My general plan: Around $6k/year, paid in monthly installments of approximately $500 per person. This happens to be the federal poverty line for a household of 4. I'll also listen to proposals for $8k per adult, $4k per child(perhaps sliding by age?). Eliminate all other non-medical welfare payments. Restructure the tax system. It was neater before Trump changed things up, but basically eliminate the first two tax brackets and bump up the 3rd by 1-2% to pay for it. You don't need the lower tax brackets with the UBI providing initial support. Payments are limited to US Citizens who are in country for a similar period as required eligibility for the Alaskan PFD. Non-Citizen legal residents and citizens who fail to meet the eligibility requirements get an equivalent non-refundable credit.
The goal is mainly to streamline the welfare system, eliminating welfare cliffs that encourage people to NOT work. With a proper UBI, you are always better off earning more money, as I'm only taxing it back at around 25%, could be as high as 33%, once you figure in state adjustments. Yes, this means that you'd only start paying federal taxes at $24k of income per person, maybe as low as $18k. Remember, this is per person income, not household. So the system is quite heavily progressive.
1. My definition is closer to subsistence. Basically, I'm for $6k/year, which is the federal poverty line in a grouping of four. Since I'm agnostic about somebody's actual living circumstances under the program, obviously some will be able to have more material comforts than others. The way I look at it, paying more for single person households, per person, just encourages people to live alone. The idea is to give them unrestricted money, allowing them to maximize their happiness/comfort with their specific situation, rather than having the government trying to tell them how to live. IE food stamps - you MUST spend $X on food, even if that is more food budget than you need, but you need to fix your car more urgently, etc...
2. This is tricky, I generally toss this stuff over to the medical side. IE you'd get social workers from medicare/medicaid, not through the morass of different welfare systems. My libertarianism is for great freedom and responsibility for competent adults. If they aren't a competent adult, such as you describe, or children, of course they need to be taken care of and protected.
3. Look towards WWII, I guess. Massive labour shortage there. Basically, as long as you haven't indexed the UBI too tightly to inflation, what would happen is that wages would start rising, inflating the cost of goods and services. The relative wages for working would rise, the relative lifestyle solely dependent upon the UBI would fall, and more people would get jobs.
4. Implementing a UBI as I would have the program should result in minimal amounts of inflation. Changes in housing costs forcing people to relocate? Probably. I'm mean like that. I'd compare it to being on a sinking ship, if you can no longer afford the rent you'll probably find yourself being unable to afford the other stuff shortly enough. You SHOULD move in such cases, as it is ultimately better for all. States and cities may, at their discretion, supplement the UBI with their own programs, of course.
5. This is a philosophical question where my first thought is "how many people live meaningful lives with employment?" I'll point out that "employment" is a fairly new thing. Even then, years ago you had around half the population solely concerned with running the household, and many of them found it meaningful. I guess it is up to the individual.
Actually, Alaska has what is known as a "permanent fund". Oil money goes into the PF, and payouts are from the dividends of the fund, and are averaged over several years of income. The payments are currently around 1/3 to 1/6th what even I think a UBI should pay out for the states.
It is structured such that the money should never run out.
From what I understand of the studies done on the Alaska PFD, it has been moderately successful at limiting poverty, limited by how much it is and that it is only paid out once a year.
There have been at least 3 recent experiments at UBI. One in Norway, one in Canada, and one in the U.S. (State, not Federal).
There was also an old one in Canada. Still, as a supporter of having a UBI, I have felt that the mentioned programs all had issues. It's like trying to test the diesel fuel cycle using a gasoline engine. Apples and Oranges.
Sweden tried something similar quite a while ago. It wasn't exactly UBI but the effect was about the same. According to a Swedish fellow who worked at my company, "Back home, if you don't want to work you just don't. You still collect a nice 'paycheck' from the government every month."
Here's the problem, the paycheck was nice. Nothing about a UBI mandates that it has to be a large payment.
