Universal basic income trial in the US

[jamil]

The older I get, I tend to become a believer of the train of thought that says each generation believes they are different and they are living in the worst time in history for x, y, or z. The people that were losing buggy whip jobs had no idea what kinds of opportunities would be opening up in the future. We can't either. I know enough about automation to know it will create jobs in some ratio to those that are lost. Robots are programmed by people. They work on equipment people built and installed by people. Stuff wears out and things happen...automation can only accommodate so much before everything crashes. McDonalds may someday have replaced all of their front counter staff with kiosks but somewhere in that store there'll be people working. Most of us cannot envision what the future will be like. I don't believe robots, AI, automation will have us all sitting around the house, with nothing to do, waiting on our UBI debit cards to reset.

There is something truly different about today vs say, 100 years ago. I think this is a reason why there's so much division and social turmoil today. We don't know how to handle social media at the societal level, for example. Yes, there will be people working on the robots. But as technology increases, the competence necessary to work increases.

One hundred years ago, an able bodied man with an IQ of 80 could find work doing something. That was an era where physical strength was a competence much more in demand than today. But the kinds of work such a person could do today is way more limited because there aren't many jobs that just require an able bodied person. And as technology increasingly takes over those menial jobs, the jobs that replace those jobs requires higher intellectual competence.

This really is a problem we don't know how to solve.

Well. Maybe we know how to solve it. Maybe the answer is to make people more competent. Maybe technology can help the less competent people be competent enough. The demand would certainly be there to develop such products. And really, short of making people more competent, I don't know how we can solve this in a way that's compatible with human nature.

 

[jamil]

It's a funny cartoon. But it's kinda not really addressing the situation as it exists. Of course we're not all going to die. And I think when we're closer to whatever the real consequences are, people will figure it out, if there's still a market of ideas. Or, if there's not, there'll be war, restructuring of the wealth hierarchy, and then we'll start this all over again. Kinda like an economic reset.

Butlerian Jihad

View attachment 66213

 

[actaeon277]

It's a funny cartoon. But it's kinda not really addressing the situation as it exists. Of course we're not all going to die. And I think when we're closer to whatever the real consequences are, people will figure it out, if there's still a market of ideas. Or, if there's not, there'll be war, restructuring of the wealth hierarchy, and then we'll start this all over again. Kinda like an economic reset.

We're not????
I beg to differ.

 

[BugI02]

Agreed. I included the cartoon because it spoke to the very real possibility that people will smash a system that includes no place for the majority of them

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Negative income tax is means tested.

No, it isn't. You don't apply for a negative income tax, you don't show your assets, if you're married, etc. Everyone get a floor of income that gets reduced, and eventually disappears, as your income rises.

In its purest form a NIT promised a revolution in American social policy. Gone would be the intrusive and costly welfare bureaucracy, the pernicious distinctions between "worthy" and "unworthy" recipients, the perverse disincentives for work effort and family formation. The needy would, like everyone else, simply file annual—or perhaps quarterly—income returns with the Internal Revenue Service. But unlike other filers who would make payments to the IRS, based on the amount by which their incomes exceeded the threshold for tax liability, NIT beneficiaries would receive payments ("negative taxes") from the IRS, based on how far their incomes fell below the tax threshold.

It's not a version of UBI.

You can pick the nit if you like. With a UBI, I get a cash payment and as my income rises so does my tax burden until eventually I'm paying more in taxes than I'm getting in UBI. With NIT I don't get the money I'll later have to pay back under UBI. The goal and end result is the same, just the method is different.

 

[jamil]

We're not????
I beg to differ.

Well, ya. Of course all the obvious applies without saying.

 

[jamil]

No, it isn't. You don't apply for a negative income tax, you don't show your assets, if you're married, etc. Everyone get a floor of income that gets reduced, and eventually disappears, as your income rises.

You can pick the nit if you like. With a UBI, I get a cash payment and as my income rises so does my tax burden until eventually I'm paying more in taxes than I'm getting in UBI. With NIT I don't get the money I'll later have to pay back under UBI. The goal and end result is the same, just the method is different.

I wasn't picking a nit, or at least not intending to. It's a matter of semantics. I was referring to negative income tax as it exists in tax code today. People can get tax "refunds" of more than they paid in. That's a negative income tax. If you're talking about making a new law that implements UBI through a universal negative income tax, then yes, it's essentially UBI.

