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Silicon Valley Continues To Explore Universal Basic Incomes (siliconvalley.com)
A Silicon Valley Congressman "is pushing for a plan that has been described as a first step toward universal basic income...a long-shot $1 trillion expansion to the earned income tax credit that is already available to low-income families." An anonymous reader quotes the Mecury News:
Stanford University also has created a Basic Income Lab to study the idea, and the San Francisco city treasurer's office has said it's designing pilot tests -- though the department told this news organization it has no updates on the status of that project... The problem is that giving all Americans a $10,000 annual income would cost upwards of $3 trillion a year -- more than three-fourths of the federal budget, said Bob Greenstein, president of Washington, D.C.-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Some proponents advocate funding the move by cutting programs like food stamps and Medicaid. But that approach would take money set aside for low-income families and redistribute it upward, exacerbating poverty and inequality, Greenstein said... Jennifer Lin, deputy director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, is skeptical that basic income can do much lasting good in Oakland. What the city needs is more high-paying jobs and affordable housing, she said... The idea, [Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator] said at the Commonwealth Club, tackles the question not enough people are asking: "What do we as the tech industry do to solve the problem that we're helping to create?"
This summer Y Combinator is expected to announce a larger Universal Basic Income program, though the article also describes "small pilot studies" in the 1960s and 1970s in Canada and in several U.S. states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Iowa and Indiana, where "Some studies showed improvements in participants' physical and mental health, and found children performed better in school or stayed in school longer. But some also showed that people receiving a basic income were inclined to spend fewer hours working."
This summer Y Combinator is expected to announce a larger Universal Basic Income program, though the article also describes "small pilot studies" in the 1960s and 1970s in Canada and in several U.S. states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Iowa and Indiana, where "Some studies showed improvements in participants' physical and mental health, and found children performed better in school or stayed in school longer. But some also showed that people receiving a basic income were inclined to spend fewer hours working."
allow this to happen since they want to force everyone to work, which is slavery.
Verses the Democrats that want to redistribute money from the people who work for it, against their wills, which is theft.
Perhaps instead of one line sound bites, we should look at the actual problems?
The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer.
The real problem is jobs being replaced by machines, A.I., etc. This should decrease the costs of those goods and services. But instead, it's making the rich richer and the poor unable to afford those goods and services because they're out of work.
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The people of Alpha Centauri were happy to hear about this.
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Okay this universal basic income is too generalized for what needs to be taken care of. It needs to be a specialized approach to be economically viable.
You can't just give money away, and let people spend it on ipads.
What you need is to take care of the most abundant things in the world, that tend to be the most lacking, that are the most essential and cover those.
Universal food program. Everyone is entitled to a certain amount of food per month.
Universal housing program. North america, massive land space, utilization is low, but somehow you can't find a place to live.
Universal transit - Public transit shouldn't have execs making huge bonuses, it should be a non profit system run by the government. Need it for work and getting around with huge stores pushing out stores to be spread instead of small towns having everything close by.
Universal utilities - Basic amount of energy and water allowed to people at no cost.
I give you - Universal essentials. Besides the transit, land is huge and cheap, food is tons, cheap, and tons thrown out, and renewables are driving down utility prices.
This works out way better as it puts in more effort at reducing the cost of these items, so the government doesn't have to spend a ton of money for someone to have the essentials while a company rakes in the profit. Maybe costs + 10% or something for items part of the program.
Want to do business in north america? Your company in these sectors will have to offer at cost prices for the basic amount for individuals. It won't take money from you. Your profit is on non essential items, premium items. People who choose to purchase beyond their basic allotted amounts.
Companies will go "Fuck you I'll go elsewhere since I won't make as much and you'll have no food etc!"
Go ahead, the more companies that leave, the more business for the ones that stay, so they'll still be quite profitable.