Personally, for the USA I'd peg the amount at around $6k/year per person, and that is with eliminating all other non-medical forms of welfare. Most UBI proposals I see are for 2-3 times that. Nope. No way. The UBI should be like the equivalent of minimum wage - so rock bottom that while you might be able to live on it, it isn't going to be pretty. Get some roommates, a bus pass, not a car, etc...
Probiotics are bacteria. Lactobacillus is a type of bacteria.
Uh... Yeah? I didn't say anything different?
Basically, the researcher was saying that bacteria aren't really supposed to be in the small intestine, mostly the colon and lower. Even then, there are limits to how much bacterial loading is good.
Perhaps on NPR they were saying the fermented foods have less noxiousbacteria than probiotic preparations.
Nope, most of the concern was that the probiotic preparations were dumping their loads in inappropriate sections of the gut in inappropriate amounts.
To use an analogy, you put gasoline in your fuel tank. Pouring gasoline over your engine directly isn't good for your car. To him, probiotics were like tossing gasoline on/in random sections of your car, or at least, they couldn't guarantee that the gas they were pouring was into the fuel tank. Or that they weren't trying to pour 100 gallons into a 20 gallon tank... Most of the time the gas would just evaporate, but you still have an increased risk of a car fire.
The amount of bacteria in many fermented foods exceeds probiotics dosages. They might not be very beneficial, but they're probably not very harmful either. They certainly have an effect on the gut biome. In some cases certain strains have been shown to be beneficial, through immune system modulation, for certain conditions, such as in the natural treatment of eczma - there are efforts ongoing to commercialize on this.
I actually heard about the probiotic stuff on NPR where they were talking to a researcher. He said the exact opposite - that fermented foods were superior to many probiotic preparations such as pills because they didn't have as much bacteria, and were mixed with other materials that would help with digestion and ensuring that the consumed bacteria didn't overwhelm where they weren't supposed to.
Actually, it kind of does. Or at least, I'm not looking solely at housing, but looking more towards cost of living.
The Federal poverty line, rounding to nearest thousand, is a simple formula. It is basically $8k + $4k*number of people. So, household of 1? $12k for federal poverty line. Household of 2? $16k. For this reason while I start at $6k, I say that I can be talked up to $8k. 3? $20k 4? $24k. Done. Household sizes beyond 4 start getting a little more complicated though, especially if you're talking "roommates" that are not related to each other.
And getting a sitting tenant out against their will is incredibly difficult, and can take years of court proceedings, all while no rent is being paid.
Then the solution is to make evictions easier to do, as well as enabling shitty "pay as you go" long term motel type living for those who can't manage to pay a monthly rent bill even with guaranteed income.
They lose the big screen TV a couple times because they didn't pay their rent and ended up on their asses in the cold with nowhere to store the TV and they'll learn. As you mention, they're successful with the current system at really dragging out the eviction process, and they know and exploit that. Fix the exploit. You have some of this even in the USA.
So the idea is to take the people who are working now, earning 60-150k/yr as middle class citizens and when all their jobs disappear we replace it with taxes on those who have ended up with all the wealth, knowledge, invention, and processes the middle and lower classes have almost exclusively generated over the past couple hundred years set at a rate that fixes them at the federal poverty line?
Do both. Have a fixed $6k UBI that is occasionally adjusted by congress, and a 1% income tax that goes towards the sovereign wealth fund, which pays out to everybody.
Eventually it would get to be large enough to live alone on with some luxuries.
The main point is that I found your proposal for the stock split thing to be a huge immediate taking, my proposal was to be a lot more gradual.
Even then you can have a inflation scalation: poor people are selective on their buyings vs average in a way directly tied to the basic food basket i.e.: more towards potatoes than cars. Increasing demand on those items will certainly grow their price up to the equilibrium point (that is, up to whatever the enhanced purse of those below minimum can afford) and, with this, everything else will come later. If you want for UBI to stay Basic, you'll need to increase it's value to counter inflation on those basic items and then go back to square one.
