People Kept Working, Became Healthier While On Basic Income: Report (www.cbc.ca) 277
Participants in Ontario's prematurely cancelled basic income pilot project were happier, healthier and continued working even though they were receiving money with no-strings attached. That's according to a new report titled Southern Ontario's Basic Income Experience, which was compiled by researchers at McMaster and Ryerson University, in partnership with the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction. CBC.ca reports: The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income. That finding appears to contradict the criticism some levelled at the project, saying it would sap people's motivation to stay in the workforce or seek employment. The three-year, $150-million program was scrapped by Ontario's PC government in July. At the time, then-social services minister Lisa MacLeod, said the decision was made because the program was failing to help people become "independent contributors to the economy."
Its findings are the result of a 70-question, anonymous online survey made available to basic income recipients in Hamilton, Brantford and Brant County. A total of 217 former recipients participated, according to the report. Forty in-depth interviews with participants were also completed in July 2019. Nearly 80 percent of respondents reported better overall health while taking part in the program. More than half said they were using less tobacco and 48 per cent said they were drinking less. When it came to mental health, 83 percent of those surveyed described feeling stressed or anxious less often and 81 percent said they felt more self-confident. An improved diet, better housing security and less-frequent hospital visits were other outcomes respondents pointed to, along with 66 percent who said they formed better relationships with family members. Unfortunately, when the pilot was canceled almost all survey respondents said it "forced them to place on hold or abandon certain life plans."
Its findings are the result of a 70-question, anonymous online survey made available to basic income recipients in Hamilton, Brantford and Brant County. A total of 217 former recipients participated, according to the report. Forty in-depth interviews with participants were also completed in July 2019. Nearly 80 percent of respondents reported better overall health while taking part in the program. More than half said they were using less tobacco and 48 per cent said they were drinking less. When it came to mental health, 83 percent of those surveyed described feeling stressed or anxious less often and 81 percent said they felt more self-confident. An improved diet, better housing security and less-frequent hospital visits were other outcomes respondents pointed to, along with 66 percent who said they formed better relationships with family members. Unfortunately, when the pilot was canceled almost all survey respondents said it "forced them to place on hold or abandon certain life plans."
What? (Score:2, Insightful)
The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income. That finding appears to contradict the criticism some levelled at the project, saying it would sap people's motivation to stay in the workforce or seek employment.
Contradict the criticism? More than 25% of employed people quit working when they start getting basic income. That sounds like a pretty clear cut confirmation to me! Worse the whole report is based on a self-reported online survey, and written by a pro-basic income advocacy group. No doubt an actual review based on hard data would be much less flattering. As would a study that includes the hard part of basic income: raising taxes to pay for it. Handing out free money or pumping it in to a local community i
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This caught my eye:
A total of 217 former recipients participated/quote?
How many people received UBI? All of those percentages are pretty much meaningless if you don't start with that.
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Most attempts at UBI-like systems were with far more people, and lasted longer.
And they all failed. Because many people stopped working.
But you need time to really see that happening. People aren't going to change their ways overnight.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps their employer was paying less than they were worth (essentially rent seeking). If the UBI becomes Universal, that will correct itself. Some might have finally been able to afford to be full time students (which will improve their future economic contribution).
Still others might have been otherwise contributing to society. For example caring for children, cleaning up the neighborhood, etc.
Had the program run longer, some who indeed quit just to be lazy might have learned that that isn't really a very satisfying lifestyle and so returned to work, probably as better employees than before.
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It likely will cause some inflation, but not likely as much as you fear. For example, the very lowest income group may buy more food, but those of us who have enough food now are unlikely to buy more (though we might buy better). You might buy that new car sooner, and it may have more options, but you're not likely to suddenly buy two cars per driver.
If you believe the UBI will actually be fully counterbalanced by inflation, you essentially believe that the market doesn't work and that market capitalism cre
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
Only because the lowest paid are effectively bent over a barrel. They are forced to sell their labor at fire sale prices and go into debt to keep up enough cash flow to not drown in red as quickly. The lowballing employers know they can count on a sufficient supply of people stuck in that situation.I've seen sm,all businesses do that as well to try to get by in hopes the market will pick up before the rent and paychecks bounce.
If nobody is stuck in that situation, pay, working conditions, or both will improve.
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
No, Basic Income programs have not failed, and quite the contrary: people worked and became more productive.
