Or just use fdisk and newfs if for some reason diskutil isn't working. Or dd/dev/zero over it for a few blocks first if things are still confused.
I forget if gpt is available or if that's built in to fdisk, there are so many different versions of fdisk out there each with their own peculiarities and bugs.
The only circuit that has any power when the phone is in the power-off state is the actual power control module. Perhaps there are other phones that have more than the one main power/lock button active, but on all the devices I've used the ONLY active button is power - and all that does is apply a very small current through a physical switch that turns on the main power controller if it stays active for long enough. The only other thing that will activate the power control module is if you apply voltage to the charging port.
Everything else you mention, checking if it's a short or long press, looking to see if any other buttons are pressed, happens AFTER it turns on main power to the CPU and starts the initial low level boot (although the force-reset circuit might be on the same button connection, it won't be active until the power's been turned on first).
If I plug in my phone, the CPU boots to a low level battery charging program which is probably monitoring the process and can put up a cute display showing the charge level. In that case, since it has external power, the CPU does stay powered on. If I unplug it without booting the main system up (which is just a normal button input to the battery program), it simply powers back down.
The drain on a power control circuit is extremely low, probably less than internal leakage current.
I have several devices that I've left fully charged and off for months, when I turn them on they're still indicating full charge (although they're certainly down a small amount, of course), discharge normally, recharge normally. And yes, I know that leaving a battery in the full charge state isn't ideal.
My iPad will only lose a few percent a day if I leave it in standby, I can go several weeks between charges if I''m not using it. My Android phone has settings to prevent "background" network use, enabling that will also significantly reduce power usage when it's locked (and that's before enabilng the "extreme power saving" modes).
Several things wrong with that. First, the UBI is offset by higher taxes on people with higher income, so no, everyone doesn't end up with $10K more.
Second, even if everyone did have $10K more, are you claiming that all of that would be used up by price increases on things like housing and food, leaving prices alone on all the stuff someone with only a UBI to survive on wouldn't be able to afford anyway? That makes no sense.
Third, you still haven't explained why no one would undercut suppliers who jack up prices, that's the whole point of how a "free market" works. With all of those new customers who can now afford to buy things, you'd be a fool to price yourself out of the market.
Yet there are places where there are competing ISPs, and where they exist, prices go down. Cable and Internet are bad examples since there ARE regulations that have not only allowed monopoly behavior but encouraged it, but even they are slowly changing.
Why would you think that housing or food or bus rides would dramatically increase? Prices aren't set by what poor people can pay, nor are they set by what rich people could pay (except for "luxury" items, but even that has a limit). Prices are set by what most people WILL pay, and most people aren't getting a huge bonus. If some places started to jack up prices because now some poor people can afford to buy food, other places will undercut them.
What sort of conspiracy do you think exists that controls the market prices of things that UBI is supposed to cover?
What makes you think there wouldn't be competition for the newly funded people's money? Yes, demand goes up, but so then would supply, providing more jobs for people, allowing them to get beyond a "basic" lifestyle. Some people might be content with living on minimum income and doing nothing useful, but most people want more than that (and the ones that don't, maybe you don't really want them working).
45% flat tax on all income (other than the UBI), 25% VAT, $2000/month UBI ($800 for a dependent child), Social Security phased out (people who paid into it shouldn't lose out). Note that there is NO means testing with a UBI, by definition it is Universal. As you earn more money, the UBI simply becomes a reduction of your tax rate, not some boon that a "rich person shouldn't get".
Still need Universal Health Care, a UBI isn't appropriate for covering such wildly varying costs, but Medicare/Medicaid can be folded into that.
A UBI is very much a capitalistic free market idea, see "velocity of money" for example, and check out the history of the idea of a UBI.
It's certainly possible for a project to go wrong, that doesn't mean it's a bad idea. It means there needs to be better support for small munipalities to do it well. From an interesting article about how it works in Wisconsin:
The Village of Jackson, she said, also sold its system for pennies on the dollar because it did not keep up with the advances in the technology required for the utility; in short, the system was nearly obsolete within five years.
Flat tax of 45%, plus a VAT of 25%, with a UBI of $2000/month ($800 for dependent children), pays for itself and has taxes at or lower than current for people making $80000 or so (which would be $160000 for a couple with no kids). Assumes all welfare costs end other than medical (but those drop significantly as well).