However, the basic goods that most poor people purchase have marginal cost increases of darn near zero. A few more potato fields planted to satisfy their increased demand, some more microwaves, toasters, and what not manufactured isn't going to move the price appreciably.
If you want for UBI to stay Basic, you'll need to increase it's value to counter inflation on those basic items and then go back to square one.
I'd argue that it is mostly a limited function, the price increases would be incredibly modest.
The worse case scenario in our future is not a civilization that can not productive enough to offer basic support for everybody, but a civilization that can not offer jobs for everybody to get their share on that productivity. The answer is obvious: do not tie access to goods to job-based incomes; the non-answer is also obvious: do not give "money for free". Money is not goods, just a proxy for goods... provided inflation doesn't eat it, which is the obvious output of UBI, and one that supports current statu quo of increasing inequality. No wonder those that would lose the more with a proper solution in place are pushing for the non-solution instead.
Okay: 1. Inflation as you describe would only happen if we're printing money for the UBI. I propose funding it through tax increases though, 2. Most people will have about the same amount of money before and after. I will not dispute that there will be winners who get more money and losers who get less, but it all should be more or less even.
Giving them money rather than goods creates a minimum amount of arbitrage though.
However, taxes are somewhat higher, so they need to make that up. My plan is to eliminate the lower tax brackets, so the starting rate is the 32% or so. The idea is that the middle class and higher are more or less unaffected.
Yes, they get the UBI as well. It's just that it is taxed back by the time you reach around middle class income.
No, not from tax payers. From the people who were previously receiving larger amounts of welfare, from efficiency gains in the system, and such.
As for need, there is a reason I put quotes around it. In economics "needs" are more wants in many cases. $6k is enough, in a group of 4, to reach the poverty line. By the time you have a group of 4, odds are somebody is going to be able to find a job to supplement it more.
It is a form of welfare, but one that minimizes paperwork, expenses, social engineering, and unfairness.
"market forces" cant adjust to a massive new tax to pay for a UBI.
Sure it can. What you're failing to realize that with a UBI, every dollar from the new taxes to pay for it is also flowing right back out in the form of payments.
The way I'd pay for my modest ($6k/year per person) UBI would be to eliminate the tax brackets below 32%, as well as eliminating other welfare programs. What this does is create a situation where the middle class and above income levels stay virtually identical. The increased efficiency of welfare programs, as well as the increased efficiency of cash payments vs goods in kind, which creates arbitrage situations where money isn't efficiently spent to meet the household's needs, means that for the lower class who are getting more money, they're pretty much covered by existing welfare payments.
I'll note that this is a fairly rough estimate, all figures are estimates, as I don't have access to data granular enough, nor have the time to figure it out down to cents.
People expecting to live on a UBI will find that their UBI pays for nothing they expected and need.
Here's a question. Do you understand what "living on just the UBI sucks enough that most people still end up working" means? I don't give a shit if it doesn't pay what they expect or "need". If it doesn't cover that, they can go find work.
To me, the UBI is a cheaper form of welfare without the cliffs that encourage people to NOT work on the current system, or to under-work in order to maintain eligibility. If somebody can maintain a crime-free existence off of $6k/year, more power to them.
6k/yr, seriously? Where can you live on 6k/yr? You'd need to increase that at least five fold.
Very few places. But you have to remember that it is $6k/year per person, not per household. A household of 4 people together, because the BIG is agnostic of that stuff, is $24k/year, which is right on the federal poverty line for a household of 4.
If you're completely unemployed and dependent upon the BIG, living alone is a luxury you don't get.
As for your funding proposal, I agree with the concept of having what amounts to a sovereign wealth fund, but I'd prefer to fund it with a 1% or so income tax. Maybe even a property tax. Anyways, the incoming money is used to purchase stock in companies in an index fund type manner.
Payments would be an average of the last 5 years or so of income from the stock, with some held back to maintain fund value in the face of inflation, etc... Don't bother paying out until the amount hits $500/year per person.
Well, good thing I had a tax increase to pay for the UBI in the post you replied to, right?
