household incomes — reached $61,372, according to CNBC. The median income was $60,309 in 2016. America’s poverty rate fell to 12.3 percent, down from 12.7 percent in 2016. For 2017, that rate was $30,750 for a family of four.
https://www.westernjournal.com/middle-class-income-hits-time-high-poverty-rate-falls/



Poverty Rate Falls in U.S.
New Census Bureau estimates suggest more Americans are emerging from poverty.
THE NATIONAL POVERTY rate dropped from 14.9 percent to 14.6 percent, the latest five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show, indicating better fortunes for more Americans in the years since the Great Recession.
https://www.usnews.com/news/healthi...ty-rate-falls-in-america-amid-economic-growth

Policies that support economic expansion and growth are what gets people out of poverty NOT huge government spending programs.

While at the same time the auto industry was BOOMING in the South under the same economic system. What was the difference between the two?

It's real simple, they should adopt the free market and economic liberty policies we have here.

 

My proposition (re the role of the reptilian brain in politics and economic ideology) needs serious consideration.

Populations in democracies divide roughly 50/50 between political and economic Left and Right. Why is that?

Any attempt to claim one side is uniformly 'correct' is obviously untenable, because either side always eventually gets voted out of government, by the electorate.

Yet we are all "homo sapiens"...…...

The interaction of the reptilian, unconscious and conscious brain, combined with the actual life experiences of individuals, will explain this division into Left and Right.

Fact: an international rules based system requires decision by majority in the relevant court.

That you can't grasp this simple truth is shown by your reaction: "Hurbus (hubris?) aside....."

[Awareness of self is a life long endeavour for home sapiens - nothing to do with 'hubris' - motivated as we all are by, inter alia, pre-stone age survival instincts].

Not unexpectedly in an ideologue like yourself, you have this back to front.

A better public policy - as stated by LafayetteBis - would be to cut DOD spending by half (the US would still be spending twice as much as China on defence), and reducing student debt., as part of a policy to reduce poverty.

But your stone-age paranoia about the other tribe prevents setting up an international rules based system, thereby releasing countries from bloated defence expenditures.

The rest of your post: everything is getting g better, all that is required is for the rest of the world to follow the US example, etc, - is untenable; it's impossible for every nation to achieve a trade surplus, and it's impossible for every nation to excel in economic activity that will ensure prosperity for each nation, without an international oversight mechanism.

Not to mention the current chaos in the US - related to poverty in other countries - with an end to the govt. shut-down not in sight; hardly an inspiring example of governance.

Best occurred? you are living in the past, not the future

Refuted above.

 

Sorry but you screwed up the formatting and I'm not going to try and figure it out. Please try again.

 

Again it's a moot point, we are not going to give up our sovereignty as a nation. You may prefer nations such as Russia, China, Iran, NK, Venezuela et al dictating out government policies but you would have to convince the other 99% of the country. And why do we have about 30% on the right, 30% on the left and 30% in the middle, because the 30% in the middle can't make up their minds. Nothing "reptilian" about it. It has to do with policies.

No that would be you, it is the crime that improvises locations not the other way around. In our own country there are areas of poverty without the high crime rates, but there are few if any high crime rate ares where there is not poverty on disproportionate levels. Crime destroys the tax base and runs away businesses and jobs. Then you have poverty.

Hyperbole all you got?

First we don't know how much China spends on defense as they do not publish such figures but we do know they are engaged in a huge build up of their military. Second if we adopt your position that we should limit our spending and capabilities to merely the same as that of an adversaries, what happens when we face two adversaries or three adversaries? And where did you study military tactics on a strategic level that said to win a war you must meet the enemy with equal force? Where did you study diplomacy that taught you to way to prevent a war is to be of equal power to your adversaries?

It is certainly one step are you saying those other countries would be better following China and NK as economic examples not just economically but as a society? How much or your freedom and liberty are willing to give up?

Related to what other countries? We have some of our lowest poverty rates in our countries history and when you measure what we call our poverty level to what is the poverty level in other countries there is no better place to live in poverty in the world.

Where did it better occur where personal liberty and freedoms were curtailed by the government?

Hmmmmmm......... nope.

 

Taking the wages of productive workers and giving them to idlers who are able to work is immoral.

 

Idling happens throughout a lifetime. It is the mismatch between job availability and the need to work. This is a basic condition of any market-economy and unavoidable. Government policy should be to minimize the risk of it occurring. (By continued education that allows skills updating of individuals - which is concomitant with free Tertiary Education.)