For example, in Namibia [wikipedia.org], there was reduced child malnutrition, and increased school attendance. Villagers started raising and selling chicken, and growing corn [spiegel.de].
In Manitoba, Canada, the project was a success [www.cbc.ca] because it teenagers stayed in school longer and graduated, hospitalization decreased and poverty was virtually eliminated [dominionpaper.ca]. In addition, the experiment wanted to know if people would still work: they did! The exceptions were new moms and teenagers.
Even by the 'worked or not' measure, the BI programs were successful. If you look at the social impact there are far more benefits than just the "work or not" metric.
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But none of those tests look at how the increased taxation would translate to how many people are willing to work.
I did the math several times for my own country and the resulting tax rates would mean I'd most likely ditch my job completely, because I wouldn't want to work just to finance the UBI system. So I'd just slack off or do a lousy undemand
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This caught my eye:
A total of 217 former recipients participated/quote?
How many people received UBI? All of those percentages are pretty much meaningless if you don't start with that.
I'm not sure what total were participating, but given this size, which my guess would be about 25% of the total potentially, doesn't make the results meaningless.
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It seems like "giving away free money" might not be the best next-step in our journey towards an entirely robot-slave powered economy. It is too aggressive, too controversial, and too soon.
If our labor automation as put us in a position where we are throwing away enough food to feed the entire world (which...incidentally....it has....), maybe we should just start smaller. Like a pilot program to set up some taxpayer-funded free food distribution centers in some low-income areas. Something that we can eas
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our journey towards an entirely robot-slave powered economy. It is too aggressive, too controversial, and too soon.
Perhaps we should wait until the ultra-dexterous robots with super-human intelligence actually exist.
It could be a long wait.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
But what did the majority of those people *do* with the extra time that they had?
Because that's telling... I don't know about this particular trial, but I know of one where many of the people who quit working took the opportunity to pursue further education which could give them a more promising career than the one they had before, where they would not have been able to invest the time if they had remained at their old job. In other cases, it allowed one parent out of a married couple where both parents would have otherwise worked to stay at home to look after their children and not be stressed out about finances.
Honestly, criticizing it because it can cause some people to quit their jobs comes across as sounding like you think that everyone should be forced to work at a job that they hate.
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Perhaps a cite would bolster your case. Would also be interesting to know if those people actually went out and *got* the new promising career.
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24.3% of the unemployed and 27.9% of the employed went back to school or started other vocational training.
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I know of one where many of the people who quit working took the opportunity to pursue further education
Which one?
Can you provide a link to the results of the trial?
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Well 24.3% of the unemployed and 27.9% of the employed went back to school or started other vocational training. Is that where your 25% figure comes from?
The Dauphin Manitoba test showed that the only ones who didn't work was Mothers who stayed home as stay at home mothers longer and students who didn't quit school to help support the family. The real problem with basic income is that when the government changes, it goes away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure you prefer our tax dollars were spent bombing Iraq to punish the Taliban.
So your best defense of UBI is that we spent money on other things that were even stupider?
There's a disconnect here.. (Score:2)
So _over_ 25% of them stopped working. I get that people are bad at math, but that's a lot of people. A whole lot of people. So many that I have to look askance at your objectivity when you say "Whelp, people kept working!". No, lots of them didn't.
My teacher used to try to inspire us by saying "Who's going to build the bridges, folks!". Well, in this case, "Who's going to flip the burgers, clean the bathrooms, and dig the ditches, folks?".
That said.. UBI will be inevitable at some point. Hard to have a fun
We found the disconnect... (Score:5, Insightful)
4% of the people stopped working. There were 217 people in the study. There was a net loss of 9 people out of the study that decided to stop working and not go to school.
The rest had net positive outcomes. If you don't help 208 people because you're mad at 9 of them you end up with the systems we have today.
Overall, there was a slight reduction in the number employed during the pilot compared to the number employed prior to the pilot. Ten respondents moved from unemployment to employment while 32 moved from employment to unemployment. Of the participants who moved from employment to unemployment, 13 (40.6%) enrolled in full-time education during the pilot with the intention of re-entering the labour market later as more qualified workers.
Many basic income recipients told us it never crossed their mind to stop working during the pilot. One peer support worker we interviewed said he found his job to be too meaningful and fulfilling. “I love it. I love my work to death. You got to really understand mental health. It takes one second and you’ll never see a member again. Suicidal thoughts are so bad. I understand suicide,” he said when asked why he continued with his mental health job despite receiving basic income.