And I still think it's more harmful than good for society. I think we'd be better off trying to figure out how to make less competent people more competent.

 

[actaeon277]

One of my brothers had $500 withheld. His refund was about $1000.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

There is something truly different about today vs say, 100 years ago. I think this is a reason why there's so much division and social turmoil today. We don't know how to handle social media at the societal level, for example. Yes, there will be people working on the robots. But as technology increases, the competence necessary to work increases.

One hundred years ago, an able bodied man with an IQ of 80 could find work doing something. That was an era where physical strength was a competence much more in demand than today. But the kinds of work such a person could do today is way more limited because there aren't many jobs that just require an able bodied person. And as technology increasingly takes over those menial jobs, the jobs that replace those jobs requires higher intellectual competence.

This really is a problem we don't know how to solve.

Well. Maybe we know how to solve it. Maybe the answer is to make people more competent. Maybe technology can help the less competent people be competent enough. The demand would certainly be there to develop such products. And really, short of making people more competent, I don't know how we can solve this in a way that's compatible with human nature.

Sure it's different. When people were throwing their shoes into the machines to sabotage them, things were different than their parents'/grand parents' time. They didn't know how things would shake out just like we don't know now. But it will. Paying people to do nothing invites all sorts of problems -- idle hands are the devil's workshop sort of thing. Instead of resigning ourselves and figuring which of these welfare systems are best, we should be figuring out how to get people to use their ingenuity to survive and thrive.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Sure it's different. When people were throwing their shoes into the machines to sabotage them, things were different than their parents'/grand parents' time. They didn't know how things would shake out just like we don't know now. But it will.

Or it won't. History contains plenty of examples of both. Entire economies and empires have collapsed and huge swathes of their populations died as they've failed to adjust to new technologies, markets, etc. Others have survived but been completely marginalized and seen the world economy pass them by as they stagnate or lose ground.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Or it won't. History contains plenty of examples of both. Entire economies and empires have collapsed and huge swathes of their populations died as they've failed to adjust to new technologies, markets, etc. Others have survived but been completely marginalized and seen the world economy pass them by as they stagnate or lose ground.

Right here on this continent. For example the pilgrims first started out their colony as a socialist endeavor. It wasn't until they found out human nature generally dictates that when you don't have to work to eat, people tend to not work, and a bunch of them died, they changed course and put people in charge of their own business.

We keep wanting to try a new iteration of sharing the wealth of the producers with the unproductive and it keeps failing. It always will.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Right here on this continent. For example the pilgrims first started out their colony as a socialist endeavor. It wasn't until they found out human nature generally dictates that when you don't have to work to eat, people tend to not work, and a bunch of them died, they changed course and put people in charge of their own business.

Can you expand a bit on that? People didn't work because they didn't have to so they died but then you had to work and everything went ok?

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Can you expand a bit on that? People didn't work because they didn't have to so they died but then you had to work and everything went ok?

You don't know the story?

Of course portrayal of the accounts vary depending on your world view. But mine being humans are better off, live better lives, if they are under threat of dying if they don't work. Not having to work and living off of the labors of others (by able-bodied people) always tend towards the same conclusions.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/frankm...em-a-thanksgiving-to-remember/2/#23394bfd658b

 

[BehindBlueI's]

You don't know the story?

Of course portrayal of the accounts vary depending on your world view. But mine being humans are better off, live better lives, if they are under threat of dying if they don't work. Not having to work and living off of the labors of others (by able-bodied people) always tend towards the same conclusions.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/frankm...em-a-thanksgiving-to-remember/2/#23394bfd658b

It's certainly an interesting interpretation. That a group of people who were willing to uproot and move to the edge of their known world became so lazy they just sat and starved waiting for someone else to do the work. I'm curious, have you compared the Plymouth colony and other similar colonies and their experience?

Of course, the Indians that lived in the region did the exact same communal agriculture and survived just fine. And other colonies suffered the same as Plymouth in their early years.

That interpretation ignores malaria. Roughly 30% of new European arrivals died of malaria, which runs it bouts. You contract it, fight it off, it explodes in your body again, repeat until you finally gain immunity. While the disease and cause was a mystery, the fact that new arrivals were likely to be useless for a year or so was well known and referred to as "seasoning".

In 1620, the Virginia governor warned investors back in London: ...must be content to have little service done by new men the first year til they be seasoned ".

