everyone has a personal project that gets sidelined for their work.
For many people that project is to watch their favorite TV shows while eating their favorite ice cream.
For many people that project is to watch their favorite TV shows while eating their favorite ice cream.
Just look at people who inherit or win large sums of money - a few of them end up just enjoying themselves, but most use the money to follow a cause that they think is something worthwhile. There's no reason to believe the same wouldn't be true (on a smaller scale) for a minimum income.
And yes, I am a programmer. You can end up in shit as one too. I made some bad work choices before and ended up pretty much not being paid for half a year.
Basically, the argument is that "poor people do stupid stuff" because their "intelligence bandwidth" is being sucked up by worry about where to find the next meal/rental payment/etc. leaving no brainpower for what we well-off and spoilt folk would call "constructive pursuits".
Can you link to the source you're talking about? I'd like to know more about what you're referring to.
The studies about people that win money that I've seen paint a different picture: 75% lose it all within 5 years by not spending wisely. It's the same with professional sports players and it's gotten so bad, they have started getting them mandatory professional money managers. I believe there is a Netflix documentary about it called "broke".
People that inherit money also end up losing their money at crazy rates unless they already had good money management skills/work for a living/were taught these skills by their parents.
I don't see how this would be any different with a basic income. Not to mention the inflation caused by it. For starters, all businesses will have their prices raised automatically to pay for the new taxes imposed on them.
In the very beginning, it might be okay in terms of economics. However, as the years go on, more and more people will start relying on this basic income and we will have entire generations of people depending on it to live.
Costs will only increase and there will be less people actually contributing to the tax base, so the only way to continue to pay for it is tax increases on the middle class and everyone else making a living. It's basically just another wealth transfer scheme to people that never earned it.
The sad fact is that the vast majority of people never really appreciate things they haven't earned and although a basic income sounds nice in theory, it's a flawed idea that is doomed to fail.
The problem here is the rate of job automation vs. job creation right now. There's a lot of indicators suggesting we're reaching - or have reached - the tipping point here. We need a strategy for giving people breathing space to adapt to job destruction. That might be a basic income, or a government backed re-training program perhaps. But the latter supposes that there are enough jobs to go for when they re-train. And the one big growth area, IT, is really limited to those with some some degree of innate talent. Think about all those truckers and taxi drivers who are going to see their jobs eliminated by maybe 2030.
The idea of a basic income does not imply a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the poor or indeed anyone. You could set up a basic income system tomorrow in your country of choice and set the level of basic income and tax levels so that everyone, at least in the beginning, was receiving the same amount of cash they were before.
One advantage of the idea is that the poor would be more likely to find work because the marginal reward is so much better, leading to more wealth overall and sharing out the tax burden more. At least in theory.
With all due respect, you are only thinking about basic income at step 1. I laid out what will happen at step 10..which is essentially a wealth distribution system.
"You could set up a basic income system tomorrow in your country of choice and set the level of basic income and tax levels so that everyone, at least in the beginning, was receiving the same amount of cash they were before."
Where do you think the money comes from to support a basic income? Who do you think pays for it?
"One advantage of the idea is that the poor would be more likely to find work because the marginal reward is so much better"
How so? Many poor people will be content with not finding work and just living on basic income. Minimum wage will also need to be well above what they are getting from the government, further contributing to inflation.
"leading to more wealth overall and sharing out the tax burden more. At least in theory."
You are only looking at it from one very small part of it.
Living in Norway it is perfectly possible to slack off on the taxpayers' bill if you want to, but society doesn't collapse. People would rather avoid the low status associated with living on the dole than avoid work.
I think in Norway it would end up with much worse results than in the US. I think Norwegians in this case would vote for some kind of nazi stuff. It's enough for you to have a few immigrants here and there to become extreme right.
So, please don't compare and don't think you are any better. You are not.
I really fail to see how this can be anything other than an argument for more fair/equal wealth distribution in the world. If most countries had similar schemes, then why would the "good for nothing immigrants" go to supposedly scrounge in the US?
You do realise that if you redistributed wealth over the world, you would be drastically worse off don't you...
Don't "overunderstimate" the reason of the average reader here and don't be discouraged by the down vote.
"Zwei mal drei macht vier, widewidewitt und drei macht neune, ich mach mir die Welt, widewide wie sie mir gefällt."
I'd be drastically better off.
If you refer to the current government, consider that the junior partner in the current government that is considered "extreme right" by Norwegian standards would mostly be Democrats by US standards. E.g. a substantial proportion of them are in favour of continuing most of a welfare system that would get even many Democrats in hysterics over socialism.
By Norwegian standards, the majority of the US Congress is "extreme right" and threatening "US conditions" is a well established way of scaring people.