You posted a video of someone saying it wouldn't bankrupt us, with absolutely no math shown. Your screen name is mathgod. I showed my work, with sources and reasonable detail.
I emotionally think UBI is a great idea, and am predisposed to be in favor of it. But a 13 minute rant with no numbers isn't an actual source. If you could demonstrate with sourced information a credible plan to come up with the $200-500 billion that would be required, I would instantly be on your side. I've tried to help with that in the post above, providing values for other programs that could be cancelled and taxes that could be raised. Maybe I've missed some huge amount of provincial spending that could go to this?
Because that video was just handwaving and saying of course we can afford it. I watched the whole thing and feel dumber for it.
One of the very first things I said in the video was "I did the math"... in other words, "trust me". But since you don't trust me, here's the math:
$3.7 billion / aprox 1 million adults = $3,700 per year per adult
Total: $26,114 per adult per year.
The numbers are slightly dated, and are not exact, but it gets the point across. There can be a $20,000/year basic income paid to every adult citizen, with enough left over for priority spending.
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Unless the narrator of that video has a plan from his review of the Panama papers that will massively increase tax revenue
Which makes me wonder if you actually listened to the video? I spoke at length about the importance of the government diversifying its tax revenue sources, instead of relying so heavily on income tax. I think they need to implement new forms of taxation on the federal level; at the top of that list is to greatly increase the estate tax, to reduce the concentration of massive wealth held by a relatively small number of families. They should also implement a federal property tax, as well as a real estate sales tax (first-time home buyers would be exempt). This is to get speculators out of the real estate market and increase supply of homes for people to live in, rather than continuing to see homes be used by investors as casino chips for profit.
Additionally, I absolutely would increase the GST back to 7%, and raise the corporate tax rate as well. With new tax streams, the hope is that it would reduce the government's dependence on income tax, and put it in a better position to gradually reduce income tax rates, but also crack down more heavily on tax dodgers and close tax loopholes.
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Originally Posted by bizaro86
Spoiler!
I think the AND vs OR discussion is one that is being missed here. In fact, the PBO document I referenced earlier seems to work on the OR principle, that only low income people get the UBI (which is why its so much cheaper than the full $500+ billion required for all adults to get UBI).
But only giving UBI to the poor makes it no longer universal. It also creates bad incentives, because the effective marginal tax rates for someone trying to climb out of poverty are really high. If you lose 50% of your UBI plus pay 10% payroll taxes and 20% income taxes, your effective tax rate on a dollar of earned income is 80%, which is pretty de-motivating.
From a policy point of view I like the idea of truly universal basic income. Everyone gets it. The increased taxes on the rich effectively mean that theirs gets taxed away, but administratively its really easy if everyone gets it. It also reduces the disincentive to work, because you don't lose the UBI, it just becomes an additional hand-up for those actively trying to better themselves.
It's your favourite narrator again:
Spoiler!
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Originally Posted by New Era
And when you say conventional thinking you mean understanding the political system, policy and policy formation, cultural norms, and voter behaviors? Dude, you're just embarrassing yourself at this point.
I don't have an issue with your understanding of these things, I have an issue with your overall attitude toward them; it is as if you deem them to be inevitable and unchangeable. Culture and norms are changed by people speaking out and being persistent. Public conversations such as this thread are also helpful.
You have your idea of what policy position means, and I have mine. We will continue to disagree.
But I think your analysis is missing one key concept, and that is the fact that big moneyed interests dominate our politicians. The disconnect between voter support for certain policies and politician support for certain policies, is largely due to the fact that major banks and corporations have their dirty money all over the major political parties; that is, sadly, where our politicians get their marching orders from.
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"Some" of the founding fathers believed in the idea of giving their slaves their freedom, and had the free will to do just that, but never followed through on that. They had the "idea" but never acted upon it themselves. Why is that? Cultural norms, societal expectations, and laws made the idea impractical, so it remained nothing more than an idea, one the founding fathers spoke about quietly and privately. When the constitution was finally ratified it included clauses in the document (the 3/5ths clause, the fugitive slave clause, and the electoral college) which were entrenched in policy to maintain slavery and the power of the pro-slavery southern colonies.