Needs to be paired with Universal Health Care (e.g. Medicare For All).
Did you miss the part where I said "as we transition to a Universal Health Care system"? We should be able to do health care a lot more efficiently than we do now, at least for the part provided by Medicaid; I'd anticipate that Medicare itself would mostly just transition into a Universal Health Care system, which means Medicare would no longer exist, even if much of it remains in a transformed state. This would be separate from a UBI, a UBI isn't very effective for dealing with health care as people's needs will be very different. However, initially, a UBI will reduce the costs on Medicaid itself, as many people will be able to afford insurance under the current system that couldn't before.
Current personal income is about $16 trillion/year. 45% of that is about $7.2 trillion. A 25% VAT should raise about $1.25 trillion (just on retail sales alone). Assuming a UBI costs $6.7 trillion ($2000/adult, $800/dependent child), and with current income tax revenues of $2.6 trillion, we're about $850 billion short. Total welfare spending is a bit over $1 trillion (including Medicaid). Depending on how much Medicaid spending is reduced due to a UBI allowing people to get off of it, and assuming most other welfare spending can be significantly reduced or eliminated, it works out pretty well.
Assuming a VAT on necessities of about $3000/year, a UBI of $24000/year, and a 45% flat tax, you get more in UBI payments than you pay in taxes if you earn less than about $46000. At $55000, your effective tax rate is 6.8% (tax of $24750, plus $3000 VAT, less UBI of $24000 offsetting the taxes). At $80000, 18.75%. At $100000, 24%. $150000, 31%. $250000, 36.6%. Seems pretty progressive to me....
We even still have an Empire battle night on Sundays for a few hours on Cyber1, usually have 4-8 people show up - 6pm Pacific if you're interested.
I made some changes to the current version, but several older versions are still available (changes such as entry in center if your team has all 5 planets; all teams start off with no armies, and can coup in any one of the four corner systems as long as it isn't already another team's home system; some fairly minor fueling and bombing changes to attempt to balance the ship types; an improved entry routine; a modified bounce when you hit the outer limit (with a visual effect, even!), etc.).
BTW, I live in the Midwest as well, and I see available apartments for $400-500, even a bit less than that. With a UBI, you can actually move to places that are more affordable even if you don't have a job lined up there. If there's an increase in the number of people living in those areas, then there WILL be more jobs available there eventually, or you can start your own business, or be able to learn a new trade, without jeopardizing your ability to survive.
Earning 55k, minus 24k, and taxed at 45% indicates 14k in taxes or a 25% effective tax rate, not 1.4%. Where did that number even come from? It's 1/18th the actual amount using your own numbers and ignoring VAT. The actual real number using your plan would be much higher, as shown only $875 of that 2k per month doesn't return through taxation.
Why are you subtracting 24k?
You receive a UBI of $24000. In addition, you earn $55000, with a tax (45%) of $24750. 24000 + 55000 - 24750 = 54250, $750 less than the $55000 you earned, which is an effective tax rate of 1.364%, which I rounded to 1.4%.
No, I did not say it was "infeasible to not tax the UBI". I said you can't exempt the UBI from a VAT.
Federal Poverty level for one person is approximately $12000/year, so set that as a baseline for "tax free necessities". Some of those necessities won't have a VAT (e.g. rent, utilities), but even assuming all of it is subject to a VAT, that still leaves you with $750/month above the necessities ($600 after VAT if you spend it all on taxable stuff).
If on top of the UBI you also earn $16000, you'll keep $8800 of that, If you actually spend $1000/month on necessities (plus VAT), that leaves you with $17800 or $1483/month on top of the necessities ($1186 after VAT). Again, assuming everything you spend is subject to VAT. You're still getting more in UBI than you're paying in taxes (income plus VAT).
Let's say instead you earn $60000/year, close to the median, you'll keep $33000, with an effective tax rate of 5% (compared to current effective tax rate for a single person of 13.6% with only the standard deduction). The VAT on necessities brings the effective tax rate up to 10%. You're paying more than the UBI in taxes, but your tax rate is still lower than it is now. However, if you spend it all as fast as it comes in, and it's all subject to VAT, your effective tax rate does go up to 24%.
At $100000/year, with the VAT on necessities, effective tax rate is 24% (current rate is 18.2%), higher when you spend more of course.