And still, it would remain a mainstay of even any functional economy. No economy is perfect. Whyzzat?

Because no economy on earth escapes the fact that a minimum proportion of the population is idle all the time. In fact, they are mostly women taking care of their young. They are "idle" but not "unemployed". They are self-employed but earning no income. Which they should earn, that is, guaranteed by the state for as long their children are of educational age. Which should end somewhere in their 20s for students who enter into professions.

And for a variety of reasons the women should be afforded a Minimum Wage to sustain themselves. Ditto men in the same situation. Which will keep many of them off the streets selling drugs.

There is no simple-fix on earth for all economies due to lifestyles that have evolved over the centuries differently from country-to-country. The common need is nonetheless that of working in order to survive. Any nation should be focusing on that basic necessity of its population.

Not what we've got now -"hey, wow, me too I wannabe a billionaire!"

Meaning this: Income Disparity is the most wicked attribute of any dysfunctional market-economy. Too much at the upper-end and too little at the lower-end has always been a tried-and-true concoction for inevitable social explosion.

A nation needs wholly a gradual transition from lower to average to above average incomes. Not the awful piling of revenue at just the upper-end because Income Taxation (since Reckless Ronnie) has allowed America to pursue precisely that outcome ...

 

In America there are always more available jobs than workers

1. End the anti-worker minimum wage.
2. Subsidize unskilled workers whose labor is not worth a living wage to the small businesses and individuals who need their help.

 

Wouldn't that create a paradox?

 

Not from 2010 to 2014 there wasn't.

The US is NOT immune to an economic downturn. History has proven that well enough in the past, and will do so again in the near future.

Agreed. Bring the minimum-wage up to $15/hour. Your BigMac will cost you 25cents more. BFD. What will happen?

Wow! People will go out and actually SPEND the additional money thus boosting the economy!

Unskilled labor over the age of 25 should be actually "paid" to obtain a Tertiary-level degree (even if only "vocational") with which to find better jobs. Employment is going "up-market". The kids NEED BADLY to be trained in new skills. (And no seduced into the Army because it promises them to fund a post-secondary degree that they should have got anyway for free!)

 

Whenever there is a minimum wage there will always be work that individuals and small businesses cannot afford to have done. Drive through any city and you will find jobs begging to be done. Instead of letting the market wage find workers for those jobs the cities are collapsing from neglect.

Job One for every unskilled "kid" is to create a work history. Any menial laborer who stays on the job for 6 weeks becomes much more valuable to employers. Until then they are worth nothing, just next to nothing, or less than nothing.

 

A paradox for our corrupt bipartisan ruling political class? Yes.
Yet another good reason for doing it.

 

Ok.

 

Yup. AND a democracy.

Look up the definitions and see that both apply ...

 

Taxation. Like all funds for government spending. (Including the nearly half the Discretionary Revenue wasted on the DoD by country that is not at war.)

Try it, you'll like it. With a basic-income there will be far fewer people in jail. The savings will be enormous, we close those that become redundant because they wont be needed.

Try it. You'll like it ...

 

Democracy means government by the people, which isnt really true. Its governed by the Congress on a representative basis.

 

ONLY vocational? What other kind is there, for mere mortals who have to work for a living?

 

Math. Let's say you work for a widget maker. You are personally capable of making 5 widgets per hour. Demand is high enough that your employer can sell all 5 in a reasonable amount of time. But if his profit is only $0.25/widget. That means your labor is only worth $1.25 per hour, and even at that, you're taking 100% of the profit. Why should you be paid anything more, much less MUCH more? Then you lose money for your employer, and the right thing to do would be to pay you less, or fire you.

Now what?

 

The basic income idea does represent a new approach that would not require a new government department or agency. ideas like that certainly deserve careful consideration. Of course, I like my idea better.

 

Oh, come off it! Never took a course in Civics?

It's the people that vote. What is broken is the mechanisms employed in the voting process. We have had a faulty voting mechanism since 1812 when both the Electoral College (founded within Amendment 18 to the Constitution) and the Gerrymandering of voting districts started in Massachusetts.

The Electoral College has become manipulative of the popular-vote (because the college is "winner take all" votes and thus is non-proportional and therefore unfair). Gerrymandering is also manipulative of the popular-vote as voting districts are carved out to favor one or the other of the two main political-parties.

And this has been going on for more than 200 years in - supposedly - The Greatest Democracy on Earth.