>"Some proponents advocate funding the move by cutting programs like food stamps and Medicaid. But that approach would take money set aside for low-income families and redistribute it"
If it does not *replace* all the other social income and welfare programs, then what is the purpose? That is the only way it could even remotely be affordable; and even then, it is still questionable. Basic income is not based on need, it is based on equality- that everyone would get an amount of subsistence money, regardless of what they choose to earn or already have. A program with zero red tape, almost no overhead, and without trying to create standards for who supposedly "deserves" money. Otherwise, all we would be doing is starting another absolutely massive, unaffordable, unsustainable, unfair, corruptive social welfare program to add to the dozens that already exist.
You might want to look at the history of the idea before you start labeling it incorrectly, I think you'd be surprised.
So here's a solution that should be stable: unless you pay taxes or do something that will bring extra taxes in the future (education, maternity leave), you don't get to vote.
If left unchecked, the dolists would vote themselves extra benefits. "When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic." -- Ben Franklin (quote disputed). But if giving those handouts is the only way those who actually work can keep the political power, they need to keep the basic income high enough (or they'd be voted out again).
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Any 10K per year would entirely replace food stamps and all other welfare measures. Why would you have UBI and still have a foodstamp system? It should also replace the tax threshholds. UBI + flat taxes + no other welfare. That's how you make it work, because it simplifies (abolishes) a whole pile of existing programs that are designed to be redistributive and massively simplifies the tax system.
Greenstein misses the point, while a UBI does pay out to everyone, and you do get some back from eliminating newly redundant programs (not health, though, that needs to be expanded separately, not as part of a UBI), you also increase taxes as well.
If you make it a straight flat tax increase you can adjust the level of the UBI and the tax increase to set the income level where it's break even. The UBI for people above that level is just a tax refund.
Figure out, for example, what the effective and marginal tax rate is at various income levels with a flat tax of 50% and a UBI of $2000/month.
>>"If left unchecked, the dolists would vote themselves extra benefits"
>"So here's a solution that should be stable: unless you pay taxes or do something that will bring extra taxes in the future (education, maternity leave), you don't get to vote."
I have often thought it should be that way (or, similarly, if one is accepting public assistance, he/she can't vote). But, alas, it goes contrary to the Constitution, and that is very unlikely to be changed.
Aren't the rich the guys who pay most of the tax? They are in fact talking about using rich people's money.
Money, get back
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack
Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet
Money, it's a crime
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a rise
It's no surprise that they're giving none away
--excerpted from "Money" - Pink Floyd
And the song remains the same.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I really am tiring of this bs "against their wills" crap wingnuts keep espousing. You idiots keep wanting us to do stuff against our wills all the time, but if it benefits you thats ok? As the latest with Trump and Republicans show, their is no ceiling or floor to your hypocrisy.
1) I don't want my hard earned tax dollars spent on constant wars for oil or whatever, and yet conservatives see no problem with spending tax dollars "against our wills" on the military
2) I dont want my hard earned tax dollars spent on subsidizing old rich white men, but with all the loopholes in the tax code, they have a lower effective tax rate than working class slobs like myself. But you guys keep shoveling tax cuts in their direction "against our wills"
3) I dont think my hard earned tax dollars should be spent subsidizing private schools through vouchers but you guys keep shoveling tax money for voucher programs that are proven not to work or lead to better outcomes.
I think the only way to settle this once and for all, because I know higher level civilization is a concept wingnuts can't accept is to make everything fee-based, including the military. You want to thump your chest, yell Amurica and send troops to foreign lands? you pay for it, and dont force people who don't want that to pay taxes.
I finished reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. The author and his two engineers leave the startup they worked at to create a startup at Y Combinator to create a better version of the Digg toolbar (remember toolbars?) for Google advertisers in 2010. He sold his company and engineers to Twitter and jumped ship to Facebook in a three-way deal. The funny thing is that his engineers made out better than him in the end. As for Y Combinator, I've heard mixed things about their success rate.
Before anyone complains about a flat tax being regressive, a flat tax + UBI is actually progressive.
What I'do like to see is a flat tax plus VAT with a UBI. Split the entire budget (including the UBI) 50-50 between a flat income tax (personal and business) and a VAT. A spending bill is automatically a tax bill.
