UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money. Its one of the best ways to rebalance the power relationships between employer and employee.
Erm no, it's probably only barely what you need to survive, nothing close to what people refer to as FU Money.
This is the key to FU Money, an increase in freedom since your base needs are met and secure; agreed that in common parlance it usually is applied to people that have so much money they can live like a king and say no to whatever they want.
He's living "frugally" as described in his article. I don't think that what's people expect from UBI when they talk about it.
Enough for mental health without the great of losing everything and being homeless.
One guy I worked with worked from 5am to 2pm in the mall bakery, took a nap in the backroom, the was a line cook from 4p-midnight. Mostly because of some debts and a situation that prevented his wife from working.
...which is exactly what UBI intends.
Electricity. Wifi. Fast internet. Air conditioning. Running water. Access to nutritious food and good medicine. Some of those are needs, others are not. The ones which are directly maintaining you in good health are needs.
Don't sacrifice your needs (8 hours of sleep a day, for example) for your wants (a shiny new iPhone or bigger apartment) over the years.
It's not black and white. As we give more and more UBI, we rebalance the power dynamic between employers and employees. It starts to obviate the need for minimum wage laws and unions, because people can start to ask for 30 hour work weeks, time off to raise their own kids, study a new career, contribute to science and open source software and so on. They'll be able to take more entrepreneurial risks, too. A society with UBI would have a lot more people contributing to gift economies.
[0] US federal minimum wage
In practice, it would have a similar impact on the books as a program that gave $1000/month to just the poor people. Giving the money to everybody and then taxing it back from most makes it seem much larger but makes it a wash in practice.
There is a huge amount of taxes that the ultra-wealthy are currently NOT paying. In fact, the vast majority of income taxes are actually paid by the lower and middle classes, because once you hit a certain level of income you have enough money to pay professionals to help you shelter your money and avoid taxes.
For example, Warren Buffet only paid $1.8 million in taxes in 2015, even though his wealth was worth 72 billion at the time. His wealth literally grew 12 billion that year, and he only paid $1.8 million in taxes.
That means he paid only 0.015% in taxes, in terms of wealth growth vs income taxes paid.
Meanwhile, someone earning $100K would have paid around 20% of their income...
In comparison top 10% of the Danish tax payers paid just 31.3% of the total income tax, despite Denmark having rather high taxation (the OECD method that puts it as #1 is controversial, but I pay e.g. a 42% marginal tax rate on any capital gains).
'share of the total taxes the rich pay'
And
'the percentage of their wealth the rich pay'
It may only take the rich 5% of their income to pay the 38.5% of total taxes because they're capturing so much of the value generated in America and hiding it whereever.
UBI is a fantastic idea in theory. It is more efficient in terms of capital and human resources than the current system, probably by an order of magnitude or more. However, it does suffer one deep flaw that I haven't seen anyone promoting UBI address.
How do we ensure that UBI doesn't become weaponized against the people it's supposed to be helping?
If UBI is passed it becomes the single most important issue to the majority of voters. Someone running on a platform of 'more money' will (even if it's economically a bad idea) likely win elections based on it. If there is an economic need to decrease the UBI payments it will be the death knell of political careers.
But the biggest concern I have is this:
We've already seen big legislation like the Affordable Care Act come under attack and eventually get essentially removed (in that case overwritten by the American Health Care Act on Mar 4, 2017). What would the damage be to the people who come to rely on UBI as part of the general economic system, only to have it rapidly reduced or removed entirely?
I think removing UBI if you already have one in place would simply cause mass revolt. It would be a suicide for any politician. So unless there is something like mass starvation caused by some catastrophe removing UBI will be off the table.
Most of the sources of misery in the US are economic, unfortunately. The political parties in the US have a long history of being poor trustees of the nation's wealth.
I make the comparison to Norway often because Norway has the world's largest social safety net in the form of their Sovereign Wealth Funds. Norway has $1.1T, roughly $200,000 USD per citizen, that can be used to maintain economic stability and secure social programs even in hard times.
The US absolutely could have accomplished the same thing, but instead we've racked up a national debt per citizen of over $70,000.
If the US had a wealth fund instead of a national debt I believe many of the biggest issues we face could be legitimately solved rather than turned into political footballs.
Scarcity of investable assets is already a problem. Increasing demand by $50-100T will make it worse. Part of the reason the US issues trillions in debt is to absorb some of the existing demand.
