"The last time the economy was in this bad of shape, it took a world war to restore prosperity."
Pros and cons of basic income aside, this is likely what we are seeing already. I don't know how else to describe a proxy conflict in Syria with U.S., Russian, Chinese, and Cuban actors.
On the main topic of the piece, the danger of inflation is just waved off and the function of creditors ignored. How would say the Chinese government feel about significant inflation that makes our Treasury debt more easily repaid with devalued dollars? These kinds of considerations loop back to the first point.
I've heard this many times before and I've even been taught this in history class. What is the reason for this?
The explanation is often that it stimulates the economy, but really, is war effective at fixing the economy because it just acts as a giant reset button? If there's too many workers and not enough job, the easiest way to fix that problem is to kill X% of the population, and what better easier and cleaner way to sell this to the American people than your country is under attack and it needs your sacrifice?
I don't think the deaths are the most important thing; rather, it's the absences:
• Presume that a job market contains people with job-skills, and people without (i.e. "lemons").
• Presume that businesses function better when they can select from a talent pool with fewer lemons; and that lemons in a job market create "noise" in the hiring process that cause openings to go unfilled for longer.
• Now, presume either a draft (which doesn't care about job-skills, but does care about age, tending to select for younger people with fewer job-skills), or simply a military with lower job-skill requirements for entry than most occupations.
Thus, a military on a war footing will selectively withdraw more lemons than non-lemons from the job market, leaving it full of higher-quality candidates, making the businesses in that market more efficient.
For this hypothesis to be accurate, the same thing would have to happen if we just gave all the people being sent to war public-sector jobs (or Basic Income) instead. Though that would perhaps work better than a war for stimulating the economy: people remaining in the country would be spreading their demand across the market, rather than consuming goods exclusively from the military's line-of-supply contractors.
Which looks the same at the input end of the process - they'll suck up anyone with four limbs and both eyes, regardless of the skills they have prior to enrollment.
Attributing all WW economics to HR hiring noise is a bit of a stretch, I think. There are many other factors, from psychological "we must produce maximum to guarantee victory" to huge belic investments leading to advances in key technologies.
In truth, we don't have a very good picture of how to model the inflationary effects of BIG, except by crudely analogizing one demand increase with another. IMHO the main thing to keep in mind is who immediately gets money as a direct consequence of a policy change, what they feel obligated to do with it, and how that might turn into a bottleneck later.
Traditionally when money is "pumped into" a economy, it's via lending to banks(producing a "multiplier" effect). That money lands in the hands of the biggest capital-holders first - big businesses, investment firms, etc., so it acts to stimulate supply more than demand. The hope is that firms will see the easy money as a signal to expand their operations and take on bigger projects. If it doesn't work - and efforts like QE have basically stopped working - all you're going to get is greater inequality of wealth, as the money stops being put to use and feeds itself back into the capital markets.
And when we stimulate demand in the fashion done in the post-war era, with a huge expansion of government spending, the money is mostly landing on people building war machines and associated technologies. People are being employed and paid, but they're locked into employment of a certain nature which isn't directed at consumers - so more money is chasing a broadly similar basket of goods. The late 60's and 70's saw rapid inflation, and the technical advances and new markets that opened up from that period to today are pretty much all rooted in that early investment in military R&D.
On the other hand, when you have money land directly into the hands of consumers, that money is only skewed by cultural values. They could go Kickstart some wacky project. They could push for higher quality goods. They could pay off debts, change residences, and go back to school. Consumers aren't purely profit-seeking or utilitarian - how the macro situation would change is one huge unknown, but the main point of appeal is that it would be a very fluid kind of demand, and if consumers start disliking their ROI in one category, they can smoothly transition to something else - which means the traps and bottlenecks of other policy changes may not apply.
I think an actual war (as opposed to the stuff US is doing in Iraq and Afganistan), in which you and your family could get hurt, does wonders for productivity because it forces people to keep things real. There's less time and will for graft and bullshitting, you need to work because your survival depends on it.
I don't know enough to form an opinion, but a question comes to mind (actually, same question comes to mind whenever minimum wage increases come up)... What stops everything from simply getting more expensive and offsetting the BIG?
I don't know either but it seems like yet another way of doing inflation. You can infuse money various ways and to various sectors of the economy. Quantitative easing, playing with interest rates, funneling 401K into stock indexes gives it to the rich. And prices for what they buy or where they live go up. The expectation is more money moves around, doing something useful. BIG should do the same for consumer goods and poor areas, increasing prices and maybe increasing economic activity.
I read the article and i just dont agree on some points.
One point is that basic income would mean an increase in new businesses forming. The problem is that while yes, more people will have the ability to start a business. The increase burdon of taxes and most likely, regulations that go along with it, will make it difficult to move from the startup phase to actually running a profitable company.
Countries like denmark and sweden are great examples of this in action: small companies are scarce,the majority of investors avoid them, and most people either work for the government or a large company.
Do you have any links to back up your claim about sweden and denmark? I live and work in Sweden and my view is that there is great many small companies here.
I have been hoping to read an article that made a good case for basic income but everything I've seen so far appears to be written by authors with a rudimentary understanding of both economic systems and human behavior.
If you gave a flat distribution of income to a large population set my suspicion is that the money would flow in to housing. Depending on the underlying structure of the particular housing market(s), and the regulatory structure for those market(s) would determine what actually would happen -- better housing, worse housing, the same housing but higher rents, etc.
The other stuff the supply should be elastic enough as to not drive up prices and in some cases would even result in lower prices. Note, if the basic income was applied at a flat rate globally that absolutely wouldn't be the case.
This article is internally contradictory. First, the article claims consumption will go up:
No longer will poor Americans have to choose between heating oil and food, between medicine and shoes for their children.
Then it claims investment will go up:
Also, demand increases — giving firms reason to expand production and hire new workers.
Firms may have reason to expand production, but the resources needed to expand production are instead being consumed. Rather than building a factory, workers are making shoes for poor children.
(At least the ones who didn't tell their boss to "take this job and shove it" - a direct quote from the article. That's just a deadweight loss the article ignores for no apparent reason.)
I really wish someone would write an article about BI that was more than just clueless pop Keynesianism - "Demand Good, Investment Bad, Free Lunch for All."
It would be interesting if basic income were tied to some combination of the Gini index and inflation rate. It would serve as a nice automatic offset to deflation, then fade away as the economy took off and wages increased.
What I'd like to see - and never see suggested in these discussions - is starting with a revenue-neutral carbon tax to fund a BIG. Since the tax would internalize the externalities of pollution and climate change, the government could cut subsidies and tax breaks for energy production and efficiency, and throw those savings into BIG as well. Anyone willing to be a below-average greenhouse gas emitter comes out on top, while anyone who owns a private jet is doing well enough not to care.
totally on board with something like this. I never understand why people say market forces will solve global warming, pollution and the future of energy.
Pollution is THE textbook case for an externality. By definition it cant be fixed by the free market.
a revenue-neutral carbon tax to fund a welfare state..
Love the idea, but we had one of these for a couple of years, and at $23/t there was at least an order of magnitude less money in it than needed for a GBI. And per capita, we are among the highest carbon emitters on earth.
Tying BI to observed inflation seems dangerous. Targeted inflation seems advisable. The former because a BI set higher than conditions can support seems likely to cause inflation, which would reduce (real) BI.