A UBI of $2000/month ($800 for dependent children), flat tax around 45-50% and VAT around 25% works out as a first approximation. A lot of adjustments would be needed, of course.
Money = work. Make people work to earn it. Universal basic work. IE you can always get a job even if we have to hire people to do something silly like rebuild our infrastructure. All money should represent work. Giving it away devalues it and it has to come from somewhere (taxes) and that is theft.
Aren't the rich the guys who pay most of the tax? They are in fact talking about using rich people's money.
The problem is one of scale. Even if the government took 100% of the wealth of the top 5% it still would be a drop in the bucket. By ny calculations to supply ~320M people $10K/year would cost $3,200,000,000,000 or $3.2 *trillion* dollars...every....single...year!
And, that number will only increase.
The *only* way this is even remotely feasible is if *all* other "social safety net" entitlement programs are halted. No more Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, food assistance, housing assistance, etc etc etc.
Basically it would be removing *all* government assistance in exchange for $10K/year per person. This would actually be a huge savings compared to existing entitlement programs, but at what human cost?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
1. Many Republicans have long been supporters of EITC.
2. It is the Democrats who are generally opposed.
3. EITC is means tested, and requires people to work, so it is pretty much the opposite of UBI.
Expanding EITC has two big advantages over UBI:
1. It is politically realistic.
2. It addresses a real problem rather than an imaginary problem.
EITC addresses inequality, which is a real problem, by applying a negative income tax (subsidy) to people earning low incomes.
UBI addresses the problem of jobs disappearing completely, which is imaginary since there is no evidence that is actually happening.
You need food stamps because the people that receive them prove themselves to be incompetent to manage any money. You give them money and they still won't have food, hell most people that receive food stamps STILL manage to have their kids go hungry.
In my city we actually have a child hunger crisis, free breakfast and lunches in school and even during vacations. Why, BECAUSE corner and liquor stores accept EBT for cigarettes and alcohol all the while our food bank has curbside trucks (walk to the corner of the street and pick up free groceries) and tons of food rotting and spoiling in storage but the parents don't even bring their kids to the programs nor get the free food even though they're "unemployed", the programs are open 12h/day and the state pays their rent.
My significant other, when pregnant, actually managed to get $1200/month worth of groceries between food "checks" (which can be traded for specific items like eggs/milk, twice the trade value at farmers market and quadruple the value at food banks) and state and federal EBT. We actually got so much peanut butter, bread and cereal, they lasted about 6 months after benefits ended (she moved in with me and I make too much money).
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UBI will never work on large scale because giving money doesn't solve any problem.
You practically need to manage people's lives, you tell them they are only allowed to buy food and a bunch of them still manage to go hungry.
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Downside of that solution is that in any society, if the non-voters get too pissed, they start a violent revolution. The benefit of democracy is to allow social change without violence.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"If left unchecked, the dolists would vote themselves extra benefits"
That is not inevitable at all. Just lo9k at the here and now, there are quite a lot of red staters who receive government assistance who regularly vote for fiscal conservatives who often want to cut their benefits.
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If left unchecked, the dolists would vote themselves extra benefits. "When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic." -- Ben Franklin (quote disputed). But if giving those handouts is the only way those who actually work can keep the political power, they need to keep the basic income high enough (or they'd be voted out again).
I'm pretty sure lobbyists, Congresscritters and special-interest groups for rich people, corporations and banks already live by that creed. They routinely "vote themselves money" and get "handouts" - though they would never call them that. It's the less-rich who cannot afford to buy their representation that get screwed.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I have often thought it should be that way (or, similarly, if one is accepting public assistance, he/she can't vote).
I'm retired. My income consists of Social Security and compensation from the VA because I'm 30% disabled. (Service connected.) The compensation isn't considered income for tax purposes, and it's been at least a decade since I've even had to file a tax return. Does that mean that you think that I shouldn't be allowed to vote?
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Before anyone complains about a flat tax being regressive, a flat tax + UBI is actually progressive.