The land itself, all of the resources in and on it, the industries that operate within the borders, etc.
We don't necessarily need to set aside 200k per capita, but it would be wise to not be at -70k per capita and growing fast, in my opinion.
> A sovereign wealth fund similar to Norway in the US would contain a large fraction of all wealth globally.
If the rest of the world operated on similar principles we would inevitably reach a balance. Regardless, the US would have to clear an enormous sum of debt before we could realistically start filling up the piggy bank.
To be fair, having the world reserve currency is sortof like a wealth fund.
Even if the increase of UBI would be used to get votes, its better then what we currently have - lover taxes for mega rich. At least this way I get something.
May I suggest: their own salaries or perhaps military spending? I mean, if the country doesn't have the budget, that sounds an awful like it is _their_ fault, not their constiuents'. The constituents aren't elected to figure those things out, they are.
This conservative idea that we have to be all "Aw shucks, we don't have money" is absurd, yet they have enough to give themselves generous salary increases and universal healthcare.
Personal opinion:
I want to pay every politician even more than they get now - for life. In exchange, they are never allowed to work or own equity in a corporation. Shuts the lobbyists revolving door nonsense down almost immediately. Such an implementation only works if we hold corrupt officials accountable though, we don't want one-term do-nothings to get into office just for the paycheck. So, if you fail to represent the will of the people you lose 95% of the money, or similar.
Cutting military spending I'm generally in favor of. I believe this could be done to a huge degree before we actually have a negative impact on military capability at all. I also believe the military should only be used for actual defense, meaning that militia structures become a meaningful way to bolster national security without incurring an enormous organizational cost.
> This conservative idea that we have to be all "Aw shucks, we don't have money" is absurd, yet they have enough to give themselves generous salary increases and universal healthcare.
It's not conservative, it's corrupt. The conservative view is that we need to secure economic stability, not raid the coffers at every opportunity. But then again, the terms conservative/liberal have lost most of their meaning. I wonder what John Locke would think if he were alive to see how the world turned out.
My biggest concern is inflation. Adding more cash without also increasing productivity can cause inflation. UBI might improve productivity in a number of ways, but it might not do so enough. I know that proponents of the job guarantee argue that this is the fatal flaw in UBI; that instead people should be guaranteed useful work to do, which in theory would increase productivity to offset the government expenditures to send them paychecks. I do agree that there is a lot of useful work that could get done under such a program (cleaning rivers and streams, etc.), but I'm not convinced that we'd see productivity gains reliably either.
But opponents also complain about wage growth getting too high, almost as if capitalism depends on a class of exploited poor ...
If that was even remotely true then France would the most active center in the world in terms of business creation. I hate to break the news for you, but it isn't.
For example if I gave everyone 250k and told them to all go out and buy a ferrari, its actually impossible. There are not enough cars and prices would rise substantially to box out people again. The same principal goes for homes, healthcare, education, etc. The best way to increase standard of living is to increase production and efficiency to meet everyone's needs in all service and product categories.
Money has worth because of the value a region generates.
If you have 10 units of currency and then 10 more are printed with no more value generated you have inflation.
If you keep 10 units of currency but more value is generated you have deflation.
If you just change who has the 10 units of currency that's not inflationary or deflationary, that's redistribution of the value.
UBI is just giving workers back some of the value they have generated that has been capture by the owner class.
It's funded not through 'printing press go brrr' (deficit spending) but through actual redistribution of that value more equitably.
The entire disjointed and bloated gov't safety net apparatus of food stamps, WIC, Rental Subsidies, EITC, disability, unemployment, and more. would go away along with the bloated salaries of the people who run all of those programs.
So massive amounts of tax money would be saved at the start.
UBI is actually a small government conservatives dream.
Then there's also the possibility that the jobs it creates from increased demand due to an economy with a much higher flow of money, could have a deflationary aspect which would allow the money printer to go brr a little bit.
Then also, who know what kinds of new innovation would happen from smart people free to pursue their own goals without worrying about financial insecurity.
Taxes would go up on the rich probably moderately.
But it's doable and affordable and the country would be so much better off in my opinion.
What constrains your landlord from jacking up rent is competition. If he jacks up rent by $200 but the landlord across the street has an empty apartment he'd be glad to rent out for $1000 he'll think twice about jacking your rent.