It's not so much an assumption, it's more just looking at our 5.5% unemployment rate (aka "the natural rate") and 3.5-4% NGDP growth.
Even if we aren't, this article provides no mechanism by which a BI would get us to full capacity or increase output at all. All it provides is a mechanism which would take us away from full capacity (If your boss is an unreasonable jerk, you can tell him to “take this job and shove it”...).
I find it interesting that most people coming down against GBI do so under the assumption that coercion is the strongest incentive to work. I think it much more probable to look at GBI as separating the monopolistic part of the work market (if I don't work I will starve) from the competitive portion. Surely more competition in the employment market is a good thing?
Even then, I still think it is the third order effects of GBI (the ones we don't know about, or are to complex to model) that are most likely to cause massive societal upheaval. But then, maybe massive societal upheaval is what proponents of GBI are most excited about.
In an employment market, I am the supplier, my boss is the consumer. I hold a monopoly over my supply. All of my competitors offer my employer a slightly different product. The market is a monopolistic competitive market. On the other hand, my boss holds a temporary monopoly on my income, whether I eat or not.
With a GBI, these monopolistic parts of the market may be removed. My boss does not have to choose between me and another employee offering slightly different products, we can both be hired for the distinct bits of work we are can provide, and for an agreed price we value the work at, not an amount we need to satisfy our need to live. ie.it opens the employment market up to purer competition.
IstheargumentforBIreally...
Let me be clear, I don't think this is a good thing, but that is the sense I get from pro-GBI advocates. The scary thing is it most probably would be massive, in time, and there is little good evidence on the knock-on effects. I get why anti-GBI advocates are scared, they stand to lose money, but pro-GBI advocates should be scared too. So I guess what surprises me is they both should be arguing for trials, surely?
...my boss holds a temporary monopoly on my income, whether I eat or not.
The former is not the latter. Google "savings account".
Transaction costs are, economically, only a monopsony in the regime of small price changes compared to switching costs. I.e., if the cost of finding a new job is $2,000 then your boss can only underpay you by $2,000.
So I guess what surprises me is they both should be arguing for trials, surely?
I have no objection to trials. Unfortunately, a lot of BI "trials" are not really trials of BI at all - they are experiments in transferring wealth from outside the trial area into it. E.g., Mincome, the Uganda experiment. These trials certainly show that imperialism makes the empire richer.
A basic income doesn't necessitate increased consumption, only shifted consumption from the rich to the poor. If you think a basic income is going to have an adverse effect on savings/investment rates, there are plenty of ways to bump this up (sovereign wealth funds for example).
But your comment is pretty clearly motivated by an ideological commitment to the rich having more and the poor having less, rather than some genuine concern with insufficient investment. Why not just be honest about it instead of hiding behind this ideological wordplay?
Labelling the freedom of choice of a low income worker to leave a job they hate and/or work a bit less as "deadweight loss" is reveals a lot. I suppose you think the lack of ten year old children working in coal mines is deadweight loss too.
A basic income doesn't necessitate increased consumption, only shifted consumption from the rich to the poor.
Did you read the article?
"A rich person, presented with a tax refund, will not necessarily increase his or her consumption. Instead he or she might well save the money...When the poor and lower middle class get cash in their pockets, they generally spend it straight away..."
If you think a basic income is going to have an adverse effect on savings/investment rates, there are plenty of ways to bump this up (sovereign wealth funds for example).
Please explain the mechanism by which this would work. Specifically, consumption of shoes and the number of people producing shoes goes up correspondingly. Some people quit working because their boss is a jerk. Where do the people building the new shoe factories come from?
Did you read my comment? There are ways around this. Worth noting also, that if poor and middle class folks have a higher and more reliable income, they are more likely to save.
> Please explain the mechanism by which this would work.
It's called supply and demand. Rich people will have less, so demand will drop for things like jewellery and superyachts, and labor will shift from these industries into stuff producing things like shoes.
I feel like you are making the complete opposite argument from the linked article: "We should have a BI because it will reduce consumption by the rich and increase savings by the poor, thereby increasing investment."
Is that a fair statement?
Also, given that you believe the rich and poor have equal propensity to spend, I assume you have no objection to Keynesian stimulus targeting the rich during times of recession?
Marginal utility of money. If rich americans use oil heating up their 50 unused vacation homes and they have to slow down a bit, the statement can be true.
I.e. it's not "rather than building a factory, workers are making shoes for poor children," it's "rather than spend man hours making hundreds of shoes for a single rich person, make more shoes for the poor, less throw away shoes, and still end up freeing up time to make factories."
If that shoe example is too contrived for you, just do a google image search for "shoe closet":
If rich americans use oil heating up their 50 unused vacation homes and they have to slow down a bit, the statement can be true.
Did you read the article?
"A rich person, presented with a tax refund, will not necessarily increase his or her consumption. Instead he or she might well save the money ...When the poor and lower middle class get cash in their pockets, they generally spend it straight away..."
That argument would make sense as a short term thing if fighting a contracting economy during a recession, especially if there is an ongoing flight to safety and if banks are worried about reserves and not making loans so the extra savings aren't getting spent (e.g. 2008).
But I do see some of the contradiction you are talking about.
The suggestion that a change could increase both consumption and investment is not inconsistent. Economics isn't zero-sum, and if there policy accelerated aggregate expansion it could do both of those things.
OTOH, you complaining initially that the article sells increased investment as a benefit of the policy, and then at the end of your post characterizing the article as "Demand Good, Investment Bad" is a fairly direct contradiction.
Some libertarians support the Basic Income Guarantee only if our only choice is between our current system and abolishing it for the Basic Income Guarantee.
I can't speak for all libertarianism, but generally speaking libertarians do not support federal government welfare systems, for the following reasons:
- They usurp the role of private welfare, or even local community run welfare, where you know who the money is going to and whether or not they're abusing it
- "Top down" social programs only last as long as you have more producing than non-producing (or in our case, as long as you can borrow money to pay for it). They lead to financial ruin and in the long run will cause disaster for the generation holding the bag.
- They increase the amount of force and coercion; suddenly using welfare as a weapon, the left can increase the size of government, the right can increase the size of the military (I do not differentiate between Veterans welfare from the VA or civilian welfare).
- They take money from those that produce and give it to those that do not
And I haven't even gotten into the economic issues with a basic income guarantee.
You notice that whenever the government gets involved in an industry, those costs immediately go up? The government literally gives away money every year (and even guarantees loans without even asking what your loan is for), and the cost of college keeps rising and rising. This is classic inflation.
What do you think will happen to the cost of goods if we are suddenly printing money simply to give to every last human being on this continent? If you don't expect prices to rise, you haven't been paying attention to either healthcare or education.
Libertarianism massively overstates private welfare. Massively. We've already seen society that only had private welfare - look to our societies before public welfare existed, and you'll see that private welfare was basically a toy.
It doesn't even pass the sniff test; the idea that all these people whining about having to give up their money to other people would start giving up their money to other people if it was 'voluntary'? And people actually get sucked in by this argument?
Keep in mind that under our current system, to a large extent giving up your money voluntarily to other people (charitable donations) gets you an exemption from giving up your money involuntarily (taxes).
So if they're not giving it to charity to avoid paying the taxes they whine about, why should we believe that they'll give it to charity if we get rid of taxation?