No. You are ignoring the meat of the argument, just like last time. The poor spend a larger percentage of their income on taxes on necessities already. Then they get dinged all over again when it comes to sales taxes. UBI does nothing to change that situation, and a flat tax makes it even worse than it is already. No one should be taxed on their purchases of necessities, but there is no reasonable way to administer such a system, so instead we have a graduated tax rate, and nobody should be paying taxes at all if all the money they are collecting is the UBI, because that would be stupid. It just means that there is overhead in calculating and collecting their taxes, even if you never bother to send them the money and then make them pay it back to you. Much of the point of adopting UBI is to eliminate
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
>I'm retired. My income consists of Social Security and compensation from the VA because I'm 30% disabled. (Service connected.)
I wouldn't think retirement/SS would be considered "public assistance", since you put money into that system for just that purpose. I should think there is a large difference between retirement and someone who chooses not to work.
I was a desperate poor single young man wisely not having kids or getting married while I was shit poor, and I never qualified for EITC.
My equally poor divorced father stopped qualifying for it as soon as I moved out to go to college.
Mom is on disability so doesn't file taxes but I doubt a single woman not supporting a kid would qualify for it either.
There's a "family" of three desperately poor people not filing taxes together because we don't live together and none of us see a lick of this EITC.
A first step toward making a universal basic income would just be making EITC universal. Make poor people, not poor families, get the credit. Then, yeah, expand it from there and it makes a great start. Give every single taxpayer a tax credit of a fixed amount, tax every single taxpayer a fixed percent to fund it (a percent equal to the credit amount over the mean income would make it immediately revenue-neutral), and there you go, you have a universal basic income. Then make tax refunds paid out monthly instead of all at once (and allow tax payments to be made monthly too, to be fair about it) so people don't blow their whole basic income at once right after tax season.
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"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
you tell them they are only allowed to buy food
That's precisely not how UBI works. You don't tell them what to do with the money; you don't check up on them. There are no tests.
You just give them the money, and you save a whole bunch already because you no longer need a staggeringly inefficient bureaucracy to manage it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Productivity has been sky rocketing for decades. Wages have not. That's to be expected. As workers produce more demand for their services declines. Massive changes in technology and society might fix that, but even when they do they take decades to happen.
It doesn't take massive changes, it can be done incrementally. We might eventually get to a UBI but we are not ready for it. There is a much smoother transition. As you state, the reason that jobs are declining is because the supply of labor is greater than the demand for labor. The solution is not to put the people out of work on welfare. That really doesn't reduce the supply of labor as people still want good paying job. Instead of jumping straight from full employment to full idleness, it would be better to evenly distribute both the employment and the idleness. This can easily be done by reducing the work week. If we slowly reduced the workweek by say 5 hours a week per decade then as automation takes over, the number of hours each person works slowly drops to take up the slack. Eventually, we might get to the point where everyone only works 5 hours per week or noone works and everyone gets a UBI but we would have done it without creating two classes of people, the class that works and the class that lives on only what UBI provides instead everyone would still get the benefit of still working and everyone would still get the benefit of more leisure. This is a much smoother transition that trying to force UBI on people with the hope that it somehow magically solves poverty. It won't. But reducing the hours worked at high paying jobs by 5% should instantly create 5% more high paying jobs as those hours presumably still have to be filled by someone.
Surely the point of an UBI is that the UBI is "enough" and that anything beyond that point should be taxed? Say 40% flat.
Earn $0, get $10k/year (UBI).
Earn $10k, get $16k/year ($4k taxes, $10k UBI = $6k net) = -60%
Earn $20k, get $22k/year ($8k taxes, $10k UBI = $2k net) = -10%
Earn $30k, get $28k/year ($12k taxes, $10k UBI = $2k tax) = 6 2/3%
Earn $50k, get $40k/year ($20k taxes, $10k UBI = $10k tax) = 20%
Earn $100k, get $70k/year ($40k taxes, $10k UBI = $30k tax) = 30%
Earn $200k, get $130k/year ($80k taxes, $10k UBI = $70k tax) = 35%
So the break-even in this example would be $25k. But it's not like most under $25k will burden the full amount, if you're working minimum wage you'll be paying over half of it yourself. Those who really cost money are those with no income, but they're probably on some program today, where you could for starters say that the first $10k of any program today is 100% taxed towards your UBI. That is if you get $30k disability pension today, tomorrow you get $20k disability pension, $10k UBI and keep adjusting the system from there. Every dollar you make, you keep 60 cents no funny limits or drops or brackets etc.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't think pilot studies are worth much, because people will act drastically differently when given a guaranteed income for a few years, compared to a guaranteed income for life.