The housing crisis in America is a supply issue. UBI has nothing to do with it.
Inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. If they pay for UBI with deficit spending it might crank up inflation, but if it's fully funded it won't.
I remember, back around 2008, houses were popping up everywhere. You don't really see much of that anymore, at least in my experience. ALSO, lumber prices are HIGH and its not as profitable to build new houses, at the moment. But what if this is a larger lumber shortage/sustainability issue? What then?
Could it be a mix of material supply issues and interest groups that are maintaining a housing shortage?
Only if you're using your home as a financial instrument rather than a place to live. But that has the same problems as eg, farmers and/or grocers having a financial interest in engineering a famine in order to drive up food prices.
> Could it be a mix of material supply issues and interest groups that are maintaining a housing shortage?
Probably, yes, plus various other factors in varying amounts.
https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
We need to fix wages, not provide handouts. I'm for helping people that need but UBI isn't the way to do that.
Because if what you're saying is true..with any unnatural gov't interference ...there will be inflation.
(which is inaccurate by the way)
> yes, the cost might be some inflation, but predictions of inflation have lately failed
For a time, anything may remain out of sync. But you can't get more money from less workers. You can't redistribute to provide UBI, you have to print it, and that devalues the currency.
Even sillier, most UBI proposals are tied to a consumer index, such that when the currency was devalued you would print and distribute more, but with zero concern for the actual workers whose salaries are not also being inflated to match. Eventually the premium for working will be small enough that you'd be a fool for having a job.
And of course "predictions of inflation have lately failed". Because nobody is giving out UBI on a large enough scale. It's suicide. Even tax-and-spend bread-and-circus providing pols still want to be in power next year, so there's a limit to what they can print, and how widely they can distribute it.
If UBI becomes a right, and you raise a generation who doesn't need to work, what do you do when there's a recession? Cut UBI and watch the riots start? Or drive off the cliff at speed because the non-working class can't be denied?
In year 1, Bob has extra money. By year 3 Bob's rent goes up. Did Bob's UBI go up proportionally to his rent? After a few years, Bob ends up in the same place - unless we keep injecting more money over time, which creates inflation.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/01/20/958854717/modern-monetary-the...
> The money, [...] the treasury, which prints little game tickets you can use to make other people dance for you.
They think there's a printer somewhere, and some jerk sitting next to it who just won't print enough money. If only he'd print more, we'd all be billionaires!
IT's not inflationary. Its redistribution.
Also, the option for some sort of scaled UBI would be great too imo.
Quick question, why do I want to keep producing when I just get taxed to pay for those who refuse to work? So next year you've got one more mouth to feed and a lot less resources to do so.
But it's okay, print more money to give to the last guy working, quadrillions of dollars, and tax him at 99.999999% and redistribute (totally not print, not at all) those inflated dollars to everyone. We'll all be rich!
Why did the they keep producing in the 50s and 60s with a 90% tax rate?
Because they know that if they don't.. someone else will.. no matter what the tax rate.
I'm not going to explain to you why people would work instead of settle for 12k a year.
And your first statement isnt clear how it's correlated to taxes.
Further, the UBI experiments don't produce any benefit beyond one-time grants, as seen in other experiments, perhaps even less because the trickle payment doesn't give you the capital to move to find better work or anything.
Lifetime welfare has proven harmful, how will super-welfare be better? If anything has destroyed American cities its welfare ghettos and the malaise and crime that comes with it.
Upon ruminating on that concept, I think at the core, fuck you money and UBI are - I can express myself and nothing can financially ruin me or make me homeless.
Don't have your MS? Get it.
Welfare attempts to uplift people, but UBI is never ending and would come to be seen as a right, not a gift. Welfare makes people and communities stronger, UBI would not.
Welfare is better than UBI because welfare ends. Welfare encourages competence and self-reliance. And welfare can be extended in cases where there really aren't any jobs. It can do what UBI does, but without the fatal flaws.
People need an incentive - something they don't have, which they will attain. UBI takes away one of those, your proposal would eliminate the other.
For a depression-era farmer even a little success was still survival and so it mattered. But for someone who doesn't do anything to produce their own goods and so never feels accomplished because of skill or effort, anything less than what the other guy has will be intolerable. They won't work for anything, so they won't accept hard work as a reason why the other guy deserves to get to keep what he produced, and they'll steal it, killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.