--
Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying. - Roy T. Bennett
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If these lazy-ass slackers shifted to keeping one parent home to more closely raise a generation with better skills, integrity, critical thinking, etc that's a societal benefit with genuine value. Leaving them to be raised by youtube, parent'd by a strained K12, forbidden from wandering outside for any other fallback learning, is going to continue costing us in ways that don't show up in a spreadsheet.
If you ever gripe about millennials, if you say "people are stupid", if you think critical thinking is show
Re:We found the disconnect... (Score:4, Insightful)
You are more than welcome to dig into your pocket and help the people you want. You are not welcome to dig into mine (with handling fee) to help the people you want.
Re:We found the disconnect... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't like it, you can leave. Every day I’m working and paying taxes so kids can be educated, so someone can get a cancer treatment, so a scientist can get a grant or you can have police keep you safe. The whole point of any of us being in a society is to take care of each other. If you want to go and be a mercenary somewhere else, don't let the maple leaf hit you in the ass on the way out.
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The sort of person who would gladly collect UBI, spending your tax dollars on things which aren't cancer treatments, police protection, or education, would gladly leave when you Canadians no longer have the tax revenue to support UBI. The problem with socialism isn't the premise, but that eventually the socialists run out of other people's money to spend.
I would gladly spend your UBI on building my career as an actor, or writer, and once I start earning enough to pay taxes, move to a place with lower ta
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You are more than welcome to dig into your pocket and help the people you want. You are not welcome to dig into mine (with handling fee) to help the people you want.
You're welcome to keep all your money and not participate in society.
When your house goes aflame, don't bother calling the fire department, since you "don't want to help others" whose house catch fire because you didn't want to contribute to have the department.
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I'm not free to dig into your pocket. But society is. Just like we do for national defense, or police forces, or whatever else.
Temporary (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, you tend to feel better with a pay increase, but the effect isn't permanent. It lasts perhaps a year or so, and then you feel the same as you were before. Employers have known for a long time that paying you more doesn't make you perform better or even make you happier, rather the main reason for it is to retain you as an employee.
And increased money supply in the general population doesn't make housing more affordable in the long term. In the long term, it just means people pay more for the same property. Sure, in the short term these people would be able to afford their rent easier, but give it 5 years and see if that remains true. By the time you find out, it will be too late to discontinue that program, and your economy (and government budget) will be far less able to weather future recessions.
Just like student loans, by the time you realize it's a bad idea, it's already too late.
That's only true up to the point (Score:2)
Now, you do see well to do people unhappy despite making far more than what's needed for a bare existence (e.g. over $100,000+ in most regions, made consistently). The problem there is inflation hits anyone that makes the bulk of their money from wages (as opposed to ownership/rent seeking and/or investments).
Basically even if you're in the $200k+ club odds ar
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Rents could be lower if the risk of no payment then eviction was lower (of course some places don't have enough housing and that will never be the case, but some places do).
Financing could be sold for less too.
There are entire industries that cater to extracting higher profit for successful transactions because of the higher risk of doing business with people that live paycheck to paycheck with literally no reserve for even
Maths are really hard for some people (Score:2, Insightful)
"The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income. That finding appears to contradict the criticism some levelled (sic) at the project, saying it would sap people's motivation to stay in the workforce or seek employment."
According to my math, if over 25% of the workforce STOPS working after receiving basic income... that *reinforces* the criticism. Anyone else read that and think WTF?
Also, the program was scrapped,
Who qualifies for basic income? (Score:2)
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If OP is correct, this is the only one. (Score:2, Informative)
Every (other) place and time it was tried, it was an abject failure.
It should be kept in mind that Ontario's experiment was not even remotely long enough to determine any long-term effects. But the others did.
For example, Sweden tried a similar program from the '70s to the '90s. As a co-worker from Sweden told me, "Where I'm from, if people don't want to work, they just don't. They get a check fro
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People were predicting that factory automation would "replace people" at their jobs since around 1900.
Hasn't happened.
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Sure it lead to new jobs for new people, but it also lead to communist revolutions. I'd kinda like to avoid the second part.
It's easy to look back and say "see, it all worked out", but there was also a huge mess for quite a while.
