You do realize that calling me out on "arguing from ignorance" reflects directly on yourself, right?
It's basically on the level of "REAL communism/capitalism is the best, and you can't prove that it isn't because it was never really tried before!".
No it isn't because we're not talking about communism, we are talking about UBI, can we please please please stop talking about communism finally? Unless you have some real reason to belive why UBI
could lead to it. Communism is a philsophy, UBI a policy. Two very different things.
Or are you also one of those people that screamed
Communism when Obama introduced his Affordable Healthcare Act a couple of years ago?
So tell me this, do you deny that:
UBI requires a very advanced level of control of the economic system to prevent the raised income for the lower class to become entirely eaten up by inflation? That such legislation would require price fixing of an extremely wide variety of products, from food, housing, transportation, to education? That UBI's largest income needs to come from for profit enterprises which by and large tend to try to maximize said profit? That said measures would be far more expensive for the companies than things like "rising standard of living and raised wages", which already has caused many companies to move manufacturing and design to other countries with better but primarily cheaper production conditions? That said companies are likely to seek a way out of this if available (displacement, legal loopholes,...)? That this in turn means you have a totalitarian regime, as total control of a planned economy is an inherent requirement of functional UBI? That this in turn gives the government total control over society through regulated commerce, industry and work?
Do you recognize that for this system to work and prevent abuses, the system will either need to be extremely protectionistic (preventing any type of free trade with countries not implementing UBI similarly) or would need to be implemented by every meaningful country around the globe (effectively creating a one world government)?
If you do deny this, then please refute it in a way which does not say "I don't know, we need more experimentation!".
I didn't denny anything, I just said that it is an interesting concept to test, and money is the least of the issues that should hold it back when you consider how much is spend on all sorts of stuff. For the case you're wondering how it could be financed.
But finally we're getting to some legitimate questions. Bill Gates (imagine that!) proposed a tax on robots/automatisation for example. That could help to finance it. One advantage of the UBI is the fact that it removes a lot of bureaucracy, take Germany for example which has many different systems in place, for students, to jobless, single parents, etc. One income for everyone, would mean much less paper work and it would save some money here. It would probably demand a higher tax on rich and super rich people, but that's not going to give me sleepless nights.
I Quote:
"(...)There are many good ways to finance it. I favor taxes on resources and rents. Start charging the market rate for the broadcast spectrum instead of giving it away; the Fed should make money off the banks instead of vice versa; land value should be taxed; all forms of pollution should be taxed; and so on. But there are other ways to raise revenue. A wealth tax is a great idea, but you could also finance a basic income with an income tax—even a flat income tax. All of those are workable, good ways to do it, and all of them will effect redistribution from the very wealthy to the middle and lower classes."
But the question isn't if we can finance it or not, becuse we can when you consider how much money is generated by the financial market, like Wall Street for example, the question is
do we want it? There is still not enough discussion about it.
What you see as opression though is also known as 'regulations', at least if were talking about companies, and in many cases they make sense, like work safety, social security, environmental protections etc.
I know you're a libertarian, and honestly I really like that school of thought, but we're living in a world where corporations simply have to be heavily regulated, the effects of what can happen if we don't can been seen trough out history. Corporations like Apple or Star Bucks are already avoid taxes, Ford is sending already jobs to places like Mexico, globalisation and automatisation is happening right now, and we have to find ways to keep a certain social stability, in other words to make the population benefit from the growing profit while the number of well paying jobs is declining. The risk of an ever growing inequelity, is to dangerous to be ignored but I don't see any politican ever talking about the job-market of the future, what kind of situation we will see in 20 years for example.
I've shown you the numbers above, a small number of people is generating an ever growing wealth, while the middle class is shrinking. If this 'de-regulation' means that we have masses of poor people with low paying jobs, then what is it good for in the end?
