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[Jenov]

And it does so using some notably rosy assumptions about the effects of large-scale increases to government spending, taxes, and deficits, assumptions that other analysts would dispute vociferously.

Quite the disclaimer there, lol. I think free healthcare and free college would be much more logical steps to take before UBI.

 

[makingmusic476]

I know that the federal government can't technically run out of money, and I'm usually fine with a decent bit of deficit spending, but funding a UBI entirely through deficit spending seems crazy to me. There's gotta be a notable inflationary effect at that point, right?

 

[shawnbuddy]

I'd like this. Couple it with universal healthcare and I'd be able to freelance for a living with a better sense of security if there was an especially lean month. It'd be better for employers, too, allowing them to hire for only the work they need done without having to worry about supporting a "worker."

 

[Yoritomo]

The UBI is considered an NIT because they are exactly the same policy.

For any given UBI (b), and initial tax rate for all income above the UBI (tb), there is a tax threshhold (hN) and initial tax rate (tN) for an NIT scheme that has exactly the same effect.

Proof:

If (It) is income after tax, and (I) is income before tax, under UBI:

It = I - [I x tb] + b

and under NIT:

It = I - [[I - hN] x tN]

We therefore need to find a solution to:

I - [I x tb] + b = I - [[I - hN] x tN] for all I

Note that if they are equal for all values of I, they must be equal at I = 0. Therefore we can conclude that if there is a solution, it definitely satisfies b = hN x tN (what you get if you let I = 0 in the above equation).

We can substitute this into the above for:

I - [I x tb] + [hN x tN] = I - [[I - hN] x tN]

Rearrange for:

I - [I x tb] + [hN x tN] = I - [I x tN] + [ hN x tN]

Cancel out equivalent terms and you get:

tb = tN

Therefore any UBI scheme has an exact NIT equivalent at tN = tb and hN = b / tb [the only exception is for tb = 0, i.e. a basic income with no income tax at all].

As an example, a NIT with a threshhold of £30,000 and a 50% tax rate has an exact UBI equivalent at a £15,000 basic income and a 50% tax rate. If you have £17,000 income before tax, you finish with £25,500 in both systems. So there is no economic reason to prefer an NIT to a UBI - they do exactly the same thing. The only differences are that a UBI is perhaps moderately easier to administer (you only need to check income when raising tax as opposed to both when raising tax and handing out subsidy, which are typically administered by different institutions) and the NIT is slightly more politically defensible (not "giving money" to rich people).

I love you.

 

[Captain Smoker]

Despite sitting on trillions, they want more.

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1172093

The rich are evil

Yes. 62 people own more then half the humans on earth. That's half of 7 billion.

62 have more than 45,000,000,000. That's 45 thousand million people.

Those numbers aren't cash.

Most of this wealth are the stocks that these people hold in their particular companies. (Berkshire, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.)

 

[Saucycarpdog]

There's also the $900 billion we spend on social security, which we won't need anymore.

https://www.google.com/search?q=social+security+spending+usa&oq=social+security+spending+usa

The rest can be made up with either raising taxes on the rich/corporations, or adding to the federal debt, or a combination of stuff.

L.O.L.

Majority of people on social security get more than 1K a month. You're proposing getting rid of SS and switching to a system that pays people less than what they already get each month in SS?

Good Luck getting that passed.

 

[sans_pants]

Nope.

I am very progressive, but every time I read about a UBI, no strings attached, I just wonder what the researchers/ proponent are smoking.

A no strings attached deprecating income in between jobs (which many European countries already have), sure.
A UBI conditionned on a utility job, or better, going to a training for high demand jobs or tuitions for career jobs? Sure.

But funeling working people's money through taxes towards non working, non tax paying people is a recipe for disaster. So would paying for it via debt.

The only way would be to over tax ultra high income, but we all know that will only encourage tax evasion.

We should aim at improving education, and educating the jobless/ disenfranchised better at a much lower cost, instead of trying to come up with a way of keeping the unskilled and unwilling to work home with an income equal to poverty limit.

Free college, not paid unemployment, is where the fight is.