The important point is that, once you eliminate other forms of welfare and plow that money into the BIG, the additional taxes only need to more or less neutralize the BIG for middle class and above income earners.
So, while technically a tax increase, actually revenue neutral to most people.
I'm curious as to how you think that this could reduce wages. My line of thinking is that with a substantial portion of people looking at just staying home if the pay isn't worth it, that pay will have to increase to lure people out.
As such, businesses that assume they can pay less because of the UBI will discover that said potential employees decide that just staying home is better.
I figure that market forces will tend to adjust such that living on just the UBI sucks enough, and working improves that enough, that most people still end up working.
So basically,they clawed back a substantial amount of every additional dollar recipients earned - to the tune of 50-80% if I'm reading correctly. That's not a UBI, that's just a welfare program with a slightly gentler benefit cliff, from which one would reasonably expect a reduced but still appreciable disincentive to work.
Indeed. When I've looked at the issue for my proposed $6k UBI, I've set the "clawback" at a relatively gentle 30-33%. It was even "Reverse progressive" because I did it by eliminating the lowest income tax brackets, so the $4k exemption was gone, as were the 10 and 15 brackets, everything was 32%. The UBI wasn't completely eliminated until about $30k of income if you considered previous tax rates, though becoming "tax neutral" happened sooner, at about $18k.
I've been a proponent for a $6k annual BIG for a long time.
I think that what you are missing is household size. The federal poverty line is roughly $8k for a household, plus $4k per person in it. So a 1 person household has a poverty line of $12k. 2 people is $16k and 4 is $24k.
$1k/month each person for 4 people living together is the poverty line, and encourages efficiency.
Unlike current welfare plans, where living with somebody else may cost you benefits.
Finally, remember that you aren't penalized for working, most people on welfare currently do work, but there are frequently penalties were the person on welfare loses more benefits than the income they gain. They're called welfare cliffs.
I disagree, it is only if the UBI is excessive, if we don't eliminate other forms of welfare at the same time, etc...
I figure that a modest UBI can be funded with existing welfare spending combined with eliminating the lowest tax brackets. You don't need them if people are getting about $6k/year up front.
I think that what has happened here is that a fluff piece was written about a greenhouse that is performing actual science, but the science part was lost as it went over the head of the reporter.
It looks like they're testing various aeroponic setups, and might even be testing different strains of various plants.
Plus, while we know how to do it, they may be going for more exact numbers. How many days and hours? How much artificial light? What temperature? How much water? Etc...
The fact that it gives the scientists and workers down there fresh produce is a bonus.
That's actually true, it is the way statistics work.
Let's say that AI cars have a 'true rate' of 100M miles between fatal accidents, somewhat better than human. Or they could be 50M miles, somewhat worse. The technology is still in development, so who can say.
The fatal accident can happen anywhere in that 100/50 million miles. It could happen mile 1. Mile 20M. Mile 99,999,999.
Spreading that even more, you could have 200M miles with 2 deaths, and have both happen in the first 100M, second 100M, etc... It's really 1/100,000,000th chance of death per mile. You could get multiple deaths, or no deaths.
The only way to nail the real rate down with any degree off accuracy is to have multiple occurrences. Which in this case means more deaths.
Fewer ads is a good start, I'd argue for getting rid of cable boxes entirely and better customer service is always good.
But a la carte wouldn't actually save you money, really. Not in most cases.
Because they know roughly what the viewerships are. Get channels individually? They ramp up the prices per channel. You end up paying as much as you did for the buffet for just the channels you watch, can't watch something special/unusual on a station you don't normally get (what if your parents come over?), as well as an amount for the systems needed to be that specific.
Most of the channels you get with the basic package are basically free for the cable company to offer because the channel is ad supported.
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I'm a libertarian who supports an UBI program:
My general plan:
Around $6k/year, paid in monthly installments of approximately $500 per person. This happens to be the federal poverty line for a household of 4. I'll also listen to proposals for $8k per adult, $4k per child(perhaps sliding by age?).
Eliminate all other non-medical welfare payments.
