Ty said:
@Quinn
No idea if any of this would actually work, but it is an interesting thought experiment for sure. I’d read your ebook haha
Thanks.
It’s only been tested numerous times in various locations around the world, always with very positive results. So, I guess it’s impossible to say for sure…
Can we raise the minimum wage before we discuss hand outs?
Baylen said:
Can we raise the minimum wage before we discuss hand outs?
The government will raise taxes to counteract the wage increase.
Sadly, no. The very first problem is where do you get that money.
If the government starts printing money, then the inflation will make everyone’s money worth less, making prices go up and we end up at the beginning with a lot of damage done to everyone, especially the poorest.
If the gov decides to collect more taxes or expand the taxation base, then you are founding universal income with other people’s money, which is wrong for a lot of things, such as taking away incentives to generate wealth, which will lead to avoid tax or deduce the most or leaving the country to invest somewhere else.
If the government takes debt, this won’t work for obvious reasons. They will end up collecting more taxes or printing money, which I already explained.
Wealth doesn’t magically grow in trees, you need to satisfy someone else’s needs to generate wealth. There’s no way around it. Or actually there is, but the cost of it will surpass any benefits by far.
Then there is another problem, which is cultural in nature. Where I live, the government decided to give an enormous amount of social plans to poor people. If you are unemployed, you get a plan. You get one social plan with every child you get (you won’t believe me but people actually have children to get that money). You get a social plan if you go to a public college, even though you are not obligated to end the college or even to assist, so you can sign up to one and be forever a student and receive a social plan. So, all this money goes to these people for doing literally nothing. After some years, people won’t stop doing this because it’s easier than going to work. They end up living with someone else’s money with no motivation to progress. There are generations, plural, with this cultural problem.
So, universal income has lots of problems, it is not beneficial at all.
@Whitney
You explained it very well!
@Whitney
Professional students? Sounds like Germany.
@Whitney
Ffs - Take the damn survey !!! No one asked you for a lecture !!!
@Whitney
Those are all potential problems with ubi, but they are not insurmountable problems. Get funding in ways that are not taxes (I’d go with a dividend paid out by certain stocks, maybe every stock in the S&P 500 could pay this ubi dividend). Tax large organizations and corporations, but not individuals or small businesses. Give ubi to people as an extra reward for doing well, or accomplishing something incredible, not just as charity to people who are struggling.
@Quinn
I don’t mind if someone else wants to privately share his dividends to everyone in a nation. Not sure where you will find someone (or a group of people) willing to give billions away (yes, obviously you need billions for ubi).
Taxing large organizations is already a thing. But if you want to tax them even more to backup the ubi, the tax would be so high (remember, you need billions to fund ubi) they will literally leave the country to invest somewhere else, like I already commented. And you will end up with a lot less tax money because those large companies left, and thousands of unemployed people which won’t pay taxes from their work as well.
Give ubi exactly for what? For working? If they work (getting money in return for satisfying someone else’s needs), then ubi isn’t necessary. Ubi is charity, whether you like it or not. The problem is, where do we get the money? The problems I’m mentioning are intrinsically related with ubi, not just potentially. The nature of ubi brings these problems in and there is no way around it.
@Whitney
Working would be the main thing you would give it for. Everyone works, some people just can’t work anymore because they get injured or have some other problem because humans are mortal and fragile, it will happen to everyone, even you. Ubi is kind of like a retirement fund, but people could retire whenever they want instead of just at the very end of their lives. Ubi is necessary because this society where you make 80 year old ladies work at Walmart or where the minute someone misses a month of rent, they’re living out of their car is driving our society to the brink. So much more money could be made, so many more total profits, if everyone had a much more stable life. People would have more kids if they didn’t think those kids could end up homeless. People could live healthier lives if they could just take a year off and heal when needed, without fearing death. There would be more good jobs available if people had other options besides just working all day. Yes it would cost billions, but I think the large organizations would adjust easily, but if they couldn’t, small businesses could take their place, if there were a lot more small businesses and if more people could attempt to start their own businesses with more time, less of a risk of homelessness/death, that would make up for the death of one or two megacorps.
@Quinn
You still don’t understand that what you propose would kill an economy entirely. It’s guaranteed that if you backup the ubi with taxes, the so-called megacorps will absolutely leave, leaving thousands unemployed. If one leaves, the load will go to the others, making for them harder to stay there. After each and everyone leaves, how do you see possible in this scenario, where the government collects a lot less taxes, for the medium and small business to take the hit? Do you believe that increasing the taxes to sky levels would work? Again, I live in a country that did this and the informality became much more present, leaving behind so few formal jobs where only a couple of millions have to maintain an elephantiasis state. It’s absolutely impossible to attempt starting a business without avoiding taxes, because the state takes you more than 100% of what you make (yeah, the tax load is that crazy). People are totally discouraged to start their own business because of this, and the overall work situation is really bad. And you see on the other side people getting paid for doing nothing. The system you propose is broken, the retirement is a Ponzi scheme that each year gets worse and worse. And you want to add another retirement system, a bigger one, without knowing where to get the money? So a productive young man can retire in his 20’s? This won’t work in any given scenario.
Best part is that, since the state couldn’t collect sufficient taxes for them to work, the government took the printing machine and absolutely obliterated our currency, leaving more than half the people poor. This happened in only 20 years and in a country that doesn’t impact nearly as much as the USA. If the USA is to take the same path, then a whole hemisphere will take the price.
Research Student from where?
Universal basic income would reduce the need for most of the safety net programs, including Social Security, Food Stamps, Welfare, etc.
It would also reduce the amount of wages needed to live on, allowing employers to pay less.
Kick in Universal Healthcare, and hey, if you want to live in the bottom 10% all of your life, you can. If you want to live better than that, you do something productive to bring in money. You could even apprentice/intern for low wages for a year or 2.
No. Give everyone in a monopoly game a bonus 10k and see how much more expensive things get.
Jules said:
No. Give everyone in a monopoly game a bonus 10k and see how much more expensive things get.
Real life isn’t monopoly. You take away the struggle to just pay rent, and watch how much more productive people can be.
@Dell
Hardest I’ve laughed in a while. Thanks, sweetie.
It’s not a universal INCOME if most people are getting less than they have to pay in taxes to pay for it.
Never going to happen.
No. Prices will increase to eat the ubi.