I call BS. If they truly wanted to free the slaves, they would have made it happen within a reasonable time frame. They created the country for crying out loud.
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Abraham Lincoln began talking about ending slavery and granting all people their freedom and access to the same liberty that white men shared. Lincoln spoke to not only the injustice, and the moral failings of slavery, but also to the economic and legal reasons to ending slavery.
Just like we need to speak out now about the many failings of the status quo, and about the benefits of UBI.
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But the reality is that there is little support at this time
Not as little as you're making it out to be. Furthermore, its support is growing by the day.
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to make UBI even a discussion point.
How exactly does an idea gain support if it is not discussed?
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In all the discussions and deal making to keep people whole has UBI been discussed or presented by anyone in congress? Nope. Why? Because there is no support for it.
Wrong answer. The real answer is that politics is corrupted by big moneyed interests.
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Originally Posted by Azure
I don't think this is true. Automation is increasing output, and increased output equals more jobs. There is just a shift in what kinds of jobs are available, but the work is still there.
Right now there is a massive skilled trades shortage. Why? Because we're not lining up our schooling with the jobs that are available on the other side. And then we turn around and say 'jobs are disappearing.' Strange.
Spoiler!
Can we agree on one thing though? Giving tax breaks to the rich, in the name of "creating jobs", is dogs**t policy and a total con... its silly to try and create jobs for the sake of creating jobs.
It's either one or the other... there are either too many jobs and not enough people filling them, or there are not enough jobs available for everyone to have a job. If the former is the case, tax cuts don't make any sense. If it's the latter, UBI makes much more sense than tax cuts.
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Yeah, none of those would get you any reasonable distance toward this goal. You're short by the whole revenue of the federal government. Little targeted things don't get you close.
As an example: total vehicle sales have been 2 MM units plus or minus less than 5% the last three years.
A 10k tax per new vehicle raises $20 B per year assuming nobody chooses not to buy a new car as a result of that, which is pretty unlikely. You got less than 5% of the $500+ billion required, and nerfed a huge amount of auto industry jobs at the same time.
Not that I would be in favour of this in any way, because I really dislike any form of double taxation, but...
The new car market is a very small portion of the overall vehicle market. I don't have the stats for Canada, but the used car market in the US is nearly $800B and here's already an existing precedent for taxing all car sales, both new and used... Or, we could go one step further and also tax vehicles like property, like they do in Connecticut... One nice big sales tax when you buy, and then an ongoing property tax for as long as you own the car...
It's these kinds of 'new' taxes that would be required to raise the tax revenue to fund UBI...
^ I am not a mathgod (hardly even a methgod tbh) but is your calculation taking all government revenue and then distributing it to all the adults? So everything else will be privatized, health care, airports, roads, etc? I guess in that case it could work but I doubt many would be better off.
^ I am not a mathgod (hardly even a methgod tbh) but is your calculation taking all government revenue and then distributing it to all the adults? So everything else will be privatized, health care, airports, roads, etc? I guess in that case it could work but I doubt many would be better off.
The major problem in North America is lack of centralized control over the education system. The idea that we the government funding higher education (they pay something like 90% of actual tuition costs) and most programs have near unlimited amounts of spots is absurd.
If you actually look at the education systems of places like Germany and Scandinavian countries, where post-secondary education is totally free, they also strictly control how many students are allowed to enroll in each program. And no, you cannot circumvent this by going private, as the government also controls what universities get accredited as universities.
Germany and Scandinavia also divert children who are not performing well into trades programs during high school. Canada is starting to do this, and it makes sense. Instead of demoralizing a child by forcing them to repeat remedial math multiple times, why not give them actual skills.