People with higher incomes give more to charity. People with more disposable income give more to charity. Government "charity" consumes about 70 percent of the money in bureaucratic overhead. Private charity overheads are typically below 30 percent, and much better in many cases. What you want is more money in the pockets of people so that they can give more to charity. Any dollar spent on voluntary charity vs taxes is much more efficiently used to help the needy directly. If you really care about poor people you should want more money going directly to private charities not the government. In fact, private charities were a much bigger part of day to day society before the welfare state and poverty was decreasing between the 40s and 60s. When the government steps in it changes people's behaviour and takes away more and more of their disposable income. I know you'll find this hard to believe but its true the richest in our society give more than anyone else to charity.
Government welfare gets money to all locations over the long term. Private charity does well in short, acute phases (eg hurricane relief), but over the long term, it's only useful for socially attractive services - and even then, it's not enough. 'kids with cancer' charities do a lot better than 'young adults with mental illness' charities, which in turn do better than 'disabled people who need 24-hour care for life' charities.
> poverty was decreasing between the 40s and 60s
... something which had little do to with welfare or private charity.
> I know you'll find this hard to believe but its true the richest in our society give more than anyone else to charity.
I don't find it hard to believe at all. What you're finding hard to believe is that even though the rich give more than others, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to government-supplied assistance.
intuitively people with higher incomes should more to charity. However, a recent study found the rich DO NOT give a higher proportion of their income to charity. Incomes of $25,000 or less a year gave away an average of 4.2 percent of their incomes; those with earnings of more than $75,000 gave away 2.7 percent.
There are certainly a number of things that could explain this.
Well the problem is a lot of welfare that we have now wouldn't have typically exist as welfare before it's institution. An example would be the destruction of the family unit which has lead to an entire class of single mothers who depend on welfare who simply did not exist in previous generations.
Nonsense. There were plenty of single-mother families before welfare. Men often died in industry or off at war. Life was excruciatingly difficult for these people, and private charity simply did not cut it. This is the kind of things that 'widows and orphans funds' were for, but they were never enough.
When people help each other it's called "community". Its a social behavior as old as history.
Community cannot be coerced.
Unrelated - money is no longer on gold-standard it is on labor standard. One US dollar is equal to an amount of productivity. They cannot be decoupled without dangerous effects. Gold was once an efficient measure of labor and was hence a form of money. Labor is and has always been the unitary method of exchange.
> We've already seen society that only had private welfare - look to our societies before public welfare existed, and you'll see that private welfare was basically a toy.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of confounding variables in that comparison, namely those associated with the passage of time.
> Some libertarians support the Basic Income Guarantee only if our only choice is between our current system and abolishing it for the Basic Income Guarantee.
What exactly would be replaced? It's tough googling around for how much the US government spends on welfare each year, at least partly because it's not exactly clear what counts as welfare. It seems like it's somewhere between 0.3 and 1 trillion dollars per year. If it's a trillion dollars, that's only $3,000 per person, or maybe double that if it starts at age 18 (although that sounds like a condition to me).
Isn't that not enough? As in, it must be a lot lower than the welfare benefits some Americans are currently getting.
And now Brazil has twice bad crippling inflation that threatens a drastic revaluation of the currency (the first time they even had to rename their currency the "real" - who knows what's next) which threatens to retrace much of the progress made in reducing poverty. Who knows how much of that would have happened anyway due to economic liberalization and technological improvement?
I think its too harsh to blame fBolsa Família for the current state of the Brazilian economy. Its share of the budget is not even that big in the grand scheme of things. For example, subsidized loans the government/BNDES gives to large business (who coincidentally happen to be campaign contributors) are responsible for a bigger hole in the budget than the bolsa família.
Also, the reason we had to rename the currency last time was because Brazil had suffered from hyperinflation for so many decades that even after the government stopped printing money prices kept goingup out of sheer inertia. To give an idea, most supermarkets hired a person that would go around the aisles restickering things and mindlessly bumping prices by 2% every day.
Nowadays the government again has gone back to the times of a screwed up monetary policy but we are still far away from hyperinflation.
The article suggests that the Bible commands basic income and that economic conservatives like the idea.
As a lifelong student of the Bible and as an economic conservative of 20 years, I can say with certainty that this premise of the article is faulty.
Very early on in the Biblical text is the divine command to work and provide through labor. Basic income undermines and ultimately aims to eliminate this divine directive.
Among economic conservatives, we generally see Basic Income as a fool's errand and a pipe dream pushed by idealistic, Utopian thought disconnected from real world economics. We see Basic Income as a foolish idea with disastrous implications for the economy if attempted.
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
It's pretty widely held among both Jewish and Christian Biblical commentators that work existed before the curse per Gen 1:28. The curse just made work more difficult and unpleasant.
A New Golden Age won't come from basic income, it can only come from cheap, abundant energy. I won't dig out the sources atm, but its pretty obvious that coal, and later oil drove the last two centuries of rapid progress. Unless another abundant and cheaper source of energy is found, the world economy is in for a slowdown.
We have one. The only thing that stands between it and us is irrational fears of the public. I'm talking about nuclear (fission) power, obviously. It's more than enough to keep us up and running until we crack fusion.
There's also Methane Hydrate. Sure its a CO2 producer; but it is easily drilled for and delivered to coastal cities, which is where most of the (US) population lives anyway.
I don't know about that scenario. Seems unlikely - the bottom of the ocean is cold; Methane Hydrate is locked in ice nodules under the ocean floor. Warming it slightly will release it as gas - making free natural gas wells.
I guess its a question of, is there oxygen down there, that could cause a fire if released? Thus creating a runaway reaction. Could be. If that were true, I'd suppose there would be no more deposits, as Earth is hit by meteors regularly and they would pierce/heat the deposits. So history/geology seems to say No there's not a problem.
Anyway, the Japanese already have test wells. They're ocean-locked and have no native fuel sources. So they're extremely interested in harvesting fuel from the sea.
Methane is something like 20-70 times more potent a greenhouse gas (depending on timescales you look at, estimates for 100 and 20 years respectively) than carbon dioxide; it's not burning that would be a problem, but massive release of unburned methane.
Aunt Wiki[0] seems to confirm it may be a problem.
Anyway, I only learned about dangers and potential as energy source of clathrates from Fate of the World[1], so I don't claim to know much about the topic.
Like most basic income proponents, this article conveniently forgets the actual problem with basic income: it hurts immigration. Granted, with the amount of people against immigration maybe it would actually help these arguments, but the truth is that such a plan can be potentially devastating to the long term health of the economy (if you know, these dreams of the end of scarcity don't pan out).
The basic problem here is that these plans mis-consider the US as an isolated economy. If you have basic income, what is the policy on immigrants? The options appear to be:
1. Open immigration and same benefits to everyone. Maybe you can argue that we can afford basic income for current US citizens, I think it would be a stretch for anyone to argue that we could afford it for anyone that comes into our borders, and thus...
2. Get even more hard line against immigration. America is already pretty anti-immigration, just wait how opinions turn when anyone inside gets a guaranteed income. As usual, anti-immigration laws will hurt the next round of brilliant foreigners from coming to the US and bringing their great ideas and prosperity here. Its already the case that we're increasingly lending foreigners our education system and then not letting them stay and thus exporting that knowledge and prosperity.
3. Make basic income only available to US citizens. Congratulations, we have now fully devolved into a classist society, where an 18 year old that wants to "figure things out" will be granted a monthly salary, but an immigrant who has 3 kids won't. To make matters worse, they probably WILL pay taxes on their income that will go for said basic income. Arguably we have this partially now, but since its services its not as unfair as giving a check to someone by birthright while the other person has to labor. For all the talk of automation the reality on the streets today is that immigrants largely do our back braking labor, and if you now "buy out" all Americans from menial jobs, you are cementing that these tasks are for outsiders.
