Why the world should adopt a basic income

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

  1. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    More lame blah, blah, blah.

    You evidently never took a course in Civics, and if you did you've forgot everything ...
     
  2. DentalFloss

    DentalFloss Well-Known Member

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    Incarcerated there? Only by choice. Can they read? Do they have skills? Did they even graduate from kindergarten? Moreover, WHY would you have a family of 4 if that's all you are capable of making? They are in a "prison" that they themselves constructed.
     
  3. jcarlilesiu

    jcarlilesiu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So, in your mind a republic and a democracy are the same thing? Ok, got it.
     
  4. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I posted the dictionary definitions. Did you read them?

    (Of course, one needs to understand proper English to do so ....)
     
  5. Distraff

    Distraff Well-Known Member

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    I do have some issues with the basic income. First it encourages people not to work. One reason people go out and get education, and work hard on their careers is their fear of financial ruin. People save money because they don't want to be destitute when they are old. If everyone is guaranteed a comfortable life, people won't work as hard or make good financial choices as much.

    Second, it kind of sounds expensive. I don't know how much this program is going to cost but it sounds expensive. Americans already pay 30% of their incomes in taxes and that is going to have to go up to above 35% because of the growing deficits we have. The wealthy pay almost 40% in all taxes, except the super-rich who pay much lower in investment taxes. My point is here that to fund all these new taxes, we are going to have to tax the middle class as well as the rich. This country is already taxed a lot and the middle class already has trouble paying for their own bills, much less the bills of people who aren't working.

    Third, it fixes a problem that hasn't happened yet. The basic income is a solution to automation taking away everyone's jobs. In theory, automation will start killing off millions of jobs leading to high unemployment with the rich pocketing the benefits of automation for themselves. Yet in the digital age and with hundreds of years of automation, we have a tight jobs market, 3.7% unemploment, and enough jobs that even women are working now. Why implement the basic income before its needed?
     
  6. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Then why don't countries with greater poverty exhibit greater social mobility?

    You get skewed investments. For example, there's over-reliance on owner occupation. That then can lead to all sorts of problems, particularly over-reliance on the housing market to stabilise the macroeconomy.

    Actually its not much different to supply side analysis in the 80s, which spawned the notion of a negative income tax. The argument is straight-forward: integration of tax and benefits, or simplification, is key. As long as effective marginal rates of tax that exceed 100% are avoided, all is dandy!
     
  7. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Obviously wrong: for example, I have also argued that we have a systemic problem in the global economy (which obviously reaches into every local economy in our post industrial era), so your statement that "thats' literally been your only counter-argument" is ….well.. literally incorrect.

    Cor blimey, who mentioned anything about freedom of association? What's that got to do facilitating the basic welfare of all citizens, or how is facilitating basic welfare for all citizens a barrier to "maintaining a peaceful society"?

    We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…

    Newsflash: Trump announces the world is a very dangerous place......obviously true; history confirms it, and what's happening today confirms it.

    We have rule of law to infuse some order into an otherwise predatory, survival-of-the-fittest natural world.
    Libertarianism is a "simple and elegant solution" for a world that doesn't exist, namely, a world that is naturally peaceful.

    By "maintaining a peaceful society" you really mean protecting your own interests above everything else.


    Do I really have to spend time learning the definition of "a positive right" according to Libertarian philosophy?
    (feel free to enlighten me if you wish...)
     
  8. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    A sensible question - the asking of which explains your illogical insistence that implementing a living wage for all will hurt low wage workers…you blithely dismiss the fact that workers with below poverty wages are already hurting (not to mention costs to the taxpayer resulting from below poverty-wage existence, eg, crime, prisons, food stamps).

    In 1944, at the Bretton Wood's conference, Keynes presented a blueprint for a new post WW2 global economic and financial system, among which was a proposal to facilitate economic development in all nations in an environment free from the trade and currency wars that had characterised the early 20th century.

    Keynes' central idea was a "clearing union" to which all nations would belong. That idea is even more relevant today (in the post Cold War era).

    But it's an idea that requires recognition of the limitations of absolute national sovereignty, in a global economy.

    Still interested?
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2018
  9. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    No-one will be "compelled", but in my analogy, God will grant you the choice...the money or the water.
     
  10. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    The choice to dig your own well with your own tools that you bought with your own money?
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2018
  11. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    I'll let that observation pass for the time being (but individual psychology/motivation is so impossibly complex, it's problematic to conclude that, in general, "people won't work as hard".

    .

    Would you have to tax the middle class as well as the rich?

    It would be great to get some transparency - and the actual facts - around this point, in a world where the richest 10 - that's correct, 10, individuals - own as much wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion of humanity.

    eg, as part of defining 'middle class' and 'rich', we need to know at what level of income does paying for the necessities cease to be a burden.

    You are ignoring real involuntary underemployment rates of around 10%. That, and entrenched similar (or higher) poverty rates are the reason we are having this discussion about a guaranteed basic income.

    And perhaps forcing women to return to work - through financial necessity - before they want to cease caring for their newborn on a fulltime 'hands-on' basis, is one reason for some of society's ills?
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2018
  12. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    You didn't have any money or tools in the desert (as none of us have when we are born); ....so, which do you choose, the water or the money being offered by God (in my analogy)?
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2018
  13. jcarlilesiu

    jcarlilesiu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Look man, you can sit on this forum being a dick if you want. They are NOT the same thing. I am done arguing, it's a stupid argument. I explained to you how they are different, and you just want to argue and act like an ass for the sake of arguing.

    No thanks. Go play with somebody else.
     