Canada, overall, also needs an attitude shift. We need to stop telling kids that university is a part of your growth as a person. This is just marketing. Post-secondary education, of any kind, needs to be viewed as training for a job.
Helicopter parents are not going to admit that their kids are not performing well and having them be diverted. They'll just throw more money at the problem. I'm a parent and pretty laid back i think. The parents at my kid's school are insane.
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$3.7 billion / aprox 1 million adults = $3,700 per year per adult
Total: $26,114 per adult per year.
The numbers are slightly dated, and are not exact, but it gets the point across. There can be a $20,000/year basic income paid to every adult citizen, with enough left over for priority spending.
Which makes me wonder if you actually listened to the video? I spoke at length about the importance of the government diversifying its tax revenue sources, instead of relying so heavily on income tax. I think they need to implement new forms of taxation on the federal level; at the top of that list is to greatly increase the estate tax, to reduce the concentration of massive wealth held by a relatively small number of families. They should also implement a federal property tax, as well as a real estate sales tax (first-time home buyers would be exempt). This is to get speculators out of the real estate market and increase supply of homes for people to live in, rather than continuing to see homes be used by investors as casino chips for profit.
Additionally, I absolutely would increase the GST back to 7%, and raise the corporate tax rate as well. With new tax streams, the hope is that it would reduce the government's dependence on income tax, and put it in a better position to gradually reduce income tax rates, but also crack down more heavily on tax dodgers and close tax loopholes.
Enough left over for priority spending is an interesting statement. I agree with your premise that sufficient funds could be raised however I think the way you show it is very flawed and undersells just how large of change it would be.
A UBI only replaces
OAS/GIS 50 billion
CPP- 50 billion
EI - 20 billion
RRSP tax deductions 23 billion
Child benefits 23 billion
CPP current fund of 355 billion at 3% per year 10 billion
So you have access to about 180 billion so need 220-300 billion more.
Health, Education, transportation don’t disappear as a result of a UBI. You can’t just say of 26k per year 20k is available to give away. And if you are saying that then you are actually decreasing the amount of money lower income people have as a bunch of it gets sent to people who already have higher income. So whatever math you are using you can only use funds that are directed for living expenses and replace those unless we are moving to the pure libertarian version of UBI where health, education, garbage collection and security are no longer provided by government
I think a better way to think of the governments capacity to raise taxes is to compare the % of GDP used by government programs. Canada is 40%, US is 35%, Sweden is 48%, Finland is 53%, France is 56%, Germany is 45%.
Our GDP is about 2.1 Trillion Canadian so 1% increase in public spending as a % of GDP is 20 billion. So if the Canada chose to become among the most socialist large nations (And assuming no impacts on GDP for now as a result of this grand exeperiment) you have the ability to raise about 320 billion if we move to 56% of GDP spent (really more redistributed) by the government.
Which does get us to the threshold to offer every adult a UBI.
To hit your 20k figure and 400 billion we just need to collect about 50% Of GDP in terms of taxation which in Europe is still high but certainly not an outlier. I think politically canceling tax breaks on RRSPs and nationalizing the CPP would be significant policy problems.
The problem with UBI that doesn’t get discussed much is that if you if you price you price it low enough so a couple is still incentivized to work a single parent is likely still in poverty and you have canceled all of the income based programs to fund UBI.
Enough left over for priority spending is an interesting statement. I agree with your premise that sufficient funds could be raised however I think the way you show it is very flawed and undersells just how large of change it would be.
A UBI only replaces
OAS/GIS 50 billion
CPP- 50 billion
EI - 20 billion
RRSP tax deductions 23 billion
Child benefits 23 billion
CPP current fund of 355 billion at 3% per year 10 billion
So you have access to about 180 billion so need 220-300 billion more.