Milton Friedman put it best: you can't have open immigration and a welfare state. We already see the effects of our current system hurting immigration. These proposals always have the ring of "post history" to them: we've figured out supply, now its time to just find out how to split up the goods. I think they greatly underestimate that the world economy is still not figured out and we could soon find the US behind other states.
"Make basic income only available to US citizens. Congratulations, we have now fully devolved into a classist society"
Do you honestly think that this is a fair description of the consequences of that course of action? There are plenty of things only available to US citizens. Voting. Running for office. Any kind of federal assistance. Military enrollment. Diplomatic protections.
I really don't see how this option is anything different from what we already have. It would be federal assistance, after all, and non-citizens already don't get that.
As I stated in my own comment, we already have a form of this today, so clearly I do think it is similar to our current system. However, I think that a defining differentiator is that a basic income can assist in luxury assistance beyond pure help. That is to say, if we offer purely assistive programs that are arguably necessary to a subset of the population (such as healthcare), it is clearly fundamentally unfair, but arguably morally net positive. If however, you offer a check that the person can use at their discretion (and thus choose to for example use it for vacation or gambling or any purpose they choose), then it is unfair and morally questionable. I think this is obvious.
Separately, I do not think it is unfair description at all, but rather an objective measure of the service proposed, as opposed to a subjective one from thethe population that stands to gain vs the population that stands to lose. I have listed scenarios that I think are fundamentally unfair: young able-bodied members of society with no dependents receiving aid whereas older members of society that have dependents would not. It doesn't matter to me that "we already" do unfair things, this point has not been at all addressed. Existing wrongs are not arguments for new wrongs.
Additionally, regardless of whether you agree with the fundamental morality of these situations, I think you can't argue with proposed consequences. I think that this system will absolutely make immigration harder in the US (through increased "protective" insular policies to keep "freeloaders" out), and thus hurt the economy as a whole.
I still don't see how that's an argument. How is it unfair to offer US citizens the resources collected by the US government? That is the express reason the concept of a "US citizen" exists.
US citizens pay taxes. They choose to distribute that money among themselves. That is the purpose of the US government: to protect and serve the interests of US citizens.
If you feel that this is morally wrong, then I don't see how you can't argue that every single aspect of any government is morally wrong. The fact that I live in the US and not Syria is unfair, but it's not morally wrong.
"If however, you offer a check that the person can use at their discretion (and thus choose to for example use it for vacation or gambling or any purpose they choose), then it is unfair and morally questionable. I think this is obvious."
Do you have a job? Are there stipulations on how you can spend your money? Because you are arguing that paying people without such stipulation is morally questionable.
And furthermore, Immigration is already controlled. You don't get US Citizenship without the approval of the federal government. How does this change that? They let fewer people get citizenship? If these immigrants are benefiting the economy, then surely they are worth the basic income we'd be paying them for that benefit.
Which gets me to my point: You're not handing out free money for nothing. You're paying people to be economic participants. There's no reason to require stipulations on that, and no reason for you to think it's considerably more unfair to anybody than the regular variation in life's circumstances.
> US citizens pay taxes. They choose to distribute that money among themselves. That is the purpose of the US government: to protect and serve the interests of US citizens.
Non-citizens pay taxes too. Residents/green-card holders/visa-holders pay full income taxes without getting full benefits. Everyone pays state sales tax if there is one.
> If you feel that this is morally wrong, then I don't see how you can't argue that every single aspect of any government is morally wrong. The fact that I live in the US and not Syria is unfair, but it's not morally wrong.
Your argument is "the US government: to protect and serve the interests of US citizens.", so I don't see how you can think there exists ANYTHING that the US government does for its citizens at the expense of its non-citizens that isn't morally wrong. Since the reason corporations exist is to benefit shareholders does that automatically make all their actions ethical as long as they increase share value? Obviously not. Thus, I think we can conclude that its possible for the US government to do things that help its citizens which are morally wrong.
> Do you have a job? Are there stipulations on how you can spend your money? Because you are arguing that paying people without such stipulation is morally questionable.
Uhm, the difference is my employer and myself mutually agreed to the transaction. That is obviously why he can't stipulate what I can do with my money, whereas with taxes, which are taken from me, and which I by your own argument a few sentences above explained have some control of through our votes as US citizens, we do have a say in. Let me use your own logic here: "plenty of US services have stipulations on them, such as voting which you can't be a felon for, for example. THUS we should be able to have stipulations on these new services".
> If these immigrants are benefiting the economy, then surely they are worth the basic income we'd be paying them for that benefit.
Sure, but that doesn't mean they'll actually make it in. We already turn away lots of people that would be incredibly beneficial to our economy. I am arguing that a policy such as this would further these bad policies. However, if you believe that the government always makes the right choices, rather than our immigration policies being a mess of special interests and constituencies, then I suppose we are at a fundamental impasse.
"Your argument is "the US government: to protect and serve the interests of US citizens.",
No, it isn't. My argument is that it is not morally wrong for the government to give money to its citizens without stipulating its use. At least it's not any less wrong than having everyone pay taxes that fund schools, roads, and hospitals they don't use. (Things which, if you objected to them, you could negate most of the other things we have a government for.) Basic income is not some petty luxury bonus, it's a form of social welfare.
And how is BIG not a mutually agreed to transaction? If you don't want the money, I'm sure you can find a way to send it back. Stipulate it yourself if you think it should be stipulated.
"THUS we should be able to have stipulations on these new services"
We can have stipulations. There's nothing preventing that. We just don't want them, as that's the whole point of basic income. You're trying to claim we can't not have them, which is absurd.
> And how is BIG not a mutually agreed to transaction?
... the other end of the transaction. You know, the part where the money is collected from tax payers.
> And stop overusing the word 'obvious.'
I used it 3 times in 3 comments. I think even someone that supports the stipulation of what can and can't go in a comment would agree that's not overuse.
Not sure how welfare programs, which already exist, don't have this same problem and yet, we manage.
But even if you did this on a global level and gave everyone $20, think about what that impact would be. It's an interesting thought experiment. Consider the impoverished nation where an extra $20 would significantly impact a person's life. Would the dollar replace the local currency there eventually? Would that strengthen the dollar overall? Would it stimulate the world economy such that we'd all benefit?
I don't know the answers, but this sounds like it could work for just the U.S. and experiments in the past with it during the Nixon era have had positive results. Why would it not work on a global scale?
It has failed miserably, then. Of course, there were land law and exclusion acts enacted as legislation throughout history. Nonetheless, the USA's arrangement of basing citizenship on the principle of jus soli as opposed to jus sanguinis means its identity is a national/soil-based one and not an ethnic bloodline division, making it nominally inclusive. Hard nativism is a rather rare sentiment these days, too.
It has succeeded spectacularly. Have you tried to hire a foreigner as a startup? It is absurdly difficult and essentially creates dramatically unfair advantages for large corporations that can afford to streamline through the bureaucracy while startups cannot. Additionally, once the employee is sponsored by a company it is unfairly difficult for them to move in the job market, once again helping the large corporation at the expense of the worker.