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well, their 12th now so I rather doubt the veracity of your whole post
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And you think 30 years isn't long enough for that reversal to have brought them back closer to #4?
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As a result, over time, Sweden's per-capita GDP went from #4 in the world to #14.
Unless you can prove the GDP sliding from 4 to 14 is directly the result of this specific incentive you are only doing false correlation.
What about the other countries, especially the BRIC region growing? Compared to BRICS and other Asian Tigers Sweden is smaller.
50% tax on earned income (Score:3, Informative)
Whatever income participants earned was deducted from their basic income at 50 per cent, meaning once someone hit $34,000 they wouldn't receive a payment anymore, Lewchuk explained while speaking with As It Happens.
This is a powerful incentive to not work. Sounds like they were set up to fail.
I'd turn it down (Score:2)
By the way nice to see that there are others in this discussion who are realistic enough and good enough at basic math to realize this. UBI is not a viable idea and never will be -- not unless we find ourselves in a Star Trek-like utopian society where the basics of life can be had from a replicator for free and power is so cheap and ubiquitos that you wouldn't bother chargin
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You might want to watch some more episodes. The Federation was an elitist society. Need something important? Supplicate to The Federation. Ever notice in what state of destitution their colonists lived?
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In 100 years or so we should still be able to have the equivalent of 100s of billionaires and also have everyone getting a UBI close to a middle class life now (in the developed nations).
The right way to do it though is with reasonable revenue neutral flat taxes (since average is higher than median, this will help most).
Something reasonable like 5% VAT and a carbon tax that captures the externalities would be a very big help to those at the bottom, but not high enough to discourage wo
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Come back when we have Fusion powerplants that are so cheap to operate that they give the power away for free, and matter replicators that can supply all the basics of life, so that we don't even have to have money in the first place. Then your 'UBI' fantasy will become irrelevant and we can all truly follow our dreams.
Since we likely won't all live long enough to see all t
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TANSTAAFL.
Over 25% quit their jobs? (Score:2)
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Odd (Score:2)
And no one sees a problem with a quarter of the country quitting their jobs?
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Re:Odd (Score:5, Insightful)
To go back to school or do labour that normally isn't compensated, but has a tangible value, like staying home to take care of family, or volunteering in the community? No, I don’t see a problem with that.
Additionally, a bunch of these people smoked and drank less, which I also don’t have a problem with.
Some of the ones that stayed employed went on to work higher paying jobs. This mostly sounds like upsides.
Zero-sum vs positive-sum (Score:2)
As long as
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This has got to be the stupidest argument against this I have ever heard.
If you are interested in how poor people react to getting UBI, there is no need to include some rich people in your test because what they do will have ZERO effect on what the observed population does. And in fact somebody paid for this money, so you are testing exactly what you want anyway.
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There is considerable overlap in the Venn diagram of the first two.
Of course (Score:2)
Of course they're not going to quit and try to live off of the basic income, whatever it is.
Yes, in general if people are making X and are then suddenly given Y, they're not going to quit working, they'll keep working because then they'll have X + Y at the end of the month.
In other words, now the money derived from working is viewed as the "extra" money, not the money they're given.
Damn right they'll keep working because now they're actually making some real money compared to what they were making. Now it
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If you do the same 40 hours of work but end up with more in your pocket at the end of the month, the incentive for most people is to keep working, not to quit working.
This is incorrect. Economic decisions are made on the margins, this is called Marginal Utility [wikipedia.org]. The more money you earn, the less valuable one additional dollar is worth to you. If you have $5 and someone gives you $1, your wealth increased by huge 20%. If you have $50,000 and someone gives you a dollar, your wealth increase is negligible.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Person A gets $5000 in UBI and works a job that pays $15000. Person B gets $15000 in UBI and works a job that pays $15000. Since bo
Never would have guessed! (Score:2)
Just my 2 cents
So let me get this straight (Score:2)
The money from universal basic income comes from a value added tax on everything. That tax hits poor people the hardest because they have less of a margin. So they pay a higher tax and get more money in return? Seems like a wash.
What does the middle class get for all their extra taxes?
Why quit? (Score:2)
$34K/annually (Score:3)
The project worked by recruiting low-income people and couples, offering them a fixed payment with no strings attached that worked out to approximately $17,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples.