At $150000/year, effective rate is 31% (current 21.4%).
Of course, with current tax code you have all sorts of complications such as AMT, marriage penalties, standard deduction vs. itemizing, and all of the other complications that keep tax lawyers and accountants employed. You also have, with the current welfare system, a financial incentive for people to remain unemployed.
Not going to say that ADVENT didn't inspire a lot of things, and I played it in several variants (including a version that was written on PLATO, called "adventl"), but there were certainly dungeon games written before ADVENT, specifically "dnd" on PLATO was written in 1974. Oubliette was released in late 1977 (so was unlikely to have been predicated on ADVENT) and Avatar was already being written by then as well, the first version of Moria was written in 1975...
incidentally your UBI of $24,000 would have an ANNUAL cost of over 7.5 trillion. tax rates would need to double on average before that is even close to affordable.
More like 6.7 trillion, if dependent children receive $800 instead of $2000/month, and actually even less since presumably non-citizens wouldn't be eligible (but also probably shouldn't be taxed at the same rate either).
6.7 trillion, if raised entirely on personal income, would be about a 42% tax rate; however, there'd also be business taxes and the VAT I suggested; for most people, they'd get back enough from the UBI to offset that 42% (or 45%) tax rate anyway, reducing their tax burden to lower than what they pay now. Remember also that you'd be eliminating most (non-healthcare related) welfare payments as well, and even for Medicaid many people would no longer need it. Eventually, Medicaid would be eliminated, along with Medicare, as we transition to a Universal Health Care system, and talks about eliminating (over time) Social Security would be much more realistic.
How would they not have it taxed? Getting money under the table? Buying yachts for cash? With a flat tax and a VAT, it's very easy to put mechanisms in place that make cheating much more difficult, especially for large transactions.
There should be no reason you'd even need to file a personal income tax form. Everything you owe has already been deducted, everything you receive has already been taxed, you don't get any deductions (there are other ways of doing the social engineering that some tax laws are designed to accomplish, e.g. the government matches charitable donations at a given rate, instead of giving $100 and having the government reduce your taxes by $35 or whatever, you simply give them $65 and the government gives them the other $35, and you don't get any deduction for your donation, which also means that donations by rich people are not subsidized more than donations by those with less income).
You don"t tax the UBI as income, of course, but exempting UBI from a VAT or sales tax isn't feasible.
Balancing the taxes between income and spending helps stabilize the economy and the revenue stream. So, the UBI is sufficient for you to live on, including any VAT for the necessities. Then you don't need the overhead and micromanagement of deciding what people "should" be buying, or how much.
A flat tax with a UBI is a progressive tax, e.g. with 45% and $24000, earning $55000 will have a tax rate of just under 1.4%, earning $80000 will be 15%, $100000 yields 21%, $250,000 is 35.4%. Even if you adjust that for a 25% VAT, spending an additional $4000 on $12000 for necessities, it's still progressive (it's as if the UBI amount was only $20000). So, at $55000 you're at 8.6%, $80000 at 20%.
There's no means testing when you pay less for children.
There will be eligibility requirements no matter what,whether it's citizenship, species, or age. Not paying anything for children is very punitive, paying the same as an adult would be too generous (if the UBI is actually adequate).
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.
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.
50% flat tax combined with $2000/month (not taxed) UBI ($800 for dependent children) plus a 25% VAT.
The regressive nature of the flat tax and VAT is offset by the UBI itself.
The taxes are so simple that you wouldn't have personal income tax returns at all, only businesses and self employed. Charitable donations would get 50% matching from the government directly to the charity rather than have personal deductions (it's equivalent as far as revenue goes, but much easier to administer), similarly with any other social engineering effects that you want to keep as part of the tax laws (home mortgage insurance, for example, would simply have a lower effective interest rate with the government paying the difference, instead of claiming a deduction).
No, for people who really can't manage their money and finances at all, you'd still have mental health programs and custodial care to help them with that, meaning in some cases they wouldn't have direct access to their UBI funds. Such programs would need to be carefully monitored to prevent abuse, of course.
Getting rid of food stamps and other types of welfare is essential to a UBI program.
However, you would still need Universal Healthcare as individual needs vary so much (rolled into that would be support for living requirements such as wheelchair ramps, etc), and perhaps government support/mandates for basic levels of communication (e.g. Internet access) and education.