Alaska solves this partially solves this problem by setting a timeframe. You must live there for 1 year. Same idea could potentially be used (but maybe extended because of larger $)
Of the larger economies, America accepts more immigrants than anyone else, even the "progressive" countries. It's among the top 5 countries in terms of percent immigrants as part of the population, not counting places like Bahrain who have migrant laborers. Can you imagine if millions of people who earn less than USD 5,000/year tried settling in Mexico, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Thailand?
Can you imagine how "anti-immigration" they would be?
Reading the title I had a vision (sorry no grandiose talk here) of homeless free cities. Just being able to afford the slightest amount of private shelter, hygiene and nutrition.
"Once more of us are familiar with it, the Basic Income Guarantee should be an easy sell politically. It gives money to poor people, reduces taxes for rich people..."
I don't have my work from the last time I ran the numbers, but I recall that the break-even point on increased taxes vs. guaranteed income was at about $70,000.
This didn't take into account the potential of eliminating social programs, but even without those, a BIG would require tax increases on the order of doubling the US federal government revenue. While I like the concept, I don't think you can sell it this way.
I think it would be awesome for people to be able to chill out and not work for a couple of years while they figure out their next steps in life, without going broke and/or racking up debt.
1) It assumes that, just because you're a member of homo sapiens species, you ought to get resources that others produce. Why? I care more about my dog than I care about most people. If someone kidnapped my dog and 100k random people and told me: "You can either save your dog or 100k random people. Choosing one will mean me killing the other". I would choose my dog to live and permit 100k people to die.
2) Something very similar could be applied to dating and reproduction. Why not? You could argue that you live long enough to reproduce and that reproduction is the basic, biological purpose of life for all organisms. So, if someone is unattractive, just create a Basic Reproduction Guarantee. The same reasoning used for redistributing money could be used for redistributing sex. Since Basic Income is not considered stealing, then Basic Reproduction should not be considered rape.
>1) It assumes that, just because you're a member of homo sapiens species, you ought to get resources that others produce. Why? I care more about my dog than I care about most people. If someone kidnapped my dog and 100k random people and told me: "You can either save your dog or 100k random people. Choosing one will mean me killing the other". I would choose my dog to live and permit 100k people to die.
If you thought the trolley problem was a nice ehtics question, that right there is pure neglect for the value of human life. Can't do anything about that for you mate.
>2) Something very similar could be applied to dating and reproduction. Why not? You could argue that you live long enough to reproduce and that reproduction is the basic, biological purpose of life for all organisms. So, if someone is unattractive, just create a Basic Reproduction Guarantee. The same reasoning used for redistributing money could be used for redistributing sex. Since Basic Income is not considered stealing, then Basic Reproduction should not be considered rape.
The term "basic" income is stupid, and should not be used. What is basic is being able to live in reasonable conditions. As it stands, the only way to do that reliably right now is to have a guaranteed income. Sex is not necessary for you to survive.
And contrary to what you might think, no, basic income is not stealing. Taxes are not stealing. That's part of living in a society. If you wish to not have things stolen from you, I highly recommend going to live in a remote part of the world, where noone will prevent you from doing your job. Of course, your job is probably only possible because of the whole framework that your society has put into place.
> that right there is pure neglect for the value of human life
What value? If you believe in God and think that people were created in his image, then human life does have value independent of what anyone thinks. But, if you're not a believer, then people are just self-deluded carbon-based life forms with limited lifespans on some tiny rock in a vast universe with 100s of billions of galaxies and 100 of billions of stars in each of those.
> Sex is not necessary for you to survive.
Of course not. That is not what I wrote. The question is why you would value survival instead of reproduction. If reproduction is the basic, biological goal, then it should have more value than survival.
- For example, the goal of working for the most part is to get the money. Since you like Basic Income, you would say that people should get the goal(money-basic income) and skip the work.
- What I say is that people make money for the most part to find a partner and reproduce. So, using your reasoning, since the goal is reproduction, then they should get that goal(dating-sex-reproduction) and skip the money.
Get it?
Ah, you're an anti-atheist using a stupid strawman to attempt to argue against the idea that morality can have a source other than divine commands. Most religious people aren't as stupid as you seem to be, so I doubt you'll find much buy-in for your arguments here.
First, you don't provide a definition of morality. You could say: "I have a dog named 'Morality', so it's possible that the source of morality is something other than divine commands". What is your view of morality?
Second, you don't provide an argument for how it's possible that human life can have intrinsic value(independent of cultural of personal preferences).
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[ 0.29 ms ] story [ 89.5 ms ] threadPros and cons of basic income aside, this is likely what we are seeing already. I don't know how else to describe a proxy conflict in Syria with U.S., Russian, Chinese, and Cuban actors.
On the main topic of the piece, the danger of inflation is just waved off and the function of creditors ignored. How would say the Chinese government feel about significant inflation that makes our Treasury debt more easily repaid with devalued dollars? These kinds of considerations loop back to the first point.
The explanation is often that it stimulates the economy, but really, is war effective at fixing the economy because it just acts as a giant reset button? If there's too many workers and not enough job, the easiest way to fix that problem is to kill X% of the population, and what better easier and cleaner way to sell this to the American people than your country is under attack and it needs your sacrifice?
• Presume that a job market contains people with job-skills, and people without (i.e. "lemons").
• Presume that businesses function better when they can select from a talent pool with fewer lemons; and that lemons in a job market create "noise" in the hiring process that cause openings to go unfilled for longer.
• Now, presume either a draft (which doesn't care about job-skills, but does care about age, tending to select for younger people with fewer job-skills), or simply a military with lower job-skill requirements for entry than most occupations.
Thus, a military on a war footing will selectively withdraw more lemons than non-lemons from the job market, leaving it full of higher-quality candidates, making the businesses in that market more efficient.
For this hypothesis to be accurate, the same thing would have to happen if we just gave all the people being sent to war public-sector jobs (or Basic Income) instead. Though that would perhaps work better than a war for stimulating the economy: people remaining in the country would be spreading their demand across the market, rather than consuming goods exclusively from the military's line-of-supply contractors.
Traditionally when money is "pumped into" a economy, it's via lending to banks(producing a "multiplier" effect). That money lands in the hands of the biggest capital-holders first - big businesses, investment firms, etc., so it acts to stimulate supply more than demand. The hope is that firms will see the easy money as a signal to expand their operations and take on bigger projects. If it doesn't work - and efforts like QE have basically stopped working - all you're going to get is greater inequality of wealth, as the money stops being put to use and feeds itself back into the capital markets.
And when we stimulate demand in the fashion done in the post-war era, with a huge expansion of government spending, the money is mostly landing on people building war machines and associated technologies. People are being employed and paid, but they're locked into employment of a certain nature which isn't directed at consumers - so more money is chasing a broadly similar basket of goods. The late 60's and 70's saw rapid inflation, and the technical advances and new markets that opened up from that period to today are pretty much all rooted in that early investment in military R&D.
On the other hand, when you have money land directly into the hands of consumers, that money is only skewed by cultural values. They could go Kickstart some wacky project. They could push for higher quality goods. They could pay off debts, change residences, and go back to school. Consumers aren't purely profit-seeking or utilitarian - how the macro situation would change is one huge unknown, but the main point of appeal is that it would be a very fluid kind of demand, and if consumers start disliking their ROI in one category, they can smoothly transition to something else - which means the traps and bottlenecks of other policy changes may not apply.
