WSJ in favor of univ. basic income.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=FlyerInHi] . . . BG, I understand that some consumers would make bad choices… too bad. UBI would be better, and maybe cost less than the vast welfare bureaucracies we have today.[/quote]UBI will most certainly disincentivize real employment among the able-bodied masses. Even though individuals could earn more income up to a certain level and still receive UBI, I believe there is a HUGE portion of the population who will just figure out how to make their $10K stretch so they will never have to get a job. They’ll live on futons with 6 or more adults to a household (ALL with UBI) in expensive cities. They’ll take public transport and ride bicycles thereby not having to own a vehicle. They’ll share bulk food among the entire household. They’ll try to use less utilities and not use water outside.

We would all be looking at a ton of run down properties with dry yards which no landlord in expensive counties (like SD) would want to maintain (due to being forced to rent to multiple unrelated people … all with their own UBI payment). There would be a lot more rental homes (and maybe even for-sale homes) on the market as well, due to doubling and tripling of family member/friend roommates so that no one in the household would need to hold down a real job. Subsequently, RE values would go down.

In short, I believe a HUGE amount of the US population (50-60% ?) would just choose UBI over work or just work a tiny bit to supplement it (perhaps earning up to an additional $10K yr, excluding any “under the table” income, of course). Employers will go wanting for employees (especially in lower-paid service sector jobs) and few of working age will be interested in taking them. Especially in places like SD County with great weather and beaches. Throw “legal weed” into the equation and the mantra of the masses will be, “Why bother to stress ourselves? We have everything we want and need.” We can just collectively invest our “excess UBI” in fans, fertilizer and grow-lights and make more money selling our homegrown weed and enjoy life :=0

[FlyerInHi]

I don’t think so BG. Plenty of people have passive income greater than UBI but they still work pretty hard. It’s just a base to build on

[moneymaker]

I want to retire early, lets see if I had no house payment,solar panels and had 3 people collecting UBI could I do it? Can I still count on SS or do I have to get a job that pays under the table. These are questions that people will be asking themselves. I say go do the social experiment and see what happens, but not large scale until it can be shown to work small scale. Would France be a good place? They have lots of good ideas over there. I would like to see it work somewhere else first.

[livinincali]

[quote=FlyerInHi]
Sounds like you’re acknowledging that taxing the rich and redistributing that money to the poorest would result in economic growth (assuming there’s little friction). Incidentally, rich people may pay higher taxes but they will earn it back in income from their businesses. Win-win.

Concentration at the top 1% is very bad for the economy because those people don’t spend. They park money in real estate. That squeezes the lower classes who have no money left to spend on goods and services.[/quote]

If you had a closed system and everybody acted rationally it’s possible redistribution would work but history has proven that most redistribution schemes have failed to produce economic growth. Moving from capitalistic systems to socialist, fascist, or communist system have never created significant economic growth. Just look at France GDP vs US GDP over the past 5 years. They are averaging about 0.5% per year we are at about 2% per year. Seems like all the “good” socialism of France is a negative to economic growth.

There’s a pretty big disincentive to create a business that you hope will be successful if you know the government is going to tax away a lot of your success. Would you want to be a landlord if government made you set rents at <30% of a the tenants net income. Would you be a landlord if government tripped property taxes on rental property compared to primary.

Just because you create demand you don't necessarily create economic growth. That increased demand can be met purely with inflation in the goods in services if no new competition/supply comes online. I.e. no new nail saloons are opened but the owners of the current nail saloons rake in the money as they serve more clients.

A UBI also creates a disincentive to work and whether employed or self employed you create economic activity when you work. A simple example would be imagine a UBI for $100K per year. How many people would immediately quit their jobs and live on that. Everybody that quits working results in a loss of economic activity. Stores close because they can no longer find anybody that will work for less than the $100K UBI. We can all imagine what happens in that scenario. You get a massive inflationary event until businesses can charge enough that they can pay their workers more than the UBI. At that point your back to the situation where UBI is barely enough to get by and you really need to work.

The Swiss vote on a UBI got defeated strongly. 77% against, which is in the realm of never going to happen. It's probably not worth even discussing the pluses and minuses. It doesn't seem like western populations are interested in this idea at all.

[spdrun]

^^^

You’re misunderstanding the UBI, then. I’m not a supporter, but EVERYONE would get the UBI, regardless of whether they work or not.