Restructure the tax system. It was neater before Trump changed things up, but basically eliminate the first two tax brackets and bump up the 3rd by 1-2% to pay for it. You don't need the lower tax brackets with the UBI providing initial support.
Payments are limited to US Citizens who are in country for a similar period as required eligibility for the Alaskan PFD. Non-Citizen legal residents and citizens who fail to meet the eligibility requirements get an equivalent non-refundable credit.
The goal is mainly to streamline the welfare system, eliminating welfare cliffs that encourage people to NOT work. With a proper UBI, you are always better off earning more money, as I'm only taxing it back at around 25%, could be as high as 33%, once you figure in state adjustments. Yes, this means that you'd only start paying federal taxes at $24k of income per person, maybe as low as $18k. Remember, this is per person income, not household. So the system is quite heavily progressive.
1. My definition is closer to subsistence. Basically, I'm for $6k/year, which is the federal poverty line in a grouping of four. Since I'm agnostic about somebody's actual living circumstances under the program, obviously some will be able to have more material comforts than others. The way I look at it, paying more for single person households, per person, just encourages people to live alone. The idea is to give them unrestricted money, allowing them to maximize their happiness/comfort with their specific situation, rather than having the government trying to tell them how to live. IE food stamps - you MUST spend $X on food, even if that is more food budget than you need, but you need to fix your car more urgently, etc...
2. This is tricky, I generally toss this stuff over to the medical side. IE you'd get social workers from medicare/medicaid, not through the morass of different welfare systems. My libertarianism is for great freedom and responsibility for competent adults. If they aren't a competent adult, such as you describe, or children, of course they need to be taken care of and protected.
3. Look towards WWII, I guess. Massive labour shortage there. Basically, as long as you haven't indexed the UBI too tightly to inflation, what would happen is that wages would start rising, inflating the cost of goods and services. The relative wages for working would rise, the relative lifestyle solely dependent upon the UBI would fall, and more people would get jobs.
4. Implementing a UBI as I would have the program should result in minimal amounts of inflation. Changes in housing costs forcing people to relocate? Probably. I'm mean like that. I'd compare it to being on a sinking ship, if you can no longer afford the rent you'll probably find yourself being unable to afford the other stuff shortly enough. You SHOULD move in such cases, as it is ultimately better for all. States and cities may, at their discretion, supplement the UBI with their own programs, of course.
5. This is a philosophical question where my first thought is "how many people live meaningful lives with employment?" I'll point out that "employment" is a fairly new thing. Even then, years ago you had around half the population solely concerned with running the household, and many of them found it meaningful. I guess it is up to the individual.
Actually, Alaska has what is known as a "permanent fund". Oil money goes into the PF, and payouts are from the dividends of the fund, and are averaged over several years of income. The payments are currently around 1/3 to 1/6th what even I think a UBI should pay out for the states.
It is structured such that the money should never run out.
From what I understand of the studies done on the Alaska PFD, it has been moderately successful at limiting poverty, limited by how much it is and that it is only paid out once a year.
There have been at least 3 recent experiments at UBI. One in Norway, one in Canada, and one in the U.S. (State, not Federal).
There was also an old one in Canada. Still, as a supporter of having a UBI, I have felt that the mentioned programs all had issues. It's like trying to test the diesel fuel cycle using a gasoline engine. Apples and Oranges.
Sweden tried something similar quite a while ago. It wasn't exactly UBI but the effect was about the same. According to a Swedish fellow who worked at my company, "Back home, if you don't want to work you just don't. You still collect a nice 'paycheck' from the government every month."
Here's the problem, the paycheck was nice. Nothing about a UBI mandates that it has to be a large payment.
Personally, for the USA I'd peg the amount at around $6k/year per person, and that is with eliminating all other non-medical forms of welfare. Most UBI proposals I see are for 2-3 times that. Nope. No way. The UBI should be like the equivalent of minimum wage - so rock bottom that while you might be able to live on it, it isn't going to be pretty. Get some roommates, a bus pass, not a car, etc...