Whatever income participants earned was deducted from their basic income at 50 per cent, meaning once someone hit $34,000 they wouldn't receive a payment anymore, Lewchuk explained while speaking with As It Happens.
So means-tested UBI? I thought the "magic" of UBI was based on everyone just getting the lump-sum allowance each month.
So everyone in the survey earned between $17K-34K - if you earned $8K while enrolled in the program, you'd get $13K in UBI ($17K - (8K * 0.50)) = $17K - $4K equals $13K plus your original $8K/year.
I wonder how many of the people that were working under the program earned anywhere near $34K/yr?
If you look at the numbers, an unemployed ($0K income) person gets the full $17K, or the equivalent of $8/hr (not a living wage!), someone making $15/hr gets about nothing from the UBI, maybe a grand or two.
These are not generous numbers, these are not life-changing amounts, and this is not what most people understand UBI to be - they assume you mean the Andrew Yang definition, where everybody gets a certain amount, equal to what everyone else gets, no deductions.
You can't just do basic income (Score:2)
Like a lot of things there is no easy answer. The world will always be a mess of nasty little grey areas that are a pain to deal with.
Re: Truckle up economics (Score:2, Informative)
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"You took money from some people, and gave it to others, then got surprised when the people you gave it to we're happier."
On average that only works up to an income of 75,000$
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Surveys aren't unscientific.
Depends on the kind of survey. "Self-report" surveys are like 99% bullshit pseudoscience, because people are complete shit at introspection, and are generally no better than chance at explaining their own behaviour or motivations. For the most part, people just confabulate a rationalization after the fact.
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Well yeah, few want the scales balanced when the imbalance favors them.
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Re: Truckle up economics (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the marketplace is so thoroughly corrupted with rent seeking, hydraulic despotism in miniature and various thumbs on the scale that 'earning' has become decoupled from contribution.
Because the economy is supposed to serve the people (all of them), not the other way around.
Re: Truckle up economics (Score:5, Interesting)
How about, everyone keep what they earn in the marketplace? Thats the most fair.
In my experience, people who argue that the marketplace is the most fair don't really mean it - it's more like "I got mine, so I'll call it fair".
For example: would you be ok with removing the concept of inheritance, since heirs - by definition - did not earn their heritage in the marketplace? Or, even ignoring inheritance, children of rich parents have access to much more and better shelter, health care, education and so on - which they surely didn't earn in the marketplace either. Would you agree with a system whereby society provides for all kids equally until they're mature enough to participate in the marketplace, while parents are forbidden from unfairly advantaging their little non-earner? This would ensure the most fairness, so are you going to be consistent in your opinions?
Re: Truckle up economics (Score:5, Insightful)
For example: would you be ok with removing the concept of inheritance
I always felt that inheritance taxes were the fairest tax. The dead person would never miss it and people receiving the inheritance did nothing to earn it.
Yet estate and inheritance taxes are the LEAST POPULAR taxes. Even poor people feel it is wrong for dead rich people to be taxed.
It makes no sense to me.
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each dollar was taxed when earned already
Try, but there generally isn't a big, giant pile of earned money that was already taxed. Stocks, property, companies, etc.(the things most rich people have) aren't taxed until SOLD. Dad buys a company for $1,000,000 in 1980. He dies in 2020. The inhereted company is now worth $40,000,000. No taxes have yet been paid on the $39,000,000 in gains.
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each dollar was taxed when earned already
Try, but there generally isn't a big, giant pile of earned money that was already taxed. Stocks, property, companies, etc.(the things most rich people have) aren't taxed until SOLD. Dad buys a company for $1,000,000 in 1980. He dies in 2020. The inhereted company is now worth $40,000,000. No taxes have yet been paid on the $39,000,000 in gains.
Follow your own logic... The inherited company is just bits in a computer UNTIL SOLD. Then it will be taxed. Taxing the inheritance and then also tax the value when sold is double taxation.
Re: Truckle up economics (Score:5, Insightful)
Because each dollar was taxed when earned already, then the estate was taxed, then it's ta Ed as capital gains. That's bullshit.
No it was not.
One bought or build a house in NYC 1800 for $5000 and then his son inherited it when it was worth $90,000, and then his grandson inherited it when it was worth $5,000,000. They get money for nothing, nothing is taxed, unless you have inheritance tax.