The way it's done now, welfare often is a demotivating force. Just giving people "free stuff", whether food, housing, education or whatever, they'll devalue it because you've set the price to "free". You also create a stigma for people receiving assistance, demeaning people is not a good way to motivate them to care.
A UBI does the opposite. First, there's no stigma, everyone receives it, even Bill Gates (and there's no reason not to give it to Bill Gates, as it's exactly equivalent to giving a tax refund).
Second, money doesn't devalue just because it's "free", rich people who have their money for no particularly worthy reason are often some of the stingiest people you've ever seen (which has little to do with how well people manage their money when they get a big windfall such as winning the lottery).
So, getting a UBI will mean people are actually choosing to spend their limited supply of money on things like housing or education and thus value it more.
Student housing is often every bit as trashed as the public housing you're referring to, it's just not as densely packed so you don't notice it as starkly.
UBI is a very capitalistic idea, and enhances a free market, especially a job market (since you can get rid of a lot of price fixing in the form of minimum wage and such). UBI is NOT a liberal or conservative idea, look into the history of it, it's all over the place in terms of people who support it.
Freedompop has service through either Sprint or AT&T networks, depending on your device. You get 200MB/month on AT&T or 500MB on Sprint.
You really need to pay close attention to what you'really signed up for and check your billing regularly, but they do refund without much fuss when they screw up, once you figure out how to open a ticket.
They make money by up-selling hard with dire warnings of what you're losing or risking by downgrading, and they have a weird auto-charge auto-top policy you need to pay close attention to that kicks in when you get within 100MB of your limit, but for low usage even that isn't too bad.
They also offer free VOIP phone service which works pretty well (200 minutes/month). It works differently depending on if you have a SIM from them and if it's data-only.
They also sell used equipment, phones, tablets, hotspots, sometimes at very good prices. They WILL up sell you though, be prepared.
Slashdot Mirror
Or just use fdisk and newfs if for some reason diskutil isn't working. Or dd /dev/zero over it for a few blocks first if things are still confused.
I forget if gpt is available or if that's built in to fdisk, there are so many different versions of fdisk out there each with their own peculiarities and bugs.
The only circuit that has any power when the phone is in the power-off state is the actual power control module. Perhaps there are other phones that have more than the one main power/lock button active, but on all the devices I've used the ONLY active button is power - and all that does is apply a very small current through a physical switch that turns on the main power controller if it stays active for long enough. The only other thing that will activate the power control module is if you apply voltage to the charging port.
Everything else you mention, checking if it's a short or long press, looking to see if any other buttons are pressed, happens AFTER it turns on main power to the CPU and starts the initial low level boot (although the force-reset circuit might be on the same button connection, it won't be active until the power's been turned on first).
If I plug in my phone, the CPU boots to a low level battery charging program which is probably monitoring the process and can put up a cute display showing the charge level. In that case, since it has external power, the CPU does stay powered on. If I unplug it without booting the main system up (which is just a normal button input to the battery program), it simply powers back down.
The drain on a power control circuit is extremely low, probably less than internal leakage current.
I have several devices that I've left fully charged and off for months, when I turn them on they're still indicating full charge (although they're certainly down a small amount, of course), discharge normally, recharge normally. And yes, I know that leaving a battery in the full charge state isn't ideal.
My iPad will only lose a few percent a day if I leave it in standby, I can go several weeks between charges if I''m not using it. My Android phone has settings to prevent "background" network use, enabling that will also significantly reduce power usage when it's locked (and that's before enabilng the "extreme power saving" modes).
Several things wrong with that. First, the UBI is offset by higher taxes on people with higher income, so no, everyone doesn't end up with $10K more.
Second, even if everyone did have $10K more, are you claiming that all of that would be used up by price increases on things like housing and food, leaving prices alone on all the stuff someone with only a UBI to survive on wouldn't be able to afford anyway? That makes no sense.
Third, you still haven't explained why no one would undercut suppliers who jack up prices, that's the whole point of how a "free market" works. With all of those new customers who can now afford to buy things, you'd be a fool to price yourself out of the market.
Yet there are places where there are competing ISPs, and where they exist, prices go down. Cable and Internet are bad examples since there ARE regulations that have not only allowed monopoly behavior but encouraged it, but even they are slowly changing.