Want spending money? Work for it.
Probiotics are bacteria. Lactobacillus is a type of bacteria.
Uh... Yeah? I didn't say anything different?
Basically, the researcher was saying that bacteria aren't really supposed to be in the small intestine, mostly the colon and lower. Even then, there are limits to how much bacterial loading is good.
Perhaps on NPR they were saying the fermented foods have less noxiousbacteria than probiotic preparations.
Nope, most of the concern was that the probiotic preparations were dumping their loads in inappropriate sections of the gut in inappropriate amounts.
To use an analogy, you put gasoline in your fuel tank. Pouring gasoline over your engine directly isn't good for your car. To him, probiotics were like tossing gasoline on/in random sections of your car, or at least, they couldn't guarantee that the gas they were pouring was into the fuel tank. Or that they weren't trying to pour 100 gallons into a 20 gallon tank... Most of the time the gas would just evaporate, but you still have an increased risk of a car fire.
The amount of bacteria in many fermented foods exceeds probiotics dosages. They might not be very beneficial, but they're probably not very harmful either. They certainly have an effect on the gut biome. In some cases certain strains have been shown to be beneficial, through immune system modulation, for certain conditions, such as in the natural treatment of eczma - there are efforts ongoing to commercialize on this.
I actually heard about the probiotic stuff on NPR where they were talking to a researcher. He said the exact opposite - that fermented foods were superior to many probiotic preparations such as pills because they didn't have as much bacteria, and were mixed with other materials that would help with digestion and ensuring that the consumed bacteria didn't overwhelm where they weren't supposed to.
Might as well hire someone to break up with your significant other too.
Actually, that service already exists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Let's see, we have:
1. Ad hominem
2. False Dilemma
3. Appeal to the Stone
4. Proof by assertion/argument from repetition
Actually, it kind of does. Or at least, I'm not looking solely at housing, but looking more towards cost of living.
The Federal poverty line, rounding to nearest thousand, is a simple formula. It is basically $8k + $4k*number of people.
So, household of 1? $12k for federal poverty line.
Household of 2? $16k. For this reason while I start at $6k, I say that I can be talked up to $8k.
3? $20k
4? $24k. Done. Household sizes beyond 4 start getting a little more complicated though, especially if you're talking "roommates" that are not related to each other.
And getting a sitting tenant out against their will is incredibly difficult, and can take years of court proceedings, all while no rent is being paid.
Then the solution is to make evictions easier to do, as well as enabling shitty "pay as you go" long term motel type living for those who can't manage to pay a monthly rent bill even with guaranteed income.
They lose the big screen TV a couple times because they didn't pay their rent and ended up on their asses in the cold with nowhere to store the TV and they'll learn. As you mention, they're successful with the current system at really dragging out the eviction process, and they know and exploit that. Fix the exploit. You have some of this even in the USA.
So the idea is to take the people who are working now, earning 60-150k/yr as middle class citizens and when all their jobs disappear we replace it with taxes on those who have ended up with all the wealth, knowledge, invention, and processes the middle and lower classes have almost exclusively generated over the past couple hundred years set at a rate that fixes them at the federal poverty line?
Do both. Have a fixed $6k UBI that is occasionally adjusted by congress, and a 1% income tax that goes towards the sovereign wealth fund, which pays out to everybody.
Eventually it would get to be large enough to live alone on with some luxuries.
The main point is that I found your proposal for the stock split thing to be a huge immediate taking, my proposal was to be a lot more gradual.
Even then you can have a inflation scalation: poor people are selective on their buyings vs average in a way directly tied to the basic food basket i.e.: more towards potatoes than cars. Increasing demand on those items will certainly grow their price up to the equilibrium point (that is, up to whatever the enhanced purse of those below minimum can afford) and, with this, everything else will come later. If you want for UBI to stay Basic, you'll need to increase it's value to counter inflation on those basic items and then go back to square one.
However, the basic goods that most poor people purchase have marginal cost increases of darn near zero. A few more potato fields planted to satisfy their increased demand, some more microwaves, toasters, and what not manufactured isn't going to move the price appreciably.