Yeah, right - now pull the other leg ... !

 

I'm sorry you cant comprehend the difference between a democracy and a republic. Not my issue.

 

Some people must ABSOLUTELY have the last word. You've had yours.

Feeling better now ... ? ;^)

 

Again, you are missing - or (as it seems) not capable of comprehending my basic point, namely, an international rules-based system, by definition, requires some curtailment of absolute national sovereignty.

You are entitled to your opinion that national sovereignty is sacrosanct*, but equating the concept of an international rules-based system with being "dictated to by other countries", is a failure to understand the concept of rule of law.

*absolute national sovereignty, which implies insistence that war is the proper, legitimate dispute-settlement mechanism between nations.

So.... the citizens of, say, Detroit, decided to abandon their well paid auto jobs and turn to crime, leading to depopulation (and "destruction of the tax base") from around 1.8 million people to c. 700,000?

'Bloated defence expenditures' is not hyperbole. Global expenditure $1.6 trillion annually.... hardly hyperbole.

addressed above; I already know you prefer absolute national sovereignty over an international rules based system. I'm promoting the development of international law. (No point in debating at cross-purposes, I suppose)

I'm listening to what the IMF is saying, that global economic growth is threatened by trade tensions, unsustainable high national and personal debt levels, and falling GDP's and (GDP's per capita) in many countries. My "freedom and liberty"* have nothing to do with this situation.

*[Libertarianism: an extreme reaction - anachronistic in our times - to the institutional oppression of 'the divine right of kings'].

And yet: "your neighbourhoods are like war zones…" and 40 million living in poverty in the richest nation on earth, with highest imprisonment rates in the world.

In "socialist" Scandinavian countries?

 

How do you create a work history, while obviously needing to survive, on a minimum wage that is below poverty level?

 

You have not followed this debate on the "value of labour" from the beginning.

My contention is that everyone's labour is worth more than a poverty level wage, and that this requires a public sector employment mechanism (see MMT, or other governmental interventionist policies) that can operate independently of the private sector's profit driven, market "valued" wage setting system.

[The neoliberal market system is failing to address current national and global problems associated with unsustainable debt, falling GDPs including per capita GDP's in many countries, increasing inequality, and trade tensions].

eg child care should be rewarded by above poverty level wages, nothing to do with a market place.

 

And maybe you are incapable of understanding we are not going to do that and why you would want to place our sovereignty in the hands of the likes I mentioned is beyond me. Do you really think those nations have our best interest at heart are the models of freedom and liberty? Will they guaranty our inherent rights under our Constitution.

Who makes the laws and who is the final adjudicator of them?

It's the last when all diplomacy fails, what do you suggest we should have done different in WW2.

The union members decided to demand unsustainable wage and benefit increases along with ineffiecient work rules and the companies moves the jobs. Same happened with the textile and pulp & paper WMD woodproduct plants in the South. Now we are the booming auto industry in this country. Our local government officials knew how to court new industry. We didn all turn to crime as a wayof lire which tends to make your place attractive to new industry and businesses and investment. Detroit's government notn only failed with the water system they failed in the economic leadership and crime enforcement. They need to some experience fiscal conservative leaders to turn the city around. Simply telling the citizens they are oppressed and it's all GM's fault so don blame us as we do nothing but beg for more money.?

We have international laws and agreements where we need them. And any crime I might ever commit is subject to the laws of my sovereign country, the laws WE AS A COUNTRY determine we will be bound to. I will subject myself to the laws of foreign countries especialy to those who have no constitution like ours. Why should I imbibe they would subjeft themselves to an international system based on OUR laws?

And a free market marked with the individual freedom of those seeking their own self interest is the most successful system of accomplishing for the most.
Tell me do you really think all the countries in the world with horrible economic conditions like Honduras do you think they got that way because they had too much freedom?

Yes some areas in the richest nation in the world still don't institute the policies that us the richest nation on earth and not only that...............not only that...........not only that......we are the richest nation that has ever existed. BECAUSE we have been a free market capitalistic system with more liberty and individual freedom than any country that has ever existed. Why would you want to emulate countries and economic systems that have never come close to the success of ours.

Well yeah we have one on the best law enforcement in the world along with the system ofblaws and courts. Why would we want to catch fewer criminals?

They are socialist they are extremely free market capitalist economically. They tried socialism back in the 1970's and 1980's and it failed and they reformed their economies to free market.