Even worth if your parent is owner of a huge company. Assume he owns $20 billion in Amazon shares, nothing was taxed so far. Why the funk would a son of a rich bastard get $20 billion for never ever having worked for it?
You americans are just so silly it is unbelievable.
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If I suddenly had to find a way to come up with the equivalent of 25% of the value in cash, that would be a huge problem.
You could use the value of the property as collateral for a mortgage or annuity. Then you would have decades to pay it off.
No tax is perfect and all have side effects. But an inheritance tax is better than most other taxes.
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Our family cottage has been in the family for 99 years now. In recent years, the property has increased in potential value because it has 220' of lake front. Developers want to buy the barely-used farm behind us (and the farmer is eager to sell), buy the cottage, and use it as a beach for the multiple homes the
Re: Truckle up economics (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, they say "people kept working" but actually over 25% STOPPED working.
Yeah, maybe one parent decided to stay home and better raise their children, the selfish bastards.
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That plus it created an opening for someone willing to work while receiving BMI.
Lump of Labor Fallacy [wikipedia.org]
Economies are not zero-sum and removing people from the workforce does not "free up" jobs for other people.
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That plus it created an opening for someone willing to work while receiving BMI.
Lump of Labor Fallacy [wikipedia.org]
Economies are not zero-sum and removing people from the workforce does not "free up" jobs for other people.
So you're saying that one person quitting just eliminates that postilion from the market? I don't think that's quite how it works. That position would need to be filled by another employee.
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Re: Truckle up economics (Score:5, Interesting)
Lump of Labor Fallacy [wikipedia.org]
Economies are not zero-sum and removing people from the workforce does not "free up" jobs for other people.
In lumping people 'leaving the workforce' with 'removing people from the workforce' you have unfortunately succumbed to another fallacy.
Whilst the latter does not necessarily free up the job for another, depending on the reason they were removed, the former usually does.
A better use of the fallacy you quote would be in response to those who say that 'the money has to come from somewhere, i.e. it's simply being redistributed from within the existing economy' whereas, given that, as you point out, economies are not zero sum, the money could be considered to be a loan from an enlarged future economy, meaning no-one becomes worse off as a consequence of introducing UBI.
Than again, most people have little conception of what the economy or 'money' actually is, so misapprehension is not a particularly surprising end state.
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The fallacy is the assumption that the amount of labor is a constant in the economy as a whole. Whether a particular business can eliminate a position or not depends on the nature of the business. Some won't, and in those cases a person leaving will indeed create an opening.
Re: Truckle up economics (Score:2, Insightful)
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We became the world's strongest economy and strongest superpower during the 1950s, when the upper tax bracket was 90% and corporations paid 70% of the taxes. Today our "superpower" status is a bit in doubt as 18 years after we invaded the goat herders with Kalashnikovs control the vast majority of Afghanistan, including the suburbs of Kabul, and it doesn't look like our status as "strongest economy" is going to stand much longer either. That's directly to the conservatives' mania for lowering taxes on the
Re: Truckle up economics (Score:5, Informative)
1. By invading countries
2. Killing anybody who gets in the way
3. Lie, cheat, steal and then raid their resources
4. Profit
War has not been profitable for a long, long time. Our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan cost $4 trillion and we gained nothing.
"In the first months of the occupation [of Iraq], Paul Bremer, the head of the occupation-run Coalition Provisional Authority, issued Order 39, scrapping laws limiting foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses as well as repealing requirements to reinvest profits in the country. Dozens of companies were privatized in the first few months, and the top rate of tax was slashed from 45 to 15 per cent." (The Establishment, by Owen Jones)
Want to take a punt on how many US oil companies now 'own' Iraqi oil companies?
When you say 'we gained nothing' that very much depends on who 'we' refers to, doesn't it...
Re: Truckle up economics (Score:5, Insightful)
"War has not been profitable for a long, long time. Our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan cost $4 trillion and we gained nothing."
War is EXTREMELY profitable ... for some.
Manufacturers for the military.
In the case of Iraq, the US invasion resulted in cancellation of all those pesky oil and gas contracts with Russia, and gave them all to US companies, like KBR and Halliburton (completely coincidentally the VPs former company). Both had unprecedented profits thereafter.
The money to pay for the war came from US taxpayers. The profits go to a handful of companies who also happen to be among the largest GOP donors.
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War has not been profitable for a long, long time. Our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan cost $4 trillion and we gained nothing. ... some of those which do not really pay taxes.
