NYC today, everywhere else in a few days/weeks. Without universal basic income, we are totally f@cked. 30-40% of people are without income and it's either soup kitchens and spike in crime, or UBI.
UBI isn't a savior. UBI still requires that people, you know, pay taxes. If 30-40% of people have no income and are completely dependent upon the government, then you have slavery 2.0 (3.0?) and you will end up creating a worse, classed society than you had before: the ones receiving vs. those who pay for what everyone else gets.
Or the government just prints money and money doesn't mean anything anymore because the government controls what it is worth.
Either way things are not good, but they are not good in a way that just means people starve, it means that the foundation of society is crumbling.
Additionally quite a few working people aren't paying income tax. When you can deduct 13k from your income each year, not many people working for a supermarket are paying income taxes for example. Example, Amazon and VW are creating high revenue in Austria and Germany yet their taxation is laughable. Maybe we shouldn't look that hard at income tax to support UBI
Can you provide a few examples? What other revenue streams do those governments have?
Then you have property tax, car tax (an additional 20% to the already 20% VAT), drugs tax (alcohol, beer, cigarettes ...), gas/fuel tax, flight tax, capital gains tax and probably many more i am forgetting now. those are just consumer taxes though
>>UBI isn't a savior. UBI still requires that people, you know, pay taxes. If 30-40% of people have no income and are completely dependent upon the government, then you have slavery 2.0 (3.0?) and you will end up creating a worse, classed society than you had before: the ones receiving vs. those who pay for what everyone else gets.
>Regarding your first paragraph: At least in a lot of european countries, income tax isn't even the most lucrative tax for the government.
I don't see how shifting your taxes from an income tax to a consumption tax changes anything. Rather than getting taxed to hell on your income, you're getting taxed to hell whenever you try to spend it.
Isn't that just a matter of accounting? If you're going to give people free money, then tax them on it, it's equivalent to simply giving them less free money. In the end you're still taxing the working people.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-sourc...
--Alexander Fraser Tytler
s/public treasury/untapped wealthy individuals and corporations/g
Also, which step are we on? Seems like we are on the "From apathy to dependence" stage.
If dependence on a government for basic necessities is slavery, isn't any form of dependence slavery? Are trust fund recipients slaves? Are workers who depend on an employer slaves? Are people in debt slaves to their creditors?
But in general being "dependent" on the government is 100x better than being dependent on individual employers. I'd be much happier making 30% of what I do now if I did not have to plan for existing 30 years down the line when I'm automated, found non-essential, a victim of ageism, or simply invested in the wrong skills.
Speak only for yourself.
Edit: Example of consequences being my high-interest savings account has dropped about 1.5%, but everything else is going well so far.
The middle class will be taxed more and you'll have a bottom rung getting free money, essentially.
The first two $1,200 checks from the government is the start of this.
You cant give away money for free and NOT have strong borders.
No, a border wall will remain an ineffective boondoggle that serves only vanity even with a UBI.
> You cant give away money for free and NOT have strong borders.
First, a UBI is defined as lacking means or behavior testing, that doesn't mean that the universe of recipients isn't either just adult citizens or adults who are either citizens or lawful permanent residents. The higher UBI with either of those recipient pools, the less economically attractive illegal immigration is, especially if UBI replaces or reduces (say, by $1/hr for every $2000/yr of UBI) minimum wage, thereby reducing the attractiveness of under the table sub-minimum wage labor.
Second, even if UBI wasn't a tool for stronger borders and did make illegal immigration more attractive, it wouldn't magically change the fact that the border wall isn't a tool for strong borders.