One point is that basic income would mean an increase in new businesses forming. The problem is that while yes, more people will have the ability to start a business. The increase burdon of taxes and most likely, regulations that go along with it, will make it difficult to move from the startup phase to actually running a profitable company.
Countries like denmark and sweden are great examples of this in action: small companies are scarce,the majority of investors avoid them, and most people either work for the government or a large company.
If you gave a flat distribution of income to a large population set my suspicion is that the money would flow in to housing. Depending on the underlying structure of the particular housing market(s), and the regulatory structure for those market(s) would determine what actually would happen -- better housing, worse housing, the same housing but higher rents, etc.
The other stuff the supply should be elastic enough as to not drive up prices and in some cases would even result in lower prices. Note, if the basic income was applied at a flat rate globally that absolutely wouldn't be the case.
No longer will poor Americans have to choose between heating oil and food, between medicine and shoes for their children.
Then it claims investment will go up:
Also, demand increases — giving firms reason to expand production and hire new workers.
Firms may have reason to expand production, but the resources needed to expand production are instead being consumed. Rather than building a factory, workers are making shoes for poor children.
(At least the ones who didn't tell their boss to "take this job and shove it" - a direct quote from the article. That's just a deadweight loss the article ignores for no apparent reason.)
I really wish someone would write an article about BI that was more than just clueless pop Keynesianism - "Demand Good, Investment Bad, Free Lunch for All."
Pollution is THE textbook case for an externality. By definition it cant be fixed by the free market.
Love the idea, but we had one of these for a couple of years, and at $23/t there was at least an order of magnitude less money in it than needed for a GBI. And per capita, we are among the highest carbon emitters on earth.
Even if we aren't, this article provides no mechanism by which a BI would get us to full capacity or increase output at all. All it provides is a mechanism which would take us away from full capacity (If your boss is an unreasonable jerk, you can tell him to “take this job and shove it”...).
Even then, I still think it is the third order effects of GBI (the ones we don't know about, or are to complex to model) that are most likely to cause massive societal upheaval. But then, maybe massive societal upheaval is what proponents of GBI are most excited about.
That's not what "monopolistic" means. "Monopolistic" means one supplier.
Is the argument for BI really "we have no idea what will happen but it'll sure be massive and we believe without evidence that it will be good?"
In an employment market, I am the supplier, my boss is the consumer. I hold a monopoly over my supply. All of my competitors offer my employer a slightly different product. The market is a monopolistic competitive market. On the other hand, my boss holds a temporary monopoly on my income, whether I eat or not.
With a GBI, these monopolistic parts of the market may be removed. My boss does not have to choose between me and another employee offering slightly different products, we can both be hired for the distinct bits of work we are can provide, and for an agreed price we value the work at, not an amount we need to satisfy our need to live. ie.it opens the employment market up to purer competition.
Is the argument for BI really...
Let me be clear, I don't think this is a good thing, but that is the sense I get from pro-GBI advocates. The scary thing is it most probably would be massive, in time, and there is little good evidence on the knock-on effects. I get why anti-GBI advocates are scared, they stand to lose money, but pro-GBI advocates should be scared too. So I guess what surprises me is they both should be arguing for trials, surely?
The former is not the latter. Google "savings account".
Transaction costs are, economically, only a monopsony in the regime of small price changes compared to switching costs. I.e., if the cost of finding a new job is $2,000 then your boss can only underpay you by $2,000.
So I guess what surprises me is they both should be arguing for trials, surely?
I have no objection to trials. Unfortunately, a lot of BI "trials" are not really trials of BI at all - they are experiments in transferring wealth from outside the trial area into it. E.g., Mincome, the Uganda experiment. These trials certainly show that imperialism makes the empire richer.
Google poverty.
http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_imk_wp_100_2012.pdf
But your comment is pretty clearly motivated by an ideological commitment to the rich having more and the poor having less, rather than some genuine concern with insufficient investment. Why not just be honest about it instead of hiding behind this ideological wordplay?
Labelling the freedom of choice of a low income worker to leave a job they hate and/or work a bit less as "deadweight loss" is reveals a lot. I suppose you think the lack of ten year old children working in coal mines is deadweight loss too.
Did you read the article?
"A rich person, presented with a tax refund, will not necessarily increase his or her consumption. Instead he or she might well save the money...When the poor and lower middle class get cash in their pockets, they generally spend it straight away..."
If you think a basic income is going to have an adverse effect on savings/investment rates, there are plenty of ways to bump this up (sovereign wealth funds for example).
Please explain the mechanism by which this would work. Specifically, consumption of shoes and the number of people producing shoes goes up correspondingly. Some people quit working because their boss is a jerk. Where do the people building the new shoe factories come from?
Did you read my comment? There are ways around this. Worth noting also, that if poor and middle class folks have a higher and more reliable income, they are more likely to save.
> Please explain the mechanism by which this would work.
It's called supply and demand. Rich people will have less, so demand will drop for things like jewellery and superyachts, and labor will shift from these industries into stuff producing things like shoes.
Is that a fair statement?
Also, given that you believe the rich and poor have equal propensity to spend, I assume you have no objection to Keynesian stimulus targeting the rich during times of recession?
I didn't claim that a BI will increase investment.
I didn't claim that believe the rich and poor have equal propensity to spend.
I said that if you want to increase investment (with or without a BI) there are plenty of ways to do that.
I didn't claim that believe the rich and poor have equal propensity to spend.
The former implies the latter.
I didn't claim that a BI will increase investment.
... if poor and middle class folks have a higher and more reliable income, they are more likely to save.
Now you seem to be agreeing with me that the article is wrong, and that a BI would increase real consumption and reduce real investment?
Could you state clearly what you think will happen to real (not nominal) consumption/investment under a BI and what the mechanism for that is?
I.e. it's not "rather than building a factory, workers are making shoes for poor children," it's "rather than spend man hours making hundreds of shoes for a single rich person, make more shoes for the poor, less throw away shoes, and still end up freeing up time to make factories."
If that shoe example is too contrived for you, just do a google image search for "shoe closet":
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nOKYKVt_gf4/TZllEf3kD2I/AAAAAAAADc... http://www.theshoegirlblog.com/2012/02/celebrity-shoe-closet...
Did you read the article?
"A rich person, presented with a tax refund, will not necessarily increase his or her consumption. Instead he or she might well save the money ...When the poor and lower middle class get cash in their pockets, they generally spend it straight away..."
Or perhaps this comment from 27 minutes ago where I pointed out the exact same thing to another person who didn't read the article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10397010
That argument would make sense as a short term thing if fighting a contracting economy during a recession, especially if there is an ongoing flight to safety and if banks are worried about reserves and not making loans so the extra savings aren't getting spent (e.g. 2008).
But I do see some of the contradiction you are talking about.
OTOH, you complaining initially that the article sells increased investment as a benefit of the policy, and then at the end of your post characterizing the article as "Demand Good, Investment Bad" is a fairly direct contradiction.
I can't speak for all libertarianism, but generally speaking libertarians do not support federal government welfare systems, for the following reasons:
- They usurp the role of private welfare, or even local community run welfare, where you know who the money is going to and whether or not they're abusing it
- "Top down" social programs only last as long as you have more producing than non-producing (or in our case, as long as you can borrow money to pay for it). They lead to financial ruin and in the long run will cause disaster for the generation holding the bag.
- They increase the amount of force and coercion; suddenly using welfare as a weapon, the left can increase the size of government, the right can increase the size of the military (I do not differentiate between Veterans welfare from the VA or civilian welfare).