Nah. For starters, we lose a ton of people long before college.

Yes, the debt system is terrible right now, but colleges aren't going to save us from automation anyway. We have to provide for all the people about to be left behind by technology(ie most people)

 

[curiouscharles]

People need to keep in mind that this is one study that makes a certain set of assumptions that the article even notes are very contentious and not supported by the majority of economists. You can find a study to support just about any conclusion if you look hard enough

um, when it comes to UBI, they all conclude the same thing.

But funeling working people's money through taxes towards non working, non tax paying people is a recipe for disaster. So would paying for it via debt.

lol, this is such an american way of thinking [or to be less harsh, just western democratic in general, canada / western european countries are highly similar in this regard] "i don't want MY hard working money to go to OTHER lazy idiots".

your taxes going to UBI are a lot better served than going to the welfare state and food stamps [both of which are proven flawed bandaid solutions].

We should aim at improving education, and educating the jobless/ disenfranchised better at a much lower cost, instead of trying to come up with a way of keeping the unskilled and unwilling to work home with an income equal to poverty limit.

Free college, not paid unemployment, is where the fight is.

i'm sorry, but how is education going to change anything?

the job market is already over-saturated with an over-educated applicant pool.

so let's overcrowd the ever-shrinking job pool even more with more over-educated fatally-indebted idiots?

automation is inevitable, the skilled job pool is already shrinking at alarming rates, and it's only going to get SCARY in the next 50 years.

 

[Boss Mog]

I could be down for it as long as their is nothing for children. Earth is overpopulated, we don't need people having 10 kids just so they can collect their cut and then raise them like shit. It's a pretty big problem in Europe already.

 

[Geist-]

Makes a lot of sense to me. Rich people are rich because they save their money, consequently that means that money isn't really a part of the economy because it's static. Tax that money, redistribute it, and suddenly that money is being spent on the economy.

 

[Wafflecakes]

The OP makes mention that the government would go into debt over it rather than raise taxes. I think what they were trying to imply is that if the government borrows to cover for it, it would get it back and more due to the economic growth that would happen so it's worth going into debt over.

Sounds quite a bit like the BS repubs spew about how tax cuts put more money in people's pockets and then pay for themselves.


I am all for a universal income eventually, but let us not lie about its effectiveness.

 

[Wafflecakes]

Makes a lot of sense to me. Rich people are rich because they save their money, consequently that means that money isn't really a part of the economy because it's static. Tax that money, redistribute it, and suddenly that money is being spent on the economy.

This is a myth... unless the person has it in a vault somewhere, which is very rare.

 

[Pagusas]

Makes a lot of sense to me. Rich people are rich because they save their money, consequently that means that money isn't really a part of the economy because it's static. Tax that money, redistribute it, and suddenly that money is being spent on the economy.

Rich people are rich because they invest their money and let it work for them, not by hoarding and saving it as you are implying.

 

[Geist-]

This is a myth... unless the person has it in a vault somewhere, which is very rare.

Rich people are rich because they invest their money and let it work for them, not by hoarding and saving it as you are implying.

I don't necessarily mean cash. Sinking money in real estate seems to be a very common investment for the rich and buying property isn't exactly making a lot of jobs.

I will admit though that I don't have a comprehensive knowledge on this stuff and that was my hot take.

 

[Orthogonal]

In this study they equate spending/consumption with growth. GDP is a spending metric, not a growth metric. It just means they proved massive increases in debt will cause inflation and hence, more spending. Congratulations morons.

 

[GregLombardi]

What?

You don't need to fund this with debt. Fund it with taxes, but fix the tax system and you won't have to raise them.

 

[Marty Chinn]

What?

You don't need to fund this with debt. Fund it with taxes, but fix the tax system and you won't have to raise them.

Have you done the math? We take in about 3.6 trillion in taxes at the federal level and this would cost around 2.4 trillion if you don't include anyone under 18. How can you fund this without raising taxes and only by fixing the tax code?

 

[Opto]

Tax the rich. Most of their money's from the work I and others do

 

[water_wendi]

The way the study had things listed in thousands of billions threw me off at first lol