Health, Education, transportation don’t disappear as a result of a UBI. You can’t just say of 26k per year 20k is available to give away. And if you are saying that then you are actually decreasing the amount of money lower income people have as a bunch of it gets sent to people who already have higher income. So whatever math you are using you can only use funds that are directed for living expenses and replace those unless we are moving to the pure libertarian version of UBI where health, education, garbage collection and security are no longer provided by government
I think a better way to think of the governments capacity to raise taxes is to compare the % of GDP used by government programs. Canada is 40%, US is 35%, Sweden is 48%, Finland is 53%, France is 56%, Germany is 45%.
Our GDP is about 2.1 Trillion Canadian so 1% increase in public spending as a % of GDP is 20 billion. So if the Canada chose to become among the most socialist large nations (And assuming no impacts on GDP for now as a result of this grand exeperiment) you have the ability to raise about 320 billion if we move to 56% of GDP spent (really more redistributed) by the government.
Which does get us to the threshold to offer every adult a UBI.
To hit your 20k figure and 400 billion we just need to collect about 50% Of GDP in terms of taxation which in Europe is still high but certainly not an outlier. I think politically canceling tax breaks on RRSPs and nationalizing the CPP would be significant policy problems.
The problem with UBI that doesn’t get discussed much is that if you if you price you price it low enough so a couple is still incentivized to work a single parent is likely still in poverty and you have canceled all of the income based programs to fund UBI.
Those are reasonable criticisms. However, I don't know if you're taking into account that companies would, generally speaking, have to increase pay and benefits in order to attract workers, especially in jobs that are currently low paying.
As far as health, education, transportation, law enforcement... my response there is that we need to do a MUCH better job of making our dollars stretch farther and provide these services more efficiently. For example, modest user fees at hospitals and clinics to reduce frivolous use of the health care system. For education, we could make greater use of distance learning to bring down costs.
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Those are reasonable criticisms. However, I don't know if you're taking into account that companies would, generally speaking, have to increase pay and benefits in order to attract workers, especially in jobs that are currently low paying.
I actually think pay decreases for entry level and casual jobs because currently they are artificially high due to minimum wage and demand for crap jobs will increase.
For example in any 20k per adult UBI scenario I quit my job and retire but I’d probably try to pick up various jobs I’d like to try out for a bit. So id likely work pretty cheaply to offset the flexibility I want.
Essentially all unskilled jobs become Uber like or the Amazon delivery type jobs where workers bid against each other for who ever will do the job for the least.
Daycares likely get cheaper though as people try to supplement the UBI while not having real jobs.
I actually think pay decreases for entry level and casual jobs because currently they are artificially high due to minimum wage and demand for crap jobs will increase.
For example in any 20k per adult UBI scenario I quit my job and retire but I’d probably try to pick up various jobs I’d like to try out for a bit. So id likely work pretty cheaply to offset the flexibility I want.
Essentially all unskilled jobs become Uber like or the Amazon delivery type jobs where workers bid against each other for who ever will do the job for the least.
Daycares likely get cheaper though as people try to supplement the UBI while not having real jobs.
You quit your job & retire, resulting in a vacancy in the position you held. The single parent then fills that vacancy for better pay/benefits than they had before. Seems like a win win?
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You quit your job & retire, resulting in a vacancy in the position you held. The single parent then fills that vacancy for better pay/benefits than they had before. Seems like a win win?
Unfortunately they aren’t trained for it because the lowest income people that end up losing out are not university educated. I think UBI ends up with a large shortage of skilled labour.
I think if you could access a 40k per year per couple pension at anytime you would see a huge jump in mustachian culture where highly paid and educated DINKs work hard until 35 then retire and have families.
when I worked as a welfare officer back in the UK when we increased the amount we paid for housing within a week every shysty landlord in town that rented rooms to welfare claimants had increased their rent in lockstep to use up every penny of the increase.
when I worked as a welfare officer back in the UK when we increased the amount we paid for housing within a week every shysty landlord in town that rented rooms to welfare claimants had increased their rent in lockstep to use up every penny of the increase.
That would imply insufficient supply of housing.