If you want for UBI to stay Basic, you'll need to increase it's value to counter inflation on those basic items and then go back to square one.
I'd argue that it is mostly a limited function, the price increases would be incredibly modest.
The worse case scenario in our future is not a civilization that can not productive enough to offer basic support for everybody, but a civilization that can not offer jobs for everybody to get their share on that productivity. The answer is obvious: do not tie access to goods to job-based incomes; the non-answer is also obvious: do not give "money for free". Money is not goods, just a proxy for goods... provided inflation doesn't eat it, which is the obvious output of UBI, and one that supports current statu quo of increasing inequality. No wonder those that would lose the more with a proper solution in place are pushing for the non-solution instead.
Okay:
1. Inflation as you describe would only happen if we're printing money for the UBI. I propose funding it through tax increases though,
2. Most people will have about the same amount of money before and after. I will not dispute that there will be winners who get more money and losers who get less, but it all should be more or less even.
Giving them money rather than goods creates a minimum amount of arbitrage though.
However, taxes are somewhat higher, so they need to make that up. My plan is to eliminate the lower tax brackets, so the starting rate is the 32% or so. The idea is that the middle class and higher are more or less unaffected.
Yes, they get the UBI as well. It's just that it is taxed back by the time you reach around middle class income.
No, not from tax payers. From the people who were previously receiving larger amounts of welfare, from efficiency gains in the system, and such.
As for need, there is a reason I put quotes around it. In economics "needs" are more wants in many cases. $6k is enough, in a group of 4, to reach the poverty line. By the time you have a group of 4, odds are somebody is going to be able to find a job to supplement it more.
It is a form of welfare, but one that minimizes paperwork, expenses, social engineering, and unfairness.
"market forces" cant adjust to a massive new tax to pay for a UBI.
Sure it can. What you're failing to realize that with a UBI, every dollar from the new taxes to pay for it is also flowing right back out in the form of payments.
The way I'd pay for my modest ($6k/year per person) UBI would be to eliminate the tax brackets below 32%, as well as eliminating other welfare programs. What this does is create a situation where the middle class and above income levels stay virtually identical. The increased efficiency of welfare programs, as well as the increased efficiency of cash payments vs goods in kind, which creates arbitrage situations where money isn't efficiently spent to meet the household's needs, means that for the lower class who are getting more money, they're pretty much covered by existing welfare payments.
I'll note that this is a fairly rough estimate, all figures are estimates, as I don't have access to data granular enough, nor have the time to figure it out down to cents.
People expecting to live on a UBI will find that their UBI pays for nothing they expected and need.
Here's a question. Do you understand what "living on just the UBI sucks enough that most people still end up working" means?
I don't give a shit if it doesn't pay what they expect or "need". If it doesn't cover that, they can go find work.
To me, the UBI is a cheaper form of welfare without the cliffs that encourage people to NOT work on the current system, or to under-work in order to maintain eligibility. If somebody can maintain a crime-free existence off of $6k/year, more power to them.
6k/yr, seriously? Where can you live on 6k/yr? You'd need to increase that at least five fold.
Very few places. But you have to remember that it is $6k/year per person, not per household. A household of 4 people together, because the BIG is agnostic of that stuff, is $24k/year, which is right on the federal poverty line for a household of 4.
If you're completely unemployed and dependent upon the BIG, living alone is a luxury you don't get.
As for your funding proposal, I agree with the concept of having what amounts to a sovereign wealth fund, but I'd prefer to fund it with a 1% or so income tax. Maybe even a property tax. Anyways, the incoming money is used to purchase stock in companies in an index fund type manner.
Payments would be an average of the last 5 years or so of income from the stock, with some held back to maintain fund value in the face of inflation, etc... Don't bother paying out until the amount hits $500/year per person.
Well, good thing I had a tax increase to pay for the UBI in the post you replied to, right?
The important point is that, once you eliminate other forms of welfare and plow that money into the BIG, the additional taxes only need to more or less neutralize the BIG for middle class and above income earners.