- They take money from those that produce and give it to those that do not
And I haven't even gotten into the economic issues with a basic income guarantee.
You notice that whenever the government gets involved in an industry, those costs immediately go up? The government literally gives away money every year (and even guarantees loans without even asking what your loan is for), and the cost of college keeps rising and rising. This is classic inflation.
What do you think will happen to the cost of goods if we are suddenly printing money simply to give to every last human being on this continent? If you don't expect prices to rise, you haven't been paying attention to either healthcare or education.
It doesn't even pass the sniff test; the idea that all these people whining about having to give up their money to other people would start giving up their money to other people if it was 'voluntary'? And people actually get sucked in by this argument?
So if they're not giving it to charity to avoid paying the taxes they whine about, why should we believe that they'll give it to charity if we get rid of taxation?
> poverty was decreasing between the 40s and 60s
... something which had little do to with welfare or private charity.
> I know you'll find this hard to believe but its true the richest in our society give more than anyone else to charity.
I don't find it hard to believe at all. What you're finding hard to believe is that even though the rich give more than others, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to government-supplied assistance.
There are certainly a number of things that could explain this.
Community cannot be coerced.
Unrelated - money is no longer on gold-standard it is on labor standard. One US dollar is equal to an amount of productivity. They cannot be decoupled without dangerous effects. Gold was once an efficient measure of labor and was hence a form of money. Labor is and has always been the unitary method of exchange.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of confounding variables in that comparison, namely those associated with the passage of time.
What exactly would be replaced? It's tough googling around for how much the US government spends on welfare each year, at least partly because it's not exactly clear what counts as welfare. It seems like it's somewhere between 0.3 and 1 trillion dollars per year. If it's a trillion dollars, that's only $3,000 per person, or maybe double that if it starts at age 18 (although that sounds like a condition to me).
Isn't that not enough? As in, it must be a lot lower than the welfare benefits some Americans are currently getting.
Also, the reason we had to rename the currency last time was because Brazil had suffered from hyperinflation for so many decades that even after the government stopped printing money prices kept goingup out of sheer inertia. To give an idea, most supermarkets hired a person that would go around the aisles restickering things and mindlessly bumping prices by 2% every day.
Nowadays the government again has gone back to the times of a screwed up monetary policy but we are still far away from hyperinflation.
Brazil isnt a good example of this idea working...
As a lifelong student of the Bible and as an economic conservative of 20 years, I can say with certainty that this premise of the article is faulty.
Very early on in the Biblical text is the divine command to work and provide through labor. Basic income undermines and ultimately aims to eliminate this divine directive.
Among economic conservatives, we generally see Basic Income as a fool's errand and a pipe dream pushed by idealistic, Utopian thought disconnected from real world economics. We see Basic Income as a foolish idea with disastrous implications for the economy if attempted.
Oh? How would you characterize the results of implementing conservative economic ideas, as we've been doing in the US since the late 70s?
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
I guess its a question of, is there oxygen down there, that could cause a fire if released? Thus creating a runaway reaction. Could be. If that were true, I'd suppose there would be no more deposits, as Earth is hit by meteors regularly and they would pierce/heat the deposits. So history/geology seems to say No there's not a problem.
Anyway, the Japanese already have test wells. They're ocean-locked and have no native fuel sources. So they're extremely interested in harvesting fuel from the sea.
Aunt Wiki[0] seems to confirm it may be a problem.
Anyway, I only learned about dangers and potential as energy source of clathrates from Fate of the World[1], so I don't claim to know much about the topic.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate#Methane_clat...
[1] - http://store.steampowered.com/app/80200/
The basic problem here is that these plans mis-consider the US as an isolated economy. If you have basic income, what is the policy on immigrants? The options appear to be:
1. Open immigration and same benefits to everyone. Maybe you can argue that we can afford basic income for current US citizens, I think it would be a stretch for anyone to argue that we could afford it for anyone that comes into our borders, and thus...
2. Get even more hard line against immigration. America is already pretty anti-immigration, just wait how opinions turn when anyone inside gets a guaranteed income. As usual, anti-immigration laws will hurt the next round of brilliant foreigners from coming to the US and bringing their great ideas and prosperity here. Its already the case that we're increasingly lending foreigners our education system and then not letting them stay and thus exporting that knowledge and prosperity.
3. Make basic income only available to US citizens. Congratulations, we have now fully devolved into a classist society, where an 18 year old that wants to "figure things out" will be granted a monthly salary, but an immigrant who has 3 kids won't. To make matters worse, they probably WILL pay taxes on their income that will go for said basic income. Arguably we have this partially now, but since its services its not as unfair as giving a check to someone by birthright while the other person has to labor. For all the talk of automation the reality on the streets today is that immigrants largely do our back braking labor, and if you now "buy out" all Americans from menial jobs, you are cementing that these tasks are for outsiders.
Milton Friedman put it best: you can't have open immigration and a welfare state. We already see the effects of our current system hurting immigration. These proposals always have the ring of "post history" to them: we've figured out supply, now its time to just find out how to split up the goods. I think they greatly underestimate that the world economy is still not figured out and we could soon find the US behind other states.
Do you honestly think that this is a fair description of the consequences of that course of action? There are plenty of things only available to US citizens. Voting. Running for office. Any kind of federal assistance. Military enrollment. Diplomatic protections.
I really don't see how this option is anything different from what we already have. It would be federal assistance, after all, and non-citizens already don't get that.
Separately, I do not think it is unfair description at all, but rather an objective measure of the service proposed, as opposed to a subjective one from thethe population that stands to gain vs the population that stands to lose. I have listed scenarios that I think are fundamentally unfair: young able-bodied members of society with no dependents receiving aid whereas older members of society that have dependents would not. It doesn't matter to me that "we already" do unfair things, this point has not been at all addressed. Existing wrongs are not arguments for new wrongs.
Additionally, regardless of whether you agree with the fundamental morality of these situations, I think you can't argue with proposed consequences. I think that this system will absolutely make immigration harder in the US (through increased "protective" insular policies to keep "freeloaders" out), and thus hurt the economy as a whole.
US citizens pay taxes. They choose to distribute that money among themselves. That is the purpose of the US government: to protect and serve the interests of US citizens.
If you feel that this is morally wrong, then I don't see how you can't argue that every single aspect of any government is morally wrong. The fact that I live in the US and not Syria is unfair, but it's not morally wrong.
"If however, you offer a check that the person can use at their discretion (and thus choose to for example use it for vacation or gambling or any purpose they choose), then it is unfair and morally questionable. I think this is obvious."
Do you have a job? Are there stipulations on how you can spend your money? Because you are arguing that paying people without such stipulation is morally questionable.
And furthermore, Immigration is already controlled. You don't get US Citizenship without the approval of the federal government. How does this change that? They let fewer people get citizenship? If these immigrants are benefiting the economy, then surely they are worth the basic income we'd be paying them for that benefit.
Which gets me to my point: You're not handing out free money for nothing. You're paying people to be economic participants. There's no reason to require stipulations on that, and no reason for you to think it's considerably more unfair to anybody than the regular variation in life's circumstances.
Non-citizens pay taxes too. Residents/green-card holders/visa-holders pay full income taxes without getting full benefits. Everyone pays state sales tax if there is one.