I think the best way to do pilot studies would be to get some of the state lotteries involved. They could easily set up a lottery where the winner wins 10k or 20k for life. Then you could really see if a UBI works. From what I've heard about most lottery winners, it doesn't usually end well.
Why don't we start with food as a UBI instead? Just make a certain basket of foods, the basics - fruits, veggies, grains, etc., free to all.
We already massively subsidize farms. With the savings from eliminating SNAP and other related programs, we might not even need to taxes to do it.
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic." -- Ben Franklin (quote disputed)
Kinda seems like you were trying to rack that quote to justify your seemingly unfounded opinion.
Here's the real quote from the real author:
âoeThe American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.â
â Alexis de Tocqueville
The root of the problem is not the common people, it's how they are handled by the higher classes. They are just hungry and confused and not particularly conscious.
Of course they are going to act on base instinct. Obviously they aren't organizing and hatching plans to "steal" "free" stuff from "hard workers". That's what the upper classes do. They organize to get more stuff. But when they do it most people tickle their balls with compliments and say they "earned" it.
The immediate problem isn't even the elite, it's the middle class. They have access to both worlds, but are utterly complacent with this resources, refusing to look into things for themselves and direct their own educations. Until the middle class stands up and revolts against the elite, every evil of the world will continue to proliferate.
I have often thought it should be that way (or, similarly, if one is accepting public assistance, he/she can't vote). But, alas
That's a pretty fucked up view. Do you think you will never be in that situation? All it takes is one major health crisis to end up losing your ability to work. That's something totally beyond your control.
If what you need right now is to feel superior to other people, then I'm not about to take that crutch away from you. I do wish that you remain in good health and continue to prosper. I do hope, however, that you eventually learn a measure of compassion for people who through no fault of their own are not quite as fortunate as you.
Then who pays for the national health ? The people out actualy working. Costing them more and those not working nothing. Im not sure i enjoy paying for other people.....
The concept of retirement is less clear cut in the US, as you have a multitude of concepts, so let's take a look at Poland: you pay a special tax ("ZUS") then, once you reach the retirement age, you receive money according to a formula somewhat based on the amount you paid. You don't have the option to take the money as a lump sum, once your monthly payout is set it can't "run out", your family doesn't inherit the rest if you kick the bucket early (or even before retirement).
This system has lots of unfairness: for example, some groups (miners, policemen, etc) get to retire at a very early age yet receive far bigger pay, farmers are special-cased as they pay a ridiculously low tax ("KRUS") yet receive as much money as the rest, women get to retire 5 years earlier (despite living 8 years longer on the average) yet get the same monthly payment despite having paid less and receiving it 13 years longer, the retirement pay depends on politicians' good will (they always promise massive increases before an election, then universally don't deliver), and so on. But the general concept is simple.
It is obviously not a form of public assistance -- you get back some money you paid for. And in fact, it's a tiny share of what you'd get had you put that tax's worth into a proverbial sock.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Show me a quote where he says his taxes should be lower.
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Im not sure i enjoy paying for other people.....
Why not? They're paying for you.
Or do you personally hire your own security forces to protect your assets against being siezed by the first gang of thugs that comes along, own your own fire-fighting equipment, pave your own streets and so forth?
The so called republicans (really neo fascists now) have spent the past three or four decades redistributing money. To the wealthy. That's why there's a monstrous wealth disparity in this country.
And they were doing this with a Democratic House, Senate, and President? Damn! They sure are good!