Why would you think that housing or food or bus rides would dramatically increase? Prices aren't set by what poor people can pay, nor are they set by what rich people could pay (except for "luxury" items, but even that has a limit). Prices are set by what most people WILL pay, and most people aren't getting a huge bonus. If some places started to jack up prices because now some poor people can afford to buy food, other places will undercut them.
What sort of conspiracy do you think exists that controls the market prices of things that UBI is supposed to cover?
What makes you think there wouldn't be competition for the newly funded people's money? Yes, demand goes up, but so then would supply, providing more jobs for people, allowing them to get beyond a "basic" lifestyle. Some people might be content with living on minimum income and doing nothing useful, but most people want more than that (and the ones that don't, maybe you don't really want them working).
45% flat tax on all income (other than the UBI), 25% VAT, $2000/month UBI ($800 for a dependent child), Social Security phased out (people who paid into it shouldn't lose out). Note that there is NO means testing with a UBI, by definition it is Universal. As you earn more money, the UBI simply becomes a reduction of your tax rate, not some boon that a "rich person shouldn't get".
Still need Universal Health Care, a UBI isn't appropriate for covering such wildly varying costs, but Medicare/Medicaid can be folded into that.
A UBI is very much a capitalistic free market idea, see "velocity of money" for example, and check out the history of the idea of a UBI.
It's certainly possible for a project to go wrong, that doesn't mean it's a bad idea. It means there needs to be better support for small munipalities to do it well. From an interesting article about how it works in Wisconsin:
The Village of Jackson, she said, also sold its system for pennies on the dollar because it did not keep up with the advances in the technology required for the utility; in short, the system was nearly obsolete within five years.
Flat tax of 45%, plus a VAT of 25%, with a UBI of $2000/month ($800 for dependent children), pays for itself and has taxes at or lower than current for people making $80000 or so (which would be $160000 for a couple with no kids). Assumes all welfare costs end other than medical (but those drop significantly as well).
Needs to be paired with Universal Health Care (e.g. Medicare For All).
Did you miss the part where I said "as we transition to a Universal Health Care system"? We should be able to do health care a lot more efficiently than we do now, at least for the part provided by Medicaid; I'd anticipate that Medicare itself would mostly just transition into a Universal Health Care system, which means Medicare would no longer exist, even if much of it remains in a transformed state. This would be separate from a UBI, a UBI isn't very effective for dealing with health care as people's needs will be very different. However, initially, a UBI will reduce the costs on Medicaid itself, as many people will be able to afford insurance under the current system that couldn't before.
Current personal income is about $16 trillion/year. 45% of that is about $7.2 trillion. A 25% VAT should raise about $1.25 trillion (just on retail sales alone). Assuming a UBI costs $6.7 trillion ($2000/adult, $800/dependent child), and with current income tax revenues of $2.6 trillion, we're about $850 billion short. Total welfare spending is a bit over $1 trillion (including Medicaid). Depending on how much Medicaid spending is reduced due to a UBI allowing people to get off of it, and assuming most other welfare spending can be significantly reduced or eliminated, it works out pretty well.
Assuming a VAT on necessities of about $3000/year, a UBI of $24000/year, and a 45% flat tax, you get more in UBI payments than you pay in taxes if you earn less than about $46000. At $55000, your effective tax rate is 6.8% (tax of $24750, plus $3000 VAT, less UBI of $24000 offsetting the taxes). At $80000, 18.75%. At $100000, 24%. $150000, 31%. $250000, 36.6%. Seems pretty progressive to me....
We even still have an Empire battle night on Sundays for a few hours on Cyber1, usually have 4-8 people show up - 6pm Pacific if you're interested.
I made some changes to the current version, but several older versions are still available (changes such as entry in center if your team has all 5 planets; all teams start off with no armies, and can coup in any one of the four corner systems as long as it isn't already another team's home system; some fairly minor fueling and bombing changes to attempt to balance the ship types; an improved entry routine; a modified bounce when you hit the outer limit (with a visual effect, even!), etc.).
BTW, I live in the Midwest as well, and I see available apartments for $400-500, even a bit less than that. With a UBI, you can actually move to places that are more affordable even if you don't have a job lined up there. If there's an increase in the number of people living in those areas, then there WILL be more jobs available there eventually, or you can start your own business, or be able to learn a new trade, without jeopardizing your ability to survive.