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So if everyone in the US gets $1000/month gratis from the government, please explain why every landlord in the nation doesn’t immediately raise the rent by $1000/ month?
The majority of Americans who need UBI are renters.
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Unfortunately they aren’t trained for it because the lowest income people that end up losing out are not university educated. I think UBI ends up with a large shortage of skilled labour.
I think if you could access a 40k per year per couple pension at anytime you would see a huge jump in mustachian culture where highly paid and educated DINKs work hard until 35 then retire and have families.
We could certainly look at expanding student loan forgiveness to make post secondary education accessible to more people. But I disagree with your overall notion of the single parent living in poverty. People have to realize that having a child is a choice, and by making that choice they are accepting certain responsibilities. Having access to a UBI plus income from a full-time job... it would seem that, in most cases, it won't result in the parent & child living in poverty. If anything, UBI incentivizes couples to stay together.
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Originally Posted by GGG
That would imply insufficient supply of housing.
Bingo. Supply and demand. If prices are too high, it means there is a shortage of supply.
So if everyone in the US gets $1000/month gratis from the government, please explain why every landlord in the nation doesn’t immediately raise the rent by $1000/ month?
The majority of Americans who need UBI are renters.
Because if you open up zoning regulations the cost of a new house would dictate rent. And anyone could get a mortgage because there would be a guaranteed income. There is no need for a shortage of housing supply.
We could certainly look at expanding student loan forgiveness to make post secondary education accessible to more people. But I disagree with your overall notion of the single parent living in poverty. People have to realize that having a child is a choice, and by making that choice they are accepting certain responsibilities. Having access to a UBI plus income from a full-time job... it would seem that, in most cases, it won't result in the parent & child living in poverty. If anything, UBI incentivizes couples to stay together.
Bingo. Supply and demand. If prices are too high, it means there is a shortage of supply.
I guess I see demand for unskilled labour cratering as people give up eating out and fancy vacations to grind out livings without having to work cratering GDP in a similar manner to Covid with a disproportionate amount of the affect being hourly wages followed by a shortage of skilled labour particularly in health, education and STEM fields as they all retire at 35.
The one assumption I make is people would rather have a 90% life of leisure vs working for more luxury. Why that doesn’t happen right now is that the infrastructure costs just to work eat up huge amounts of money to feed the machine.
Perhaps continued addiction to credit keeps consumerism going and it’s more like Ralph bucks where people continue to burn through money as fast as it comes in and it acts as stimulus and increases GDP.
I guess I see demand for unskilled labour cratering as people give up eating out and fancy vacations to grind out livings without having to work cratering GDP in a similar manner to Covid with a disproportionate amount of the affect being hourly wages followed by a shortage of skilled labour particularly in health, education and STEM fields as they all retire at 35.
The one assumption I make is people would rather have a 90% life of leisure vs working for more luxury. Why that doesn’t happen right now is that the infrastructure costs just to work eat up huge amounts of money to feed the machine.
I’m not spending 10 minutes watching a video that can likely be summed up into two or three sentences. But guessing at its content.
In general Incentivizing a behaviour will get you more of it but there are always unintended consequences.
A UBI incentivizes people to not work. A UBI incentivizes people to save more early in life to retire comfortably at 35.
Both these behaviours are significant negatives for society.
Edit: I watched your video. You could have just mentioned the MIT study. It entirely supports what I am saying. Once you take away people’s need to work they will focus on mastery. And many will focus on mastering things that add no value. Tinkering with automobiles, learning to play instruments, learning a language, hiking, etc. Mastering hobbies that produce no goods for society. A few will produce great things, many will not.
The key take away the video misses is there is a threshold of reward that produces optimal work. That threshold is above zero
So if everyone in the US gets $1000/month gratis from the government, please explain why every landlord in the nation doesn’t immediately raise the rent by $1000/ month?
The majority of Americans who need UBI are renters.
Aren't there laws about how much a landlord can increase rent in a given year?
If not, you can make those laws.
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