The american ammunition companies earned a lot.
Most infrastructure that got bombed in Iraq was rebuilt by american companies
You gained nothing, but the american super rich gained a lot. Was not one of the cabinet members at that time the owner of a huge construction company?
Re: Truckle up economics (Score:5, Informative)
From the paper, p. 29:
Overall, there was a slight reduction in the number employed during the pilot compared to the number employed prior to the pilot. Ten respondents moved from unemployment to employment while 32 moved from employment to unemployment. Of the participants who
moved from employment to unemployment, 13 (40.6%) enrolled in full-time education during the pilot with the intention of re-entering the labour market later as more qualified workers.
So yeah 25% of the previously employed quit, but 40% of those started studying full time, and 20% of the previously unemployed found a job. Most of those that quit, had "precarious forms of employment", whatever the hell that means. 37% of those that stayed employed had an increase in hourly pay.
I'd seriously question whether UBI would result in a smaller economy. It's hard to say for certain of course but IMO the few people quitting their wallmart greeter jobs would be easily offset by a) more educated workforce and b) higher spending power for the poorest segment, or c) better raised children, etc.
It's a shame the study got cut short, one year is hardly enough to see any long term effects of this. It seems that the new government saw that not everyone immediately found a job and used it as an excuse to shut it down before any inconvenient results came out.
Re: Truckle up economics (Score:4, Interesting)
Good analysis [slashdot.org]. They also went back to school and job training, and many were ill. "Precarious employment" is like seasonal employment, in that your job is probably not going to be your job, or your hours are going to get cut severely at random times.
I'd seriously question whether UBI would result in a smaller economy. It's hard to say for certain of course
Impossible, really. We can say with a high degree of certainty that it categorically will result in a larger economy, of course; I prefer a negative income tax, however, and am writing a research paper on exactly that.
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I'm sorry that your economic situation is so bad that you cannot afford toilet paper :(
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If tens of millions decide to do so, that will cause a major economic contraction. ... and they are not on UBI but on full wage ... Americans, third worlders ... it is 2020 and not 1790 anymore.
Works in Europe just fine
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That has been covered by numerous other studies, which show that money beyond a certain level doesn't make people any happier. In fact, studies [marketwatch.com] show people get less happy when their income goes over $95,000 -- so the additional tax on the upper income people to fund the basic income is actually making the taxpayers happier too.
Re: Truckle up economics (Score:4, Insightful)
Employed before the pilot: 112. Such unemployed during the pilot: 32. Almost all of those (29) were precariously employed, i.e. their job security was low and they were likely to become unemployed anyway. Only 3 moved from full-time to unemployed.
Unemployed before the pilot: 77. Such employed during the pilot: 10.
Net based on 112 employed becoming 99 employed: 22 or 19.6%.
Of those 22, 13 dropped out of the workforce to go back to college full-time and become more-efficient workers. Excluding those from the unemployed leaves net 9 of 112 or 8%. A total of 53--including those unemployed before the pilot--either stopped working to go to college full-time or reduced their working hours to take up education and job skill training in hopes of improving their employment situation.
Over 3/4 of those unemployed during the pilot reported health issues that made it difficult to work.
Besides going to college, exiting the workforce due to health issues, and having unstable jobs in the first place, it's notable that people tend to stay unemployed longer when they have access to better support between jobs because they are able to balance the information asymmetry. That is to say: people don't rush to the next job as fast, and so collect more information about the job market, locate a better job where their skills are more-applicable and they are more productive, and have a better understanding of current salaries so as to negotiate good pay. This generally increases GDP.
It sounds strange, but longer periods of unemployment for individuals who become unemployed (micro, not macro) are much better for the economy than short periods.
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You should emulate true UBI - go back to Soviet Russia, Cuba and other places that have had equal income for all.
Or perhaps you should go back to school.
That's not how income worked in those places.
Granted- it was weird- like the piece-rate system, where they were compensated based on the amount of work they completed (weird, right?)
There were basic wages for different job types, call it a base pay- but it was not universal, bonuses for good performing people/job sites.
The part that is particularly weird (for us) was that means-of-production jobs were generally owned by the Government, so the Government set the wa
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In fact a quick search seems to indicate it is still hard for Americans to travel there.
I wonder why that is?
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I wonder why the rafts go one way too.
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Worse (Score:3)