  14. Distraff

    Distraff Well-Known Member

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    Thank you for your comments. I think communism is a great example of how getting free money for no work reduces productivity. A lot of underachieving millennial will just start living off the government with a basic income rather than working. Some people are lazy and will take advantage of the basic income to not work, others are hard working and will use the basic income to get a better career. Also, would we offer the basic income to illegals and low-income immigrants?

    Yes, the top few richest people have more wealth than billions of people. But we are talking about US income, not global wealth, and we are looking only at workers not non-workers. The top 1% has 20% of income, and that 20% is already taxed at almost 40%. Generally you can't fund expensive programs without a large tax base, and that is why everyone pays for social security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

    The U6 unemployment which takes into more people beyond the official unemployment is 7.4%, not 10%, and many of these are people who are under-employed not completely unemployed. In addition, many of the these people get jobs soon. The official long-term unemployment rate is .85%. Some better solutions for unemployment is free college for in-demand degrees to fill the 5 million jobs skills gap, reducing the trade deficit, and possibly requiring time and a half pay for all work over 40 hours. We can also require paid maternity leave benefits too.
     
  15. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    I don't see how making it illegal to hire low wage workers helps them in any way. Would they rather have a low wage job or no job at all?
    I love hearing weird ****. Sure.
     
  16. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    7.4% underemployment?

    Still a lot of people, and then there is the issue of even full-time employment with minimum wages at levels that require supplementation by government (food stamps etc)

    All good ideas, although reducing the trade deficit involves some tricky - and disputed - external affairs, as we are currently witnessing (all nations want to trade for their own advantage... which brings me to my next point).

    You dismissed "communism", and rightly so, on the basis of the attempts we have so far witnessed in individual nations
    (although I note communism in the Soviet Union launched the first satellite and first man into space).

    But what of Keynes' proposal for a "clearing union" to which all nations would belong?

    The establishment of this type of international institution, to oversee and facilitate economic development in all nations, would enable a World Bank to distribute funds to all nations without implications for devaluation of national currencies (since each nation would receive the same relative amount of created funds), consistent with sustainable development of available resources.

    eg, could 'free' universal education be funded in this manner? (the main resource 'consumed' being the time and effort required by the participants in the education process, not scarce resources).

    [I acknowledge your criticism of some aspects of the basic income concept, including the the funding issue; hence my exploration of other possibilities for elimination of poverty].
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2018
  17. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    with supplementation by the government, maybe - but that defeats your Libertarian stance.

    Question (though I probably don't need to ask):

    What is your understanding of "an international rules-based system"?
     
  18. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You got that right. Which is why you should have never started it.

    Yours is only the umpteenth time I've responded to Replicant BS about the difference between a democracy and a republic. And you (plural) still don't get it - there aint none.

    The difference is all in your alleged brains ... !
     
  19. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Which means unemployment longer than a duration of 1 year.

    And the recent history of which looks like this:
    [​IMG]
    And which (at 0.7%) is quite possibly the best-ever ...
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2018
  20. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Seems like a good idea but it is "functionally hair-brained".

    Countries must learn first to maintain a consistent level of economic-balance on their own. Far too many would come begging for funds in order to rescue themselves from a crisis of their own making in terms of national financial "mismanagement". (A less uncomfortable word than "thievery").

    What we have today must do. Funds are available for countries in distress, but first they must indicate the distress before it can be addressed. Otherwise, funds-for-growth are available on most international money-markets, but countries must substantiate the fact that they are able to make repayments.

    Far too many just can't reach that level. So, they remain in perpetual financial misery. This most happens in Africa where "strongmen" sit in power for decades. And nobody boots them out.

    Case in point: Zimbabwe. About which, from the BBC here - excerpt:
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2018
  21. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And what-if God didn't give a damn ... ?
     
  22. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    They worked. For a pittance.

    Because the Communist Leaders were infatuated with maintaining power, which means BigArmies and sending up satellites because that demonstrated to the world that they were users of leading-edge technology.

    It was all a sham anyway, and with time did not endure. Because it could not endure. It never took into account the human instinct of a "good idea". The worth of which a market-economy decides all by its little self with wondrous accuracy.

    Of course, how the money-returns generated are taxed as income (and redistributed) is a probing but very different question altogether ...
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2018
  23. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You really are blind to the facts. More mindless blather from Replicants who are detached from the reality of poverty.

    One does not CHOSE his/her parents! And even with a good postsecondary degree, one can tumble into poverty and have no ready exit. Shat happens!

    So, why not a hand-out or a hand-up to help?

    Duhhhhhhhhhhh ...
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2018
  24. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    Let's say it's nothing. Please continue.
     
  25. DentalFloss

    DentalFloss Well-Known Member

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    How? Serious question. OK, if you're 22, never met your father, and your mother turns tricks in exchange for crack, and your degree is in ancient Greek poetry, maybe I can see that. But as you get older, good decisions should render that all but impossible. First, pick a real major. Second pick a good spouse (I've seen it said that a divorce is the single biggest single risk to your overall financial health). Third, be willing to move if it improves you position in life. Fourth, make sure you're well insured, even if that means sacrificing a higher salary. Fifth, buy a home and pay it off. Sixth, have a good work ethic. Don't change jobs every 4 months. Seventh, save some money.

    Now, don't get me wrong. I have not followed all of the above rules. I am divorced, though since we didn't have kids so it didn't completely rape me, nor prevent me from moving. I probably (well, more than probably) don't have enough saved for a person my age (49), but I DO own my home unencumbered. And due to prior proper planning had good medical insurance for when I ended up in a semi-coma in the ICU for 4 months almost exactly a year ago today (which should have, but fortunately didn't, kill me, at least not for good. I did die a few times but got pulled back.) And because I remarried, and chose wisely this time, my wife is able to cover our expenses. Though if we had a mortgage, that might be a problem.

    It's called being a responsible adult.
     
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