Earning 55k, minus 24k, and taxed at 45% indicates 14k in taxes or a 25% effective tax rate, not 1.4%. Where did that number even come from? It's 1/18th the actual amount using your own numbers and ignoring VAT. The actual real number using your plan would be much higher, as shown only $875 of that 2k per month doesn't return through taxation.
Why are you subtracting 24k?
You receive a UBI of $24000. In addition, you earn $55000, with a tax (45%) of $24750. 24000 + 55000 - 24750 = 54250, $750 less than the $55000 you earned, which is an effective tax rate of 1.364%, which I rounded to 1.4%.
No, I did not say it was "infeasible to not tax the UBI". I said you can't exempt the UBI from a VAT.
Federal Poverty level for one person is approximately $12000/year, so set that as a baseline for "tax free necessities". Some of those necessities won't have a VAT (e.g. rent, utilities), but even assuming all of it is subject to a VAT, that still leaves you with $750/month above the necessities ($600 after VAT if you spend it all on taxable stuff).
If on top of the UBI you also earn $16000, you'll keep $8800 of that, If you actually spend $1000/month on necessities (plus VAT), that leaves you with $17800 or $1483/month on top of the necessities ($1186 after VAT). Again, assuming everything you spend is subject to VAT. You're still getting more in UBI than you're paying in taxes (income plus VAT).
Let's say instead you earn $60000/year, close to the median, you'll keep $33000, with an effective tax rate of 5% (compared to current effective tax rate for a single person of 13.6% with only the standard deduction). The VAT on necessities brings the effective tax rate up to 10%. You're paying more than the UBI in taxes, but your tax rate is still lower than it is now. However, if you spend it all as fast as it comes in, and it's all subject to VAT, your effective tax rate does go up to 24%.
At $100000/year, with the VAT on necessities, effective tax rate is 24% (current rate is 18.2%), higher when you spend more of course.
At $150000/year, effective rate is 31% (current 21.4%).
Of course, with current tax code you have all sorts of complications such as AMT, marriage penalties, standard deduction vs. itemizing, and all of the other complications that keep tax lawyers and accountants employed. You also have, with the current welfare system, a financial incentive for people to remain unemployed.
Not going to say that ADVENT didn't inspire a lot of things, and I played it in several variants (including a version that was written on PLATO, called "adventl"), but there were certainly dungeon games written before ADVENT, specifically "dnd" on PLATO was written in 1974. Oubliette was released in late 1977 (so was unlikely to have been predicated on ADVENT) and Avatar was already being written by then as well, the first version of Moria was written in 1975 ...
incidentally your UBI of $24,000 would have an ANNUAL cost of over 7.5 trillion. tax rates would need to double on average before that is even close to affordable.
More like 6.7 trillion, if dependent children receive $800 instead of $2000/month, and actually even less since presumably non-citizens wouldn't be eligible (but also probably shouldn't be taxed at the same rate either).
6.7 trillion, if raised entirely on personal income, would be about a 42% tax rate; however, there'd also be business taxes and the VAT I suggested; for most people, they'd get back enough from the UBI to offset that 42% (or 45%) tax rate anyway, reducing their tax burden to lower than what they pay now. Remember also that you'd be eliminating most (non-healthcare related) welfare payments as well, and even for Medicaid many people would no longer need it. Eventually, Medicaid would be eliminated, along with Medicare, as we transition to a Universal Health Care system, and talks about eliminating (over time) Social Security would be much more realistic.
How would they not have it taxed? Getting money under the table? Buying yachts for cash? With a flat tax and a VAT, it's very easy to put mechanisms in place that make cheating much more difficult, especially for large transactions.
There should be no reason you'd even need to file a personal income tax form. Everything you owe has already been deducted, everything you receive has already been taxed, you don't get any deductions (there are other ways of doing the social engineering that some tax laws are designed to accomplish, e.g. the government matches charitable donations at a given rate, instead of giving $100 and having the government reduce your taxes by $35 or whatever, you simply give them $65 and the government gives them the other $35, and you don't get any deduction for your donation, which also means that donations by rich people are not subsidized more than donations by those with less income).