Again ask your self, who's going to be regulated here? Is it the average Joe working for 7$ per hour in Wall-Mart? Or is it a huge and large company like Apple, Google and other tech-companies that generate BILLIONS(!) of dollars while employing very few people, and we're not even really talking about regulations but simply taxations. Manufacturing jobs already start to disppear, and they will continue to do so, soon enough many services in transportation, catering etc. will disappear as well. So that is not an valid argument against UBI. The Government would't controll what you build, sell or how many enterprises you own, entrepreneurs could still start and own buisness - big difference to Socialist States!
There would be simply a new form of tax, maybe? Eventually. No clue. I know that all people love to always bitch about taxes, like as it would be some kind of boogeyman, but we're not living in the 17th century anymore, a very modern society, with a modern infrastucture, educational system etc. simply requires a modern state that keeps a sense of regulation and taxation that is at least somewhat fair. In other words if you own very much, you pay high taxes, if you own very little you pay smaller taxes. There is a reason why poverty in many European nations and Canada looks very different to what you see in the United States.
As long as it hasn't been implemented on a national level, it will be hard to know what changes in prices could happen from it. But I doubt it would change THAT much, landlords and company owners have still to make a living as well and they want to make a profit, charging ALL of the people more than what they can afford, is going to hurt them as well. The Market like the housing market, might as well reach some equilibrium here where some areas will be priced to high, while others to low. I am not an economist and I can't say with a certainty what could happen. But it simply doesn't make sense as a landlord to demand more than what everyone has to offer.
And for the case you fear that companies would simply leave. Well let them. They do it already now under globalisation, so what would be the difference? You think that all companies would simply decide to go? God luck in China! Not everything is greener on the other side, and even China is investing a lot in regulations right now. Not to mention that nations like India, Kenya and a few others are also considering UBI or at least thought about testing it - Indida did a test that was similar to UBI once with positive results.
The US would probably have to deal with more regulations, UBI would be easier for states like Germany, Sweden, France etc. since we already do have many regulations and a relatively high taxation - compared to the United States. In the end, it comes down to what kind of society or economy you prefer. A more neo-liberal and libertarian economy with a heavier focus on capitalism, or a society with high taxations and many social safety nets where the basic resources (electricity, water, transportation) are owned by the public. We shouldn't forget, that we're not talking about some Soviet/Nazi style autocracies, but democracies, the State is supposed to be represented by the people it governs. And neo-liberalism/Capitalism hasn't lead to fascism so far, so I don't see why UBI and democratic socialism should lead to an autoritarian regime like as we saw it Comunist states.
It most certainly has hurt your economy. Who are you kidding? You like having people who need to juggle 3 mini-jobs to make a living because that mode of working is interesting for companies?
You're OK with the state taking half your income? In my case, combined taxes come out at 60% of my entire income.
Yes I am happy with the state geting 'half' of the money I earn - which is wrong by the way as the other half pays the company that employs you. because the State is using that money to well keep everything in order, like the infrastructure. We have cheap access to high quality water, a relatively good health care system, an excellent public transport, tutition free education. Many of the issues that Germany is expriecing right now, have a lot to do with neo-liberal changes made by our fucked up social democratic party, when they started to privatize the pensions and allowing the hedge fonts to get into Germany.
You still believe Mutti Merkel is working hard for your sake? That particracy is not an issue? That it won't get far far worse if you further empower the state?
No, not Merkel, but the thousands of ministers, officials, mayors and many other 'smaller' fish that actually do a very difficult and decent job. Not every politican is like Merkel, and certianly not every official that is working for the government, like the tax office or environmental agency. A lot of it could be improved, so much for sure, but we often tend to ignore that those people are runing a state with 86 million citizens.
Thinking any of these tests has any relevance on the actual implementation of UBI is insane.
Look who's talking, Suaside the super-economy-scientist
.
I am at least willing to DO and run some tests. Maybe we would have to produce 1 or 2 tanks less per year, but oh the horror! The thing is, we will never know it if we don't do it and see what happens. We are not even talking about the implementation right now, just that we need some data that economists and other scientists can work with.