So, while technically a tax increase, actually revenue neutral to most people.
I'm curious as to how you think that this could reduce wages. My line of thinking is that with a substantial portion of people looking at just staying home if the pay isn't worth it, that pay will have to increase to lure people out.
As such, businesses that assume they can pay less because of the UBI will discover that said potential employees decide that just staying home is better.
I figure that market forces will tend to adjust such that living on just the UBI sucks enough, and working improves that enough, that most people still end up working.
So basically,they clawed back a substantial amount of every additional dollar recipients earned - to the tune of 50-80% if I'm reading correctly. That's not a UBI, that's just a welfare program with a slightly gentler benefit cliff, from which one would reasonably expect a reduced but still appreciable disincentive to work.
Indeed. When I've looked at the issue for my proposed $6k UBI, I've set the "clawback" at a relatively gentle 30-33%. It was even "Reverse progressive" because I did it by eliminating the lowest income tax brackets, so the $4k exemption was gone, as were the 10 and 15 brackets, everything was 32%. The UBI wasn't completely eliminated until about $30k of income if you considered previous tax rates, though becoming "tax neutral" happened sooner, at about $18k.
You'd still see them coming into work, but you'd probably have to pay them more to do so.
There was recently an article about human feces having become such a problem that San Francisco was hiring human poo cleaners. Wage? $75k/year each.
If the potential plumber wants more than a very modest life, he still has to go out and work.
I've been a proponent for a $6k annual BIG for a long time.
I think that what you are missing is household size. The federal poverty line is roughly $8k for a household, plus $4k per person in it. So a 1 person household has a poverty line of $12k. 2 people is $16k and 4 is $24k.
$1k/month each person for 4 people living together is the poverty line, and encourages efficiency.
Unlike current welfare plans, where living with somebody else may cost you benefits.
Finally, remember that you aren't penalized for working, most people on welfare currently do work, but there are frequently penalties were the person on welfare loses more benefits than the income they gain. They're called welfare cliffs.
I disagree, it is only if the UBI is excessive, if we don't eliminate other forms of welfare at the same time, etc...
I figure that a modest UBI can be funded with existing welfare spending combined with eliminating the lowest tax brackets. You don't need them if people are getting about $6k/year up front.
I think that what has happened here is that a fluff piece was written about a greenhouse that is performing actual science, but the science part was lost as it went over the head of the reporter.
It looks like they're testing various aeroponic setups, and might even be testing different strains of various plants.
Plus, while we know how to do it, they may be going for more exact numbers. How many days and hours? How much artificial light? What temperature? How much water? Etc...
The fact that it gives the scientists and workers down there fresh produce is a bonus.
That's actually true, it is the way statistics work.
Let's say that AI cars have a 'true rate' of 100M miles between fatal accidents, somewhat better than human. Or they could be 50M miles, somewhat worse. The technology is still in development, so who can say.
The fatal accident can happen anywhere in that 100/50 million miles. It could happen mile 1. Mile 20M. Mile 99,999,999.
Spreading that even more, you could have 200M miles with 2 deaths, and have both happen in the first 100M, second 100M, etc... It's really 1/100,000,000th chance of death per mile. You could get multiple deaths, or no deaths.
The only way to nail the real rate down with any degree off accuracy is to have multiple occurrences. Which in this case means more deaths.
You do realize that being committed for being insane usually leads to a longer stay than if you'd actually been convicted of the crime, right?
Fewer ads is a good start, I'd argue for getting rid of cable boxes entirely and better customer service is always good.
But a la carte wouldn't actually save you money, really. Not in most cases.
Because they know roughly what the viewerships are. Get channels individually? They ramp up the prices per channel. You end up paying as much as you did for the buffet for just the channels you watch, can't watch something special/unusual on a station you don't normally get (what if your parents come over?), as well as an amount for the systems needed to be that specific.
Most of the channels you get with the basic package are basically free for the cable company to offer because the channel is ad supported.