But UBI would definitely support that line of thinking. "Dad is given a stipend by the government because there are no jobs for him, so why would I strive?"
But, that aside, why should the productive care whether you do or not? Let's say self-driving cars do put you out of business, but we acknowledge that you didn't really do anything to make yourself employable. Why do you deserve any resources, let alone a comfortable amount, for not doing anything? And deserve, shmerve, why should I be so stupid as to let you take it from me? If I work I'll simply horde a bit of food and then stop working until the UBI stops and you starve, then I'll start producing again. So why not admit this up front and treat you like an excess coyote population? Spay/neuter you, or maybe leave poisoned food(-stamps) around?
Welfare at least is intended to help people become self-actualized and productive, but UBI is designed specifically to remove all incentive to ever help anyone else. UBI is what someone would come up with after reading the CIA manual on sabotage and thinking - how do I apply this to my entire civilization?
And even if something like UBI ever happened, don't imagine that the productive will share power. It'll be a box, VR helmet, drugged soylent, and you'd happy with it.
It can't be anything else, and everyone should realize it. There's no UBI-topia out there for people, should they simply come to consensus and demand it from their pols. It's wishful thinking and the simple concept hurts more than it helps.
Be afraid of the person who offers you this nonsense.
We do not need a larger government!
It's actually a small gov't conservatives dream.
So, I will ask again. We can't afford what we have. How can we add more?
We spend around 2.3T to entitlement programs and takes in around 3.8T.
What's putting us in debt is massive tax cuts for the rich and insane health care costs.
I don't think there's been a comprehensive bill for UBI floated yet.
Really? Taxes havent covered the budget in years.
Correction: 2 decades
That's news to me thanks for making me aware!
People on this website are so smart!
Suppose, for the sake of argument, UBI is implemented by the pure redistribution of wealth. No debt. No draining some capital reserve. Steady state redistribution.
The act of distributing wealth to new people will shift demand in accordance with their demands. The newly UBI-ed masses won't be chasing the same rich-men goods as the rich men they soaked. The aggregate demand for not-rich-man goods will go up. So then those prices will go up.
When the price for goods goes up without any increase in their quality, all else constant, that's inflation. At least by my layman's understanding.
Why do you keep insisting that redistribution won't cause inflation?
There's another factor you're missing.
SUPPLY and demand.
If supply is static then yes, you are correct.
But the supply for most 'not-rich-man goods' is made of commodities and is highly scalable and economic productivity will increase to match demand.
And the increased productivity/value from the economy will have a deflationary aspect that you're not considering.
This as a side effect also creates jobs and just generally increases the well being of the middle class and poor as a whole not just from the UBI.
This will also distribute the population throughout the country more evenly so rent prices will go down as well... as people don't have to live in certain areas that happen to have jobs and can afford to innovate in B.F.E without the risk of becoming homeless if they fail which in aggregate will have some businesses succeed and stimulate those areas of the country.
True, but not instantaneously. The lag there is inflation at work.
> But the supply for most 'not-rich-man goods' is made of commodities...
Desireable housing near good jobs, high quality education, effective health care, child care in a regulatory environment, convenient transportation. These are not highly elastic. That's a lot of most people's expenses if they can be afforded.
> And the increased productivity/value from the economy...
How does paying people not to work increase available labor to apply to productive endeavors?
> ...have a deflationary aspect that you're not considering.
How does handing someone $5 increase the intrinsic value of any good?
>How does handing someone $5 increase the intrinsic value of any good?
You should go back and re-read what I wrote. Might be beneficial to check out an econ 101 book so you kind of understand deflation as well as inflation, and just generally how the value of money works.
Which is partly why there's so much opposition from the powers that be. Similar for universal healthcare - these things reduce the amount of power employers have over employees.
“The moment you start having a direct transfer mechanism like that in democracy, you're basically doing away with capitalism which is the engine of economic growth. You're also forcing the entrepreneur out, or telling them not to come here."
"People who are down on their luck, they're not looking for handouts. It's not just about money, it's also about status and meaning. The moment I start giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made you a second class citizen.”
It's possible that many more people would want to become entrepreneurs, given that there would be a social safety net if they failed. Right now, most entrepreneurs come from an upper middle-class background, often with financial assistance and cushioning from their parents.
And the thing about UBI is that everybody gets money, even Bill Gates. So nobody's a second class citizen.