So store employees wouldn’t lose the UBI if they work at a store for less than the UBI. They’d just (say) make $150,000 instead of $100,000 per year.

If the UBI is designed to cover housing, food, medical insurance, and basic clothing, the extra $50,000 per year would allow for better versions of those items, or extra money for travel, recreation, hobbies, etc, etc.

[scaredyclassic]

also wall st j endorses cutting ALL,other welfare programs. streamlining. might save $.

[livinincali]

[quote=spdrun]^^^

You’re misunderstanding the UBI, then. I’m not a supporter, but EVERYONE would get the UBI, regardless of whether they work or not.

So store employees wouldn’t lose the UBI if they work at a store for less than the UBI. They’d just (say) make $150,000 instead of $100,000 per year.

If the UBI is designed to cover housing, food, medical insurance, and basic clothing, the extra $50,000 per year would allow for better versions of those items, or extra money for travel, recreation, hobbies, etc, etc.[/quote]

But where does the money come from. That is the point. No matter what the number is how do you take enough from the haves so that the have nots can have guaranteed shelter and food. Understand where the money has to come from and then you’ll understand why giving everybody the same UBI makes it essentially worthless. The economy will just rebalance itself to the added income especially if it’s done via deceit spending.

It’s the same as a massive increase in rental property tax to provide for housing vouchers. Alternatively setting rent as no more than 30% of household income. The net result to a landlord is the same. If you tax me $20K and give me back $10K it’s the same as taxing me $10K

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=livinincali] Just look at France GDP vs US GDP over the past 5 years. They are averaging about 0.5% per year we are at about 2% per year. Seems like all the “good” socialism of France is a negative to economic growth.
[/quote]

Livin’, I follow EU politics and the reasons they are performing worse than us is precisely the opposite of what you think.

In the aftermath of 2008, they cut spending, and avoided monetary stimulus. They started late and have less momentum. It’s not because of socialism, but lack of fiscal and monetary stimulus after 2008.

European brands of socialism do have problems, namely lack of employment flexibility, more protectionist markets, lack of immigrant integration, etc… But those are long term problems they are trying to reform with Emmanuel Macron in France. Trying to reform and deal with financial crisis and populist anger all at once is difficult.

[joec]

[quote=livinincali][quote=spdrun]^^^

You’re misunderstanding the UBI, then. I’m not a supporter, but EVERYONE would get the UBI, regardless of whether they work or not.

So store employees wouldn’t lose the UBI if they work at a store for less than the UBI. They’d just (say) make $150,000 instead of $100,000 per year.

If the UBI is designed to cover housing, food, medical insurance, and basic clothing, the extra $50,000 per year would allow for better versions of those items, or extra money for travel, recreation, hobbies, etc, etc.[/quote]

But where does the money come from. That is the point. No matter what the number is how do you take enough from the haves so that the have nots can have guaranteed shelter and food. Understand where the money has to come from and then you’ll understand why giving everybody the same UBI makes it essentially worthless. The economy will just rebalance itself to the added income especially if it’s done via deceit spending.

It’s the same as a massive increase in rental property tax to provide for housing vouchers. Alternatively setting rent as no more than 30% of household income. The net result to a landlord is the same. If you tax me $20K and give me back $10K it’s the same as taxing me $10K[/quote]

Did you even read the article? I think the point was that the money would come from cutting and getting rid of EVERY SINGLE entitlement program we currently have now.

That means no more food stamps, no more SS, no more unemployment, etc…No more John Legal vs Juan Illegal gaming the system since whether you work or not, you got the same payment.

You also have crap systems now in place like unemployment where companies “try” to fire you and deny you benefits when you were laid off through no fault of your own. My own company did this and I was “forced” to resign or I’d have a bad mark you can say on my permanent record…

Anyhow, this payment (only for citizens) is meant to cover ALL those programs being gotten rid of.

You can imagine all those programs cost billions more and this was an idea to lower those costs.

I can see some benefits of this, but it will be probably impossible to implement, especially in our political environment.

For some people with 0 income, this can be a way to get like a monthly stipend to at least eat. A portion would also be automatically deducted for healthcare so your 13k became 10k. With EVERYONE funding healthcare as well (21 year olds don’t cost 3k to insure normally), this can possibly help with medical costs for everyone.

All I’d say is our current entitlement programs are crap and mostly a waste of money. You take away a lot of the government waste and let people choose how to spend it and maybe we’d a better system.

Just an idea…

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