Why the world should adopt a basic income

we have 30 million illegals who are working not looking for a hand up. liberals don't offer a hand up but rather a life long program in return for dependency and votes. Welfare spending is through the roof and problem is worse not better. You have learned this 37 times. Shall we go for 38?

 

MMT is a stupid stupid liberal thick to print money for more welfare programs and vote buying. Nothing more!

 

libcommies in Venezuela are trying to now. 1 million % inflation, average weight loss 34 LBS per person!

 

there is no connection between your equation and unemployment. Econ 101!

 

Why don't you describe that equation?

 

Why don't you just find a country to implement it, and I'll watch? You need experimentation to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposal.

 

Perhaps the real MMT hasn't yet been tried?

 

more to the point why don't cut the BS and tell us why you're an anti-free market, market socialist after it just killed 120 million.

 

liberal have tried 1000 ways to print money and pretend it created wealth rather than poverty

 

no more experimentation is needed in the 21st century to show us that inflation does not work. Liberals always have a new scam to inflate the currency or otherwise expand government

 

right that's like saying the real communism has not been tried!

 

Actually nothing could be further from the truth and the fact is there are lots of people out there who prefer a hand out to a hand up and the more hand out you offer the more of them there will be. And nothing helps those who are not poor and indeed have very good incomes than poor people not being poor but using their labor to produce value EARNING an income which helps spur the economy. It is fallacious nonsense that wealthy people want everyone else to be poor.

Finnish Failure: Guaranteed Basic Income Punishes Work, Subsidizes Sloth
Welfare: The latest "big idea" in the U.S. is the Universal Basic Income — a guaranteed income for all. Progressives of course like the idea, but even some conservatives and libertarians do, too. Only one problem: It doesn't work.

Ask Finland, a highly progressive Scandinavian country that has an ongoing guaranteed income experiment, but is abandoning it.
https://www.investors.com/politics/...-basic-income-punishes-work-subsidizes-sloth/

Starting in 2017, the two-year Finnish program selected a random group of 2,000 unemployed people and gave them a monthly income roughly equal to about $678 for doing ... nothing. The government hoped that many participants would flood back into the labor market.

But Finland is already backing off. As the New York Times put it, "Many people in Finland — and in other lands — chafe at the idea of handing out cash without requiring that people work."...

 

It is interesting that the "illegals" (all or most of them? …. a closer look at the actual numbers might be instructive) are working and earning above poverty participation in the economy.

So the question is: why are some of the 'naturalised citizens' not doing this?

Your answer:

The Dems like handing out welfare, so that they (the Dems) have a reason for existing!.

You should know by now I absolutely agree that welfare "is going through the roof", and should be eliminated entirely.

(Indeed I have earned Lafayette's admonition for stating this view in the past).

But our solutions to the problem are very different.

Your solution (in a competitive, neoliberal economy without central oversight) would result in the persistence of the entrenched generational unemployment and poverty we see at present.

My solution would have zero involuntary underemployment , at above poverty level participation, by means of a neoliberal competitive economy with central oversight - oversight at both the national and international levels, because we are seeing the negative effects of trade disputes even now, without such oversight. You simply can't escape that reality in a global economy.

( MMT appears to grasp this point, but I'm not sure to what extent)

 

Actually, a reasonable point....but we would need, say, IMF oversight of said experiment, to be able to test the theory. And some powerful interests might not be so scientifically inclined to let it happen

 

Why don't you learn how to rebut in a DEBATE forum ... ?

 

Aint gonna happin. The IMF has no backing to do so, and would never attain such. The only measure at present is GDP per person and that is not even nearly the best. Why? (Because there is no analysis of the distribution of Income on a comparable basis that demonstrates Income Inequality.)

The major economies (ranked by GDP) are:
China
European Union
United States of America
India
Japan

And that's it for the next 5/10 years ...

NB: YES! Uncle Sam is in third place!

 

Just repeating that assertion is not sufficient; life at the individual level is more complicated than that.

That's the theory of the poor house in 19th century England - it's got to be so bad that they will never let themselves sink to that level, and yet a large minority still could not avoid the poor house; evidence of a systemic problem.

I can agree with that statement as far as it goes, except I fundamentally disagree with your concept of 'value' being solely determined within a private sector, competitive marketplace.

.

That's why I prefer the zero involuntary underemployment policy of MMT; it encourages everyone to take responsibility for their own own advancement, via the carrot rather than the stick.
How many times do I have to repeat that not everyone can successfully compete in the (private sector), competitive neoliberal marketplace.

 

Are the PPP GDP figures you have quoted the best way to compare the strength of economies relative to one another?

Surely the nominal gdp's are a better indication of relative strength ie,

1. US c.$19 trillion
2. China c. $12 trillion
3. Japan c. $5 trillion.
4. Germany c.$4 trillion.

That's why the US is still the "world's policeman".

As for your "hard-headed realism", man-made climate change (if it is real) might indeed force a rethink about what is possible.

 

Why are you denying it? AND the more benefits you offer to people to not work the more of them you will get.

Did the Great Society lower poverty rates? No. You want more of something then subsidize it.

What else should place the value onto it. I pay someone based on the value of their labor to me.

Well what percent of the able bodied can't compete and why not?

 

I'm perfectly fine with IMF oversight as long as the experimenting country is.

 

What is it that you want me to rebut? I've yet to hear a successful test run of this that would require rebuttal.

 

What country would not wish to test MMT, as part of an IMF managed experiment?

Zero involuntary underemployment, via managed public sector funds creation ('ex nihilo', just as private sector banks do, when they write loans to credit worthy customers!*), to utilise the available labour not currently required by the private sector (at above poverty level wages), consistent with the (non-labour) resources actually available to that country.

* hence the old joke about banks only lending money to people who don't need it...

 

Exactly! It sounds so perfect, every country should want to start implementing it RIGHT AWAY!

...and yet...?

 

And yet orthodox economists - who notoriously can't agree amongst themselves on descriptions of economic theory (proving economics is more an art than a science) - have convinced both sides of politics in all countries that government cannot create its own currency without causing hyperinflation. But heterodox MMT economists (eg Stephanie Kelton, economic adviser to Bernie Sanders in the 2016 campaign) say otherwise.

Plus the Pentagon would probably have a say...…(a significant factor in this world which is yet to implement a functional, international rules-based system).

The present IMF (virtually an arm of the US government) is useless; their only policy is austerity, and pauperising the citizens of any country unfortunate enough to ask for an IMF loan.

 

Well this should be appealing to desperately poor countries, who can't afford many orthodox economists but can afford a couple of printing presses.