> If you feel that this is morally wrong, then I don't see how you can't argue that every single aspect of any government is morally wrong. The fact that I live in the US and not Syria is unfair, but it's not morally wrong.
Your argument is "the US government: to protect and serve the interests of US citizens.", so I don't see how you can think there exists ANYTHING that the US government does for its citizens at the expense of its non-citizens that isn't morally wrong. Since the reason corporations exist is to benefit shareholders does that automatically make all their actions ethical as long as they increase share value? Obviously not. Thus, I think we can conclude that its possible for the US government to do things that help its citizens which are morally wrong.
> Do you have a job? Are there stipulations on how you can spend your money? Because you are arguing that paying people without such stipulation is morally questionable.
Uhm, the difference is my employer and myself mutually agreed to the transaction. That is obviously why he can't stipulate what I can do with my money, whereas with taxes, which are taken from me, and which I by your own argument a few sentences above explained have some control of through our votes as US citizens, we do have a say in. Let me use your own logic here: "plenty of US services have stipulations on them, such as voting which you can't be a felon for, for example. THUS we should be able to have stipulations on these new services".
> If these immigrants are benefiting the economy, then surely they are worth the basic income we'd be paying them for that benefit.
Sure, but that doesn't mean they'll actually make it in. We already turn away lots of people that would be incredibly beneficial to our economy. I am arguing that a policy such as this would further these bad policies. However, if you believe that the government always makes the right choices, rather than our immigration policies being a mess of special interests and constituencies, then I suppose we are at a fundamental impasse.
No, it isn't. My argument is that it is not morally wrong for the government to give money to its citizens without stipulating its use. At least it's not any less wrong than having everyone pay taxes that fund schools, roads, and hospitals they don't use. (Things which, if you objected to them, you could negate most of the other things we have a government for.) Basic income is not some petty luxury bonus, it's a form of social welfare.
And how is BIG not a mutually agreed to transaction? If you don't want the money, I'm sure you can find a way to send it back. Stipulate it yourself if you think it should be stipulated.
"THUS we should be able to have stipulations on these new services"
We can have stipulations. There's nothing preventing that. We just don't want them, as that's the whole point of basic income. You're trying to claim we can't not have them, which is absurd.
And stop overusing the word 'obvious.'
... the other end of the transaction. You know, the part where the money is collected from tax payers.
> And stop overusing the word 'obvious.'
I used it 3 times in 3 comments. I think even someone that supports the stipulation of what can and can't go in a comment would agree that's not overuse.
You don't need to be a citizen to enlist in the US military. You don't even need a green card.
But even if you did this on a global level and gave everyone $20, think about what that impact would be. It's an interesting thought experiment. Consider the impoverished nation where an extra $20 would significantly impact a person's life. Would the dollar replace the local currency there eventually? Would that strengthen the dollar overall? Would it stimulate the world economy such that we'd all benefit?
I don't know the answers, but this sounds like it could work for just the U.S. and experiments in the past with it during the Nixon era have had positive results. Why would it not work on a global scale?
It has failed miserably, then. Of course, there were land law and exclusion acts enacted as legislation throughout history. Nonetheless, the USA's arrangement of basing citizenship on the principle of jus soli as opposed to jus sanguinis means its identity is a national/soil-based one and not an ethnic bloodline division, making it nominally inclusive. Hard nativism is a rather rare sentiment these days, too.
Of the larger economies, America accepts more immigrants than anyone else, even the "progressive" countries. It's among the top 5 countries in terms of percent immigrants as part of the population, not counting places like Bahrain who have migrant laborers. Can you imagine if millions of people who earn less than USD 5,000/year tried settling in Mexico, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Thailand?
Can you imagine how "anti-immigration" they would be?
I don't have my work from the last time I ran the numbers, but I recall that the break-even point on increased taxes vs. guaranteed income was at about $70,000.
This didn't take into account the potential of eliminating social programs, but even without those, a BIG would require tax increases on the order of doubling the US federal government revenue. While I like the concept, I don't think you can sell it this way.
1) It assumes that, just because you're a member of homo sapiens species, you ought to get resources that others produce. Why? I care more about my dog than I care about most people. If someone kidnapped my dog and 100k random people and told me: "You can either save your dog or 100k random people. Choosing one will mean me killing the other". I would choose my dog to live and permit 100k people to die.
2) Something very similar could be applied to dating and reproduction. Why not? You could argue that you live long enough to reproduce and that reproduction is the basic, biological purpose of life for all organisms. So, if someone is unattractive, just create a Basic Reproduction Guarantee. The same reasoning used for redistributing money could be used for redistributing sex. Since Basic Income is not considered stealing, then Basic Reproduction should not be considered rape.
>1) It assumes that, just because you're a member of homo sapiens species, you ought to get resources that others produce. Why? I care more about my dog than I care about most people. If someone kidnapped my dog and 100k random people and told me: "You can either save your dog or 100k random people. Choosing one will mean me killing the other". I would choose my dog to live and permit 100k people to die.
If you thought the trolley problem was a nice ehtics question, that right there is pure neglect for the value of human life. Can't do anything about that for you mate.
>2) Something very similar could be applied to dating and reproduction. Why not? You could argue that you live long enough to reproduce and that reproduction is the basic, biological purpose of life for all organisms. So, if someone is unattractive, just create a Basic Reproduction Guarantee. The same reasoning used for redistributing money could be used for redistributing sex. Since Basic Income is not considered stealing, then Basic Reproduction should not be considered rape.
The term "basic" income is stupid, and should not be used. What is basic is being able to live in reasonable conditions. As it stands, the only way to do that reliably right now is to have a guaranteed income. Sex is not necessary for you to survive. And contrary to what you might think, no, basic income is not stealing. Taxes are not stealing. That's part of living in a society. If you wish to not have things stolen from you, I highly recommend going to live in a remote part of the world, where noone will prevent you from doing your job. Of course, your job is probably only possible because of the whole framework that your society has put into place.
What value? If you believe in God and think that people were created in his image, then human life does have value independent of what anyone thinks. But, if you're not a believer, then people are just self-deluded carbon-based life forms with limited lifespans on some tiny rock in a vast universe with 100s of billions of galaxies and 100 of billions of stars in each of those.
> Sex is not necessary for you to survive.
Of course not. That is not what I wrote. The question is why you would value survival instead of reproduction. If reproduction is the basic, biological goal, then it should have more value than survival.
- For example, the goal of working for the most part is to get the money. Since you like Basic Income, you would say that people should get the goal(money-basic income) and skip the work.
- What I say is that people make money for the most part to find a partner and reproduce. So, using your reasoning, since the goal is reproduction, then they should get that goal(dating-sex-reproduction) and skip the money. Get it?
http://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/
First, you don't provide a definition of morality. You could say: "I have a dog named 'Morality', so it's possible that the source of morality is something other than divine commands". What is your view of morality?
Second, you don't provide an argument for how it's possible that human life can have intrinsic value(independent of cultural of personal preferences).
BTW, I'm a non-theist and a moral nihilist.
Ideology is a set of beliefs or preferences. Therefore, since morality is a set of preferences and beliefs, it is an ideology or mass delusion.
Moral Nihilism is a position based on acknowledging the truth that morality is illusory and used to manipulate people into submission.
Mom: "The democrats are taking away Bush's tax credits. They're a bunch of idiots. It's my money, not the government's."
Me: "Yeah, I think it would be great if we established a basic guaranteed income."
Mom: "But that's socialism."