It also ignores why they had the land they did (Indians didn't want it) the role that learning which crops and methods worked in their new home (transplant rice paddy farmers to Kansas wheat field, it's going to take them a bit to be productive), slavery, a steady stream of new Europeans, which leads to more "seasoned " workers, etc.

But hey, they were probably just lazy until land rules changed.

 

[jamil]

Sure it's different. When people were throwing their shoes into the machines to sabotage them, things were different than their parents'/grand parents' time. They didn't know how things would shake out just like we don't know now. But it will. Paying people to do nothing invites all sorts of problems -- idle hands are the devil's workshop sort of thing. Instead of resigning ourselves and figuring which of these welfare systems are best, we should be figuring out how to get people to use their ingenuity to survive and thrive.

Yes. Things will shake out. One way or another. And it’s the other that I’m concerned about.

And I’m not advocating for socialism. Certainly not a universal income. I think that would have a profound negative effect on society.

 

[Leadeye]

I think we have to ask ourselves whether the various organizations that assist people today are going to sit still and watch themselves lose power and financing to this new concept regardless if it proves out or not. Who will determine how effective this new idea is if not the groups responsible and profiting by it today? Years ago ideas were floated about just taking the amount of money used to assist the unfortunate and dividing it up between them. Nothing became of them.

Always follow the money

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

It's certainly an interesting interpretation. That a group of people who were willing to uproot and move to the edge of their known world became so lazy they just sat and starved waiting for someone else to do the work. I'm curious, have you compared the Plymouth colony and other similar colonies and their experience?

Of course, the Indians that lived in the region did the exact same communal agriculture and survived just fine. And other colonies suffered the same as Plymouth in their early years.

That interpretation ignores malaria. Roughly 30% of new European arrivals died of malaria, which runs it bouts. You contract it, fight it off, it explodes in your body again, repeat until you finally gain immunity. While the disease and cause was a mystery, the fact that new arrivals were likely to be useless for a year or so was well known and referred to as "seasoning".

In 1620, the Virginia governor warned investors back in London: ...must be content to have little service done by new men the first year til they be seasoned ".

It also ignores why they had the land they did (Indians didn't want it) the role that learning which crops and methods worked in their new home (transplant rice paddy farmers to Kansas wheat field, it's going to take them a bit to be productive), slavery, a steady stream of new Europeans, which leads to more "seasoned " workers, etc.

But hey, they were probably just lazy until land rules changed.

You can ignore human nature if you wish. Plenty of supporters of one version or another of the commons mindset often do. Nobody's denying the help of the natives, disease, lack of readiness of the settlers, in fact the article acknowledges all of that. But to deny the change in economic philosophy wasn't a key catalyst in the change of fortunes is myopic.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

I think we have to ask ourselves whether the various organizations that assist people today are going to sit still and watch themselves lose power and financing to this new concept regardless if it proves out or not. Who will determine how effective this new idea is if not the groups responsible and profiting by it today? Years ago ideas were floated about just taking the amount of money used to assist the unfortunate and dividing it up between them. Nothing became of them.

Always follow the money

Human nature is human nature. We don't have to go back very far to show people will game whatever system they are presented with to maximize their profits of it. Other humans, seeking power, (another aspect of human nature) will seek to leverage whatever system they have at their disposal to get into or maintain power. It doesn't matter what you call it, how you divie up the money, people are people...and there is always a segment of them that will follow the easy money and the power they can derive from controlling it.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Yes. Things will shake out. One way or another. And it’s the other that I’m concerned about.

And I’m not advocating for socialism. Certainly not a universal income. I think that would have a profound negative effect on society.

It is my contention that embracing things like the welfare state (no matter what brand of wealth redistribution it contains) will tend to guarantee a bad outcome.

If we're concerned about the super-rich widening their gap to the "middle income" and lower economic levels, then maybe we need to delve into why those people can do it while those with lesser means cannot. Is it barriers to entry that many people try to erect to prevent competition? Is it our educational system failing to train our kids to be something other than government handout slaves? Is it our increasingly secular society, where objective right and wrong is becoming more and more relative and sort of market segmented?

There will always be rich and there will always be the poor. Always has been, always will be. We need to determine the hurdles that keep willing and able, industrious people from becoming rich and remove them rather than the feckless attempts to equalize outcomes.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

But to deny the change in economic philosophy wasn't a key catalyst in the change of fortunes is myopic.

Then why did other colonies without the shift experience the same early collapse then improvement?