You don"t tax the UBI as income, of course, but exempting UBI from a VAT or sales tax isn't feasible.
Balancing the taxes between income and spending helps stabilize the economy and the revenue stream. So, the UBI is sufficient for you to live on, including any VAT for the necessities. Then you don't need the overhead and micromanagement of deciding what people "should" be buying, or how much.
A flat tax with a UBI is a progressive tax, e.g. with 45% and $24000, earning $55000 will have a tax rate of just under 1.4%, earning $80000 will be 15%, $100000 yields 21%, $250,000 is 35.4%. Even if you adjust that for a 25% VAT, spending an additional $4000 on $12000 for necessities, it's still progressive (it's as if the UBI amount was only $20000). So, at $55000 you're at 8.6%, $80000 at 20%.
There's no means testing when you pay less for children.
There will be eligibility requirements no matter what,whether it's citizenship, species, or age. Not paying anything for children is very punitive, paying the same as an adult would be too generous (if the UBI is actually adequate).
A flat tax on income is difficult to avoid, it's taxed before you get it, since there's only one bracket it's simple.
A flat tax of 45% with a UBI of $24000/year gives a slightly lower total tax rate at $80000 income (single) or $150000 married than the current rates.
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.
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.
You might want to look at the history of the idea before you start labeling it incorrectly, I think you'd be surprised.
50% flat tax combined with $2000/month (not taxed) UBI ($800 for dependent children) plus a 25% VAT.
The regressive nature of the flat tax and VAT is offset by the UBI itself.
The taxes are so simple that you wouldn't have personal income tax returns at all, only businesses and self employed. Charitable donations would get 50% matching from the government directly to the charity rather than have personal deductions (it's equivalent as far as revenue goes, but much easier to administer), similarly with any other social engineering effects that you want to keep as part of the tax laws (home mortgage insurance, for example, would simply have a lower effective interest rate with the government paying the difference, instead of claiming a deduction).
No, for people who really can't manage their money and finances at all, you'd still have mental health programs and custodial care to help them with that, meaning in some cases they wouldn't have direct access to their UBI funds. Such programs would need to be carefully monitored to prevent abuse, of course.
Getting rid of food stamps and other types of welfare is essential to a UBI program.
However, you would still need Universal Healthcare as individual needs vary so much (rolled into that would be support for living requirements such as wheelchair ramps, etc), and perhaps government support/mandates for basic levels of communication (e.g. Internet access) and education.
The way it's done now, welfare often is a demotivating force. Just giving people "free stuff", whether food, housing, education or whatever, they'll devalue it because you've set the price to "free". You also create a stigma for people receiving assistance, demeaning people is not a good way to motivate them to care.
A UBI does the opposite. First, there's no stigma, everyone receives it, even Bill Gates (and there's no reason not to give it to Bill Gates, as it's exactly equivalent to giving a tax refund).
Second, money doesn't devalue just because it's "free", rich people who have their money for no particularly worthy reason are often some of the stingiest people you've ever seen (which has little to do with how well people manage their money when they get a big windfall such as winning the lottery).
So, getting a UBI will mean people are actually choosing to spend their limited supply of money on things like housing or education and thus value it more.
Student housing is often every bit as trashed as the public housing you're referring to, it's just not as densely packed so you don't notice it as starkly.
UBI is a very capitalistic idea, and enhances a free market, especially a job market (since you can get rid of a lot of price fixing in the form of minimum wage and such). UBI is NOT a liberal or conservative idea, look into the history of it, it's all over the place in terms of people who support it.
Freedompop has service through either Sprint or AT&T networks, depending on your device. You get 200MB/month on AT&T or 500MB on Sprint.
You really need to pay close attention to what you'really signed up for and check your billing regularly, but they do refund without much fuss when they screw up, once you figure out how to open a ticket.
They make money by up-selling hard with dire warnings of what you're losing or risking by downgrading, and they have a weird auto-charge auto-top policy you need to pay close attention to that kicks in when you get within 100MB of your limit, but for low usage even that isn't too bad.
They also offer free VOIP phone service which works pretty well (200 minutes/month). It works differently depending on if you have a SIM from them and if it's data-only.
They also sell used equipment, phones, tablets, hotspots, sometimes at very good prices. They WILL up sell you though, be prepared.
They do take Paypal, btw.